What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 E13 is finished and attached to row E, finally! I had planned to sew it while on holiday over a month ago and progressed it well until I realised I had cut 60° angles instead of 45° for the last 4 pieces for each sides of the outside triangles. It took very little time to draw the correct angle and cut the pieces back but here we are, I only finished the block this morning by the pool while we stayed overnight at a spa hotel.

I modified the block a little compared to the book, it has 26 pieces ...

 This block definitely felt like being in jail... so many tiny pieces and so many opportunities for issues with all the lines to align. I really tried my best but the block is not perfect...BUT "finished is better than perfect" so I will learn to live with it.

It has been a long time coming since I started it during our holiday in Canada last summer and only finished it this week while on holidays. I had picked it up again at time but it was so hard to align all the pieces that I easily lost motivation. Finally ...

For our American friends who celebrated President's Day yesterday, we got to celebrate FAMILY Day! I don't even remember when they started that day or why. Was it because we needed a stat holiday in February, and Valentine's didn't cut it? 

AH -- If you check the history, it started in the province of Alberta in 1990 to recognize the importance of the home and family of their founding pioneers, and it has been adopted by most other provinces since. We've had Family Day in Ontario since 2008. 

Oh, you will be sick of me talking ...

Aah, New Years Day.

 Coco the rescue from Niagara Dog Rescue in the back.  Nina the rescue from Hamilton-Burlington SPCA in the front.  Two dogs who don't exactly like to wear Santa hats, lol.

 10 years since I started this quilt and last night I finally added the last stitches!

I finally got the bag out in June 2021 and finished the quilt top just before our international move to get it quilted before we left the UK but I had an adventure with my parcel that got sent to ...

Even though I was at the retreat all day and had no other commitments, I did NOT seem to accomplish much, and that's OK. While we are at a sewing retreat, it's technically a vacation, and I'm free to do whatever I want!

When I first arrived (it seems like ages ago), I spotted a stack of jigsaw puzzles. Some of the furniture has been moved around, with a nice table beside those puzzles. After a quick perusal through them, I pulled out a 1000-piece puzzle. None of these 350 ones for me! 

I started by laying ...

Multitasking - good or bad? 

By the way - I fixed the link in yesterday's post. Good grief -- I attached a link but hadn't actually copied it from the web page, so it just pasted in the previous link I had copied, which was classes from a store. Sigh!!!

Someone here was talking about coaching for a job interview, and it was highly recommended to NOT mention that you can multitask! I agree -- we get buzzing around and don't do any job as well as we could if we focused on one and then moved to the other. WAIT ...

And so the crazy travel day begins! I've been up early with a list of things to do. It all got done (I think!), except for ONE thing, which I can do while I'm away! The only thing I wish I had access to while I'm away is my contact list for e-mail. I must call Microsoft and see how to set it up on my One Drive so I always have it. I could easily move it, but which file is it? I'm not messing around with that in a rush!

But I'm NOT ...

 Have you ever had something to do but say you'll leave it for the morning. Then you can't sleep, so after lying there for a while, you finally get up to do it? Then when you wake up, you feel crappy from lack of sleep? Yep -- that's my morning. Thankfully, I'm a morning person, so I don't feel crappy for too long! I can't imagine how people cope if it takes them several hours to wake up as part of their routine!

By the way, I learned vinegar is great for unclogging glue tips ...

Triple irish chain is now a finished UFO quilt from my 5 quilt project. I started this in 2012. The top just needed borders in 2017, and, then, has waited it's turn on the longarm. I really like 30's prints and colors. I think that is what drew me back into quilting. Around here, 30s quilts were mostly what we could find at antique stores.  When I was a young quilter, I admired the work and dedication to make quilts during such a difficult time period.

84 x104 = 24 yards

All of the spool blocks are restitched, and, I am ready to officially begin the assembly of the quilt. This is an exciting part of quilting. Making an on point quilt one row at a time, is very satisfying....until the center haha. There is seam matching every three inches.

Rectangle wrangle is finished. I brought it out of the ufo closet in May 2023. I made progress through out the year. I started assembly in July. It was a top in August. I love how it looks and feels. Shirt fabrics are very forgiving, and, so fun to use. Only a few of hubby's old shirts are in this one. The rest are recycled form thrift stores. I see more light than I was expecting while I was making this. I guess that is the magic of using shirt fabrics.

90 x 102 = 27 yards

I am just making bits and bobbles while I work on my spools quilt.

9 patch on point - top monkey wrench - bottom

lil beauty baskets - top 4 patches for strip tease - bottom

This has been a long time project. Well, it seems that way. It became part of my 5 quilt UFO project in March. I had 10 cut in April. I had 5 made in May.  I made more blocks in June. All the blocks were made in July  And the top is made in August. Jen didn't border hers, but, I am worried if I don't do something, it will be hard to have the binding meet the points on the edges. decisions..decisions...decisions

 We are back from pour holidays in Canada and the normal rush of work/kids/house is un full speed again... 

Our trip in Canada was really nice, and although I was going to make it to a quilting shop or even a craft store, none of that happened! We visited Toronto and the Niagara Falls and then moved on to Québec for a little tour. Lots of lovely sights and a great encounter with whales and black bears!

Holidays has also meant hand sewing as you might have seen in my previous posts and with that I managed 2 ...

2 weeks ago, I opened the spoolin around leader/ ender ufo from 2013. I discovered that some of the blocks were not pieced right.

first, I took the halves apart, so, I could just switch the direction of the spools, but, then, I realized, that the individual spools needed work too. I took them all apart down to individual spools again. I made these 10 years ago, and, my skills were not as good as they are now. I knew I could do better, and, I did.

I ...

Hand me down is finished. This is an older UFo from 2018. I found this pattern in the first Bonnie Hunter book scraps and shirttails. I brought this out of the UFO closet in March of this year, and, it was a top in April. I love this quilt. It is more colorful than it appears on camera. It is made with recycled shirts and a blue from my stash. It was part of my 5 quilts project, but, was late making it to the longarm.

90 x 90 - 21 yards

 A long long long forgotten project that I have unearthed recently, kind of randomly... I started the Mischief project when I received the kit from Karen in 2017 but it hardly progressed despite being ready to be picked up any time and on the go. It has been so long ago since I did anything with it that it had dropped all my UFO list a while ago. 

I found some pieces ready to be assembled into blocks

And also some pieces assembled

I picked up all the blue that I found already prepared to progress on this blocks, sometimes ...