I got the Electric Quilt Program for Christmas

What a wonderful gift. Thank you x 1000 to my wonderful hubby. So far I've drafted one quilt which I am absolutely positively going to start working on right away. It's a sampler quilt with a really really cool layout. And, it's easy to do and a great way to use up fabric bits.

Since it's that time of year, I thought I'd share my resolutions with everyone. As you can see I am really into self torture. Once I write something down there is no going back. So here they are in no particular order.

My quilting resolutions are:

• To finish at least one of the "tops" I have stored in the top drawer of my fabric dresser before I go hog wild making new ones - or alternatively find another quilter somewhere who might be interested in swapping tops for quilting... might be kinda fun.
• To learn new techniques and if possible find time somewhere to take a quilting class or two.
• To choose one local quilt guild, become a member, and go to the meetings regularly
• To write in my quilt blog more often.
• Tidy up my fabric stash (it's more like a big pile than a stash).

My personal resolutions are:

• To be a better friend to my friends - that means remembering birthday cards, special events and to pick up the telephone once in a while to catch up with them more often in 2007.
• To be thankful every day for my multiple blessings and not get caught up in the daily dramas of those around me. (Mostly my own - I will not be a drama queen this year.)
• To spend more time with my family - even those far away.
• To go home to Prince Edward Island for a longer visit this year and to actually spend some time looking for some property close to my mother's home. (And to go visit my sisters in northern Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland.)
• To improve my writing skills and possibly to do something about that novel that is hovering in the back of my mind wanting to get out. (I dare not write that one down more specifically just yet). Yikes it keeps wanting to be written down and acted upon, but that is a retirement project, not a New Year's Resolution.

My work resolutions are:

• To win my arbitration case and get my old job back. (Someday I'll write all about the day the sky opened and I got fired for refusing to quit writing in my "Running Blog") - but perhaps I shouldn't write anything at all, because isn't that the reason I got fired in the first place? Woe is me, my life is very complex...but interesting.
• To do the best I can at my current job every day and to assist my new bosses by offering my ideals and work experience in an open, friendly way. I have to be careful not to love this job so much because it's just temporary until I get my other job back.
• To continue to maintain open trusting relationships with those I left behind the day I got fired.

My fitness resolutions are:

• To run my second marathon this year - either the Deadwood Marathon in June or the Prince Edward Island Marathon in the fall.
• To run two half-marathons this year - perhaps the Red Deer Half Marathon in May and the Melissa's 22 k run in Banff, Alberta in September.
• To remember that I run for fun and fitness. I will not push myself to break records (or even maintain records I set years ago) or be angry with myself when I don't do as well as I think I can.
• To take up Adventure Running or Trail Running this year and compete in weekly 5 km events in the spring/fall season in the beautiful Edmonton river valley.
• To go bike riding with my husband after work whenever we get a chance.
• To be thankful that I do have a strong healthy body and not do all that careless stuff like overeating or undereating or unhealthy eatig, etc. etc etc.
• and as per every year since I turned 25, I will not obsess about my weight and my aging skin etc. etc etc.

Hmm, that should probably keep me focused for quite a while. I'll let you know next year how many I managed to keep. And, for the record....I did keep all but one of my resolutions from last year...and I blame Menopause and personal contentment for the difficulty I had in maintaining my weight. heh,heh,heh,

Oh yeah - I've posted by quilt of the month for January, 2007 - Do you like it? This quilt is called Another Dimension because there are no triangle squares in it at all. The star points are all folded squares and have dimension to them. It's all hand quilted of course and as you can see is one that my cat "Fat Eddy" believes I made for him personally.

December - can you believe it already?

Notice the new quilt of the month. This is one of my all time favorites. I think its truly beautiful. And, it's all handquilted which was very easy because there was no marking involved. Check it out.

This quilt is also very dear to my heart because it travelled with me to PEI in March when I went home to visit my parents a couple months before my dad passed away. I was handquilting it then, and like to think that caught up in its stitches are the conversations Dad and I shared during those last few days before he was hospitalized for the last time. This quilt is bursting with love of family and is a perfect choice for my Christmas month quilt.

Can you believe it's December. Here in Alberta we're having an old fashioned winter. Tons and Tons of snow on the ground, in the driveway, on my jeep, etc. Cold, cold, cold, already. I'm sure glad I'm in my lovely warm house, snuggled up with my hubby, my cat, my dog and my quilts. Some days we need to stop and remember how lucky we really are.

Upstairs project done....

This week I finished my upstairs project and will post pics of it when I get a chance to download the pictures from the camera. It turned out quite well. I ended up doing a fairly unimaginative outside border treatment. I took two inch strips of fabric from the body of the quilt, folded them over and attached them as a piping to the outside border. Piping brings the quilt together simply and acts as a good break between the centre and the outside border (which turned out to be green...I'm not sure why. You'll see in a few days.

I continue to work on the downstairs project....it's almost never-ending. I must remember not to take on such a large hand-quilting project again for a while. I'm now at that stage where I just want it to be over with. The centre is all finished (except for me having to check it closely to see if there are any spots I missed....there always are a few) and two of the outside borders are done. I'm working my way along the outside edge and should be finished by the end of the week. That means I'll probably be able to bind it by mid-December. (A whole month behind schedule....I blame my eyes and my under finger for acting up..) It's spectacular in real life, hope the pictures hold up.

