Friday 27 September 2013

TGIFF! - Rainbow Bright

Happy Friday!

I finally finished my Rainbow Bright quilt, which was started for the Something New Sampler with Amy @ 13 Spools back in, um, January. Yay! Those who have been following for a while may remember that my trapunto tutorial was done for this sampler.

Although I finished all the blocks and even quilted them back in March with my favourite Aurifil, I got stuck on the layout. I found a solution that I'm happy with a couple of weeks ago and have been assembling it quilt-as-you-go since.

Close-ups of each block can be found hereherehere, and here. I think my favourite block in this one is the Cathedral Windows one. Love!

I have to say that I learned a lot about rainbows in doing this quilt, especially in doing that block on the lower left.


I free motion quilted pebbles over the quilt-as-you-go sashing because I found it looked too puffy against the quilting of the blocks without it.


I'm not sure why, but this section of the quilting is my favourite! Maybe it's the art deco feel?


And the back -- nothing special because I knew it was going to be a wallhanging, but you can really see the quilting!


Hmm, I think this is my first ever completed sampler! Yay!

Quiltography: "Rainbow Bright," by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau, Ottawa, 2013, 29" by 45".

TGIFF! is on with Megan over at Cherry Valley Designs. Check it out and link up!

Have a great weekend!

Thursday 26 September 2013

Guild Fun!

I knew on Monday that it was going to be a fun, quilty week and it was! Our first Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild meeting was so much fun. Look at this great gang! Thank you to Alison Harle for taking the photo!

OMQG

My Let's Talk Modern! presentation at the Lanard County Quilters Guild also went well. Phew! Another fun, talented group! If I lived closer, I'd join up for sure. Alas, I forgot to take photos, but one of their members took one of me for their guild site.
.
Me and my Rainbow Brite
  More about this quilt tomorrow for TGIFF!

Monday 23 September 2013

What a Week!

Tonight is the first Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild meeting! Woo hoo! For those who would like to join us, the meeting's at 7:30 p.m. in the conference room at the Ottawa Citizen building, 1101 Baxter Road. Bring something to share. More details can be found on the OMQG site.

Tomorrow night, I get to participate with the Lanark Country Quilt Guild, where I will be speaking about modern quilting and doing a trunk show. If you are in the area, stop by. Visitors are welcome!

Also, on Saturday, January 11th, 2014, I'll be teaching an advanced beginner/intermediate free motion quilting workshop with the Ottawa Valley Quilters Guild. We'll be doing a free motion quilting sampler along the lines of What the FMQAYGQAL? This is the class sample.



For more details, check out their workshop page.

My quilty cup runeth over! Hope you are having a fabulous Monday!

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Several months ago, Kathrin Scholz from tinistaschen emailed me asking if I minded if she and her friends in Germany did a quilt like my What the FMQAYGQAL? I certainly didn't mind and referred her to Laura, our QAYGFMGQAL mastermind.

Last week, Kathrin emailed me to say that their quilts made into the German Burda Patchwork! She sent along these photos. Aren't their quilts fabulous?! Click on the picture to make it larger and see the free motion quilting motifs. Wonderful! Way to go, Kathrin and gang!


Look! My name's in a German magazine! And so is Laura's!
How cool is that?! To see more pictures of their beautiful quilts, check out Kathrin's blog. Once again, I'm in awe of how people, who would otherwise probably never meet, can connect in fun and positive ways through the Internet.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

And The Winner Is...

It's time for the big Birthday Sale over at Sew Sisters. 29% off everything, including clearance! Plus great rates on shipping. Yummy! And so is the charm pack and candy pack of Bonnie & Camille's Scrumptious that I get to give away today. Thank you all for your fabulous book and wine suggestions. I'm looking forward to exploring them and trying them out! And thank you to Sew Sisters for sponsoring this giveaway!

The winner of the Scrumptious charm pack and candy pack, according to Ms. Random Number Generator, is...
Congratulations Sarah! I'll be sending you an email shortly and getting you in touch with Sew Sisters to claim your prize!

I follow sew sisters - it's how I found you!

Sarah
No need for the rest of us to be sad though. We get 29% off today at Sew Sisters! I'm heading over now. I'm thinking some Kona jelly rolls. How about you?

Monday 16 September 2013

Modern Block Monday - Lucky Pieces

Happy Monday, all! It's the last day for my Sew Sisters Birthday Giveaway so if you haven't had a chance to enter, now's the time. I'll announce the winner tomorrow!

