I seemed to have hit a productive streak back in July and August, finishing so many quilts during that period. Today, I am excited to share the last one from that batch. This quilt was part of a Block of the Month project at one of my guilds, and at first, I was unsure about joining. Even though there was no pressure and many members chose not to participate, I felt an internal push to join. So, without being fully convinced, I decided to go for it.
Don’t get me wrong – there was nothing wrong with the project, the design, or the blocks. The issue was more about me knowing that I never have enough time to sew everything I want to. Adding more to my to-do list, especially projects I am not 100% excited about, is not always the best idea.
There were nine blocks in total, but I ended up dropping out after block six. From the start, I knew this quilt was not one I planned to keep – I already have plenty scattered throughout my home. To make it, I used fabrics from my (admittedly quite small) stash, aiming for my usual bright and bold colours, and I am really pleased with how it turned out. I joined the six blocks with white sashing, which created the effect of “floating blocks.” To complete it, I added a border of squares made from leftover scraps of the main fabrics and used the rest for a multi-coloured binding.
The finished quilt ended up being a bit larger than the Charm Pack Quilt but still small enough to work as a children’s quilt, so I donated it to the Meadow Rose Society as well. It felt great to complete all these quilts, clear them out of the house, and donate them to those who could benefit from them more.
The next quilt in line was one made from a Charm Pack. I usually do not buy precuts, as I never know what to do with them. But I could not resist this one when I saw it at a quilt show – it was just so pretty. The fabric line is “Bee Vintage” by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Fabrics. With its charming mix of vintage florals and cheerful hues, it was perfect for a special project.
Now, what to do with it? I searched online for charm pack quilt ideas and found one that I really liked on Sew Me, a blog written by Sarah in Northern Ireland. You can find the pattern here.
It was very easy to put together, and I completed the top in just an afternoon. I quilted it fairly soon afterwards and once again used the curving stitch to create a binding that was done entirely by machine.
This little quilt finishes at approximately 38″ x 42″, so I decided to donate it to a different charity, the Meadow Rose Society. This organization provides basic needs to children under four for families experiencing financial crisis, and I thought this small quilt would help keep a child warm and cozy.
After completing the Jelly Roll Quilts, another donation quilt was waiting to be finished. This was my ‘leaders and enders’ project, inspired by my friend Renate’s idea of alternating light and dark fabrics to create this pattern. Sewing time was limited over the past year, so finishing this top took a little longer than expected. But once it was finally done, I quilted it right away, and it has since been donated to the Ann Davis Transition Society. And, of course, I have already started on the next one!
Whenever I post one of these quilts, people ask about the pattern. There actually is no official pattern – the large squares are simply 4 inches, seam allowances included. From this starting size, you cut them in half to create rectangles and into quarters for smaller squares. I have written a bit more on how to put it together in this post.
You might remember that I won the “Left, Right, Centre” game at last year’s guild Christmas party and ended up with a hotchpotch of 120 jelly roll strips in every colour and pattern imaginable. It only took me a day or two to decide what to do with them – since they were all so mismatched, a Jelly Roll Race quilt felt like the perfect solution. I had never made one before, but I knew of the pattern, and plenty of instructions are available online.
I actually finished two of the tops right away – they were done before New Year’s! The third one, however, had to wait until summer, but as soon as I wrapped that up, I quilted all three of them. I also finally found a method for binding quilts entirely by machine that works well for donation quilts. For my own quilts, though, I’m still a bit picky and will probably always take the time to stitch the binding down by hand – I’m just not fond of the flat look that machine binding tends to create. My trick is to use a decorative stitch instead of a straight one. There’s a lovely curved stitch on my machine that meanders over the binding edge, making any irregularities on the back less obvious.
All three quilts have been donated to a local charity, the Ann Davis Transition Society. One of our guilds regularly provides them with quilts, and I know from past deliveries that they try to give as many quilts as possible to the children who come seeking shelter with their mothers. Supporting this effort means a lot to me.
