2020 Vision

I'm slipping in one more post before year's end.

I hope everyone had a wonderful, funderful holiday.

I managed to finish one final UFO

before migration began.

This pattern, B & W Quilt, is a free pattern download

from Andover Fabrics.

I enjoyed FMQing this one!

Keeping it simple, after stitching in the ditch, 

I added one of my favorite motifs,

the Greek Key, in coordinating threads.

And, because I didn't want it to be too dense, 

that's all I did!

I love, love, love FMQing the Greek Key.

After several seasons of practicing, 

I have my favorite 'fall back' motifs to select from.

These are the designs I most like to stitch.

They are fun, they are fast, and they are very rewarding.

It's funny how fun for one isn't fun for another!

I have a quilty friend who loves to do loop d-loops,

and she's nailed them!

They are not, however, one of my favorites.

After almost 3 weeks of lovely visits 

with family and friends along the northeast coast,

I finally landed in Texas the week before Christmas.

The adventures have already begun!

Crafty Daughter made fast friends with this llama.

Here, they are sharing their Christmas Wish Lists with each other.

I wish you all a very happy and healthy 2020!

As the year suggests,

let's all approach the new year 

with 2020 vision!

~Karen

Stitch It and Gift It Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Stitch It and Gift It Blog Hop!  

Thank you, Carla at Creatin' in the Sticks 

for hostessing yet another fun blog hop.

Most quilters are compassionate, empathetic, giving people who work hard to create beauty, warmth, and security for others.  They are inspired by the cause, the person, the backstory, the fabric, the future.  Some quilters, like Louise of My Quilt Odyssey, quilt almost entirely for a variety of community groups, and others, like myself, give when they can, or when they are especially moved.  Sew Preeti Quilts is a perfect example of how a Quilter constantly rises to the occasion to make a difference in someone’s life.  She stitches it, she gives it, and then, very eloquently, shares the story.

I seldom keep what I make.  Among my friends, acquaintances, and family, or within my community, there is always someone in need, or with a special occasion to commemorate.  It soothes my soul to reach out by way of my passion to sew.  It generates my enthusiasm and inspires me to cross that finish line when I am thinking of someone in particular with every stitch.

Today's gifties honor special occasions, a cherished friendship and the impending birth of a first born.  I've been diligently working on them to finish them up before I migrate south for the winter. My time is getting short!

Twenty years ago, my daughter graduated from university.  She not only walked away with a degree, but with lasting friendships.  I've been blessed to get to know her friends throughout the years, to witness them becoming successful adults, and to share their joy in establishing their families.

A few posts back, I shared the beginnings of this quilt for Adrienne.  I was excited to be able to use the bonus half square triangles that resulted from constructing Cluck Cluck Sew's hearts to simultaneously piece these Churn Dash blocks by Blossom Heart Quilts.

They shared space on the design wall, and although it was not my original intention, I liked how they looked together so much, I decided to include both blocks into my quilt for Adrienne.

I was not disappointed with the end result!  As a matter of fact, I love it!

And here is a quick glimpse of the backing.  Would you believe that this is the first time I have ever rounded the corners of a quilt?  Finishing up at 54" x 62", it is the perfect size to fold over the back of the couch, and to pull down to snuggle under on a cold winter's evening.  I hope that finally making this quilt means a long overdue trip to Abilene to deliver it in person!

This next quilt only took me a week to put together, but I had already precut the fabrics.  It will be gifted to my only nephew and his sweet wife in celebration of expecting their first baby.  I will be hand delivering it in a very few short weeks as I begin my migration south by first stopping in Maine.

Simple, straight forward sewing for a girl running out of time, and nice big rectangles to showcase a large print, this pattern screamed for me to use the owl fabric bundle that has been sitting on the shelf for the past 5 or 6 years.

I adapted a pattern called Zoo Dwellers by A Bright Corner.  Why, you ask, did I have to adapt such a straight forward design?  Well, as much as I hate to admit this, when I was precutting my fabrics, I didn't pay any attention to the one way designs.  So, instead of a horizontal placement, I had to make mine vertical.  Simple fix.

I added an extra row for the back so I could widen a length of cute fabric that I had on hand.

And I used the serpentine stitch programmed into my Janome to quilt both these quilts to speed up the completion process.

I decided to rename this quilt from Zoo Dwellers to Tree Dwellers, and then got quite a chuckle because my nephew and his blushing bride of 1+ years have just completed building their first home and it's a tree house!  Finishing up at 47" x 58", this baby quilt is large enough to see many years of use.

Thank you for visiting my blog post today.  I think this is the longest post I've ever written in the 10+ years I've been a blogger.  Below is a list of the participating bloggers for the remainder of the hop.  Be sure to visit and show some quilty love!

