Some days everything is just great!

Everything seems to have settled down in the House of Darch & Bones, here is a quick bullet form update:

- Cody is better, his cortisol levels are normal, at the moment, so now he gets ‘poisoned’ twice a week to keep his levels under control. He is back to his normal annoying self, he is a terrier and it is just part of living with a terrier, love him dearly for all that personality but man there are times he can annoy me to no end.

- I can actually DO stuff without pain and not feeling like my heart is going to beat out of my chest! This is not only good for my sanity but that of Bones as well. I am not so snippy, (I wasn’t frustrating with him, frustrated that I needed so much help to do really basic things like get up off the couch, yes I got stuck twice and don’t want to discuss it any further but feel free to tease), anymore.

- I have somehow achieved the miracle of only having the quilting paraphernalia in 3 areas of the house, hoping to have it down to 2 by the end of the weekend but I am not sure if I have enough karma points to pull that off!

- We have the change table area all set up with diapers washed and ready to go, a garden & bug inspired mobile above the change table, all conveniently located beside the toilet.

- All of Ellen’s clothes, bedding and bathing stuff has been washed and put away in her dresser, I have finished 2 quilts for her, have another 2 on the go, and another 3 in the planning stages, she is going to be one warm & padded baby.

- And just to clarify, Bones is not taking figure-skating lessons, I was hoping if I tell outlandish lies about him he would update you all on how he is doing as opposed to me letting you know. In reality Bones DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SKATE!!!! I still don’t know how any Canadian grows up not knowing how to skate, what is even more surprising is that he grew up in Ottawa. Ottawa, home of the longest outdoor skating rink in the world, where every year during Winterlude, (a winter festival on the Rideau Canal, for those who don’t know), there were school trips to go skating along the canal. Sometimes the truth is more outlandish than the lies.

- Bones is doing well, he is really excited. Won’t be running too much this year, injured his Achilles and it has taken a while to recover. His 2 hiking buddies are going through divorces so he figures if he has to listen to them discuss the divorces all the time he is not going to feel too guilty about all the baby talk.

- Bones & I will be missing our friends at the 13th Annual Canada Party, this year with the added bonus of moose meat. It was 7 years ago at that very Canada Party that Bones & I threw caution to the wind and decided to have a wee fling, (we have known each other since I was 16 and he was 20, we worked at the Elgin theatre and were friends with many of the people who worked there but we didn’t really notice each other until I was 27, he crashed my 27th birthday party with his girlfriend at the time. I thought he was truly amazing but I am no man stealing ho and he lived in Edmonton, but the following year, at the Canada Day Party, he was single….). He was living in Edmonton at the time and I was about to end a relationship with someone, so it wasn’t like we thought it would be anything more than a wee fling. We were smitten. A month later we met up in Calgary, had some job interviews, looked for apartments, a month after that we were living in Calgary. A year later married. Needless to say, that Canada Day Party holds a special spot in our hearts, that and we miss our friends too.

Today has been a really great day.

Darch

The honeymoon is over…

…I am not talking about in the marriage, that was over a while ago, we seemed to be firmly entrenched in the it is really too easy to take each other for granted so we try hard not to but it doesn’t always turn out that way phase.

I am talking about the pregnancy. These past couple of weeks I think I have been denying the inevitable, things are not going as smoothly as before.

This pregnancy hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park but it hasn’t been difficult either. I got 18 quilts finished, can you believe it –18. Crazy! I never got really sick, just a bit queasy here and there and had some food aversions. Somehow I managed to weed my garden, plant my pots and it all looks stunning or at least to me. I am a daisy, brown eyed susan and poppy fanatic so if you like those flowers, you too will love my garden. It is so casual and colourful, plus it blooms all season, but I digress…the only thing that has been really difficult has been the headaches or should I say migraines and they have been really bad. All and all though, I’ve had it pretty easy.

Well the tides have changed. I am in pain. A lot of pain. I am alright while sitting or lying down, going between sitting and lying down not so much. Anything in the upright position, really painful and walking has me counting in my head as a distraction from the pain. My walking seems to have caused no end of amusement for others though, at least there is a positive?!?! The pain is all normal, for this pregnancy anyway, she is making her way down and causing quite a commotion while doing so.

