Goals for April…

Oyyy…it was a busy month…some goals were met…(insert happy dance)…some goals were not met (head hanging in shame)! 

Here’s how my month went…

1. Ten wee houses made…bringing the total to 42 wee houses!!

2. Winter Wonderland by Norma Whaley Facebook Sew Along…block four complete!

Did you notice that I forgot to reverse the mittens?…crap! I cut out the yellow mitten first and it was the only piece of yellow in my stash!  I couldn’t let that big piece of yellow Wool go to waste so I made ‘do’ and used it anyway!   Who’s going to notice?  Right?  Shhhh!  This quilt is SEW dang cute! On to the next block!

3.  Clam Shells…two more rows added, for a total of…15!  Done!  Geeze, I thought it would be a lot bigger by now…is this quilt EVER going to end?

4.  The Gift Quilt is ready for quilting….check!!  A little bigger than I thought…but she is done!  I plan to quilt it in May and put the binding on so that it will be ready for the gift wrap!

5. First block to the ‘Where the Cows Come Home’ Sew-A-Long…done!  Sweeter than corn syrup!

6. A UFO got completed…NOPE!  This just didn’t happen…nada…no sir-ree-sir…no way, no how…BUT in all fairness I did complete 27 school house blocks for my daughter’s wedding quilt (see HERE)…enough to make and expand the quilt by half a row.  I completed the 25 blocks then decided to make the quilt another row larger… I got two more houses done and need to stitch 3 more blocks to complete the house section of the quilt…so I am VERY please with this!  So yippee…I am putting my thumb on my nose and waving my fingers at the unfinished UFO…it will have to wait for next month! 

This is what 27 school house blocks look like all stacked up…positive and negatives together!

And now for the Gravy….More orange peels got hand stitched…almost seven completed blocks!  I need to prep more blocks and get them ready for May’s stitching…

And life happens in amongst working on my goals…ie. a neighbourhood baby was born…so if that wasn’t reason to break out some BLUE fabric, I don’t know what was!!…and with a name like Mason, how could I not put it on his new quilt!

I still need to stitch the falling hexies, quilt the top and sew on the binding…but the plan is to gift it next week! I’ll show more pictures later!

All in all…I am rather pleased with my progress…except for that BLASTED UFO!  Oh well, it’s been waiting about three years, so what’s another month…right?!  It’s all good!

Have a thrilling Thursday and Happy Stitching!~P

Where the Cows Come Home…

Come on in!  Renee and I are going to show you our ‘Where The Cows Come Home’ blocks…

Our Sew Along may be small in numbers but we are BIG on having fun!

Block Number ONE is done and it couldn’t have been easier, thanks to the great directions and layout sheet!  It’s called ‘The Milking Parlour’ and it’s part of the ‘Where the Cows Come Home’ Quilt Sew-A-Long!

Here’s Renee’s…I’m loving her bright yellow windows…and her olive green fields!

And here’s mine…much more muted and needing a good pressing…but I’m loving it none the less!

You can see that we both didn’t veer too far from the original barn pattern…why mess with a good thing!

So Renee and I can cross Barn #1 off our list…next Barn raising will be scheduled for May 30th!  If you would like to join us, it’s NEVER too late!  You can get your book and supplies HERE! 

If you are working on this quilt and would like to share your work, then send me a picture of your progress…I would love to show it for you!  Come on, don’t be shy!

Barn #2 is in the middle of the quilt and is called ‘Where the Cows Come Home’!  Stay tuned…MOOOre to come!

Have a wicked Wednesday and Happy Stitching!~P

GIVE AWAY Sighting!!

The team from Folkart and Primitive Blog has been busy making the cutest creations…to GIVE AWAY…to US!!   Stuff like THIS!!

Hurry over and enter to WIN and tell them that Sweet P sent you…one of these pillows has my name on it…:o)

Good luck!!~P

Heritage Happenings…

Lots of yummy goodness being sent your way this morning…compliments of Heritage Quilting and Glynis!  (I forgot to take my camera and Glynis was nice enough to send me these pictures!)  Thanks, Glynis!

First up is this wonderful Shirt Quilt…a tribute to a member’s son!  It’s just brimming with love and is a touching and personal way to keep that family member close…

A close up of the shirting fabric and the wonderful quilting which was done by Hazel! 

The back is as pretty as the front!

This is a huge quilt and here it is almost held up! :o)

Many hands make light work!  Here is a scrap happy quilt getting pinned for quilting!

I LOVED this wee mini quilt…small and perfect in every way!

Just look at those wee leaves…all hand pieced and hand quilted!! 

Two wonderful baby quilts ready for the Charity Basket!

And another gorgeous Charity Quilt made by Betty…she completes at least one quilt every week or two!  This quilter is incredible!

And I loved this whimsical cat quilt…with button eyes and embroidered whiskers!

So sweet…

It wasn’t until I ran my hand over it that I discovered that it was an embellished panel!  I swear it looks like hand applique!  How wonderful is that!

Sew…there you have it!  Another great day at Heritage filled with coffee, chatter, laughter, news, tips and tricks, lovely dainties…and of course quilts and quilting!  Life is good!

