A Nova Scotia Hug Quilt

In response to the recent tragic shootings in Nova Scotia, the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild requested quilts to give to victims families.  They suggested quilts with blue and white in them and also gave a link to a free quilt pattern designed by the Fabric Addict called a Nova Scotia Hug which is what I decided to make.

The quilt is made up of two blocks, a heart and a representation of the NS Flag.  Here are my blocks.

And here are the blocks sewn together.

I decided to add a row of sashing strips and corner stones before adding the final border to give the outer hearts more space.

Here is a close up of the heart block after quilting which shows the heart and loop quilting I used.

And here's a close up of one of the flag blocks where a quilted heart ended up in the centre of the yellow square.

And to continue the suspense, here's a picture of the back of the quilt.  I used a cuddly NS Tartan flannel.

Finally, here's a picture of the finished quilt.

I just have to put a label on it and get it delivered.  Hopefully whoever it is gifted to will be comforted in some small way.

Rail Fence Comfort Quilt Finished

Yesterday I made some scrappy binding and bound the guild's rail fence comfort quilt I had finally quilted the day before.  Oops, I see I missed trimming a thread.

It is very wet and windy here today so an indoor shot will have to do for this quilt as I will hand it in at my guild meeting tonight.

It is made out of 90 6" finished rail fence blocks set 9 across and 10 down so mathematically it measures 54.5" x 60.5"  After "crinkage" (crinkling due to quilting + shrinkage due to washing) it is 52" x 58", a nice lap or child sized quilt.  I used a piece of really soft donated fabric printed with rope swirls for the backing and just had to add a small piece of checkered flannel fabric in one corner.

I kind of like that word, "crinkage".  I googled it but could not find that it had been used anywhere.  Have I invented a new quilting term?

Sewing for Thursday Night's Quilt Guild Meeting

I started off this morning by finishing the two pillow cases I had almost finished for last meeting.  I would make one more but I don't really have any more suitable fabric right now.  These two aren't as nice and colourful as the first seven I made but maybe someone who plays an instrument or enjoys music will appreciate them.  These will go to Ryan's Case for Smiles and be given to children and youth who have extended stays at the IWK Children's Hospital.

I have had this quilt on the frame for a couple of months now but had not put a single stitch in it.  I knew what quilting design I wanted to do so I got out my manual and oiled my machine and got to it and around 4:30 this afternoon I had the quilting done and the quilt trimmed and ready for binding.  These rail fence blocks were made by members of my quilting guild and sewn together at a charity quilting day at one of our local quilt shops.

Here's a close up of the quilting called filigree.  I tried to keep my loops consistent.....

So now I have two days to get the binding made and sewn on and the quilt washed and ready to donate.  Should be easily doable.

Cheerful Pillowcases for the IWK Children's Hospital

Our guild received an invitation to sew colourful pillowcases for our local children's hospital in support of "Ryan's Case for Smiles" and their September 2019 goal to sew as many "MILES" of pillowcases as possible.   FYI, 2122 pillowcases = one mile. 

I had just the right fabric.

And here are five cheerful pillowcases which equals .0024 of a mile.  

I'll have to do some digging and see if I can't find some more children's fabric so I can go a bit farther than that!

Throw Back Thursday Churn Dash Baby Quilt

According to the date stamp on this photograph, it was taken in October 2015.  My best recollection is that these were 12" blocks so the quilt was 3' x 4'.  I really like dotted fabric and gingham fabric, especially together.   I think the backing was flannel.  The binding was  a multi coloured striped fabric  I don't remember this pantograph, but will have to look it up as I really like the texture it created.

This quilt was donated to our Guild to be a Comfort Quilt.  I still have some of all these fabrics so some day there will be another quilt.

I Spy Jar Quilt

This is based on an I Spy Jar Quilt Tutorial by Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Making the pint and quart jars themselves will be exactly as she explains it.  The difference is instead of using 2.5" sashing between the jars, we will be bordering each jar with 1.5" sashing.