What does this quilt need? (Other than to be finished)

It's really really early on Sunday morning and I'm trying to decide whether to go for a run this morning or not. Well actually I'm trying to decide whether to head to the gym and do some speed work inside or suck it up and run outside. So while that decision is percolating in my head, I thought I'd put up a picture of my current upstairs project. It's still on the design wall, so obviously is nowhere near done, but I thought perhaps if anyone was reading this, they could give me some ideas. I think the quilt is fine, just not really interesting and am looking for ideas to pump it up a bit.

This was my very first attempt at diamonds and the quilt did go together really well. As you can see, again, it's very scrappy and as always, it seems like I don't have enough fabric to make the borders all the same. Note to Self....always buy more than you think you'll need. You'll use it somewhere.

Best laid plans and lotsa options

Another weekend over and another quilt project update

Upstairs project.

My current upstairs project - Diamondworks - is almost finished. I'm very proud of myself for getting this far with diamonds. Working on this smallish quilt has made me realize yet again that like everything else in life you just have to keep going, whatever you're doing always gets easier as you get more practice. So, another lesson re-learned.

I'll post a picture as soon as I get the borders figured out and on. Is there anyone else out there like me who thinks of quilt tops in stages? This is how it seems to work out for me...

1) planning the centre,
2) building the center,
4) planning the borders and
5) building the borders.

Only then do I know how the quilt will actually look. Don't get me wrong, I always plan the whole thing on paper (my favorite part), then I start working and all that flies out the window. I don't think I have one quilt that looks the same at the end of the process as I planned it on paper. I definitely need to get a designer program for my computer so I can check out more options before I start.

Downstairs project...

It's fabulous. The centre is almost quilted, just a little bit in one corner left to do. I started working on the borders yesterday in one section, just to get a sense of how that'll look and I've decided how to hand quilt the outer border. I'm very excited about finishing this... think I'll be ready to bind it the first week in December. (I was quite lazy last week, and didn't get much of it done, so I've revised my estimated finish date.)

Because I'm getting ready to post a picture of my November quilt of the month, I'm moving my October quilt over here and will tell everyone a bit of its story.

This is one of the very first quilts I ever made and was it ever a learning experience. I made it (the top) several (5 or 6) years ago before I was into handquilting, so it is long arm quilted by a lady near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I mailed it to her and a month or so later, she sent it back to me finished. It was so beautiful I cried when I saw it. She did an absolutely marvelous job and was very kind to me and didn't give me heck about loose threads, uneven stitching, etc. She gets all the credit for making this quilt look as good as it does.

I chose the blocks randomly from one of about 5 quilt magazines that I owned at the time. Then, because I didn't have a stash of fabric at the time I went to my local Walmart and purchased about 10 yards of various fabrics (some polyester, some cotton) and about 3 yards of black fabric with teapots on it for the borders between the blocks and for the binding. I didn't wash the fabric because I was so eager to start making the quilt. I just jumped into the process and kind of made everything up as I went along. I did have a cutting mat and a Fiskars cutter and a couple of rulers but that was all I had for tools.

You know I did almost everything wrong when putting this quilt together, and when I look at it, I am absolutely gobsmacked that it went together at all. But it did and I'm still loving it. If my sister in law Bernadette hadn't begged for it, it'd still be in my cupboard of "keepers" and finished quilts. And just so you know, I'm still using little bits of the fabric I purchased for this quilt. I hate to throw good stuff out but I'm sure getting tired of some of that nasty blue polyester stuff. Look for it in the November quilt.

Update on the upstairs project. It is going well, all the blocks are together and only two rows left to sew together. This is my first "diamond" quilt and I'm quite pleased with it. Not too sure about the colours I picked, but oh well.

Update on the downstairs project. It's going well, I'm giving my under finger a rest tonight. I'm on track to have this one finished by mid-November and then I'll be able to start the next one.

This weekend I'm going to take pictures of some of my UFO's. I feel so sorry for them. Will they ever make it to the downstairs TV watching chair. Stay tuned.

Steps along the way.

Today I finished my current "upstairs project" quilt top. Now all I have to do is finish my downstairs project and I'll be ready to take the upstairs quilt downstairs for handquilting.

These are pics I took this afternoon to show some of the details of the top. It is a scrap project of my own design. I didn't think I had enough fabric for the borders, so I decided to make do, rather than go spend more money on fabric. So officially the 100% wool suiting that I bought, took home and boiled was the only new fabric I used. And that was only little bits in the flower pot appliques.




If you look closely you'll see that each of the four outside borders is a different colour, 1 each of black, green, brown and red. The black and brown fabric are also used in the blocks, but the green and red are pieces left over from other projects. The inside narrow border is made of left over strips of fabric from the blocks. The corners are mitred to make the border fit together better. The white fabrics are all different as well and so is the way each white block is put together. This will be a very easy top to handquilt. Right now my plan is to stitch 1/4 each from each seam and put x's in the black centre blocks. That may change though by the time I get ready to work on it.

Speaking of that...
Here's a picture to show where I'm at with my downstairs project.


I'm using white quilting thread and am doing some very basic outline stitching 1/4" from the seams. The diamonds are popping out quite nicely, although you can't really sit this here. The back of this quilt is white flannel with blue roses on it. It's actually turning out to be a very lovely quilt. I'm glad I finally brought it downstairs to work on. The top has been finished for about a year and it came very close to being one of those UFO's. I was never sure the top was completely finished until I got around to putting the blue star border on the very outside. Then, I was satisfied.