Chloe's dollhouse quilt - updated pics

Is finally done =) This one took me a while! Crystal designed the layout, and drew a few of the blocks but had some health issues, so me and my pencil got busy. I'm sure the blocks aren't as nice as what Crystal would have created, but yay its done!

Lots of pictures because I'll be sending it off to Chloe, this is for the piecinghope.org project. Chloe is the third child I have made a quilt for, I really hope she likes it.

Of course I still need to bind it, I found some nice striped fabric in pinks, yellow etc. I think it will look cute.

dollhouse progress

I've got the first row of rooms finished and stitched together, I will add more details with the quilting, as always my pictures suck! lol its really not crooked!

I stitched Welcome and Chloes House on the door, but I dont think that shows up in this picture. Today I will work on the sitting room, I've drawn out some pieces, I'm not a very good artist I've discovered! lol but I think it will work.

I'm hoping to get the middle row done today as the bathroom is done, altho I'm still debating if I want to redo that. I didn't think to add stablizer, was the first block I did, and it puckered quite a bit...not sure if I can work it out with the quilting or not, I'll decide once I get the rest of the blocks done.

Dollhouse for Chloe

I'm making another quilt for one of the piecing hope children, this time for a lil girl named Chloe. She likes playing with dolls so I had this idea of making her a dollhouse quilt. Searched the net in vain, other than a couple of very expensive pattern sets.

Crystal offered to design a pattern, yes really! I still can't believe it, but she has and I've been busy working on building a house! =) Crystal will be offering the patterns as a BOM on her blog later at http://quiltedpecan.blogspot.com for anyone that is interested. thank you, thank you Crystal!

So far I have the front door and the bathroom done, next up the living room! =)

Lime green strings

The heartstrings group project for Feb/March is lime green centered string blocks. I actually didn't have any lime green *gasp!* lol I found this fabric at fabricland on the 3.00/meter table, I guess its not super bright lime green, but I thought it was pretty anyway. I bordered each center strip with a 1" stripe that had lime green in it to give it a lil more controlled look and tried to incorporate the same yellow fabric in each block as well.

In my infinite wisdom....because I hate binding sooo much...I thought, hey, I'll do prairie points 'cause yanno I've got this go cutter now and cutting the squares will be super fast. So yup that part was, but ummmm it would have been easier to do the binding lol! especially considering I've never done prairie points EVER, had no clue what I was doing...oh well lol

I quilted it with an all over freehand daisy type flowers, I don't think that shows up in the pics, nor do the pics really represent well the actual colours, but yea, ima get a new camera one of these days! Pretty sure I have enough airmiles to get one, just need to decide what to get out of the selection they have, really, I mean I just want point and click and my pics to actually look like the real thing! is that so much to ask? lol

This one will go to the Womens shelter, working on a stack to take there. I think I will make some totes to take as well, I trialed a tote pattern last week that turned out really nice, and its fairly quick to make, took me a morning or so I think.

hmm I forgot the other stuff in that post lol

Its not looking like anything is going to be corrected re the used Accuquilt GoCutter, guess if I ever do something like that again I won't tell the store I'm coming from Canada! I did let Accuquilt know because I thought they should be aware of the situation with one of their distributors. Its not their fault, and all the said was to call the store manager, which yea, but they aren't interested in doing anything about it.

So...rather than focus on that, after all, I can buy a new mat for like 10.00 and I've enough fabric here to make my own cover, better that I just let it go out of my head and enjoy it! To that end I spent the day yesterday tidying and making a designated spot for it. The desk is a bit low, I may get some wood and try to raise it a bit, which I've been meaning to do with my banquet table I use for cutting for hmm years? lol

Anyway, here's some pics of my sewing cave, I know it prolly still looks messy but its a whole lot better than it was! lol

Jesse's quilt and other stuff

Here's some pics of the quilt for Jesse, as always my photography stinks! lol Its actually blue and white, the top was pieced by Sarah B, she sent it to me a while back and said to finish it and donate it. I'd been saving it for something special and I can't think of anything more special than Jesse. I hope Sarah likes what I did with it. I embroidered all the white areas with everything Jesse likes; soccer, playing drums, bike riding, and he wants to be a pilot someday. His fav colour is blue =)

Piecinghope asks you to name the quilt, took me a while there, I'm not good at that! So I asked my friend Barbara snd within seconds she said "Skies the Limit", perfect!
The label says the name and made with love for Jesse by myself and Sarah.

Not sure if you can see the center embroidery but its a train with engine and caboose, and each car has a letter of Jesse's name spelling out Jesse.

I hope he likes it.

