Winterberry

Last time I promised to share my recent finish for the quilt show. Despite the fact that it's called Wintersweet, I find myself calling it Winterberry. Either way, it's going to be a lovely holiday quilt.

If you read this blog regularly you will know that I shy away from making square quilts, but it was tough to do with this one, given how the design worked out. You can see how I added a few rows to each side and to the bottom to ensure that it was nice and roomy.

I've had a good sized piece of green for the backing that has been waiting for just the right project and this turned out to be it. There is a healthy amount still left so, if I play my cards right, I might be able to have enough for a second quilt. I always think of it as a Laundry Basket fabric, but it isn't. The large, organic print is a beautiful foil to the structured grid of the pattern.

Despite taking several different pics, the true colour of this green is hard to capture, but I do love it.

It works beautifully with the red plaid binding and shows off the Jingle Bells panto nicely too. As usual, Roberta's quilting is perfection.

Maybe I should put it on the bed early so that it helps inspire my Christmas gift planning?....M

Speed Binding For The Quilt Show

In addition to hosting our annual Holly Bazaar, the gals at the church decided that it might be fun to hold a quilt show and afternoon tea this past weekend and I was happy to be able to provide both quilts and baking towards the effort. The church setting was exceptionally beautiful and our visitors thoroughly enjoyed not only it, but the show and the tea.

It was something to behold, with quilts draped over two pews to make it easier for our guests to get a good look at them.

Approximately half of the church was filled with the collection from one man - Mennonite quilts that he has collected over the years. Apparently this is only a portion of his collection.

And his wife shared an expansive collection of her hand-hooked rugs, some of which were her own design. Amazingly, she was fine with folks walking on them.

This is a section from one that really appealed to me; apparently it takes her about 400 hours to make a rug.

This delicate cross stitch quilt looked like an heirloom.

I pulled together eight quilts to share...

and it was fun to see them mixed in with the rest of the show.

I had some last-minute binding to do to get Wintersweet ready for the show. It's been waiting to be bound for a couple of months now and of course I'd left it to the last minute, but I made it! (I'll share more about it next time.)

I baked pecan tassies for the tea...

and in the hall you could tell that they had lots of fun decorating, including these tea-themed centrepieces. The quartet playing throughout the tea was a nice touch.

This was the first time we've undertaken a show like this but from the comments I've received, folks would love to see it done again. 

With friends offering up their quilts to show, I would hope that there would be enough interest in a repeat. It was a wonderful way to spend an otherwise dreary autumn afternoon...M

Knee Deep in Pumpkins

We celebrated Thanksgiving this past weekend so, needless to say, pumpkin pie - a favourite of the Official Cookie Tester's - was on the menu. Pumpkins were also headed to the finish line in a few table runners.

I got the binding made for the Holly Bazaar pumpkin runner and like the way it finished it off.

The same orange and black check was used for the background and worked to make it just a tad more on the Hallowe'enie, if that's a word.

And that lovely little pumpkin panto made for a beautiful seasonal finish.

As much as I like it, I have to say that I think that I like Roberta's more. Speedy little thing that she is, she made up enough blocks for two runners in no time. 

I absolutely love her fabric choices - very scrappy and much more diverse than mine. Much more interesting, I think.

LOVE that large floral!

She chose an orange gingham for her binding and I think it's perfect (a nice finish without fighting with the pumpkins for attention) and the leafy burnt orange/pumpkin print for the backing adds even more interest.

This one has already been shipped to the beautiful lady that does her mom’s hair each week. It sounds like she is a real sweetheart and sends Roberta a picture of either her mom, or the two of them together, each Friday. She has a very natural way with seniors and is very kind, so this Thanksgiving Roberta is thankful for Wendy!...M

I Got A Little Lucky

The gals who run the Holly Bazaar like to browse the craft table before the doors open, which means that the inventory is a little thinner by the time folks come through the gates, so I was thinking that maybe one more table runner wouldn't be a bad thing. Something that would come together quickly and add to the variety. 

Well, I got lucky. While I was digging through my sewing table for something else I came across this bundle of HSTs that I had made last year, including a suggested layout for them. Problem solved.

As I started with the layout I drifted towards simplifying it and just randomly placing HSTs all pointing in the same direction.

The more I played with it, the more I liked it, so Plan A was moved to the side.

It came together nicely and I was just a little giddy finding one lonely HST in this cream holly and berry print. It was like hidden treasure; I pine for more of that fabric. 😏

This red pin dot looked like it would make for a great border...

and then I played with a few binding options, starting with green.

Maybe this red with the large dots? Or maybe darker red? I think I might go with the green but we'll see what it looks like when it's quilted.

I knew that there was also a stack of silver and gold HSTs from a year or two ago hanging around as well, and it didn't take long to find them. I laid them out according to the pattern that I'd found with the first stack and it was looking good, so I kept going.

The ends of the runner are slightly different than the original layout but I managed to figure out something that worked.

The little bit of metallic in these prints gives this one a very different feel to most of the pieces that I've made - very festive. 

Anyway, two more runners for the bazaar ready to be quilted, and with a fairly quick turnaround. Lucky me....M