The worrisome aspect is my blood pressure. Yesterday it was 140/90, I felt like total crap all day, moody, nauseas, hot/cold sweats, this morning 136/92, not feeling as bad. Had some blood tests run, will find out the results tomorrow. Should I feel the way I did yesterday again I am to head straight to the hospital. If the blood pressure doesn’t come down I will be permanently off work, if it still doesn’t come down they will induce me early. I guess my body is not the hospitable home it once was for my wee pea. My next appointment is on Tuesday.

Now I long for the days where all I had to worry about was whether or not I was going to pee my pants…..it only happened once but man it was really freeing!

Darch

Housekeeping - Quilt Log Issues

Well I tried to split the quilt log into what is compled and what still has to be done. It was a great idea, I thought but blogger is giving me issues in trying to get it all together without 50 billion extra carriage returns in the code. It is driving my nuts!

I will get it sorted out in the next few days, have to get working with Big-Ass Machine now before the Quilt Foreman whips my butt. She is driving me nuts!

Darch

Housekeeping & other news

I added a link to a Quilt Log so you can see the quilts I have completed while trying to achieve my insane goal of 28 quilts by June 11th. If you have been really keeping track that is one more than my goal from last week.

And in other news, Bones has finally seen the baby kick!

Darch

Going to Vancouver with a baby in ma belly

Friday I head off to BC to visit my sister. Together we are ‘The Wild Seesters’, (you have to say the phrase in the worst, cheesy Mexican accent possible). We made famous PukeFest ’93, if you are really lucky maybe I will tell you the story of our sisterly bonding over a bottle of rye, (yes we are classy chicks), but for now I will leave it to your imagination.

To say we have a great time together would be an understatement. We relax, laugh, giggle and try our best not to pee our pants, (which will be a trial for me this visit I am sure). Wish I had some type of cute anecdote to add in here, (that isn’t too embarrassing, I mean our parents are reading and I would hate for them to lose their Angelic impression of us). Together we just make the mundane into a fun adventure.

The quilt you see here is made from fabrics that my sister brought back for me from Central America when she went travelling there a couple of years ago, finally finished it last week. The fabrics, scrap material, leftovers from shirt makers, were so stretchy that I didn’t want to do anything too complicated with it. So I cut it up into various sized squares and put them back together in a planned type of chaos. The extra pieces were placed on the backing. I didn’t do anything too fancy with the quilting, the fabrics are so vibrant on their own that I didn’t want anything to compete with them.

Only 3 more sleeps until the Wild Seesters are together again, Vancouver will never be the same!

Darch

A measure of time

I have waited so long to have a pregnancy to stick around, now it feels so long until I get to meet this wee pea, somewhere along the line I have started measuring time in increments of can’t wait untils.

It started off innocently enough, can’t wait until my period is over, can’t wait until I detect my LH surge, can’t wait until I get my period, (that is if that cycle was a bust), can’t wait until I see the fertility doctor, can’t wait until I start meds, can’t wait until the next ultrasound, how many follicles will there be, eventually my life was defined, not in weeks or days but the next can’t wait until. It wasn’t all conception and fertility related, there were the can’t wait until we go to Ottawa, can’t wait until so and so visits etc.

Each time a can’t wait until passes there is a momentary let down as the build-up to next event begins. Bipolar time management I guess. The thing is when you look back it almost feels like wishing your life away between events.

This month has been filled with great can’t wait untils. My mom came to visit, I went to a quilt retreat, Bones’ sister came down this past weekend from Edmonton, and this weekend I am off to Vancouver to visit my sister. All a lead up to the ultimate Can’t Wait Until, can’t wait until I meet Ellen.

But I can’t help wonder if I am not missing something, a little something called the moment perhaps?

Darch

Quick update on Bones.....

The quilt shown here is Comfy Lap Quilt, it is the first quilt I have made Bones, finished it a few weeks ago. I guess I just think of all of the quilts as ours but apparently he did not so this one is his. I purchased the fabric squares a year ago at a quilt show, they were just small charm squares of the entire fabric line. I put them together and ordered some extra fabrics for the border and a soft brushed cotton plaid for the backing. It is quite subdued for my tastes but Bones likes it and now he has a comfy quilt to keep him warm on these cold April nights, (it is freaking winter here no word of a lie, mid-April with snowfall warnings!).

