Still Shopping?

It is four weeks until Christmas! Isn't that great? As of yet, my house is not decorated at all, but that is under my husband's orders that Christmas season doesn't start until December 1. He likes to pretend he's a Scrooge, but it's all an act. I am conveniently laying the blame at his feet for the lack of holiday decorations in our house, when in fact I've been too busy to think about it yet. Perhaps this next week.... we shall see....

I have been busy like an elf these last few weeks, trying to finish up the Christmas orders that I was inundated with. Things are looking good for an imminent finish. Then, I shall start the Christmas sewing that I need to do for my peeps.

Since I know that some of you are just starting to think about your Christmas shopping list, and may have hoped to still order a quilt (please excuse me while I fall off my chair, laughing), I'd like to show you a possible option. I have one quilt for sale right now. One quilt!!! I'd like to have a huge stock of them, but I can't keep them around (I love you, too!!!).

Here it is....
It's a "Fractured" quilt. I originally posted about it here.

It measures 57" x 57" - a generous sized throw quilt. The colors (red, white, and black) are perfect for the season, and would complement your holiday decor. I also think it would make a beautiful picnic quilt in the summer, but you don't need to think about warm weather right now - that might just make you sad.

If I have piqued your interest, you can check the quilt out on Etsy (where you can purchase it easily and have it shipped to you), or my Facebook page (where you could send me a message if you live close to me and want to buy it).

Happy shopping.... wherever your list ends up taking you...

A perfectly basted quilt...

Is almost as wonderful as a quilted quilt. Yep.....


It looks like a magical field of safety pins. I love it. Hopefully, with a little bit of spousal cooperation, I can get a lot of this quilted this evening.

And here are the matching pillows for the aqua and pink quilts. Curtain panels and one more quilt to be quilted will complete this set. Wouldn't it be nice if I could finish it before the weekend??? We shall see....

What did you do this weekend?

I went camping! Did I mention that I live in Northern Alberta?

Every year, my husband has a camper or shack in the mountains to stay when he goes sledding (or ski-dooing, or whatever you call it). This last weekend, the kids and I went out with him to hang out in it for the weekend. Talk about getting away from regular life! We didn't have running water, so hot water had to be made on the stove. This also made for some interesting bathroom situations, which I will only talk about if we are good friends.

We found a great hill to go tobogganing on. 9 minutes up, 15 seconds down.

I printed off a bunch of coloring sheets, sudoku, and word searches to occupy our time. The cupboards behind Nathan had to stay open so the items in them wouldn't freeze. Fun!

I know. Right now as you look at our shack you are thinking, "Wow, they are so classy! So polished, so refined!"

Or maybe you're not.....

It was such a beautiful place to spend the weekend. There was a full moon (or almost, I'm not really sure) that lit up the snow so much at night that the kids were waking up at 3 am thinking it was morning. So magical.... What a great family time.

Quilting stuff coming up later....

So far...

Two aqua and pink quilts - that's what is next on my agenda. I was told no white in these ones. That takes me a few baby steps out of my comfort zone, since white is my go-to for any color quandry I find myself in. But... take a look at this block. On the screen it is nice, but in person... oh! the colors of the print play off soooo beautifully with the charcoal around it.

And another of my favorite blocks (I can't help it if there was a white background on a print).

Just a simple layout for this quilt - nobody's shocked at that, I'm sure.

They aren't stitched together yet, so that wow at the top won't be there in the finished quilt.

Onward I go!

Another one bites the dust...

Only in a good way. Another project completed and on it's way to a new home.

This is "Striated". The color combination was requested (robin's egg blue, red, brown, and cream), but beyond that (and the size - twin) I was given the design choice. Right now I am loving anything bold and graphic, and I am still stuck in the "adding texture through quilting" mode, so this is what became of that.


The top foot or so is tucked into the fence. It's a slightly longer than normal twin size quilt.