Accuquilt GoCutter - disappointed a lil bit =(

yay! well sort of. Joann Fabrics had a sale starting today, but that meant a 2 hour drive, dealing with the border etc., still, the price was good, and I've been looking at them for a while, none in this area that I could find. Sooo...I called 2 of the ones nearest me earlier in the week, they said to call Saturday and make sure they still had them.
The closest store did not. Ok...the other one did, so I had them put it on hold.

They had none left on the shelf, but had put it away. Got it, a couple of dies and mats, headed home. Had to pay at the border but I knew that, still made it a pretty good deal.

All excited and ready to play...open the box, and the dust cover is filthy dirty and ripped. Made me sad =( but its just a dust cover I can deal with that. Opened the value die only to find the mat was well used and a mark on the die itself. I'm really disappointed. Its just too far to take it back, plus they don't have anymore left, plus I already forked out the duty/taxes at Customs.

I tried it out, it works ok, but it kinda took the joy away if that makes sense. Its clearly been used and a fair bit at that, I don't know if the store used it or it was a return, but it was something I really had to save for and I hadn't expected something I bought at a store to be used.

On a happier note, Jesse's quilt is all finished and in the dryer. I will ship it to piecinghope this week and hopefully it will get to Africa soon. I'll post a pic tomorrow if I can get my camera to play nicely.

I finished a whole bunch of lime green strip blocks for the heartstrings Feb/March project. They are really cute. Will post pics of those too when I have them all together. I only have 8 sewn together so far.

Happy sewing!

Planet Patchwork Mystery

Well I finished the mystery quilt that Diane created, the top anyway.
Its a bit busy, I would have chosen a different background fabric if I'd known what the pattern was going to end up like, still, its different and I think when its all quilted it will be neat. I need to think on how I want to quilt if for a lil while, will probably do it in black tho to try to subdue the background a bit.

Catching up

I finished the silent auction childrens hospital fundraiser quilt, in fact the event is long past! I'm terrible at updating this thing!

here's some pics of the finished quilt:





Yesterday I finished a quilt for Jesse, another lil boy at the same orphanage in Africa as John. I do need to make a label and put a binding on it, then that will be done.

Today I worked on the super bowl mystery quilt, so fun, but I'm a ways from being finished yet. Off to work on it some more =)

On my Design Wall

I'm working on this little baby quilt for the childrens hospital silent auction.
I just need to sew on the top and bottom border and it will be ready for quilting.

Everytime I look at it, it makes me smile. I think the frog is my favorite.

I'm looking forward to quilting this one, should be tons of fun.





I'll post another picture of it when its all quilted and bound, hopefully in the next few weeks, assuming I remember to update my blog lol

homespun blocks for heartstrings

I'm not a fan of homespuns, so when the heartstrings group made this their new project I didnt think I would prolly participate.
But, a friend had given me a bag of fabrics and in it were a few homespuns but they had been cut into squares already. I wasn't able to get a lot of longer length strips from them but made as many blocks as I could.

These are being sent to Sue who will add them to other peoples blocks to make donation quilts.

Bright and Happy

I made this lil wallhanging from a free pattern at All People Quilt.
Part way thru I began to wonder if I'd lost my mind...soooo much applique!! tracing and cutting out all those bits...yikes.

Still, its so bright and cheery I do like it, I just freehand, no plan quilted it and that was fun.

Eight Year Old UFO

yup, really. not only that, all it needed was trimming and binding! but, somehow over that time I stopped liking the quilt. I don't like the colours or all the flowers, so I guess I just really dislike the fabrics, I like the overall pattern and I like the embroidered pansies and butterflies I did way back then, just not the fabric, which heck is the biggest part lol

I quilted this before I had a longarm, its freehand something but I'm not really sure what exactly =)

Anyway, its done, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, I thought about donating it but really I dislike donating anything I myself don't like so I have a feeling this may end up in the trash.

Something different aka not a quilt

I've had the sewing bug lately, making some clothes and this diaper bag from an Amy Butler pattern. I am definitely not a seamstress, so I was really pleased with this patterns directions, very easy that even I was able to do it! I am happy with how it turned out.

There are tons of pockets inside, even for baby bottles, and the change mat fits into the drawstring case which all fits nicely into the bag. There is even a cell phone pocket on the lower part of the handle.

Pretty cool I thought anyway.

More Quilts!

I finished another donation quilt the other day, from some leftover blocks that Sarah B sent me.

This went to the Womens Community Shelter along with 7 others on Wednesday.

Now I'm working on a purple 'thing', lots of scrappy in it but controlled with thin black strips and of course lots of purple.

Picked out some fabrics today out of my stash for a neat diaper bag (Amy Butler pattern), will start on that prolly next week.