Each Pint Jar I Spy Block requires:

Bright Novelty Fabric for Jar
- one 5" x 5" square

Grey Fabric for Lid
- one 1.5" x 3" rectangle

Black Background Fabric
(can all be cut from one WOF 1.5" strip)
- six 1.5" x 1.5" squares
- two 1.5" x 6" strips for sides
- two 1.5" x 7" strips for top and bottom

Each Quart Jar I Spy Block requires:

Bright Novelty Fabric for Jar
- one 5" x 10" rectangle

Grey Fabric for Lid
- one 1.5" x 3" rectangle

Black Background Fabric
(can all be cut from one WOF 1.5" strip)
- six 1.5" x 1.5" squares
- two 1.5" x 11" strips for sides
- two 1.5" x 7" strips  for top and bottom





1.  Using four 1.5" x 1.5" background squares, snowball each corner of the novelty print jar.

2.  Sew the two remaining 1.5" x 1.5" background squares to each end of the grey jar lid strip.

3.  Sew the jar lid strip to the top of the jar.

4.  Sew the side background strips (6" for the pint jar and 11" for the quart jar) to each side of the jar.

5.  Sew the top and bottom 7" background strips to the top and bottom of the jar.

Easy Peasy!




Here are a a few pint ones made as well.

These are so fun and easy to make.  If I had more novelty print fabric I would already have a quilt worth of these I Spy Jars made!

Touch Base Tuesday

On Saturday thirteen members of our guild met at a local quilt shop and worked from 9 am til 4 pm on making comfort quilts.  We  had a great time and half a dozen tops at least were worked on.  I'm looking forward to seeing them all finished.  

On Sunday while skyping with my quilt buddy Marilyn, I did some tidying in my sewing room and put the spools quilt I made back in October on the frame and figured out what threads I am going to use to quilt it.  I love the rainbow of threads laid out on the quilt top.  You can also see the colourful rubber floor mats I have in front of my frame to make standing easier on me.  I am going to quilt each individual spool bock with the colour of thread that is on that spool.  My quilt was based on a "Time to Sew" quilt tutorial by Jenny Doan from the Missouri Star Quilt Company  and is going to become a sewing machine cover for the machine on my frame. 

Since I was working on making one sewing machine cover, I decided I may as well also work on making a second sewing machine cover.  After all, I wouldn't want my machines to get jealous of one another.  I cut out the backing or lining fabric for a sewing machine cover for the heavy duty sewing machine I piece with.  I have been planning for awhile now to use selvages to make the sides and top of this cover so I got out my bin of selvages and starting cutting out interesting pieces.  They were jammed in and overflowing from the bin so after I cut them I had to iron them before I could sew with them.

On Monday, I started sewing the strips to the lining fabric.  I had cut mine quite narrow, most of them are only .75" wide so not much of the fabric pattern shows as I overlap them and sew as close to the finished edge of the selvage as I can.  I drew some lines in pencil on the base fabric to help me keep the strips straight.

At first I was going to include a layer of  batting but the selvages and the lining fabric turned out nice and sturdy without the batting and I also wouldn't have been able to see the lines if I had included batting.  I have a pattern which has three different cats sitting, laying or playing on stacks of fabric.  I'm going to make the orange cat laying on a bolt of fabric as the front of my sewing machine cover.  The pattern is shown here with my finished strip of selvages.  If you read the selvages there are two with "Kitty" and "Katz" in them which makes me happy.

 

The selvages really went together quite quickly and I cut way more than I needed and I think the bin actually looks fuller than before I used some so I need to think of another project to use some more up!  I know I want to try crocheting a rug with some of them, but maybe a sewing room apron made with selvages or at least accented with selvage pockets would be nice.

Last night while I was watching TV, I basted enough hexagons to make two flowers.  I sewed one together at breakfast in the bright sunlight.  

Time to get into the sewing room!  Which machine cover shall I work on first?  The spools or the cat?

Friday Finishes (3) and Starts (2)

Yesterday I finished the Heart Lattice cushion cover.  It turned out fine for something I made off the top of my head.  I quilted it on the diagonal down the centre of each lattice but it didn't seem like enough so I quilted it again on each side of the diagonal lattices which made this nice pattern on the backing fabric.  I was using up some old polished cotton since it will never be seen.