I do swear that when I set up this little blog Bones said he would post every now and again. He even sounded quite interested in doing so but alas he has remained mum and so now it is up to me to give you a low down on the life of Bones. Just remember this is through the Darch filter so there is no guarantee of accuracy…maybe if I make up outlandish lies he will at least comment?

Bones is doing great, for the most part that is. He is tired most days. Quite frankly dealing with a pregnant lady who has can’t speak properly, has forgotten how to dress, can’t find anything and late evening speaks in a nails-on-the-chalkboard type whine, hasn’t helped. To his friends and family, give him a kind word when you speak or email him next. There seems to be so much support for the pregnant one out there that the partner can sometimes be left in the wings and he is doing a ton to support me as well as keeping the household from falling apart, especially now that The Quilt Factory is in full swing.

He is running and is starting to sign-up for the runs he will participate in this race season. I will join him in a couple where there is a 5k option, my run 10 minutes, walk 1 routine will be replaced by the waddle, wheeze and sit routine. He’ll be participating in his 5th marathon this July, hopefully I can watch him finish as opposed to a friend being there to whiz him off to the hospital to join me.

He is really excited about the baby. He will be an excellent father, and I am not just saying that because I chose to breed with him or trying to score points with the in-laws. It wasn’t until after we were married that I saw him around children. He is definitely a rough and tumble playmate to the neighbour’s children. In fact the older boy, he is 5, occasionally comes over to ‘help’ Steve walk the dogs, not too sure how much help he truly is but they both enjoy it. When I go over to visit I get the ol’, “where’s Steve?”, question, way to make a girl feel welcome!

Bones doesn’t want to be known as Bones anymore on the blog. Instead something like Stan the Man. For those who don’t know him, Bones is the first 5, out of 13, characters of his last name. His first name is not Stan, but he is a man so I guess that relates to him somewhat. Personally I don’t care except that Stan the Man is so much more to type than Bones. But seeing as we don’t have cable, (limited access to sports viewing) and he lives in a quilter’s dream house, I think I should cave to this latest whim of his. What do you think?

Oh ya and he has taken up ice skating to fulfill his life-long dream of Figure Skating!

Darch

Busy, busy busy

Oh my little blog, how I have neglected you so….

This month is a busy one, I thought life was to slow down during pregnancy but mine seems to have hit over-drive. I have so many posts started, they are really profound too, I am doing humanity a disservice by not finishing them they are that profound…..

My mom came out for a nearly a week during Easter. We had a great time. Probably one of the best visits I have ever had with my mom. Unfortunately we have one of those difficult mother-daughter relationships, fortunately we have so many similar interests and pastimes that we can find something to relate to one another about. That and we can both be tenacious buggers, there is no way we could not try when we care about one another so much. She likes to remind me that I will now be getting my just desserts with Ellen. Oh no, what if she is right!?!?!

While she was here we went to get a 3-D ultrasound done. Ellen was once again uncooperative, (giving only more validity to my mom’s theory). I can now see her kicks and movements on my tummy, so far Bones has not been around when she is heavily into soccer practice but I am sure he will see it soon. It is quite freaky and really cool.

In other news I have a new evening job at The Quilt Factory, my boss is a slave-driver let me tell you. She has no concern I am pregnant it is just all about getting those quilts done. My goal is 27 quilts completed by June 11th, so far 7 are fully finished and 2 need to have their bindings finished, will post some new quilt photos soon.

Darch

my little quilting habit

One of my little habits, is cutting up large pieces of fabric and sewing them back together. It is a fun little habit, exciting to see the different fabrics sewn together to make interesting shapes and patterns. If you ask Bones it is a nasty habit of mine, it has taken over our house – literally.

Take this photo, this Big-Ass Machine. That is what I have named her after years of not knowing what to call her. It seems appropriate. She currently resides in what should be a dining room. In fact the living room is smaller than this room so we crowd into a furniture-stuffed room so Big-Ass Machine has room to breath.

