What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I've been busy stitching yellow.  These  little drawstring  bags for foster kids were completed last week, but then I had to go and purchase some suitable coloured cords.  All done now.  The top two have motifs declaring "winner",  with a gold cup and laurel wreath, that's certainly different, and I received this fabric together with a whole heap more from my former neighbour Dorothy.    Then I stitched two bags for boys featuring trucks, tractors and diggers, and the last one with cute farm animals - these fabrics were donated to me recently.

Five yellow draw string bags

String blocks ...

 We just got home from two weeks in Calgary, Alberta where we were visiting family.  We had lots of fun and went to lots of interesting places. This post has lots of pictures of our trip as well as the sewing I have done in the last three weeks.  I will start with some progress on my hand quilting of the round robin quilt.  I'm just figuring it out as I go along and will go back to quilt the blue border as well as the outer green border when I feel inspired. 

 My second funky dinosaur quilt is finished, this one has touches of yellow, the RSC colour chosen for the month.  I'm quite pleased how it turned out, and used up the last remaining pieces of dinosaur fabric.  I pinned it all together for quilting using some grey fleece for the backing.  Although the sandwhich was quite thick, I just took my time and didn't have and trouble with the stitching.

Machine quilting

 Fleur, the Co-ordinator of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren was the guest speaker at my Quilt Club meeting the other evening.  It was interesting to hear about her role in this group, which she took on after she started raising her own grandchildren.  Fleur does a wonderful job and spoke about the challenges grandparents face, as they navigate the changes in their households when they take on their own grandchildren to live with them.  And supporting them through the legal and benefit issues too, which can be daunting when you don't know what to do, or what government department to go ...

Good morning, my friends. It was another hot day yesterday. Happily, our air quality has improved significantly. We were rated at "Unheathy" just a few days ago. Now, we're rated as "Very Good." And that's the way we like it. 

Since I had no excuse for not hoeing the garden, that was my first stop after slow-stitching in the morning. Getting outside, the first thing I noticed was how the morning sunshine was making our maple tree glow.

Good morning, my friends. It was another hot day yesterday. Happily, our air quality has improved significantly. We were rated at "Unheathy" just a few days ago. Now, we're rated as "Very Good." And that's the way we like it. 

Since I had no excuse for not hoeing the garden, that was my first stop after slow-stitching in the morning. Getting outside, the first thing I noticed was how the morning sunshine was making our maple tree glow.

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday ended up being a less hectic day than expected. We left for the grocery store a little later than I’d hoped. Originally, I’d planned to start some chili and bake some cornbread when we got home. But then, we decided while doing our shopping we’d just get a pizza from Papa Murphy’s on the way home. Pizza. It saves lives.

Before we left, I had time to take the first stitches on December’s block for A Year in the Garden. Mainly, I was just using the leftover bits from the ...

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday ended up being a less hectic day than expected. We left for the grocery store a little later than I’d hoped. Originally, I’d planned to start some chili and bake some cornbread when we got home. But then, we decided while doing our shopping we’d just get a pizza from Papa Murphy’s on the way home. Pizza. It saves lives.

Before we left, I had time to take the first stitches on December’s block for A Year in the Garden. Mainly, I was just using the leftover bits from the ...

The last remaining dinosaurs have been chilling out with me in the sewing room.   There was just a limited amount of fabric left, enough for a toddler quilt I decided.   And I liked the idea of using yellow as accents, the RSC colour for August.

I couldn't match up the dinosaurs, so cut the fabric into four, and added sashing in the middle.  Then yellow and grey borders with nine patch corners.  That's the  top done, it doesn't look too bad, does it.

Dinosaurs roam again

And I always like to ...

It's been a busy week in the sewing department!  On Monday, I pin basted my nine patch quilt.  I quilted it with my walking foot yesterday and I have binding picked out to cut and sew on today.  This quilt will be done and ready for show and tell at our September guild meeting!  I used a 28wt light grey thread for the quilting. 

Good morning, my friends. Can you believe it's the last day of July already? My mind is still back in March, as if we've only just returned home from our winter trip. And now...here we are, halfway through summer. We'll be home all of August, but we have a trip planned for mid-September. As the time gets closer, I’ll say more about where we’re going. Also, we’re still sweating the possibility of a gas shortage. If that happens, the trip is off.

There wasn't much time for sewing yesterday. I had to ...

Good morning, my friends. Can you believe it's the last day of July already? My mind is still back in March, as if we've only just returned home from our winter trip. And now...here we are, halfway through summer. We'll be home all of August, but we have a trip planned for mid-September. As the time gets closer, I’ll say more about where we’re going. Also, we’re still sweating the possibility of a gas shortage. If that happens, the trip is off.

There wasn't much time for sewing yesterday. I had to ...

Yes, it has been a while...

It is a challenge to time this blogpost after I am missed but before I am totally forgotten.

Boxed-Mix

This is Boxed Mix, a layer cake friendly quilt, I made for Summer 2026 issue of Quilter’s World.

Made using the Island Batik collection, Enchanted Flutter, Boxed Mix finished at 60" by 84". 

We took the completed quilt for a photoshoot. 

You know that the colors are stunning when you can fool a grasshopper to stop by and examine :-D

I modeled it on my bed. I took pictures of the label and I ...

 The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for July is Aqua.  I just had my Aqua fabrics out last week at the cottage to complete the last block of my Sommer Sorbet sampler quilt so it was easy to cut out some squares and HST's for my blocks.  This is the only one I got sewn this week but the 25 patch HST block is laid out and ready to sew this coming week.  My interpretation of Aqua is blue-green, leaning towards green.  Turquoise leans towards blue in the blue-green family.  I think others do this the other way around.  It ...

 The Rainbow Scrap Challenge nominated colour for July is teal so I went looking to see what I had tucked away in my bag  making bits of pieces.  Of course there were several pieces of fabric, waiting to be stitched up into bags for foster kids.  I do wonder of I will ever empty this  bag, especially with a few fabric donations coming my way recently.

So I got to work cutting and stitching and made four little draw string bags.  Featuring dolphins, and crickets, and there was enough of the circus animal fabric for two small bags.  With no ...

Good morning, my friends. Mike and I are early risers, generally. After all, we have furry alarm clocks who want to make sure we’re awake to see the sun rise in the morning. Yesterday was no different, and I was ready to make our usual Sunday morning pancakes around 8:00 a.m. Knowing I was going to be making a breakfast item with those egg whites I’ve been hoarding, I asked Mike if he’d be up for a change. Indeed, he was. And so for breakfast I made these Freezer-friendly Egg White Muffins. Here’s how ...

Good morning, my friends. Mike and I are early risers, generally. After all, we have furry alarm clocks who want to make sure we’re awake to see the sun rise in the morning. Yesterday was no different, and I was ready to make our usual Sunday morning pancakes around 8:00 a.m. Knowing I was going to be making a breakfast item with those egg whites I’ve been hoarding, I asked Mike if he’d be up for a change. Indeed, he was. And so for breakfast I made these Freezer-friendly Egg White Muffins. Here’s how ...

Christine and I spent most of a week at her cottage and did lots of sewing, chatting, watching movies and eating good food!  It was a bit buggy outside so we were mostly inside.  Christine has lots of bird feeders which she kept well stocked all week so there were lots of birds and other critters to see out the window. 

I did most of the hand ...