Tuesday, November 12th

Life in the Scrapatch

Alycia Quilts

Kaholly

Words & Stitches
Quilt’n Party 
Patchwork Breeze
desertskyquilts

Wednesday, November 13th

MooseStashQuilting

Pampered Pettit
Mary Mack Made Mine
The Quilted Snail
Days Filled With Joy
Melva Loves Scraps

Limeleaves

Thursday, November 14th

Beaquilter

RidgeTopQuilts

Cynthia's Creating Ark
Songbird Designs
Farm Quilter
Kathy's Kwilts and More
Bumbleberry Stitches
Quilt Schmilt

Friday, November 15th

Quilted Delights

Seams To Be Sew
Ms P Designs USA
Just Because Quilts
Inquiring Quilter
Susie’s World
Creatin' in the Sticks

Using It Up

Like so many of us,

I am trying to use up the fabrics I have.

When I saw the J/F 2019 issue of Quilty magazine

while going through the checkout at the grocery store,

I was enamored with the cover photo.

I had a basket full of assorted strings

and I love sewing these curved blocks,

so, of course, this issue had to follow me home.

It took very little thought and was lots of fun to make.

Sometimes, it's nice to take an easy route.

(As always, you can click on my pictures to enlarge them.)

"That's No Moon"

designed by Megan Collins

While Megan's quilt is 4 blocks by 4 blocks,

I made mine 3 x 4.  With each block finishing at 18" square,

it was plenty big enough

to snuggle under on the couch

on a cold winter's evening.

Last summer, I had placed an order for batting 

from Connecting Threads,

and, as a last minute thought, 

had added some yardage from their clearance pages.

Why not?  At that point, shipping to Canada was free.

It was absolutely perfect for backing this quilt

and...I had ordered exactly enough.

I don't usually get so lucky!

After the many hours I put into FMQing my last quilt,

I was more than happy to straight line quilt this one,

in one inch increments,

just like the original.

~

Before Dorian devastated our coast,

stripping all the foliage off every plant on the property,

I was enjoying the many visitors to my garden-of-sorts.

Atlantis Fritillary

Sharing the 'table' with a Monarch.

I planted Swamp Milkweeds

to encourage the Monarchs to lay their eggs,

but sadly, the storm stripped the leaves from the plants

before the Monarch instars (baby caterpillars) 

were able to mature.

Maybe next year!

Enjoy your day!

Looks like a quilty day to me!

Tomorrow, I will be traveling to the city of Halifax

to spend a few days with Linda,The Scrapmaster.

Color me excited!

XO,

Karen

Forever and a Day

When Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs

announced her plans to have another mystery quilt along

I attempted a fabric pull,

but I didn't have enough background fabric on hand.

I did, however, have the fabric ready for her
State of Being
quilt,
so I decided I'd work on that instead.

It was lots of fun to make.

Orientation of the half square triangles

kept me on my toes 

as I was sewing the diagonal rows together.

I couldn't wait to start free motion quilting it.

I used dot-to-dot quilting 

in all the gray and green triangles and squares.

Then I filled in the white background with concentric swirls,

pebbles, and straight lines.

My island quilty friend had a whole bolt of a gray print,

so we struck a deal,

(more about that in a future post)

and she gave me enough to back the quilt.

(As always, if you click the picture, you'll get an enlargement.)

I love this quilt.

It's the perfect size, 54" x 60".

I used Kona solids

(I prefer Free Spirit, but they're hard to find)

and Auriful thread.

Now, it's time to make a label.

I'm seriously considering renaming the quilt

to Forever and a Day

because that's how long it took

for me to FMQ it.

*

We had our first frost the night before last.

While this isn't my favorite time of year

(I'm a summertime gal)

I was pretty excited because it means

I can harvest the cranberries

from up in the meadow.

Enjoy your day!

Thanks for popping in.

~Karen

UFO Busting

I am linking up with

Tish's Adventures in Wonderland
and Quilting is More Fun than Housework today,

to celebrate having finally finished a long-in-the-making flimsie

that you are probably sick of seeing! 

I was sick of seeing it, too, languishing in a bin since 2013.

(You can just click on my pictures
to enlarge them!)

(58" x 72")

You'll only have to look at it one more time,

after it's quilted and bound.

That probably won't be until next summer.

I did notice that I'd left off the bottom sashing at picture time,

but that has since been rectified.

~

I just have to show you this perfect specimen

of a Fly Agaric, (Amanita muscaria).

It was about the size of a man's fist.

Here it is, two days later, 

almost completely flattened out.

It's as big around as the cap minus the visor!