We spent most of February in New Zealand, a trip we had been looking forward to for ages. But just five days before we were set to leave, Air New Zealand cancelled our flight! You can imagine we didn’t get much sleep that night after seeing the email. Thankfully, the next day, we managed to sort everything out – they rebooked us on the same flight a day early. After a frantic scramble to find a rental car and hotel for the extra night, we were all set and even got an extra day to enjoy our trip!
We took thousands of pictures, and I could talk for hours about the trip – but I’ll try to rein myself in and keep it as short as possible. (If want to see a larger version of a picture, just click on it.)
Our journey started with a non-stop flight from Vancouver to Auckland. Thanks to the time difference, we landed at 5 a.m. Stepping out of cool, rainy Canada into a beautiful summer day in Auckland was such a treat! We also loved New Zealand’s coffee culture; really good coffee prepared with love was available everywhere.
From Auckland, we drove south toward the east coast and the Coromandel Peninsula.
Firth of Thames
Waiau Falls, Coromandel Peninsula
Lonely Bay from Shakespeare Cliff Lookout
Naturally, Hobbiton near Matamata was a must-see. I’m not the biggest Lord of the Rings fan – fantasy just isn’t my genre – but my husband is, and I enjoyed the books and movies enough to appreciate the chance to see all the LOTR locations in New Zealand.
Hobbiton
Toby, our fantastic tour guide
Gate to Bag End
Bag End
Hobbits make quilts too!
Another Hobbit quilt
From there, we headed to the thermal areas of the North Island around Rotorua. We are big fans of Yellowstone and fascinated by geysers, so we were thrilled to see what New Zealand has to offer in terms of thermal features.
Pohutu Geyser, Te Puia
Champagne Pool, Wai-O-Tapu
Mud Pots, Wai-O-Tapu
Sapphire Geyser, Orakai Korako
We also spent some time hiking in Tongariro National Park, another spot Peter Jackson used for LOTR filming. We even managed to find the location of Gollum’s Pool!
Taranaki Falls, Tongariro NP
Tawhai Falls with Gollum’s Pool, Tonariro NP
Just north of Wellington, we stopped at Kaitoke Regional Park—the filming location for Rivendell.
Kaitoke Regional Park, filming location of Rivendell
Sightseeing in big cities isn’t really our thing, but we did spend some time exploring Wellington, especially in and around the parliament buildings.
NZ Parliament
NZ Parliament
Weta Workshop, Wellington
From Wellington, we took the Interislander Ferry across the Cook Strait to the South Island.
Coastal Highway, South Island
The next day, we spent our time on a day hike in Abel Tasman National Park.
From there, we headed down the west coast of the South Island, stopping at several locations like Cape Foulwind and the Tauranga Bay Seal Colony.
Cape Foulwind
A feisty Weka (Maori Hen)
Tauranga Bay Seal Colony
Truman Track Beach, Paparoa NP
Following the coast, we visited Hokitika and the glaciers of the Southern Alps.
Hokitika Clock Tower
Okarito Beach
Franz Joseph Glacier
Then we crossed the mountains to Wanaka and continued onward to Queenstown. Beyond Queenstown and Glenorchy lies another area rich with LOTR filming locations, including the Dart River Valley, which served as the backdrop for Isengard.
Munro Beach
That Wanaka Tree
Dart River Valley, Isengard location
Paradise
Next, we stopped in Te Anau, our gateway to Fiordland National Park. From here, we explored the stunning landscapes with cruises on both Milford and Doubtful Sound.
Mirror Lakes on the road to Milford Sound
Kea at Monkey Creek
Milford Sound
Doubtful Sound
We drove through Southland, stopping at lighthouses, hiking to waterfalls, and spotting plenty of seals, one sea lion on the beach, and a stunning sunrise at Nugget Point framed by a full double rainbow.
Waipapa Point Lighthouse
Sea Lion at Short Bay
Sunrise at Nugget Point
Double Rainbow at Nugget Point
Tunnel Beach, Dunedin
From Dunedin on the east coast, we turned inland again to visit Mount Cook National Park. We did a lot of hiking there – really the only way to explore it – and I set a personal record with nearly 26,000 steps that day.