I bound it with the same fabric as the  background.  Here's the finished front.

And here's a picture of it in a chair from the front and also a shot of the envelope back. 

It was a really dull day so the pictures are kind of dull too unfortunately.

Here's the Bug Comfort quilt all quilted and bound with turquoise leaf fabric and all washed and shrunk up nice and snugly. 

The Bug Mug Rug turned out pretty cut too.

And here are the flannel backs.

Here's a close up of the quilting on the quilt.  I quilted loops all over it like the bugs and butterflies crawling and flying everywhere.  And look, the butterflies on the backing flannel have loopy trails too.

I was happy that I was able to capture "Live Life Green" and the frog on the back of the Bug Mug Rug.

And just because it's so yummy, here's another shot of the texture in the quilt.

Since I was on a roll, I sewed some more bits and pieces of left over flannel together so I have a backing ready for the next quilt.

And speaking of next quilts.....  Today I kept seeing Tree of Life blocks as I was reading my favourite blogs and my friend Marilyn is making a Tree of Life Quilt, so I decided I need a Tree of Life block too.

It finished at 23".  I think I will trim it down to 20" and make another cushion cover.

Several Productive Days!

From Thursday, when my Dear Jane Group met, until yesterday morning, I have pieced five more Dear Jane blocks, but they deserve their own post.

Yesterday I got out two Valentine's Day themed table runners and decided I also need a Valentine's Day Cushion cover.  You can see  the heart table runner here and the X & O table runner here.  After playing with graph paper and a lot of cutting and sewing (157 pieces to be exact) I ended up with this 19.5" cushion cover which I should be able to get quilted and made into a cushion cover this week.

On the weekend, I was digging through my "kid" prints looking for suitable I-Spy fabrics to make sample blocks for an I Spy Jar quilt our guild is going to make.  I came across 22 disappearing nine patch blocks that were left over from making a baby quilt as well as a few left over scraps.  I decided there was enough fabric to make the minimum size premie quilt for our local hospital.  Last night while I was skype sewing with my friend Marilyn, I got the pieces put together.  It ended up 23.5" x 25.75" and I was able to put the last two blocks together to make a little mug-rug.  I had also pulled out three strips of different bug fabric and decided I could make an I-Spy Jar block.  A full post on the I-Spy Jar blocks is also in the works so this is just a sneak peak.

This morning I got some left over flannel fabric pieced.  It made me happy that these fabrics have bugs and butterflies on them so they go with the top fabric.

I also got the mug rug quilted and fabric for binding picked out.

Isn't the bug mug rug cute!

HRT's (Half-Rectangle Triangles) and Comfort Quilts

At my last Guild meeting, my buddy Marilyn and I gave a demo on how to make Half-Rectangle Triangles based on an HRT tutorial found on the blog "Buttons & Butterflies" by Heide Grohs.  Here is the process using construction paper instead of fabric.  You can make any size rectangle by starting with two rectangles cut 1/2" wider and 1/4" longer than the unfinished size of rectangle you want to end up with.

It was decided we would make light yellow and blue HRT's for our next meeting starting with 5" by 10" rectangles.  Here are the ones I made:

The previous month we were collecting striped 12.5 " unfinished star blocks made in any manner and we were one short, so I decided to make one using HRTs paired as the star legs.  I cut out four pairs of rectangles measuring 4.75" x 3" in order to end of with 4.5" x 2.5" star legs which paired together to make 4.5" squares.

And here is the finished star made with 4.5" squares of fabric.

I had a comfort quilt top which had been put together the last time our guild had a comfort quilt sew day and on Monday, I pieced a backing and got it loaded on my frame and finished quilting loops on it by lunch time.  After lunch, I got the binding on and put it in the washer.  It went together way more quickly than I imagined.  Here's a picture of it all finished.  The blocks are 6.5" unfinished so the quilt is approximately 42" x 60".  I didn't measure it after shrinkage.

And here's a close up to see the backing, binding and the loopy quilting.

Since I had some backing fabric left over, I decided to make another star block.  Plaid fabric is just fabric with stripes going in two directions right?  Double stripes.

Now, to get some more finished tops onto the frame and get them quilted as well!