They are quite spectacular.

Thanks for stopping by today!

(I'm sad to see September end.)

Karen

  

Scrappy is as Scrappy Does

Well, August certainly went by in a blur.

My scrappy heart did a happy dance when it saw this timely post by Blossom Heart Quilts.  I jumped right up, left my morning cup of coffee half full, and got right to work.

Why was I so excited?  Well, 2 seasons ago, I precut a baggie full of scraps into 3.5” x 6.5” rectangles to bring back to Cape Breton for a specific quilt, but once I put it up on my design wall, I didn’t care much for it, so the rectangles have been sitting in my cabinet all this time.  This summer, I decided to use my collection of grays to make Cluck Cluck Sew’s heart blocks and use them up.

After making only 4, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go this way, either, but the fun part is that these heart blocks generate bonus HSTs and 1.5” scraps.








So, I quickly made the 8 bonus HSTs into units for Alyse's Double Dash.  They’ll only finish up at 6.5”, a size not included in her pattern, but that’s okay.  The block is adorable!  It will make a wonderful doll quilt for A Doll Like Me!




I have decided to continue making the heart blocks and the Double Dash blocks at the same time.  This created a moral dilemma, however, because I don’t need the pattern to make these units.  But after a beautiful day out in the kayak, when I returned home, I went ahead and bought the pattern anyway.  That’s only fair, right?  Or am I going overboard?  What would you do?

I've been working diligently on my leader/ender quilt, but am going to have to table it until I generate more scraps.  Here is a picture of my progress, 2 out of 5 rows sewn together. 

I have row 3 ready to attach as soon as the sashing strip is pieced, and the remaining blocks are constructed.  They just need to be sashed together.  This quilt top, when finally finished, will measure 58" x 74" with no additional border.  Oh, I did sash the outer edges before I put it away.  I guess that  could be considered as the border.

Today, I am linking up to Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  If you follow this link, you can see how other quilters are making use of all their scraps.

With September upon us, my resident birds have flown the coop, so to say, and have been replaced with the random butterflies and dragonflies.  Here's a picture of one of my favorite backyard visitors.

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

(Libella pulchella)

male

Happy Labor Day!

~Karen

A Softer Palette

A softer palette,

which is a little out of the box for me.

I saw this pretty little quilt, designed by Erika Bea,

 in the February 2018 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting,

and thought it would work well with the plethora

of blue fabrics I inherited a few years back.

So, I picked up some very pale yellow background fabric,
which doesn't show well in the pictures,

kitted it up, and brought it back to Cape Breton with me.

I don't have anything suitable for the back right now,

so it will be relegated to the bottom of the pile,

until the perfect backing materializes!

I was able to cut this fabric into strips (2"),
not all wof, but long enough to strip piece the 9 patches,

which was nice for a change.

Usually, I'm building blocks with little pieces.

I'm not really into blue,

but as long as I'm sewing,

I'm happy.

I enjoyed making this simple, straight forward quilt top,
which finishes up at 68" square,

and I look forward to quilting it.
It will be just the right size to ward of the chill
on a cold, winter's evening.

~

Butterflies at the Beach

I recently spent a few beautiful summer days
along the southwest shore of Nova Scotia mainland.
While hiking this one magnificent headland,
I saw more Monarch Butterflies
than I've ever seen before in any one location.

The Monarch is just as beautiful
on the flip side as on the top.

They were so intent on feasting upon this patch of knapweed,
they didn't mind if I got up close and personal
for just a few minutes.

I hope you are having a sewlful week!
I have been having such a good time
visiting your blogs and seeing what you've been working on
or places you've been vacationing.
~karen

Scrap Happy

I completed another scrap quilt 

that I had started in TX.

It didn't really use enough scraps to call it

a scrap buster, measuring in
at 54" x 68".

I'll prepare the label today

and package it off

to surprise a very dear family friend.

This quilt caught my eye on Pinterest one day.

It is was the Snowflake Quilt-Along

on We All Sew

It looked like fun

and I thought it might play well with

assorted scraps.  I'm not disappointed.

I used it to warm up the Janome, after my long absence,

choosing fun, familiar stitching,

 only in the background,

which you can't really tell is different tone-on-tones.

I use Aurifil thread when I FMQ.

~

The Ranger built me a Chickadee house

from a hollowed out log.

We arrived home from grocery shopping Saturday

just in time to see a baby venture out

and fly away.

The hottest day of the year, so far,

I imagine the choice was

fly or bake.

We contented ourselves by setting up on the back deck

in the shade of the house

and waited for the rest of the babies

to fledge.

It was too hot to do much of anything else,

and it was great entertainment,

lasting most of the day.