Have a terrific Tuesday and Happy Stitching!~P

An Antique Beauty…

After Sandi ( from Shhdesigns Blog) read my post yesterday, she thought she would way in, take the initiative and share pictures of her antique quilt…I’m sure Sandi thought I needed a wee nudge to get me to start this new quilt…SO she sent me pictures of her antique quilt to give me that final SHOVE to start this Dresden Kissing Daisy Quilt…. (for lack of a better name?)

And what a quilt she is!! This is an antique beauty that Sandi found in her travels…if you read Sandi’s blog (and you should!) then you know that she finds and rescues quilts all the time!  This one is breathtaking!  Absolutely magnificent!  I love the cheddar background and the scrap happy fabrics that the quilter used …and then for the icing on the cake, she tied the whole quilt together with the solid turquoise centres…

and matching WIDE turquoise binding!  PERFECT!  The quilter left the quilt in the zigzag shape and bound it with an extra wide binding…2 1/2” on each side…more like a border than a binding and then she hand quilted the whole shebang…she even quilted the binding! 

LOVE*LOVE*LOVE this quilt!!  Yup, this was the quilt that broke this quilter’s back…I immediately rushed out to Staples so that I could photocopy the Paper Piecing pattern… which I downloaded from HERE!

Thanks Sandi, I needed that…I think!! 

NOW what fabrics to use?  Definitely scrappy…but what background?  I love the cheddar but I have NOTHING in my house that is orange…nothing!  I think it’s time to trash the Stash and see what I can pull!!

Have a Sunny Sunday and Happy Stitching!~P

Deja Vu?

Have you ever had a quilt stuck in your brain…?  You love it, it has a ‘Deja Vu’ feeling about it, you KNOW that you have seen it in a magazine or a book?  Maybe in real life?  You know that you might already have the pattern…??

I had all those feelings after Claire sent me this picture…one of many that I showed yesterday.

Slowly I whittled away at my brain…and came up with this…

I saw this quilt at Road to California…very similar!  I loved it…It’s called ‘Vintage Spin’ by Kathy Doughty (Material Obsession author).  I think to make this block you start the block off like a Dresden plate and then cut the Dresden circles into squares.  Kind of a waste of fabric…but these blocks are so pretty…and I don’t own Kathy’s newest book..yet!

I kept looking…I found this in my ‘yet to be filed’ pile of pulled out patterns from old magazine patterns…BINGO!!  Come to mama!

This pattern is bang on!

And it’s a paper pieced pattern!  YIPPEEEEEE!!  I’m in LOVE!!

This pattern is called ‘Catena’ and it can be found in Quilters Newsletter Dec/Jan 2013!  Look no further!

Except when it rains out here on the West Coast of Canada it POURS!!  Because LOOK at what I found tidying up my magazines…after some ‘crazy lady’ messed them up!  (Check out the left hand bottom corner…yup…this pattern is turning up EVERYWHERE!!)

This one is made using templates…ugh! 

I rarely have any satisfying results with THESE…(said with disgust!)

It is pretty though….

But what’s THIS?  (Note to self…always read the fine print!!)

It’s a WEB BONUS to Paper Pieced lovers!!  Did you hear THAT music??  So I went on line and found THIS!  Which means YOU can go there too…

…and download your own pattern to make this wonderful quilt!!  Just go HERE!!  And the good news is, the designer of this quilt is Victoria Findlay Wolfe…fellow blogger over at…15 Minutes of Play!  Hey, do you think if we spend 15 Minutes everyday on this quilt it would end up looking like this…??  It’s worth a try!  Go NOW and download your PP templates…grab some fabric and get cracking!  You know you wanna…:o)

Have a Super Saturday and Happy Quilting!~P

Claire’s Field Trip…

Claire went on a Field Trip this week with a few of her quilting friends…to a Museum in Sidney (a small seaside town just outside of Victoria on Vancouver Island).  Being a retired Kindergarten Teacher, Claire has been on her fair share of field trips and a lot of those trips involved going to museums…But finally Claire went on one that she could REALLY enjoy and appreciate…Sidney had a little mini quilt show in the basement of their old post office (which is now a Museum).  It was hosted by a group of quilters called ‘Loose Threads SEW-ciety’ (got to love their name!)!

Check out what Claire saw on her field trip…magnificent QUILTS!  Some new…like this beauty!  Would you believe that all of these shapes have been machine appliqued onto the background!!

You can make out the wee zigzags on each shape…

Look at this wee scrappy pineapple quilt…see the red middle triangle…it was only 1/4” wide!

Now for some of the older quilts owned by these quilters..they were under glass…

I REALLY want to make one of these!!

And how sweet is this house quilt…LOVE IT!

If you live in the area and would like to attend this quilt show, you can get the information HERE!

Don’t you love this old grocery ‘check-list’!

Now this is what I call a FIELD TRIP…and there was no little Johnny hanging from the quilt rods, no little Robby using a quilt to wipe his runny nose, no pushing, no shoving, no whining at the water fountain…no late bus…but yes, I have to say there was drooling, lots of DROOLING…and I confess that a lot of that drooling came from ME…LOVE that vintage whirly quilt, the clam shell quilt, the house quilt, the apple core…and so on…and so on….  Such scrappy happy goodness! 

Hey, Claire…ain’t retirement grand!  And no that’s not a questions!  It’s a FACT!

Have a FUN Friday and Happy Stitching!~P