This quilt is going to be a throw laid across the end of a king size bed. I wanted it to have different vignettes depending on how it was folded and placed (definition I'm using for vignettes is from dictionary.com, "any small, pleasing picture or view"). So, the widest red and blue stripe were HEAVILY quilted.

The red and blue stripes. Everything is very organically quilted on this quilt. I wanted the imperfect quilting lines to play off the rigidity of the vertical stripes. Over time and washings, the quilt would have gotten a delightful crumpled look on it's own, but this sped up the cozying process.

Another view of the back where the quilted lines show well.

This is the pebbled area I was complaining about here. Beautiful, but so much work.

A final look.

On to the next quilt now...

Drumroll please.... The Princess Quilts!!

Do any of you even remember that I was going to show you the Red-Haired Princess Quilts "soon"? I'd said that so long ago that I'm sure it's long been forgotten. But without further ado....


Here they are! Two similiar quilts for two red-haired sisters. These were so fun to make - the recipients are like family, and I have quite literally known them their whole lives. They are both strip quilts - bands of fabric running the whole length (or width) of the quilt. Then, quilted heavily to achieve an absolutely luxuriously textured quilt. I took the best pictures I could, but keep in mind that the only assistant I had was a three year old....

The quilt that you can see more fully above has horizontal stripes (let's call that #1), while the folded one beside it has vertical stripes of fabric (for simplicity's sake, #2). Other than that, they have the same fabrics, and are both heavily quilted with straight lines on all the white spaces.

#1's binding, and closeup detail of the back and front.

#1, view of the red-haired princess sleeping peacefully.

#1's binding, again, with my tag. This binding was chosen since the red-haired queen (aka, the mom of the princesses) loves this fabric.

#2's binding and closeup detail of quilting.

A very densely quilted stripe on #2 - these lines were "organic" lines on purpose...

Another view of #2.

These quilts turned out so beautifully - I love the textured look that the heavy quilting offers. Mmmmhmmmm....

I'll have another similiar quilt to show you soon, then hopefully I can change it up for awhile.

What I do when I'm not quilting...

Just because I'm silent does not mean that I've not been quilting. Oh my goodness gracious - have I been quilting! I promised myself that I would not overbook my November so that I could sew my own projects in December. Apparently I didn't speak firmly enough to myself. Oops. There will be pics later today of some of the quilts that I've been promising, with more to follow.

I was going to start the next order today, until my son told me he had seen someone looking in his window last night. Creepy. It could possibly have been his daddy, who leaves for work while it is still dark out - but I thought there was still a good enough reason to make sure his windows were decently covered. I had just removed the scrap of fabric covering his window in order to put a layer of that plastic wrap on to stop the stiff breeze that blows through his 40 year old windows. So, instead of re-pinning that scrap of fabric back to his window, I quickly fashioned these:

Not a super stellar job, but they will do the trick. And, I've been trying to find an excuse to show you the quilt I made for him a year ago (its there on his bed).

Soon!!!

A case of self-loathing...

Please, please, please, somebody.... remind me that the next time I think pebbling would be a good idea, my arms and shoulders will give me their walking papers and leave me permanently. Why do I allow myself to punish my body thus? Well......

'Cause it's beautiful. Pebbled quilting gives so much texture and warm crinkliness to the quilt that it is totally worth it.... for the person getting this quilt. Seriously, I think this technique's days are numbered.

I'm gonna finish this quilt up with some organic lines, then the binding, then show the whole thing to you. Aren't you excited!!??

Am I a quilter?? and a few deep thoughts.....

I've had some conversations and done some reading in the last few days that has really made me think of my hobby (quilting, hello...) in a new light. It started with me catching up on all the wonderful quilting blogs that are out there. There are some women (and men) who are so accomplished and make such terrific, perfect quilts. It really made me feel like I was nowhere near to the place that I should be to be offering my quilts for sale (even though I am), and that I still had so far to go before I could even jokingly refer to myself as a quilter (actually, I don't like calling myself that anyway - it sounds like my grandma). I don't usually feel so down about my craft when I read others' blogs - I often feel encouraged. However, that day... I didn't.