***

It's been a while since I've done a Modern Block Monday post, eh? This is the Lucky Pieces block by Faith of Fresh Lemons (link goes to the tutorial). Janet from Caribou Crossing is our September Queen Bee for my Simply Solids Bee (Carmine) group and she wanted us to scrap bust. Yay! I hadn't cleaned up my scraps from All Things Equal yet so I thought I'd add a little light pink and coral for pop. Pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope Janet likes it as well.

September Bee Block for Carmine Group


Think I'm done with my red/grey phase? We'll see...


Other blocks in this Modern Block Monday series are:

Thursday 12 September 2013

TGIFF! - Bright Stripes

Bright Stripes - Close up
Welcome to Thank Goodness It's Finally Finished (TGIFF), where every finish deserves a celebration!

Pull up a chair, grab a cup of something delicious, and let's see what quilty goodness has been finished this week.

Bright Stripes
Happy Dance! Happy Dance!

Bright Stripes is done and I simply adore it! I'm so glad I put on my big girl pants to cut into my little stash of Bright Remix by Robert Kaufman for this project.

For those who are here for the first time, this is my test of my Falling for Stripes pattern (coming soon).

Bright Stripes - Front

Quilting Detail - Double line
separating the spirals
from the straight lines
This is quilted with white 50 wt. Aurifil thread (#2024) with spirals, a small double line around the outer spirals and then straight lines.

Quilting Detail
The spirals were started with free motion quilting, but then I switched to my walking foot so that I'd get more even and uniformly-spaced spirals. I'd seen this on someone else's blog, but now I can't remember who it was. Sorry! One lesson learned was to do at least 10 turns of the spiral to make the centre free motion spiral large enough so that the walking foot can maintain a smoother curve.

I love effect the effect of the spirals done this way, but it took twice as long to do it as I had planned and there are a ton of threads to bury at the end. There was a lot of knee lifting, turning, and pulling the quilt through the throat of the machine for this quilt. It's hard on the shoulders and wrists. It's worth it though.

For the back, I took one strip of scrap Bright Remix and some white. Simple. I like it.


Bright Stripes - Back
I also used the Bright Remix for the binding, just like I did with What The FMQAYGQAL? I love, love, love Bright Remix as a binding.

Quiltography: "Bright Stripes," by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau, Ottawa, 45" by 57", 2013.

Oh, and if you haven't had a chance to enter my Sew Sisters Birthday Giveaway, it closes Monday...

This was one of my Q3 goals for the 2013 Finish-along with Leanne at She Can Quilt. Yay! 

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Bright Stripes - A Work in Progress

If you missed my Sew Sisters giveaway post, check it out. It's simply Scrumptious (couldn't resist)! Great book and wine recommendations so far!

***

I always like reading about people's thought processes so I thought I'd share what quilting designs I've been considering for Bright Stripes, my test of my soon-to-be Falling For Stripes pattern. Figuring out the quilting used to intimidate me -- so many options! -- but now I rather enjoy it because I can test out ideas using the trial quilting sheets before committing.

For the original Falling For Stripes, I did square spirals in all of the stripe blocks and different straight line motifs in the yellow and orange sections. For the pink, burgundy and purple sections, I echoed the blocks for the most part about 1" apart. 


For Bright Stripes, I wanted a different feel with the quilting. Something that would soften or contrast with the feel of the crisp white background and rainbow stripe squares. Apologies for the photos -- I can't use the flash with the trial quilting sheets.

Some spiral quilting?


Yes, but I don't like how it goes off the edge. Different edge treatment?


I like the straight lines, but the corner is not doing it for me. Maybe take the spirals all the way to the corner to separate the straight lines?

Yes, I think so. I did the spirals on all the blocks, but found that there's a lot of space along the edges that I didn't want to be all straight lines. Back under the trial quilting sheet to play some more. 


That's looking better. Come back Friday when I host TGIFF! to see what I decided to do. You are also most welcome to link up one (or more!) of your own recent finishes.

I'm linking in to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network and to W.i.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Thanks Monika and Lee for hosting such great linkies!
Right Click to Save ImageWIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced




Tuesday 10 September 2013

It's Time for a Birthday Giveaway!

Isn't it wonderful that Sew Sisters is doing this huge birthday sale and giveaway in honour of my 40th 29th birthday? ;)

For those of you who are not familiar with Sew Sisters Quilt Shop, it is a Canadian-based quilt store that celebrates all things quilting. They have a large selection of fabric, notions, books, patterns and kits.

Although I haven't ordered from their online shop yet, I had the opportunity to visit their Toronto shop twice this summer (it's so close to the 401, how could I not stop?!), and got to meet Carol and Judy in person. So lovely and such fun! Great service and their fabric and notion selection is fabulous. Also, since I'm on a one-income family budget at the moment, I especially appreciate the prices! The shipping rates are the very reasonable because they believe that you should buy more fabric, not postage.