Our second bedroom in our little house was supposed to be a sewing/office/guest room. It has the guest bed, the dining room table and the computer in there but, the bed is covered in fabrics that require washing, (I am an old school girl that washes all her cottons before using them, something that isn’t quite needed anymore with the higher end fabrics, unless you are making clothes), the table is covered in piles of little bits of fabrics from various projects that have yet to be sewn together and the computer is in pieces and has yet to be put together since we moved into the house almost 2 years ago. Oh ya, and there are the bookcases that hold my fabric stash, piles of financial paperwork that should be filed and my UnFinished Objects, (projects), UFOs, over 80 of them in total. This will eventually be the babies room. I would have a snazzy photo to show you all but am a little embarrassed at the disastrous state of the room. If I had to stand there and take a photo I may wind up setting my hair on fire and running through the neighbourhood naked, no wants to see that.

But it doesn’t end there. Both of my sewing machines are in the furniture-stuffed living room, one only does straight stitch really fast, the other has the utility stitches that I use to attach labels to the backings of my projects. There is a piece of fibre board I put on the ottoman so I can cut my big pieces of fabrics into little pieces, and there is an ironing board & iron in the front hallway.

Currently there is no quilting stuff, except for the occasional bit of thread or fabric that got stuck to someone’s sock or fur, in the bedroom, the kitchen and the bathroom. Oh wait, there are my big rolls of batting in the bathroom.

Needless to say I have clean this up, and the best way I know how is to complete some UFOs. Here is a photo of one of latest finished projects, it was donated for a Breast Cancer fundraiser that one of Bones’ friends had. It is a crib quilt with Black & Whites with colourful bug fabric thrown in.

This spring we are rebuilding our garage to make a quilt studio.

Now what do I do with all of these beautiful creations? Mostly I hang them on the wall, our personal padded cell. Allows us to get as crazy as we like and saves on the heating bill too!

Darch

The Quilt Log - To Be Completed

Friendship Quilt

A few ago the A Stitch in Time Quilt Guild had a paper bag exchange. You put a few fabrics together in a plain paper bag and bring it to a meeting. All the bags are placed in a pile and each person participating selects a bag. You then make a project of your choosing with the fabrics not knowing who it is for. It was to be completed Christmas 2004 or 2005, can’t remember off-hand. I did show her the partially finished top at that point but really it is time to get this little project completed before I test my quilting friend’s patience too much further.


Hugs ’n’ Kisses

A few years ago I participated in a block exchange with an online quilting group I am part of, Machine Quilting Professionals, we exchanged black & white 9-patches with the black creating the x within the 9-patch, (corners and center). I paired it with a snowball block, adding a splash of pure primary colours in the center of a snowball block every now and again. This type of quilt, alternating 9-patch and snowball blocks is called Xs & Os or Hugs ‘n’ Kisses. Wish I had come up with some really cool name for the quilt but finally settled on a classic.


Jewels of Bali

This quilt is a result of a 2004 Block of the Month program at Along Came Quilting. I quilted the store sample of the quilt and few other of their customers came to get theirs quilted by me as well. But alas I never finished my own. I really like this quilt. That year they also participated in their other Block of the Month, Star Light, Star Bright.


9-Patch Exchange

Another quilt that was created from a 9-Patch exchange with Machine Quilting Professionals. I put together 4 9-patches to make a block and sashed the blocks with neutrals, then added 3 borders. I got rid of a lot of fabrics that I didn’t like to complete this quilt. It is no beauty that is for sure, it will be used as a camping/picnic/in the car type quilt. One that provides a cozy cushion but really I don’t give a hoot what happens to it.



Ellen’s Baby Quilt

Before I knew the sex of the baby I decided the theme for the baby’s room would be black & white with bright bugs thrown in. I thought I would throw in a few flowers here and there for a girl. This is the quilt I came up with for a girl.


Sweet Dreams Quilt

A quilt to hang above the crib.


I Love You This Much Quilt

Another quilt to hang above the crib.


Baby in the Bathtub Quilt

A quilt to hang above the bath tub.


Old Log Cabin

My mom loves old quilts, (it is in my genes to be a true obsessed quilter), and auctions and there is nothing better than rescuing a quilt or quilt top from an auction. And that is exactly how she acquired this little gem. When I got the longarm she gave this top to me to finish. It is a log cabin pattern. The log cabin block is so versatile it is amazing. So many configurations you can do and if you change the width of the logs you can get more oval or circular designs.