Temperatures are pretty close to perfect now.

Hope you're having nice weather, too!

XO,

Karen

Disappearing 9-Patch QAL Finish

With summertime activities underway,

it took a little finesse to complete Julie's QAL,

but I did it!

I completed not one, but two Disappearing 9-Patch flimsies!

While digging into a basket of saved scraps,

I found some old leader/ender 6" square nine patches.

I couldn't resist making a quilt for

A Doll Like Me

as my leader/ender.

Thank you, Julie, for a fun, attainable, QAL.

~karen

June OMG? Nada! But.....

Sadly, I did not complete my OMG this month.  You see, Julie, at The Crafty Quilter, is hostessing a Quilt Along using the Disappearing Nine Patch block. I thought this would be one QAL I could keep up with.  While I was foraging around in my fabric cabinet I rediscovered a 1/2 meter bundle of five of Jen Kingwell's Lollies fabrics by Moda.  Last spring, I won them as a door prize at a local quilt show.  I couldn't resist setting aside my OMG to try to catch up with her QAL.  Perhaps it will become my new OMG for July?

But don't let that stop you from visiting Patty over at Elm Street Quilts and seeing all the OMG finishes for June!  There sure is a lot of fabulous eye candy this month!

It really isn't my fault that I didn't have a finish.  June went by way too quickly!  And I'm still waiting for summer to reach Cape Breton.  Every morning, when I step out the door and smell the ocean, it's like winning the lottery.  Now, if Mother Nature could just turn up the temperature a notch or two.......

Unfamiliar with Lollies?  Jen Kingwell cleverly designed fabric in colorful, usable strips on a bolt, as shown by this picture from her Etsy Shop, speaking of eye candy!  The strips were easily cut into 5" squares.

I have made a Disappearing Nine Patch once before, in 2014, as seen in this post.  I increased the size of the squares to 6.5", placing pieced blocks in the diagonal corners of my nine patch with very pleasing results.  For this new quilt, I'm going with a random placement. 

I chose the lap quilt size and need a total of 20 blocks.  

I'm over half way there!

Julie wasn't the only interference I had in completing my OMG.

Constructing Preeti's International Sister's blocks

is like eating potato chips.

I quickly tossed down this pile of 18 sisters

so you could have a little peek.

I've been making one or two every morning.

If your fabrics are precut and waiting,

they whip up quite quickly.

And to warm up on the Janome after so many months away,

I'm beginning with familiar, comfortable, and easy stitching.

I remember telling my elementary school students,

"Start with what you know..."

Good bye to June, hello July!

Why is time is passing so quickly?

Enjoy your upcoming holiday week, USA friends.

Happy Canada Day, CDN friends!

~karen

PS.  Forgive me if I haven't commented on your blog of late.  I am visiting.

But Safari hasn't been playing nicely with Google

and I haven't been able to leave comments very often.

I just read that Google Chrome isn't going to support Adobe anymore.

What's going on out there?

International Sisters

Last winter, I was so delighted when Preeti asked me 

to test drive her African Queen block for her.

It was fun to make, 

quick, and quite simple to sew together. 

And when I didn't have any appropriate fabrics 

in my Tx stash to make more, 

she kindly sent me some of hers.  

(Thank you so much, Preeti.) 

So, I stitched up a few, kitted the rest, 

and brought them back to Canada to finish up during the summer.  

But one thing led to another, 

and I never took them out to work on them.
(You might remember that someone brought me
a bag of scraps and I got lost in them.)

Fast forward one year. 

I am so glad it worked out that way, 

because her African Queen adventure morphed into something bigger.  

If you haven't read about Preeti's International Sisters Blocks, 

do it now!  I'll wait!

Pretty cool, Right?  Not only does Preeti tell a good story, 

but quilters collaborating with quilters, 

even just through chatter, rock big time!  

What a wonderful idea!  I'm all in!
I can't stop making them!

I pulled my blocks out this week

because I needed to generate more neutral scraps 

to finish my scrap green 16-patch star quilt, 

shown in my last post.  

I like it when I can accomplish two things at one time.

In the meantime,

I completed my Sew Together Bag

with plenty of time to slip it into the mail.

Okay, I'll fess up.  There was no deadline.

It is a random, surprise gift for my very special Auntie.

I hope she likes it as much as I like mine.

It's unbelievable how much it will hold.

Crafty Daughter helped me pick out the fabrics.

I'm a lucky mom!

Now, if you just kept reading
and didn't check out Preeti's International Sisters post,
make sure you go there now!
Just click HERE!

We are finally having some sunny, warm weather!
Hope it hangs around.

Enjoy the rest of your week!
Thanks for stopping by for a visit.
~Karen