A Santa for Ming!

The last of the 4 quilts commissioned for our daughter-in-law's mother was the most fun for me. Other than a request for a Christmas wall hanging, there were no guidelines or preferences.

We started with a panel and coordinating fabrics cutting up the tiles into blocks then adding sashing and borders. It helps to have someone well-accustomed to designing quilts from panels working in the shop. Thank you both Hollie and Marie!

Choosing the right thread is always fun... here you see the choices lined up on the quilt top and the bolt of fabric used for the backing. Since there was so much color on the front, I decided to base my choice on the backing fabric. 

I love the pantograph called Starflower by Jodi Beamish for Clothwerx; it looks like a snowflake. Because of that, and the fact that there are silver snowflakes on the blue background, I chose FilTec's Glide in Graphite. It's the one on the left...

There's not that much difference between these threads. It was a toss up... Tar Heel was another great color and would have been lovely too!

It quilted up beautifully... since this was going to be a wall hanging, I used 100% cotton batting.

Graphite was the perfect color to match the snowflake shapes.

Did I hear Ming say this quilt may not make it to Indonesia?? Ming LOVES Christmas... she's all ready for 2015!!! You heard/read that right... and I can see this quilt hanging on the wall behind her during the holidays!

I loved making this top! I too love anything Christmas especially quilts! Come by the shop and you can see my Christmas quilts!

Wish we had had this snow before 2014 holiday season!! Perhaps it would be all melted by now!! Don't we live in an amazingly beautiful country!!

Toodles,

Lorette

Hollie's threesome!

Christmas ORNAMENTS update....

Before I launch the next session of Lolah's friends, I want to tell everyone that there are still a few ornaments left to purchase... hurry... go have a look and make your donation today. You can call me to reserve yours or email me your request! I'll set it aside for you! PLEASE!!

On with the show...

I first met Hollie in the summer of 2013 at the Lupin Quilt Fair & Sale. I purchased 7 quilt tops and several were Hollie's. As the show was drawing to a close, I went to pick up my purchases; Hollie came up to me and introduced herself. I love her work, she's an expert piecer and she has a great sense of color. We seem to like the same fabrics/colors/scrappy look.

If you've been to the shop in the last few months, especially if there was someone on Lolah, you might have met Hollie. She is a local crafter who grew up in the area; she's very productive and sells her crafts at many local shows and at the craft shop in her village. 

Hollie is a dedicated hand quilter. I remember the first time she came to visit the shop and she looked at Lolah with skepticism. Not her thing! As she worked with those who came to quilt on Lolah, she became anxious to try her hand at it. Soon she was so excited to try Lolah that she even dreamed about what and how she would quilt.

She came armed with 3 lap-sized quilts... not shy at all about the process! Her first quilt is called: To Ryan; she chose wool batting and FilTec's Citron Yellow Glide Thread, a perfect green color thread that seems to glow in black lighting. 

We turned the overhead lights off, turned on Lolah's black light. She quilted this quilt in no time at all. 

Sweet... Hollie is looking for a black light for Ryan's room! How cool would that be for a little boy to sleep under a glowing blanket?

The backing is flannel.

This quilt was done by 10:30am.

What a lucky little boy!

Wasting no time, we loaded quilt no 2 and then the shop got busy. I don't have pictures of Hollie quilting on this one but we have the finish. 

Quilt no 2 is a gift for her mother-in-law for Christmas. This one also has a wool batt and it was quilted with FilTec's Mango Glide thread. 

Beautiful birds on this fabric... all free-motion quilting. Did I tell you that Hollie prefers free-motion to pantographs? She has tried her hand at the latter and she doesn't care for it. 

The backing for quilt no 2 is this gorgeous Christmas fabric... I spot a butterfly... the thread looks gold on the backing! Very good choice Hollie.

Her two quilts...

By the time she finished the second quilt, it was 11:30 am and lunch time. Customers were still in the shop and after they left, we loaded top no 3. This is a Santa panel to which she added a series of borders pulling fabrics from her extensive stash to coordinate with the colors in the panel... very clever. I recognize some, drool over others. 

Hollie brought this panel to the shop one day to find the right fabric for the outer border. This tree fabric was perfect. That day, I thought the panel looked familiar... I reached on one of the shelves under Lolah and took out my Santa panel... exactly the same! No wonder I like her fabrics! 

We turned out the lights again... wool batting made these quilts so soft... this time she used FilTec's Graphite Glide... the color name sounds grey but it looks blue on this quilt.

I took the following picture to record her start time... 

Hollie was anxious to try some ruler work... as a hand quilter with years of experience, she has developed a sense of how she will quilt the top she's working on. That is a big help when it comes to working on a longarm. Here she's quilting it the same as what she intended to do by hand. Only it took her less than 2 hrs instead of a week.

There was a lot of rolling back and forth to work around the quilt which is much easier to accomplish with a helper.