Lake Pukaki, Mount Cook
Hooker Lake, Mount Cook
Hooker Lake, Mount Cook
Mirror Lake, Mount Cook NP
We returned to the east coast to visit Christchurch and then headed to Akaroa. February isn’t the best time to see penguins in the wild, as the young ones fledge in January, and by the time we reached the penguin colonies on the South Island, the birds were already going through their “catastrophic moult.” During this phase, they lose and replace all their feathers at once and can’t swim, so they stay hidden away. We were able to take a tour with Pohatu Penguins to their colony in Flea Bay outside Akaroa, where we saw a few penguins in mid-moult. (The penguins are not bothered by people watching, as long as everyone stays very quiet.)
Peel Forest
Peel Forest
Akaroa
Pohatu Penguins at Flea Bay
We spent our last morning in Christchurch at the International Antarctic Centre, which was another highlight of the trip.
Victoria (Diamond Jubilee) Clock Tower, Christchurch
International Antarctic Centre, Christchurch
Then we flew back to Auckland and from there to Vancouver. My husband was thrilled to see that the plane taking us back to Canada was adorned with All Blacks livery.
And of course, I visited as many quilt shops as I could and bought a ton of Kiwiana fabrics. I haven’t done anything with them yet – just brainstorming ideas for future projects. We will see what I can come up with!
Overall, it was a fantastic trip. If you think you can visit New Zealand once to “get it out of your system”, think again! We are definitely hooked and will try to go back when we can.
Back in November 2022 at a guild meeting, three members presented a trunk show featuring all the bags, purses, and wallets they had made. I hadn’t made a bag in about ten or twelve years, but when I saw one member’s “Ultimate Travel Bag” (a By Annie pattern), I fell in love immediately. So, when the Black Friday sale at the quilt shop came around, I went ahead and bought the pattern, fabrics, and all the other supplies. By Annie has fantastic video instructions on their website, and although it took me a while and was a bit fiddly at times, I finished the bag. I even had enough leftover fabric to make a smaller project called “Easy Does It” (a By Annie pattern).
My cats loved the bag as much as I did—they climbed all over it and even inside, thinking it was the best adventure playground.
The guild friend whose bag had inspired me mentioned that she ended up making four of them because all her friends loved it and wanted one, too. So, I decided to make another one for my mom before flying to Germany to visit her in June 2023. Once again, I had enough leftover fabric to make her a matching “Easy Does It” bag as well.
Have you ever heard of the “Necessary Clutch Wallet” (an Emmaline pattern)? I’m not sure where I first came across it, but I remember my friend Connie had made one, and I really liked it. Since I was already in bag-making mode, I decided to give the NCW pattern a try after finishing the travel bag sets. And wow, was it addictive! I made one for myself and then four more to give to friends and my mom. There’s a whole community out there hooked on making these clutch wallets, with excellent video tutorials, and I found it easy to follow along. Once I got the hang of it, I set up my own little assembly line and had them all done before leaving for Germany last year.
During my 2023 trip, I realized the “Ultimate Travel Bag” was a bit too big for my liking. While it is the right size for airline carry-on luggage, I don’t usually bring that much with me on board, and I found it cumbersome to lug around. I had already bought another pattern, the “Executive Carryalls” (also By Annie), which are designed as laptop bags. The pattern has two options: a smaller laptop cover and a slightly larger bag with room for extra items. Since we had booked a trip to New Zealand for February 2024, I decided to make the bigger laptop bag to see if its size would work better as my carry-on. Once again, I had enough leftover fabric to make a matching “Easy Does It” bag.
I also made the larger version of the Quick Zip Cases (another By Annie pattern). It was meant to be a quick Sunday afternoon project – though it took a bit longer since I put the zipper in the wrong way! But in the end, I was really happy with how it turned out.
My two “Easy Does It” bags, the Zip Case, and the Clutch Wallet all fit perfectly into the Executive Carryall, along with my glasses, phone, and the few other odds and ends I needed for the flight. I’m much happier with this smaller version of carry-on luggage.
