Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Summer Fun with Grandmother's Flower Garden

Well, like many of the other bloggers out there, I'm having a hard time finding time to write, with the wonderful summer weather we are having. 
For the past month or so, my routine has been:
Wednesday and Thursday- go to work, Thursday night guild meeting if I have time
Friday- pick any  veggies or berries off the garden,  water flowers, pack for the weekend at the lake.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday- enjoy the weekend at the cottage.
Tuesday- come home and do laundry, pick stuff off the garden, water flowers, do any housework.
Then start all over again with going to work for 2 days. 

I haven't been quilting much at all for customers, although there are a couple of them I should think of starting soon!

I have started another quilt project of my own, a Grandmother's Flower Garden.  It has been a great take-along project and I'm enjoying it so much.

This is the fabric that inspired me.



I found the hexagons patterns on a website with free graph paper.  www.PrintablePaper.net  is a really cool site, I will be using it alot!

Then I printed some sheets of hexagons onto 8"x11" sticky label paper.


After I cut out the hexagons, I peeled and stuck them to my fabric, 6 petals and one center of a different colour.



Then I cut around them about 3/8".





Next I basted down the corners, taking an extra little stitch in the corner itself and then a traveling stitch to get to the next corner.  Note:  I did NOT go through the sticky label paper to the other side.








Then, I proceeded to stitch each petal to the flower center.  I don't know if it was necessary, but I always placed a straight grain against a bias edge, just to give it extra stability.  It doesn't work out for the sections in between the petals. 




















Once all the petals were secured to the center, then I stitched in between the petals one at a time.
























Here is how the flowers look in relation to the focus fabric. 

I may make some flowers out of the floral fabric as well, and see how that looks. 

I also plan to make some white daisies.


 I will use the multi-green fabric and join the flowers in the variety of greens, resembling leaves.

I don't know how big this quilt will be, all I know is that I still have alot more flowers to make!  I hope summer lasts a long time!

Hope you're all having a good one!








Tuesday, July 13, 2010

50th Wedding Anniversary Quilts

Valerie brought me two quilt tops she made for her parents.

They recently celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary and she wanted to give them something special to mark the occasion.


The Father's one has more blue in it while Mom's is more brown.  They both had cozy flannel backings which Valerie machine-embroidered labels on.  A great idea!




Valerie said the patterns were a type of  "Storms at Sea".

On mom's quilt she chose "Oriental Clouds" pantograph.

And on Dad's she chose "Waterworld".

Her parents are sure lucky!



Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Hearts Galore!

Here is another great quilt from Rebecca. 

She works as a nurse and often works the evening shift, so has some time to do some hand applique.

Look at all those hearts!

I like them since they aren't your typical symmetrical ones.

Rebecca wanted some swirls and i added them to the hearts themselves as well, to secure the applique.

We were both pleased with how it turned out!