Sewing with Jacqui

I spent Friday morning at Jacqui's house. I worked on putting some more blocks together for my niece's PJ quilt and I put together a second row of my Carolina Christmas quilt. This one takes a while because of all of the seams to match up. There are lots of star points that I don't want to cut off too. Here I am with my first two rows done. I am loving the way this quilt is coming together. So far, I am uninspired as to what to call this quilt. If you have any ideas, leave a comment. If I use your idea, I will send you a surprise in the mail...

Jacqui worked on quilting her Friendship Braid quilt. She and I each made a Friendship Braid lap quilt for our local hospital chemo ward. My quilt is off at the machine quilters being quilted. I hope to have it back soon so I can get the binding onto it.We are supposed to bring our finished quilts to our next Elgin Piecemakers Quilt Guild meeting later this month. I will take pictures of everyone's quilts at that time and do a blog post about them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian readers! I have lots to be thankful for--my family and my friends are at the top of the list.

QNIC with Karen

Karen and I had a QNIC on Tuesday night this week. I worked on putting the borders on my Friendship Braid quilt. It is ready for quilting and Karen and I took it to the quilting man at the end of the evening. I purchased flannel for the back so it will be cozy for the cancer patient who receives this quilt.

I also made a pillowcase out of some fabric that I had in my stash. The pink and yellow fabrics were in a suitcase full of fabric that I received from my aunt after my grandmother died in January. I am going to make pillowcases for all of the great and great great grandchildren out of Grandma's fabric for Christmas. I will make some pillowcases for the One Million Pillowcase challenge as well and donate them to the Christmas Care hamper program in my city. Most of the fabric in the suitcase is poly/cotton broadcloth--perfect for pillow cases. I added my own border fabric to this pillowcase.
The pink book in the suitcase is a basic quilting course published by the Ontario Provincial government--Ministry of Agriculture and Food-- many years ago. My grandmother made notes on some of the pages. I am not sure if she took a course or if she just used the book for ideas. I should ask one of my aunts to see if they know anything about this.
Karen brought over two quilts that she is making for her nephews. This quilt is all done and ready to put into a gift bag. Her nephew's name is Noah and she found this cute Noah's ark fabric with "Noah" on it for the backing.

Karen put the binding onto the other nephew's quilt at my house. It is an animal I Spy quilt. I think her nephews are very lucky to have an aunt who quilts!
I am working on the final border of my selvage quilt. I will post a picture when it is done. I also have 3 more pillowcases ready to sew as well. I am doing them on my serger.

Christine and I sewed today...

We continue to work on Step 5 of our Carolina Christmas quilts. Mostly, we sewed the units together for the poinsettia star blocks but both of us completed one block so I could take a picture. My block is on the left and Christine's is on the right. As we chain pieced, Christine's daughter cut the sets of 4 apart for us and put them into neat piles. Thanks K! Our homework this time--keep working away on these blocks. I have lots of pressing to do before I can sew the units together.Here are my two blocks for step 5:
I also have been working on my selvage quilt. I have the blocks sewn together and I have moved onto the corner blocks and borders. I also bought some fabric for one of the borders and the binding on the weekend.
I bought some flannel for the back of my Friendship Braid Comfort Quilt on Friday and I want to get it ready to take to the quilters soon too. I hope to have some more time to sew tomorrow. Lots of projects to finish up... I guess I could say I am working on my Ph.D. (projects half done).

Sewing Morning, Noon and Night!

Today was a very quilty day! This morning, I went to Jacqui's house and we worked on our Friendship Braid quilts that we are making for chemo patients at our local hospital. This is the charity project of the Elgin Piecemakers guild to which both of us belong. We trimmed our braids and sewed them together. I cut my border/sashing strips and started sewing them to the braids. Our homework: finish off our quilt tops so that they are ready to be quilted. These quilts are to be done by our meeting in September.This afternoon, I helped a neighbour shorten her window toppers--a very fast and easy job. She doesn't have a sewing machine.
I then thought I would do another couple of blocks for my Liberated Wedding Ring quilt. I soon found myself totally immersed in this activity and I did not stop until I had all of the selvage sections done for the next 4 blocks--that's 16 of the units in the picture below! I have the foundations ready for the last block. I think 9 blocks will be enough for this quilt. I have some ideas for the borders as well. Now, I just have to add the red and yellow triangles to these blocks and sew the units together.
Tonight, Christine and I got together to work on Step 5 of our Carolina Christmas quilts. We decided to do the Fox and Geese Blocks first. Here are some of Christine's blocks:
and here are some of mine.

Our homework: we are to finish up all 52 of these blocks by next week.
Before I head off to bed, I should show you the unusual fruit I got at the market on Saturday. Christine and I had some of this yellow water melon as a snack tonight. It is delicious!

QNIC with Jacqui

Jacqui at Treadle Quilts and I are partners this time around at the Elgin Piecemakers Guild to make a comfort quilt for a cancer patient at our local hospital. We decided to use a jelly roll that I had in my stash and divided it into two colour families. We decided to make two quilts instead of just one. I have wanted to learn how to make a friendship braid quilt since I saw Jacqui's at a quilt show a couple of years ago. Jacqui purchased a green fabric and a burgandy fabric to go with the colour families. Tonight, we got together and cut out the pieces for the braids and started sewing. I am working on the green quilt and Jacqui is working on the burgandy quilt. There will be sashing and a border as well but we will wait to listen to the quilt "speak to us" about what type of fabric we should use for these! Here is a picture of the beginnings of my first two braids:

We will work on our braids again at our next QNIC. The quilts are to be done by our September meeting. For pictures of Jacqui's braids, go to her blog. I am looking forward to our next QNIC!