It wasn’t my intention to take such a long break, but I guess I needed it. I can’t even say I got much done in the past nine months, especially quilting-wise, but sometimes that’s just how life goes.
It has never been a secret, but I haven’t openly discussed all my health issues here on the blog. My first battle with breast cancer was in 2015, which played a big part in my decision to become a professional quilter and pattern designer before it might be too late. Then, in 2021, at the height of the pandemic, I was diagnosed with NLPHL, a rare type of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had to go through chemo again—yes, all the fun stuff, including losing my hair for the second time. During the scans to figure out what was happening, a lesion was found on one of my ribs. It was biopsied and turned out to be metastatic breast cancer. I was actually very lucky to have had NLPHL because it meant the metastatic cancer was caught extremely early
I have been pushing through with determination—writing patterns, drawing BOM blocks, and quilting for customers. I even went to counseling and thought I was doing enough for my mental health, working through all these issues. But apparently, I was wrong. It took me half a year of not touching my patterns and barely sewing anything other than customer quilts before I finally started to feel better. I even decided to quit the guilds because it all just became too much. Sometimes, all you can do is lie on the couch and drink tea, and that’s okay. For someone as driven and organized as me, that was a hard pill to swallow.
In July, I finally felt the urge to sew again and finished almost all of the UFOs I had lying around. I will share those in a separate post later on. I even had an idea for a new BOM project and spent some time working on it. Then, I received a notification from my website hosting company saying that my website code was outdated and couldn’t be updated to the latest PHP version. When I first set it up, my son created a WordPress theme for me based on my wishes, and of course, it hadn’t been updated since 2016. So, once again, I had to take a detour and set my patterns aside. Instead, I gave the website a facelift, chose a new popular theme that gets regular updates, and customized it to my liking.
I also moved the pattern store over to Square. The automatic system with the download links had been causing more and more issues, and I ended up emailing many patterns anyway, so I don’t think this will make much of a difference. Square does offer a category for digital items, but there is no way to give customers automatic access to the digital files. For now, I will just keep sending them via email. I haven’t been able to update all the links in the blog posts yet – that’s a huge task and will take some time. The easiest way to find a specific pattern right now is to go to the pattern store and search there.
Anyway, I am going to get back to working on the new BOM idea, and I will try to get back into the habit of posting regularly. I do have one request, though: Please don’t leave any comments about how sorry you are or that you are praying for me. I have been living with this diagnosis for almost four years now, and I am doing okay. These days, it feels like I end up having to comfort people, and I just don’t have the energy for that. I know you are all sorry to hear this, but I am not looking for sympathy. I just wanted to let you know what is going on without beating around the bush. So, if I have to drop off the face of the earth again with little or no notice, I will – even if it means postponing the publishing date of BOM blocks.
I am glad to be back, and next week I will start sharing more about the past few months, including our fantastic trip to New Zealand in February, my annual visit to see my mom in June, and all the quilts I finished this summer.
So where do we go from here? You might have noticed that I didn’t announce anything for 2024 after finishing the HedgeHUGS BOM. And that’s because I need a break. Even though I pretty much stopped posting and abandoned some social media platforms, it feels like I didn’t get anything done this year. I have pattern samples finished that have been lying around for almost a year and a half with no time to actually write and publish the pattern. And let’s not even talk about the long list of half-finished designs and design ideas. Longarm quilting is still my main business and eats up most of my time but I also have quite a few medical appointments and am involved in the two local guilds. And I did quite a lot of traveling which of course I don’t want to give up either.
I have also not come up with “the” idea for a new BOM. I have played around with several ideas but I found nothing really satisfactory. So here is where you come in. I would like to start another project later in 2024 but I haven’t been hit by inspiration so far with anything that might work as a block of the month. What would you like to see? Leave a comment, and maybe inspiration will hit me.
So instead I will show you a few of the things that kept me busy this fall. I did the registration for the quilt show again and organized the quilt intake and return which is a huge, very time-consuming task. But I love a good spreadsheet and well organized events, and I had a lot of fun doing it. The guild had not enough people for setting up the frames, so this year the quilts were displayed in the sanctuary of the church where we hold the shows.
