Saturday, January 24, 2015

Celebrating with Blue

While it seems that I have done nothing but work with blue at a frantic pace over this past week, there was also much to celebrate.

1. First I must say that I am very fortunate to have the time to quilt and a good job that supports my life style

2. that I have a fabulous family that I get to hang out with. Like on Saturday when Odessa was in town for a swim meet. Little swimmer is only six and looks so tiny in the McEwan U pool. What a little athlete she is...wow

3. that I did finish my slab quilt (well to flimsy stage) this week with the help of my very good friends Kim Caskey who drafted out a pattern on the whiteboard at work and Trish Krynowski who climbed up on the chairs to pin in the first row so we could get the blocks up on the wall. This is the room at the hospital that my Wednesday lunch time quilt group meets in...every Wednesday.



4. that I got the binding on "My Sisters the Caribou" wall hanging. Designed by my sister Connie, distant hills and foreground appliqued by my sister Marg MacKinnon and then quilted by moi...the baby sister. This quilt is one for me to treasure. I have an idea to add a few crystals on the far shore line.

5. that I finished another selvedge rug. This one will be for Tanea. This is her little dog Mr. JR trying it out for her.

6. while still in the vein of working with blue in hopes of getting trough the stack, I made a couple more blocks for my ''Farm Girl at Heart" quilt. Northern Lights was simple enough, but that Four Winds, it was a little complicated so I HAD to follow the fabric map.



Four Winds

Northern Lights

7. that on Wednesday night was the first guild meeting of 2015 and that I get to see so many of my good quilting friends after the Christmas break. I really don't know what I would do if it were not for the guild and all of the very good and positive relationships I have formed there. Today was the CPR (Community Projects Retreat) where 50 quilters got together and all day we worked on making quilts for our charity this year, the Be Brave Ranch for children that have been the victims of sexual abuse. There were pictures taken at the end of the day and I did not get pictures of the group, I do have one of the one I was sewing the binding on (and somehow they are no longer on my camera, but are on my facebook page)

All that and so much more to be thankful for and to celebrate this life with, and I still have a LOT of blue scraps. To see what others are doing to celebrate with the colour blue, head over to socrappy.

love and warm hugs
Kathy



Saturday, January 17, 2015

It's a 16 Patch Throwdown.

I have had so much fun this week. Simple things...take a pile of blue scraps and divide it up into blue and 'not really blue". From these I have made more slabs, 17 in total. I will need 36 slabs to make a decent sized quilt for one of my little boys.


and more 16 patch/Sawtooth blocks.



I have also used the scraps from cleaning up the table after my Grand Illusion finish and have 'sewed-ahead'. Will show those blocks when the time and colours are right. But they are finished blocks in the bin and ready for their great reveal when that month comes.



I have a cutting plan for the alternate blocks with the Sawtooth Stars and have started to cache my 2.5" colour squares into the RSC15 bin.

It doesn't matter how many times I count my "Farm Girl At Heart" Blocks I come up with a different number. 1, 2, skip a few, 3, 4.... Ah well, how about sewing up a few more with some blue scraps. I started the one on the left with 1 3/4" squares...nope...ended up with a 7" unfinished block. Okay do it again with 1 1/2" squares...nope, this one is a perfect 5 1/2" square. When really all I want is a 6 1/2" unfinished square. These two will go into the orphan block bag!! Can anyone out there provide the math?

Next up for the Grand Illusion is to have it quilted in time for Christmas gift presentation 2015, until then it can go on the shelf for a few months.
See what else is happening with the colour Blue at SoScrappy.
Happiest in the studio
Love and Hugs
Kathy

Saturday, January 10, 2015

I See Slabs of Blue

Opening a scrap bin is a bit like opening a present. Peeling back the layers to see what shall be revealed. That is what it has felt like for me this week and I have taken a good hard look at my scraps, some that were gifted by Wanda.

First off I made a couple of wonderful 16 patch, only put the Sawtooth Star around one so far. And I made the card trick, the tricky part was it gobbled up my points on one side!

I have the centre of my Grand Illusions quilt done and will continue on with the borders this weekend. Looking for a finish before I go back to work on Monday.

Also in the bag of blues were a lot of strips, in varying shades of blue: torquoise, baby blues, and dark blues. With these I created Slab Blocks, so named by Cheryl Arkison of Calgary and co-author of Sunday Morning Quilts. She advises us to use up the strips to make a 12 inch monochromatic block, with one slice of white. However, since I was on a roll and since I have a 15 inch square ruler...that is what mine have grown to be.

















As I press and trim up and get close to the 15 inch size, I mark with a pin the side that still requires an additions...gets a bit confusing as they start to all come to the magic size, and this helps eliminate having to un-sew a side.

Also while I am going through the stacks, shelves and bags I am trimming off selvedges, because I love to crochet scatter rugs. Durable, colourful and keeping one more thing out of the landfill.


To stay caught up on other RSC15 Blue Scrappiness click here.
Love and hugs
Kathy

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Blue is the Colour

Blue..just "Blue"

is the colour of month for January over at SoScrappy and the first colour of RSC15.

When I first pulled the blue that I used for the centre it looked "blue" in the early morning light.
My first measure and to trim up the dog ears is to place the bias square on that 45 degree angle and then trim from there.


Back to "Blue"...However it is now past noon and it is indeed a darker/more purple shade of "blue" than the "blue" that I used for the Ohio Star Points. Oh well, I have the whole month to get my act together and find the right "blues" in the scrap bin. You can see what others choices (correct choices) some others have made over at RSC15.

 love and hugs
Kathy




Friday, January 2, 2015

Coming together

I am working away on assembling the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt Blocks (8...count'em with 17 to go). To echo what many have said, if you had showed me this pattern ahead of time, I would have said...ummm no thanks. But breaking it down to the 5 steps (sometimes quite involved) this quilt got done. And it is full of wonderful colours that one of my beautiful granddaughters is going to just love.
Also over my Christmas break I participated in a 4 day mystery class at LQS Earthly Goods in Edmonton. I chose a quiet palette of yellows and wonderful array of grey with a dash of heavenly pinks.  I don't have a full on shot of the whole quilt (yet), but here are some of the parts and pieces. It has been agreed by all that have seen it that it is a beauty.

You will note that there I am drawing lines on the back of the 3 3/8" squares. This is so counter-productive to the using of the efficient Easy Angle Ruler it was almost painful. If I ever did make this quilt again, that is one of the things I would definitely change. But because we had to do all of our cutting ahead of time, I was obliged to play nice in the sandbox with all others in the class.






I look forward to this quilt being finished and presented to my daughter Cynthia. I love how the pink in some of the fabrics just warm up the whole palette. I made this quilt to be two rows larger than was called for and I am so glad that I did.

I have chosen a brushed dark grey for the backing and will be dropping all that off for my LAQ Kim Caskey to work her magic on it.

Wishing you all good health, full bobbins and prosperity in the coming year.

Love and Hugs...Kathy