Hollie went looking in her stash and found this plaid for the backing. She's made it a point to use up some of her stash and made a pledge to refrain from purchasing ANY fabric in 2015!! Now I couldn't do that!! 

Well done Hollie! Three quilts completed each taking less than 2 hours. 

All the time she was quilting, she was dreaming of her next session... stay tuned for her second visit! Didn't I tell you she was productive? I wasn't joking!

Toodles,

Lorette

Ushering in 2014... but first...

I have some unfinished business! I promised pictures of secret and perhaps not so secret projects. 

I come from a family of 5 girls of which I am no 4; we lost our oldest sister January 2013... this was our first Christmas without her and it'll soon be the first anniversary of her death. I made sure to put her last gifts to us in our tree this year in her honor! She so loved to decorate for the holidays!

You've seen the moose quilt without the binding! It went to my youngest sister. This project spent many years as a UFO but I'm so pleased to have it done and delivered! It hangs on her wall today! 

Another not so secret project was this table runner which went to sister no 3. They painted their kitchen and living room walls in grey and when I saw this kit, I knew who needed to have this one! It graced her holiday table this Christmas season.

The next table runner went to sister no 2 who also loves to decorate. I made it extra special using fabric from one of our father's plaid shirts for the hat brim. You may recognise the fabric with printed words as leftover from the Paws for Santa II quilt. This one held a prominent position on her holiday dining table.

December 28th was a milestone for someone we held dear: my mother-in-law's birthday. She would have been 96 yrs old. She too passed away this year and we all miss her dearly. She was a kind and gentle woman with a big heart who never said anything bad about anyone, saw good in everyone, was devoted to her family and community with her whole heart, and who lived an exemplary spiritual and Christian life. She was a devoted wife, mother to 5 children and grand mother to 14, great grandmother to 7. 

This was our first Christmas without our matriarch! We miss you Mum.

With the sale of the house, and the holidays over, we are now in packing overdrive. Christmas has been dismantled and stored a bit more carefully than usual. Room by room, we are clearing the rest of the shelves and cabinets. We've gotten better at filling the donation boxes although not much is left to donate except for large furniture pieces. 

Lolah has an appointment prior to the movers' arrival... she gets special attention from the local Gammill technician who delivered her to my studio. Stay tuned for the process of preparing her for the move.

As we usher in a new year, we're filled with anticipation and energy to embrace 2014 as a great year for new beginnings. I hope you and yours enjoy a wonderful 2014 in good health, happiness and with many fun projects in the works.

Thank you for being part of my first year of blogging! 

Toodles!

Lorette

BINDINGS... Hand or Machine applied?

Do you finish your bindings by hand or by machine after applying them to the front?  I've never had good luck stitching them down by machine! Perhaps due to technique? Perhaps it's because I find it relaxing to make the last stitches by hand... it gives me time to reflect on the process of this particular quilt... time to rejoice in its completion!

I had to shop for fabric for the Rotaplast quilt bindings! I also needed black fabric to bind Smokey River!

These bindings will be my evening work this week. That Smokey River is a HEAVY & LARGE quilt! I'll need to rest it on a table while I work.

While at the store (Candy's Quiltworks) looking for suitable fabric for the bindings, I learned there was a sale on Christmas, Fall and Halloween fabrics! I've been looking for similar fabrics to a quilt I made in 1999 I called Paws for Santa.

  

I found this pattern in a quilting magazine (? which one) and just had to make it! It measures 98"x98". The blocks are 14" finished and I labelled them Mama Bear and Baby Bear blocks.

I replaced 4 Mama Bear blocks in the center with the Old World Santas that came as a panel fabric purchased years before. I liked the panel so much I decided to get a second one just in case I needed more.

The pictures really don't do it justice! This quilt sparkled! The colors were bright and the edges of the Santas were worked in gold.

Can you tell these have been stored for well over a decade? They're ready to be ironed-on to a background fabric!

The quilt was hand-quilted by St Ann's ACW in Westcock, NB in October 1999 and was exhibited at the Lupin Quilt Fair in July 2000. It was not for sale but someone liked it so much that they wanted to buy it! I spent a lot of time on this quilt and I thought my price was high enough to discourage the purchase! But they never balked at the price so off it went to them! It was and remains the ONLY quilt I ever sold! I hate parting with my quilts but I am quick to make them for gifting. This quilt was not meant for anyone but myself so I felt and still feel its loss... I never got to display it at Christmas!

So now I'm on a mission to recreate it! But first I want to find fabrics that come close to those I used if possible.

These are Cranston Prints and the colors work really well with the colors of the Santas. It would be hard to find the same fabrics; I've been looking for so long and I don't have enough of any of these three. The background fabrics aren't a problem.

So off to that sale I go today... I'll know when I see the right combination! Don't you just love to pull fabrics together for a new project? HOW INVIGORATING!!! And on a MONDAY too!!!

Toodles!

Lorette