Picture courtesy of Lyn R.
I usually don’t participate in the show challenge (if the day just had more hours!!). But this year inspiration suddenly hit me in late September, and I whipped up an entry in a few days. The theme was a “song with a colour”, and I suddenly had this vision of “Red Roses for a Blue Lady”, and it turned out pretty much the way I saw it in my head.
Two guilds means two Christmas parties with lots of activities. At the Chilliwack Quilters Guild we played Bingo with fabric cards, and the blocks were collected afterwards and will be turned into donation quilts.
We also made a bobbin blossom brooch which is a very quick project, especially when you use a magnet instead of a pin. It looks really nice and is easy to do although the instructions looked quite intimidating at first.
And then we played the “Left, Right, Centre” game. Everyone starts out with three Jelly Roll strips, and the one who ends up with the last strip(s) when all the others have been placed in the centre wins the whole pile. Only that this year the winners of each table played a final round against each other with the winner taking all the strips. Well, guess who the (reluctant) lucky winner was… yes, I went home with about 120 strips of fabric. There is a huge variety of patterns and themes, and nothing is coordinated. I folded them, and they found a home in my big Fisherman’s Friend tin, and I have decided I will make (probably three, depending on how many strips there actually are) Jelly Roll Race quilts and donate them back to the guild’s We Care program.
The Chilliwack Piecemakers Christmas Party was even more hilarious (you would have loved it, Joanne). We played some games, had lots of door prizes, and the President made all executive members sing a quilty version of “Twelve Days of Christmas”. I was lucky (and maybe everyone else too because I can’t sing very well publicly) and managed to get the twelfth verse that I only had to sing once.
We also made Healing Heart blocks for a member going through some rough times, and a nice collection was gifted to her as a “fabric hug”.
And then my husband needed a new Dinkelmaus (the German version of a bean bag, if you want to know more or download the free pattern, check here). His was wearing thin after about 15 years, and he would leave kernels of spelt all over the house. Since they make such great gifts and don’t take long to sew, I made a whole collection and gave them away to my quilty friends.
Last but not least I spent almost all of November on my Christmas Cards, they were all finished in time and mailed out in early December.
I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season, take some time to slow down and relax and enjoy your friends and family. See you all in 2024!
It’s December, and once again I am asking myself where time has gone. The older you get, the faster it seems to fly. December is always busy with Christmas approaching quickly, and before we know it, another year will be over. We are not going to put up a tree as our silly cats are out to destroy it. And what’s even worse, they munch on the needles whenever they have the chance, standing there under the branches like little ruminating cows. The last time we had a tree we ended up moving it into our son’s room and kept the door closed, so it makes no sense to even buy one. But I will hang up my favourite Christmas decoration, a silly moose wreath I made a long time ago. Probably 20 years or so, and it came to Canada with us and still makes me laugh evey time I see it.
Our hedgehog friend is busy with one of our favourite fall activities – quilting! When summer is over, when the days get shorter and the air cooler, there is less to do outside, and we tend to spend more time at our sewing machines. This little guy or gal has assembled a pretty Nine Patch block. I tried to stay with fall/Halloween-ish colours but feel free to substitute for your favourite colours. As always the pattern will be available for free download until the end of the month and move to the pattern store when the next block is released. The finishing instructions are also available now, scroll down for the download link.
EDIT: The year is over, and the block has moved to the pattern store where it is now available for purchase if you missed the free download. If you just need the finishing instructions, they are still available for free download.
Für die deutsche(n) Version(en) mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem/den Kauflink(s) unten für die englische(n) Version(en) folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung(en) in der gewünschten Sprache.
Wer nur die Anleitung zur Fertigstellung sucht, kann diese nun auch auf Deutsch kostenlos herunterladen.
And once again I won’t be able to release the block at the first of the month at 9 am. I have appointments on Friday and might not be here all day, so I am going to release the block on Saturday morning at 9 am. If you are a subscriber you will be notified by email, otherwise please check back and remember I am on Pacific time, so way behind most of you. Thank you for understanding.