Odd Log Cabin

This Odd Log Cabin quilt is an example of the wide variety of quilts you can get from the log cabin block. This was to be my entry within Innovations Fabric Challenge in 2006. I didn’t get it done. What else is new? The challenge fabrics are the pinks, normally I like pink, the bright, in your face neon or fuchsia pink but this dull pink, not for me. I added the brown to tone down the pink a bit. I really like the effect, still not really me but what a lovely quilt to hang on the wall at a rustic cabin.

This is quite a difficult setting because other than the corner triangular pieces it is all Y seams. I was up for the challenge, and this is the result.


Laura’s Tropical Breeze

I made a similar quilt to this through the 2003 Block of the Month Program with Along Came Quilting. My sister saw it and LOVED it so I have been slowly making her one for the past few years. When she comes out in September to visit with her new niece she will finally be able to take it home.


Batik 9-Patch Exchange

This is the last of the 9-patch exchanges that I participated in with Machine Quilting Professionals. We exchanged batik 9-patches and this is the setting I came up with. The sashing is a black batik and the bright gold stars really set off the blocks.


Anniversary Quilt

The first year anniversary gift is cotton. So Bones decided to get me the only logical gift of cotton you could give an obsessed quilter, cotton. Off he went to Along Came Quilting where they helped him pick out some fabrics for me. He gave me pinky, corals that were very different from any of the colours that I have in my stash. On a side-note Linda let him know that when he purchased the fabric but his response was, ‘well then she has to step out of her comfort zone’. A man after my own heart indeed *sigh*. He did force me out of my comfort zone and I came across a pattern for this quilt and I immediately thought of these fabrics! The next Valentine’s Day he got me a card that had a fabric strip on it that kept to the theme of this quilt so I ripped it off the card and it is now on the backing. Thanks babe.

This quilt was made with the Stitch and Flip method. It is a loosey goosey way to piece. Instead of having precisely cut out pieces or strips, you cut varying strip widths and piece at random. It is all stitched onto a muslin piece, the muslin piece is trimmed to the desired size and put together. Each muslin piece has a colour way to it so when you put it all together you get a picture. Anniversary Roses.

Quilt Log - Finished

Love You to Threads

A good friend of ours finally met a woman who lives up to and can live with his rather particular tendencies and they were getting married. We were thrilled so I HAD to make a quilt for them and like the good little quilter that I am, left it to the last minute. It wasn’t going to get done and I had the perfect Tie-Me-Over-Until-I-Get-The-Real-Thing gift.

We were checking out a garage sale when we say this beautiful statue. It was a 70s style statue depicting a naked man & woman in a rather intimate embrace. It was that browny, gold 70s hue beautifully shaded for drama. And it was only 5 bucks! It was a bit bulky but who wants a thing of such beauty small. I wanted to give it to them with complete sincerity, thinking they would be so polite to us after opening it, afterwards trying to figure out how to get us committed for psychotically bad taste. Two weeks later they would receive the quilt, have a good laugh and not be so embarrassed that we are friends. Bones didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to embarrass our friend, I thought it would be funny as hell, guess he now knows who his REAL friend is! As much as I am disappointed that we didn’t play that little joke on them, it was for the best. This August they will have been married for 2 years, and the quilt will be finished by the end of April. Two weeks, two years, same diff.

There is no greater gift to me than loving a quilt that I have given to threads. The quilts I have been given have been backdrops to my life, they are reminders of the quilter, what they’ve meant to me, like the one my Grandma gave me, it is her way to still give me a hug even though she isn’t around anymore. I also think it is good to love your partner in the same way, so this quilt was named Love You to Threads.

Summertime Honey Bees

I was the activities director for Patch-Wurx Quilt Guild a few years ago and received this book about group projects. In it was a pattern for this fun quilt, well it looks fun, it was a lot of work to complete it. Those small honey bees took awhile, each one was paper pieced and the head was hand appliquéd. I do love the quilt so all the work was worth it. My great-grandfather had a honey bee farm and used to give us buckets of honey when we went to visit him. We always had honey. When I finished this quilt top I thought of him and now every time I look at it I think of him. It is my own little ode to Great-Grandpa Burton and his honey bees.

