Backing It Up

I know that last time I said I'd share the blues & greys that I was hunting for, but we spent Saturday with Jane at the lake and she made great progress on the backing for her Fruit Salad, so that takes priority. And, you'll be happy to know, this time I've got pictures that are focused!

She wanted to piece the backing so we drafted a plan where she inserts a vertical row of large triangles between two larger pieces of backing. After a little hunt through her fabric bins, she found the perfect fabrics - a paisley and a small polka dot.

She's anxious to get the backing done so that she can start quilting it so we set to work and drafted her triangle, and she was off to the races.

By the time we left she had most of the strip finished and I'm certain that it's all together now. It is stunning!

When I wasn't drafting a new version of Danuta's Garden, or doing a little klepto quilting hunting through her stash for light blues, I spent quality time supervising from the hammock; given her progress, I'd say I did a good job. :) ....M

'Bee'-u-tiful Finds

One of our favourite things to do in Niagara-on-the-Lake is to get up and go for a long walk before breakfast (can you say freshly baked croissants?!). The gardens are always so beautifully done and the streetscape some of the loveliest that you will ever see. I also like to take full advantage of the fact that we were near two really wonderful quilt shops (which is code for 'I bought more beautiful fabric'), both of which have 'bee' themed names.

My first stop was in Virgil, at The Modern Bee's new location. This is not the largest quilt shop in the world by any means, but I think it has the best fabric selection that I've seen. They don't buy full fabric lines, but instead select the pieces that work with other fabrics in their shop, and they do a beautiful job of it. I went looking for blues and greys and came away with these gorgeous little goodies. Don't you love those radishes? Thank you Martha Negley!

The next day it was off to The Quilting Bee in Font Hill. This is the shop where I bought my sewing machine last year and it is fantastic. The staff are all so lovely and the selection makes it hard to come away with only a few things. The last time I was there they gave me a free Creative Grid 2 x 6" non-skid ruler, just for showing up, and I like it so much that I bought two new ones - a 12" and a 24". The fact that it's getting hard to see the lines on my current rulers sort of helped that decision.

I also found this great print. Not sure what it will be for yet, but it was on half price, so 8 metres followed me home.

I picked up a few more pieces for Minnie...

and Kaffe Fasset fabrics were 40% off, so I found a few of those that I liked too. It was hard to pick just three (the dots aren't Kaffe).

What I was really looking for, believe it or not, were shades of light blue and grey; instead I came home with all of these gorgeous, saturated colours. I did manage to get some blues and greys too, but will show them to you the next time....M

Road Trip

A spring trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake had been in the works for quite a while and suddenly it was here. Often I will sew in the car but this time I decided that 12 hours in the car was a good chunk of time to get caught up with cutting hexies. No paper piecing, just regular 5/8" hexies.

I had found a new square container that holds a good supply of cut hexies but it was full, so I put it inside another larger container along with lots of 1 1/2" strips (at least twice the amount that you see here), my scissors and pincushion, and we were off. I got lots of cutting done but there's still lots more to do.

And there are two new 4-diamond hexies that now have an outer border attached. It's been a while since I've had a chance to work on Minnie and it was good to get back to it.....M

Three Little Bibs

I got to playing with a few of the scraps from Jean's Broken Dishes baby quilt and ended up making three cute little baby bibs - two are very similar, all blues, and the third is a combination of blues & greens.

Jean came to pick up her quilt yesterday so I was able to surprise her with a little extra to accompany her quilt, and she was delighted with it.

I tried a few methods of putting them together because I wanted more quilting in them. The challenge is that you can see the starts and stops along the edge of the bib with each line of quilting you add. So, for the third one I took a modified quilt-as-you-go approach and quilted the top to the batting before sewing the two pieces together. Then all I had to do was two or three rows of quilting through all layers when it was turned right side out and top stitched the edge. Much better.

The scrappy mix of colours is really sweet so I'd like to make more, maybe with pinks & yellows added in. I've been wanting to make a few items to donate to Madonna House to sell in their gift shop and have been dragging my feet at it, so these might just be the ticket....M