Franklin Quilt

As most people know, Denyse Schmidt is one of my favourite designers (if not the favourite). I love so many of her lines and I find that they work great for "man quilts" without resorting to blues and greys.

I started off making this quilt with a male recipient in mind. Sadly situations have changed and now it will be a quilt for sale. (nobody died!)

The pattern is from the book Beyond Neutral by John Q. Adams. I had been wanting this book for a while and luckily one of my friends had it but didn't love it so we did a trade. When I saw this pattern I fell in love.

I did things a little differently, John has you adding corners as they are single blocks and then matching them up with a mate. I wanted to be sure I liked my couplings first and so sewed them together before adding corners.

I finished up the top yesterday and will be getting it longarmed by Sharyn at work who runs Quilting Stitches longarm services. It is far too big for me to maneuver. I just need to decide if I want brown thread or cream... I am leaning toward brown.

I do love the finished result and could easily see doing it again with different fabrics.

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Hi!
Sorry for my long hiatus. I got busy with custom orders, a craft show, and then some ufos. This will be a fairly picture heavy post to get us all caught up and then hopefully I will be back on a more regular basis.
So first some custom orders. This is a queen quilt and shams made by me, and quilted by Sharyn at Quilting Stitches which is run out of Mad About Patchwork.

Then I also had a request for some custom stockings.

Right in the middle of all this I had committed to a craft show, so things were a bit crazy!

I also made a pile of coin purses for Mad About Patchwork.

Then my amazing friend Julie paid for me to take a workshop with Canadian designer Libs Elliott and I loved the quilt so much I finished it that night! The picture is of Libs and me holding it up at guild the next evening. Mind you, this is the top only LOL.

And then this week my friend Julie and I had a basting party and we got 5 quilts basted, 3 of which were mine. I ended up quilting and binding them all this week!

This one is called Polarity and is a quilt pattern by my friend Stacey. You can find the pattern here, and it will also be a class at Mad About Patchwork in the winter. Stacey made such an impactful yet simple design, this was really fun to make.

This one is made from Denyse Schmidt’s Florence line and is backed in flannel. I am wishing this were big enough for a lap quilt and then I would be keeping it!

This last one is made from a layer cake of the line Salt Air… this line is a few years old and I decided I had hoarded it long enough.
All three of those will be listed in my store at the end of the month. I have to take them to guild first to fulfill my UFO list challenge. I am hoping to have another basting party soon and get some more of my many tops finished!
Oh! And I forgot that I had about 12 custom oven mitts orders at the same time lol… a busy beaver for sure!

I hope to be around a bit more often!

Caught My Eye #36

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Only three this week as I couldn’t find others that fell in with the feelings that these three evoke.

Caught My Eye #35

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Some baby quilts

I am normally a planner when it comes to sewing… I plan my fabric choices, I draw a million versions etc. But twice recently I just made a quilt, the colours came to me, I went and grabbed fabrics and just went for it, and to tell you the truth, they are two of my favourite quilts ever.

I adore the spiral quilting in the first one, it gives the quilt amazing drape! These are both small baby quilts, good for the crib, strollers, to be used as play mats, etc. and both are in my store.

Caught My Eye #34

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A wee little rant

I figure what is the point of having a blog if I can’t rant once in awhile LOL!

I am constantly amazed by the number of quilt patterns that say you cannot sell items made from the patterns. Legalities aside, this to me makes no sense.

To buy a handmade quilt costs quite a bit of money. It should cost you at least the price of fabric, and hopefully time. So, if you sew quilts yourself, you more than likely are not going to buy one that someone else made and instead will buy the pattern and make one for yourself.

But if you don’t sew you will have to buy the finished quilt. Which the quilter cannot sell to you because the pattern says so. You can’t buy the pattern yourself because you don’t sew. This just makes for a lot of unhappy people in the end.

Denying the people who buy your pattern the right to sell finished products does not help you sell more patterns. It means that unless someone wants it for themselves or for charity, they aren’t buying your pattern at all.

I have decided that no matter the hype, I will not buy any patterns from people who add this caveat to their products. I have yet to make a quilt that is for me. Most quilts are for me to sell in my tiny little online store, or as gifts. While I could use these patterns as gifts,  most of my gifts are made from patterns I have developed myself or are free tutorials.

I don’t want to start a fight, I just want these pattern writers to think about this point and to consider it seriously. The people who buy your patterns are only going to be selling them to people who will not be buying your patterns. You have nothing to lose.

And now a picture for fun.

Learning is fun!

I wanted to share with you all that Mad About Patchwork is now offering classes covering everything from pouches and clothes, to free motion quilting!

The link to the class schedule is here.

If you look very carefully you will notice that several classes will be taught by me! I hope some of you local people will come and check it all out.

See you there!

Caught My Eye #33

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I don’t know why the above one is so fuzzy when my pin for it is much bigger and clear as day, so click through for sure please.

Baby making (quilt that is)

I love a fast quilt when I am making them for my shop. This time I used a tutorial from A Quilter’s Table called Quarter Cut.

I love that the top only takes nine FQs. I chose mine from the Morning Song line by Elizabeth Olwen.

I didn’t curve the corners simply because I was making my own binding and I like straight cutting it. I often have premade bias binding and so likely will do that next time.

I hope you all enjoyed seeing my works. The quilt is now listed in my shop.

Caught My Eye #32

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Caught My Eye #31

Apologies for missing last week.

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Dear Lizzy House

This is Lizzy's quilt in the background, I am still working on mine.

Today the Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild hosted Lizzy House and her Meadow Quilt workshop. Through the amazing kindness and generosity of anonymous friends I was able to attend.
I will be completely honest in that I had no idea what I was getting into. This was my first workshop and my first real “sew-lebrity” sighting. I spent weeks deciding on and then rejecting fabric choice after fabric choice. I would sit for hours scouring the web for the #meadowquilt hashtags. I changed my ideas even up until the middle of the actual workshop today lol.
I was nervous that I wouldn’t “get” the quilt. That I would get frustrated with my choices. That Lizzy House may not like us all and be cold and distant. Or that she would be a flakey artist type and I wouldn’t be able to relate. Online all you hear is how nice she is, and what a great teacher and motivator, and I always wondered where her detractors were. My answer is that she quite likely does not have any.
Lizzy House is a kind, funny, upfront, quirky, sensitive, beautiful human being. From the very first moment I felt like I had known her for years, she didn’t even have to work at making us feel comfortable, we just were. I am not known as a great people liker, I take time to warm up and I am often wary of new people. So I was especially surprised when I realised at the end of the day how perfect a day it was for me. I ended up in quite a bit of arm pain and developed an awful headache but I still feel it was amazing. Honestly, if you can take her Meadow Quilt workshop, even if you have to travel a bit to get there, do. You will only grow as a person and as a quilter.
So thank you Lizzy House. Thank you for your quilt. Thank you for your teaching. Thank you for your sharing. Thank you for your tears. Thank you for your laughter. You have made a difference in my life that I never knew I would get from a quilt class.
Katy

A Sailor with a difference

I showed you the three Sailor Tops I had made from the Fancy Tiger Crafts pattern. Well, I have now made a dress simply by adding some length to the bottom, and I put some pockets on it for fun!

I used two different double gauze fabrics I bought ages ago from Fabric.com thinking I would make some scarves, and I am glad I still had them! This dress is so comfy and cool, perfect for the warm summer we have been having. I have some rayon that I am hoping to make into another dress as the summer isn’t over yet!

Caught My Eye #30

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