Garden Trellis

This is the quilt that Linda from Along Came Quilting saved me from a real disaster. See where the green trellis is, well I wanted that to be bright pink. Somehow she convinced me not to go in that direction but use green instead. Am I ever thankful! That would have be an awful sight, a true ode to Pepto Bismol. Still don’t really like the quilt but it is done and added to my collection.

take me down to....FUNKY TOWN

Patch-Wurx Quilt Guild had a block exchange of bright houses with a black and white background and a black border. It was a great idea but really disappointing. Some of the blocks I received were definitely NOT brights, there were holes in the seams and one block even had an area were there was a selvage edge showing. Brights can be seen differently by different people so that is excusable, the rest is completely not. I may sound like a persnickety quilter here but really there are some rules in quilting you just don’t break, using selvage edges and not completing a seam are right up there. I took apart a couple of blocks and put them back together properly. The corner and center house on this quilt are mine, the other 4 are ones I received from others. There are 4 other houses that I have stashed away, was thinking of using different fabrics for the sashing, stars and borders with it to use as a colour theory aid when I am teaching.

In the end I like the quilt, I don’t LOVE it and I should because it is right up my alley being black & whites with brights but alas that is the risk when participating in block exchanges, which I still do all the time because I have found the positive exchanges have far out weighed the odd negative experience.

This quilt will be hanging in my stairwell. Believe it or not there are few bits of wall space left!


Fuschia Daisies Baby Quilt

This quilt idea came to me, subtle fabrics for a background with wild bright, raggedy, raw edge appliqué stuffed with wool images. Of course fuchsia daisies would be my first way to go. I bought the fabrics, added some from my stash and began 2 quilt tops, got them both completed. Then I found out that Eli had a sister and so I completed the first quilt for her, thinking at the time that I would save the second for my little girl if I would ever be so lucky to have one. Fast forward a year and I have designed a completely different quilt for Ellen. Good friends of ours are having a baby girl, they are due in May so I found the top and finished it up for them.


Ellen’s Raggedy Shaggedy Quilt

This is a rag quilt, never really thought of making a rag quilt. That is until I had all these leftover flannels bought for a backing but weren’t used. And of course I had to buy some additional fabrics for the back of this Quilt! These types of quilts are so easy to put together and are a great way to get rid of scrap batting. For this quilt I cut out 5” squares, one for the top, one for the back, a 4” piece of batting that is placed between the top and back. Stitch a line diagonally from corner to corner to create an X. Make 81 of these, line them up in a 9x9 grid, sew the blocks together to make the rows, using a .5” seam allowance, back to back so the seams are on the top. Sew the rows together butting up the seams. One the top is complete take a pair of scissors and make a cut along the seams every .5” or so, make sure not to cut through the sewn line. After that, wash the quilt so that the flannel frays and creates the raggedy look. This quilt has an Around the World pattern on the front and an X on the back. I love it!

This quilt will be the one I lie on floor so Ellen can play. Thought the Raggedy edges would be some added textural interest for her.

A Sweet Hug

Along Came Quilting has a Stash-Busters program where every month they have a free pattern you can receive, then you make the quilt, it can be any size, table runner, crib straight on through to a king. You show the quilt top, doesn’t have to be quilted, to the shop by mid-September your name gets entered into a draw for a $100.00 gift certificate to the store. This was April’s stash buster pattern, at first glance I didn’t think anything of their sample they had hanging, the second time I saw it I thought of all the florals I own and immediately thought this would be a cute quilt for Ellen.

The top was made from fabrics entirely from my stash, however the shop made their money on the backing! I have a tendency to use busy flannel fabric on the backings. I had nothing in my stash for this quilt. Before the quilt was completed I bought some bright floral like flannels that I was going to piece into a backing. Once the quilt was finished, the backing fabrics bought didn’t go so well, back to the shop and bought some more flannels. That is ok though, I had a raggedy idea of what to do with the flannels that weren’t used!


