Lisa loves English Paper Piecing and made this fabulous quilt called “Emma Mary”, pattern by Judy Newman. There is a bit of custom quilting in the centre medallion to enhance all those lovely hexies. For the pieced blocks around the centre we decided that they were busy enough and detailed quilting would only get lost, so I used a pantograph in this area. The design is called ” Paisley Curls”.
If you wondered what happened to the Happy Hippo quilt, I did finish the top in a timely manner. And I was ready to quilt it over the May long weekend. I had to fix the backing because I hadn’t considered that the fabric was directional, and it was very distorted. After spending half a day on calculations and straightening the fabric and sewing it all together until it was finally ready to go on the longarm, I realized that I was very low on the turquoise thread that I wanted to use for the majority of the quilt.
I decided to postpone the quilting rather than risking running out of thread in the middle of the project. And I can’t just run out to the next store to get more thread as I order wholesale from a distributor in Ontario. Anyway, the thread arrived in the meantime, and I finally quilted the top last weekend. And wouldn’t you know it… I had just enough turquoise thread left to finish the quilt and didn’t need the new spool. But I am sure if I had taken the risk and started quilting without another spool for backup, I would have run into trouble. Oh well, at least it’s finally done. Now on to the binding!
Happy Canada Day! We had really bad weather during the first half of June, cold and wet, and while the spinach still decided to bolt, I had little hope for my remaining cucumbers. But as soon as the weather changed, the first flowers appeared on the cucumbers, and they seem quite content by now. The tomatoes ignored the weather as well and have apparently decided to outgrow their cages as quickly as possible. They are in a rather dry spot close to the house but I didn’t think they would grow that much while it was so cold. In other gardening news, I have decided to try to grow Brussels sprouts. I belong to the 50% of the population who cannot taste anything bitter in Brussels sprouts and have always liked them. And I know they grow around here, you can see them in the fields awaiting harvest in late autumn. I had to order the seeds online, I guess this is not a very popular crop. As you can tell, I am having a lot of fun with my garden experiments.
But you are not here for my veggie stories, so let’s move on to this month’s penguin. July means Canada Day, and Canada means hockey. So of course the July block had to feature this favourite winter pastime and Canada’s official national winter sport. I realize the little guy should be dressed in red and white and not in blue but it didn’t look right in the final layout of the quilt. So I have decided to have him play in Vancouver Canucks colours instead. The hockey penguin will be available for free download until the end of the month and then move to the store section to make room for August’s free block.
EDIT: July is over, and the block has moved to the pattern store where it is now available for purchase if you missed the free download.
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Dianne made this space-themed quilt as a gift for her grandson. Stars and the moon were a perfect choice for quilting her project, and we chose the pantograph “Starry Night”. I just modified the moon a bit, the original pattern has the crescent moon with a face which looks great on baby quilt but isn’t really suitable for older boys. But it was easy enough to just quilt a curve instead of the face outline, and we were both quite happy with the result.
Jean made two of these quilts that she calls “Posies in the Forest”. Both of them look very similar, using the same layout and fabrics. But Jean made her four patch blocks using the “Stack and Whack” technique, and every block ended up being a different kaleidoscope of flowers. The pantograph she chose is called “Ground Cover” and goes well with the forest theme of her quilts.
Mary helped her two teenage granddaughters to make these quilts, using the Jelly Roll Race pattern. They each picked a jelly roll in their favourite colours, and after finishing the tops they also picked the quilting designs for their quilts. One of them chose “Wandering Daisies”, the other one “Ginger Flower”. They both did an excellent job, and I hope they enjoyed working on their quilts as much as I loved quilting them.
Wow, where did last week go? It just flew by, and suddenly it was over, and I hadn’t even found the time to post anything. With all these activities cancelled and everybody staying home and sewing, I am quite busy quilting all day long. Here is another beautiful customer quilt. This modern chevron quilt was made by Kathy. She used Kaffe Fassett fabrics and a grey background to show them off. The pantograph “Fantasy Flames” was a great choice for this modern project.
This colourful Hunter’s Star quilt is another one of Ginger’s projects. Don’t you just love looking at quilts until you see the secondary pattern emerge? It didn’t need a lot of quilting, a simple swirly design like “Wild Wind” finished the quilt perfectly.
Janet made this quilt as a gift for her granddaughter. The young lady requested grey fabrics and a modern design, and the pantograph “Bauhaus” finished it off perfectly.