I received a lovely email from Alex at piecinghope, they received John's quilt and it will get sent to him soon I think, I hope that he likes it.

String Top

Heres a lil string top that Sue's Mum sent that I quilted and bound the other day.
this one will go to the womens shelter along with 7 others I completed over the last month or so.

not a great pic but your used to that by now, right? lol the blue center fabric is Harry Potter, I think this one is perfect for a lil boy to cuddle under while reading or watching TV.

piecing hope

Here is the quilt I made for John, a lil boy in Africa. I sent this by UPS over a week ago to the central location collecting quilts for the 40 children. Hopefully it made it there ok, the website etc isnt great about communication, but apparently neither am I since its been months since I updated this blog lol

Anyway, some info was given about each child, John likes playing with cars and playing soccer, his fav colour is purple. I tried to incorporate all these things into this quilt I designed for him. The applique patterns are from fatcat patterns, the embroidery designs from emblibrary.com I quilted Caution, Stop, Go into the yellow, red, green borders, freehand cars into the outer black borders, a soccer game in one of the grassy areas (ok my drawing skills suck so my soccer players look almost alien) but E for effort? lol

Trying again...

Well...I see my last post was in August 2009..really?! where the heck did the time go inbetween? heck idk. but I have been quilting...lots and lots!

Heres some pics of the inner peace quilt, these are of the center medallion area.






Getting there!

More Inner Peace

Since my omg I'm in a pissy mood yesterday, fitting to work on my Inner Peace BOM right? =)

Sometimes I question my sanity when I quilt stuff...its like k why must u pick things that take forever and a day? and why must my perfectionism make me never happy with anything I do? blah....will I ever make something that I'm ok with? I remember this friend of mine used to say 'use the 3 foot rule' basically meaning stand back and dont focus on every little mistake or wobble...well yea, but sometimes I think maybe if I rode by 300 feet away on a galloping horse? lol oh well, guess we all have our own private demons.

Anyway..heres some more terrible photography of the inner peace quilting progress.
the borders really are jet black and the other fabrics deep deep rich colours.




Its hot and humid. I love the heat, but not so enraptured with the humidex. Yesterday I tackled weeds in the backyard. I have a seriously amazing crop of them this year, matched only by my lack of interest in all things garden related. However, the neighbours are surely by now sick of my lack of interest in the 4 foot thistles...therefore it is required that I make an attempt at taming them. My tomato plants are the saddest looking things in my garden, the thistles are spectacular tho. If only weeds were an acceptable beautified object, well then I'm sure some home gardening mag would feature my yard! its all a matter of persepctive, right? =)

An economy rant

So the other day I get a notice from Rogers that hey the CRTC is adding a fee for u know Canadian programming...to the tune of 1.5% of my bill. But Rogers is quick to point out that we are just collecting this fee, we make absolutely NO profit on it...umhmm. Bottom line to me is I dont give a rats ass whose profiting from it, my Rogers bill is already like 300 every 2 months, u think I care where this insane increase is going? because I dont. I care that in the roughest economy ever where our unemployment rate is thru the roof, u are charging another 1.5% of my bill, for the lousiest TV lineup possible. 4 mins of program, 8 mins of commercials. and I pay a lot of money for this....I'm so sick of these companies.

Hydro, oh we have to initiate a sewer surcharge cause yanno the sewers all need replacing..but dont worry! its temporary...how many effing years ago was that?! still there and not only that now often times the surcharge is more than my actual water bill. Oh and hey now we charge more in the summer than the winter cause we know darn right well its the time ur using ur a/c and when ull use the most hydro.

Banks. So the government infuses them with money to 'help' them. My money btw. yup the taxpayers money. So when the interest rates go down to jump start the economy I get a letter from my bank. "Since the interest rates are so low and we cant afford to lend money at that rate, we are upping your line of credit interest rate by 1%" wait, what? we had a contract at a set amount of percentage above prime...u cant just change it now?! but oh yes they can, cause in clause 26 of their dumbass contract it says that the bank can change any and all terms of this contract at any time by sending notification by regular mail. Gee, I cant do that now can I? if I lose my job, I cant send them a regular mail notice and say oh btw I lost my job and I need to reduce my interest rate...but they can? with money the taxpayers gave them to reduce interest costs to move the economy....unbelievable.

And is there anything that can be done about these injustices to the Canadian people? nope, just try to find a governing body contact info..ull get bounced from one place to another for days. and in the end, all they will say is 'working as intended'

yup good thing we pay politicians and governing bodies insane salaries while we slug it out working 2 jobs a piece to pay them, cause yanno they can speak French so they gotta be worth the salary, right?

yes its true, I'm pissed off today! lol