Central American Travels
My Wild Seester brought back scrap fabrics used to make shirts from her travels in Central America. I loved the fabric, the vibrant colours, the graphic nature of the lines, it was so appealing! They are woven fabrics so their really stretchy and I wanted the fabrics themselves to be the show-case so I designed a simple block pattern. The leftover pieces were added to the backing. This quilt hangs in my front porch. I am so pleased with how it turned out, square and lays flat.

Eli’s Quilt

Poor Eli! This quilt was meant to be his baby quilt but now he is 2 and a half and about to receive it. Originally it was just the inside portion, I added the green and additional black border to make a toddler sized quilt.

For those of you who don’t know many obsessed quilters, there is a difficulty in getting quilts done on time for gifts. You have to have patience with us. There are some organized quilters who get their quilted gifts done on time, between you and me, those quilters are weird. We have been waiting for our wedding quilt for 6 years on September 1st. Although I like to tease my mom about it, I HAVE to give her my patience or else I can’t expect any back from ALL of the people who are awaiting wedding, baby-now-toddler or other promised quilts.

Back to Eli’s Quilt, I have always loved the pattern Bugs in Jars and it seems rather fitting for a baby boy. I have been collecting bug fabric for a long time now and used some of the brighter fabrics for this quilt. The black background is used to give an extra oomph to the brights. I chose the green fabric for the small border and the bright multicoloured quilting thread for the out black border to lighten up the quilt. Around the jars I used kept to black thread so there wouldn’t be anything competing with the jars themselves. The backing is a flannel fabric filled with zoo animals. Hope you like it Eli!

Coffee Cups

The Patch-Wurx Quilt Guild has a weekend retreat into Saskatchewan every July. At this retreat 3 years ago, the quilt fairy came along to give us a small project to do. This was the project I got, 4 coffee cups. I received the instructions and the fabrics for the 4 coffee cup blocks. The sashing and borders all came from my stash. For quilting, I used different texture techniques behind the coffee cups.


Comfy Cozy Lap Quilt

Found a package of charm squares of a whole fabric line at a quilt show in Carbon, Alberta. Not sure why they appealed to me as the colours are quite dull and I am definitely more into the brights but they did and it was a good thing too. I pieced together the squares and ordered the border fabrics online. Then I found out that my husband didn’t feel like any of the quilts were his so this was finished specifically for him and it goes so well with his chair. Originally I had a floral design for the quilting but if this was to be my husband’s quilt a more masculine design was chosen, an all-over fern pattern for the center squares, and a fern vine within the border. It sits on Bones’ chair.

Reptilian Mystery

While living in Ottawa I frequented a shop called Maple Tree Quilts, unfortunately it isn’t around anymore but it was with that shop that I attended a mystery evening where this quilt top where started. A mystery quilt is one where you don’t receive a full set of instructions, after each step of the piecing process you get the next step. Only on the final step to you get to see what the quilt will look like. Found the green fabric in the small border and binding after moving to Calgary and finally finished it last month. I am not particularly fond of this quilt but it has started to grow on me. This quilt is hanging on my quilt ladder.

Midnight Daisies

This quilt was started 4 years ago after a black & white fabric exchange with Patch-Wurx Quilt Guild. I love black & white quilts with splashes of pure colour to create some fun and drama within the quilt. The graphic nature of the squares is offset by the quilting, there are daisies in the squares and swirls in the border and offset blocks. I used leftover fabrics from the top for the backing. It is now hanging at the top of the stairs on the second floor.

Butterflies oh my

Made this quilt in a class at Along Came Quilting, (love this shop, they have always been really friendly and the owner, Linda, has my back when it comes colour, see Garden Trellis Listing for the full story), about 2 years ago, taught by Joanne. The technique is called Stack & Whack. Cut out a few butterflies from the fabric in the pinwheels and border, stuffed them with wool and appliqué them on the top. Not too sure how I feel about this quilt at this point. It is hanging in my Big-Ass Machine room at the moment.

Donation Quilt

This quilt was donated to a Breast Cancer Fundraiser. It is a small crib quilt with black & white fabrics with colourful bug fabric thrown in. It is quilted with an all-over pattern, loops and bugs. Wish I had a better photo, one without some of the border cut-off but Bones took this before he whisked it off to the silent auction, I was asleep, a needed pregnancy induced nap.