They are having their birthday biggest sale of the year next week. Everything in the store is 29% off, including the clearance items! Better than cake, don't you think?

They are offering one of you lucky ducks a yummy charm pack and candy square pack of Bonnie and Camille's Scrumptious line:


To win, just do any or all of the following:

1) Help a girl out by leaving a comment on this post with a book recommendation. My book club meets soon and I've got nothing to recommend! That or a wine recommendation 'cause that's really what a book club's about, eh?

2) Followers of my blog get a bonus entry. Just leave a comment.

3) Followers of Sew Sisters blog also get a bonus entry. Just leave a comment.

The giveaway will run until Monday, September 16th at 9 p.m. EST, at which point I'll pick a winner via Ms. Random Number Generator. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday, September 17th -- the day of the big sale!

No reply bloggers, please leave your email address in your comment(s). Please don't make me run Ms. Random Number Generator again!

Go check out their website to see what goodies they have! Think of it as pre-shopping... ;)

Thanks for entering and good luck!

Monday 9 September 2013

If It Happened to Me, It Could Happen To You Too!

Sneak peak of the quilting
on Bright Stripes
This is a little embarrassing, but I feel I must share this...if only to prevent it from happening to some other unsuspecting Blogger. I...unknowingly I should add...became...a no reply blogger. There, I said it. I've shared my shame. I feel so much better now.

So how did such a terrible thing happen to me, a supposedly seasoned two-year blogging veteran such as myself? I linked my blog to my Google + profile. Now I had done this in the Spring and soon realized that I became no reply. At the time, I unlinked it and all was fine.

This summer though, I found a supposed fix, which did work for a while. But then it stopped working and I have no idea why.

It wasn't until this past week that I realized that I had been relegated to the lonely wasteland of no reply bloggers. It was a cold and desolate place. No more lovely replies to my comments. And horror upon horrors, what if *gasp* I had won a giveaway and they couldn't contact me? The nightmares have been awful!

So people, please learn from my mistake and don't become a no reply blogger by linking your blog up to Google +! I'm still on Google +, just keeping the blog separate. Google please fix this! If you know of a solution to my problem, let me know. I haven't had any success at finding a permanent solution in my searches.

Now there are other ways of being a no reply blogger. Check out this post to figure out if you too have been unknowingly relegated to the lonely wasteland of no reply bloggers!

;)

P.S. I'll be hosting a giveaway for Sew Sisters starting tomorrow so do come back to see what goodies you could win!

P.P.S. Have you seen this video? This is a feminist parody of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines video by some law students in Auckland, New Zealand. What a clever and entertaining way to get the message across that the lines of sexual objectification of women are not blurred at all and these women define them very well!

Enjoy, but beware -- there is some offensive and graphic language!


Wednesday 4 September 2013

Works In Progress Wednesday - The Back To School Edition

Do you hear that? That is the sound of silence. My youngest started school yesterday. It was hard on him and it was hard on his Mama. He said his favourite part of the day was the bus ride. Sigh. He was smiling when he got off the bus though and he didn't fight going to school today so we're hoping for a better day today.

I thought I'd be way more, "Woo hoo! I've got 6.5 blessed hours of free time!" because I've been thinking about this time since oh, January. LOL! Quilting time. Shower time. Cleaning reading time. Whatever time. Yesterday flew by though, spent catching up on a lot of things I'd ignored over the summer, and it was 3:10 p.m. when I looked up! Ridiculous!

So where are we on the mega WIP list after a summer of sporadic quilting?

Completed Projects:

All Things Equal: Completed, blogged and gifted!



Happy Canada, Eh!: My entry into the Stamp On It blog hop. Though it's meant to celebrate Canada Day, it is still gracing my kitchen. I'm not sure it will ever come down. I do so love this quilt. :)


Hard Core: Hard Core is done and blogged about here.


Simply Solids Bee

Rolling stone block for the wonderful Patti!

Simply Solids Bee - August Block - Carmine Group

Current Projects:


Bright StripesThis is a test of my coming-soon Falling For Stripes pattern. It's basted and I've figured out what I want to do quilting-wise so I'm eager to get at'er.



Su{Brrr}nova Scraps: No progress.

Scrappy Trip AlongNo progress.

Scrap{Bee} Quilt: It's back on the design wall. I'd like to finish up the two or three remaining blocks and finish the top this week.


Kingston quilt: No progress.








What are you working on this week?
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