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

Christmas In July (or Happy Canada Day!)

Yesterday, the gal who cuts my hair shared that she was really excited for today. Initially I thought that it was because it was Canada Day, but that was only part of it - for her it's also Christmas In July. She loves to settle in with her popcorn and have a good cry or two watching her favourite Christmas movies! It has started out to be a very wet day so she's got the perfect weather for it.

I won't be watching Christmas movies but, in patriotic fashion, I did find a few red and white fabrics to play with to bind a Christmas quilt. The last quilt in my current pile of 'things to bind' is Wintersweet (which I keep calling Winterberry...). 

I test drove four different options but surprisingly, I wasn't feelin' it with any of them. Given that there are so many reds in the quilt I thought it would be easy to use just about anything red.

I had hoped that this plaid would work but...meh...

And this gingham is just too bright, but I've just remembered the gingham that I used for the Stars All Round runners - it might suit...

So I had landed on the polka dots.

But, a couple of options had just arrived in the mail that I had forgotten about so I test drove two more. The one in the bottom right is too light...

but I do like this one. 

I'll let it steep for a bit longer before making the final pick. Do you have a fave?

Happy Canada Day everyone!...M

I'm Doing A Happy Dance Too!

It looks like January was a good month to make a flimsie as over the weekend I too finished putting one together. It's Wintersweet, and it's in the same record-setting territory as Anne's flannel beauty Home Quarter. 

I don't know the last time that I would have put a quilt top together in under a month, but I'll take it! As a reminder, the pattern is from Cakestand Quilts and it's free; she also provides an easy-to-follow tutorial. 

There hasn't been any movement on Halo so no design wall for me - laying it out on the floor outside the sewing room was my only option. This is the view from the top of the stairs. I like!

I'm so glad that I included the low volume neutrals with the white - it's given the entire thing a nice soft feel. Crisp and soft all in one.

Just noticed the two green and white polka dot squares sitting side by side. Despite shifting and rotating strips to avoid this it looks like a there are a couple of spots where it happened. Ah well, I was getting dizzy making all the changes so one or two were bound to squeak in there. Just chalking it up to 'scrappy'.

Now it's time to contemplate a backing. I have several in my stash but I'm not certain that they are quite right. There is also a beautiful green botanical tone-on-tone from Laundry Basket Quilts that's been waiting for the perfect quilt so I'll give that a look too; just not sure that I want the backing to be too dark. We'll see what we see. 

In the meantime, I'd better lay it out on a bed to see if it's big enough - I didn't think to measure it.....M

Snow Day Sew Day

If you live in the eastern half of either Canada or the USA, the last day or two has likely been something like ours - LOTS of snow. The huge storm that is rolling through proved to be the perfect excuse to sit tight. Better yet, why not sit at your sewing machine? Suddenly the rows for Wintersweet were piling up just about as quickly as the snow! Just three more to go.

You can see that my design wall is still filled with Halo blocks and pieces so I've been draping the rows over the top of a smaller one in front of it to keep track of them, which is probably a good sign that it's soon time to apply myself to Halo and move it along as well. All those curves make for a much slower go of it compared to the straight runs of four and nine-patch blocks, which has a lot to do with why it's still on the design wall.

I didn't realize until I had most of the white cut for the four-patch blocks that not all of the white was to be white - the pattern shows several low volume prints mixed in to make it even more scrappy. How could I have missed that??? 

It's going to be a lovely, delicate touch. I've stayed to several white-on-white fabrics and the odd pin dot in red and green, and also included this very delicate pink floral. It is really pretty but a much tighter weave than the others, almost a polished cotton. Hopefully it plays well with others when it is all washed.

So my piles of blocks are getting smaller and my strips longer. Guess it will be back to using the 'design floor' when it comes time to laying this out.

Given how hard the snow was coming down at lunch it seemed like the perfect excuse to pull out the snowman placemats and enjoy a hot bowl of soup. Love me a good snow day....M

Getting In My Own Way

The scrappiness of Wintersweet continues to capture my interest but I have to say that in my excitement to get started I've been a little slack on paying attention to even the most basic instructions.

Nine-patch blocks are pretty straightforward, right? Apparently not for me. I started with the red/white blocks which have white/neutral squares on the corners and four red squares. Not paying attention, I did a beautiful job of sewing the exact opposite. A little time with Jack (the ripper) remedied that but I still repeated my folly a few more times. Sheesh.

When I started to play with a few green blocks there was obviously some muscle memory built up because I had it down pat. Problem is, the corners and centres for these blocks should be green! More time with Jack. 

I think I finally have it figured out now but I'll admit to a bit of self-talk to help keep things on track.

And I don't do myself any favours when it comes to scrappy nine-patches. This pattern is designed around strip sets, which means you get several consistent sets of blocks throughout the quilt. I must be a little OCD because if the quilt is to be scrappy then I want to avoid those repeats and really work to having each block different from the next. So much for taking advantage of speed-sewing techniques!

That said, I do a bit of a modified strip set, joining a light and a dark strip and then sewing down a variety of blocks. It's a little slower for sure, but it gives me the mix that I'm looking for and once you get into the groove it moves along quite nicely. All of which is to say that, despite this being a 'quick' quilt designed for strip piecing, by the last step in the process I'm back to working with 2.5" squares instead of strips. Ah well, it's still fun....M

New Year, New Quilt

The tail lights of Santa's sleigh are long in the distance but it seems that I am not ready to say goodbye to red and green quite yet. An innocent scan of a few of my Pins on New Year's Eve day opened the door wide for the quilting squirrels and soon I was off cutting strips for Wintersweet.

It's an Irish Chain pattern from Cakestand Quilts of a few years ago that was originally made up in a wide variety of Fig Tree fabrics, which I love, but which are in short supply in my stash, so I opted to go with what I have and make it really scrappy (surprise, surprise). 

The beauty of scrappy is that the more variety you add in any given colour, the better the outcome, so I set off digging. In addition to cutting from yardage and larger scraps, a little scavenging through drawers and bins revealed a few scraps like the one on the left that were just big enough to give me one or two squares to work with. Love that!

Nicola has kindly provided a free pattern and tutorial so there was really no reason not to dive right in. It relies heavily on a number of strip sets to move things along quickly, and in no time I had several 2.5" strips cut and was off to the races. When I came to the end of my spool it seemed like a good time to call it a wrap for 2021 so I trundled upstairs, wished the Official Cookie Tester 'Happy New Year' and settled in for a long winter's nap. It looks like we'll by lying low again for a while, trying to stay out of the way of the Omicron variant, so I'm looking forward to working with this cheery palette to help pass the time.

I hope that you have a very happy and healthy New Year and that your days are filled with many creative diversions as you explore your quilting passion!....M