Then, my husband I went out for supper with one of his work contacts. Jerry is a 70 year old man, originally from Europe, and is very easily taken away from the conversation at hand and transported to wonderful topics about captivating things. This time he spoke about his younger brother, who is a fairly accomplished artist in France. Even though Nathan and I knew much of what Jerry "taught" us about, we listened intently while he spoke about the difference between Impressionist and Minimalist art. Jerry has a wonderful way of spinning a tale. Minimalism, according to Jerry, is art in it's simplest form. The object being portrayed may look nothing like you think it should in the final product, but it is the artist's rendition of it. I thought of my quilts, and how unlikely I am to spend a lot of time making a typical patterned quilt. In so many cases, I feel like that's been done over and over, and even though I admire other quilts finished that way, I love my quilts to be bold, graphic statements of what I perceive modern quilting to be. That's not to say that only bold, graphic quilts are modern - but that's my rendition of them.

Another thing that got me thinking was this article here. Read at least the first page of it. It speaks to the imperfection and organic-ness of nature, and how we can learn to embrace that in our life. Although I don't follow the Buddhist roots of this thought, I do appreciate the acceptance of the beautiful roughness that comes from a life imperfectly lived. I want to appreciate the fingerprints on my walls - for this is a season of life (I will appreciate them in between the weekly wall washing, at least). The toys that are scattered throughout my house remind me that I won't always have small, blonde, tousled heads sleeping on my pillow. And how does this apply to my quilting? Well, I don't aim for perfection. When I straight line quilts, the lines resemble stalks of grass waving in the wind more often than the sharp angle of a skyscraper reaching towards the clouds. Instead of this frustrating me, I find beauty in the obvious hand made look this offers. This is not all done by a machine somewhere. This is done my two hands that are often called to tie a shoe, or fix a toy, or kiss an owie. Perhaps this squiggly line was caused because there was a squirming three year old on my lap while I was quilting (happens more often than I'd like). Not to say that I want to allow for sloppiness in my work, but rather that I embrace the organic nature of the imperfect quality of my art. And yes, that is what I am thinking of it as. My quilts are my art. Some may appreciate my view of what a quilt should be, and others will prefer a more traditional quilt. And that is okay. I am feeling a little embarrassed to call myself a quilt artist, but it gives validity to how I think about the finished product, therefore I will attempt to squash that embarrassment.

Thanks for taking a minute to read my musings. I appreciate you, truly...

The start of something new...

A new quilt, that is.

From this.....

To this.....

The name of this quilt will be...."Striated". That's a BIG hint towards the design of the quilt.

Toothpaste pillows

A friend of mine asked for pillows that would match her living room. It's painted a very pretty color that her husband refers to as "toothpaste" blue. I can see the similiarities to the toothpaste I used as a child. Colgate, perhaps?

She gave me a few fabric scraps to incorporate into the design, but beyond that, I was given free reign of how the pillows turned out. Oh how I love when people do that!


The result. Once again, my version of a matched set.

Pillow numero uno. I am usually looking for a way to make things asymetrical. I think it's a continuation of my disdain for things that are too perfect.

(close up of quilting detail)

Pillow numero dos. Zig-zags. Mmmmmhmmmm. Thank you to crazy mom quilts for her wonderful zig zag tutorial that I have used a couple of times now.

I love, love, love this detail quilting on the zig zag pillow. I think it would be fantastic on a larger quilt (actually, I know it would be, I've seen it done), but I am not up for the challenge... yet...

It was a tiny bit nervewracking to make these, since Christine (the new pillow owner) is a modern maker, too. The pillows have been declared wonderful, though, so now I shall sleep at ease. Check out Christine's wonderful things here.

More stuff soon!