Whimsy

Whimsy:

a fanciful or fantastic device, object, or creation especially in writing or art
(Merriam-Webster)

I think I may have mentioned before that our local quilt shop has closed. Sad, but nothing I could do about it. My nearest quilt shop is now in a smaller community about 20 minutes drive away, which is not bad when you consider that you can be living in a large city and and take at least that long to get to your local quilt shop. But since I no longer drive outside of town during the winter, I guess I  will no longer be visiting a quilt shop in person once the snow flies. 
So, I visited my nearest quilt shop recently and, as usual, headed to the clearance section. That's where I found this border stripe print. 

It says: 
    Open your heart and soul.
    Seek wonderment.
    Embrace whimsy. 
    Envision good things.
    Dream and make it real. 
I really liked it, the colours, the funky design, but I wasn't sure what to do with it. What does one do with border stripes, besides backing or Triangle Frenzy table runners? Then the clerk in the shop showed me some of the quilts where they used border prints, separated into the individual stripes, alternated with simple rectangles of coordinating fabrics. And I thought that was a cool idea - simple and quick yet still attractive.  
And then I thought that I could get enough of the border print to use in a queen-sized quilt top for my bed. I do have several more complex patterns that I intend to make for my bed. Some day. But this way I could make a fairly quick quilt and finally have one of my own quilts for my bed. 
I did some calculations, determining what size and width I wanted the different fabric rectangles (I hadn't taken any measurements on any of the ones in the shop), and utilized my Quilt Pro 6 software to design a layout and calculate yardage. And on my first quilt shop hop with a couple of friends from the Lutheran church crafting group, I took the border print fabric along with me. Once again, I hit the bargain section and came up with some blender fabrics that look good with it. 

I love the colours, but initially I felt that the design was quite boring. You may recall that I like to challenge myself with complex quilt blocks and designs, and this just wasn't meeting my expectations. I felt better about it once I put the borders on as it seemed to help make the quilt top more cohesive. But I determined to use a more complex quilting design since the design of the quilt was so simple. 

And I chose New Delhi #2, a fun and funky design that I felt suited the vibe of the border print. 

I chose this large pansy print for the backing. While I wouldn't normally want anyone to say that the back of a quilt I'd made is prettier than the front, in this case, I think it may be true. 
Now, if only it would stop raining long enough for me to get all of my bedding (blanket, comforter, pillows, etc.) washed and on the line to dry. Then I will make up the bed with this quilt on top. Meanwhile, I'm sleeping in the basement bedroom, where I already have one of my own quilts on the bed. 



 
 

Starburst

 

This one, I was really tempted to keep. But I've been wanting to make a quilt for this particular friend for quite a number of years. Finally, her 60th birthday gave me the impetus to get it done.
I originally started an alternate quilt for her. But then Kim Caskey shared Ricky Tim's Kool Kaleidoscope (videos can also be found on YouTube) and I decided to try that instead. I bought the requisite 20 fabrics for the kaleidoscope part, which then just sat there while other projects took priority. Eventually, I was also able to find the book somewhere, either at a thrift store or among the used books being sold at a local quilt shop. Finally, I was invited to share this friend's 60th birthday celebrations, and that was the motivation I needed. 
Initially, I had 3 Christmas fabrics in the collection I was saving for this project, but decided that that wasn't going to work. This had to be an every day quilt, not a Christmas quilt, and, while the pieces may have ended up too small to be significant, I didn't want to take the risk. So, I moved those three to my stash of Christmas fabrics, and picked three alternates from my stash. I ended up using 19 of the collection of 20 fabrics in my kaleidoscope, and then had to decide what to do to make it into a throw-sized quilt. Because the centre looks like a star, I decided to make it a supernova, with a "night sky" background, and adding a few extra stars on the bottom. I ordered an appropriate background and border fabric online and prayed it would arrive on time. It did, actually several days before the expected arrival date, thank God. I considered adding rays or "arms" made from the remnants of the strata (the fabric strips sewn together to make the kaleidoscope), but when I put them on the design wall, it just didn't look good. So, I decided instead to just square off the kaleidoscope with background fabric. 

I made the stars for the bottom part of the quilt out of leftovers from the fabrics used in the kaleidoscope.
In spite of the fact that Ricky Tims says in his video that many people say they're not happy with their results, I've been happy with mine from the start. But when I was ready for the border fabric - a blue and purple batik with gold metallic stars printed on it, I cut a couple of strips and put them on the design wall beside the quilt top and it did not make me happy. I felt that the stars were too busy and distracted from the kaleidoscope. So, I chose instead to just complete the remainder of the quilt top with the background fabric, especially since I had ordered enough. And I'm very happy with that decision. I also chose to use the same fabric for the binding. 
For the quilting, I continued the star theme and used Becker's Shooting Star. 

The backing is actually a much deeper, richer brown than this. And it's minky dot, of course, so it will be nice and snuggly for her. And I called it Starburst.
The final quilt ended up about 50" by 70", so a good sized throw. 

Forever Canadian

I'm a patriotic Canadian, always have been and likely will be until this earthly life ends. And so the current threats to our sovereignty from both the United States president and the Alberta separatist movement have upset me and exacerbated my anxiety. But when the going gets tough, the quilters get quilting. And so I set aside my other projects and proceeded with a plan that I've had percolating for over a year now.
It started as an idea on graph paper and then I moved it into Quilt Pro 6, so that I could play with colours/fabrics. Originally, I had submitted the idea to a magazine as a possible Quilt of Valour. Of course, the magazine was from the United States, so they weren't necessarily interested in a maple leaf design. Nor do I have sufficient followers on social media to make publishing my designs profitable. Or whatever their reasons were, my design was rejected. I then modified the design to make it "landscape" instead of "portrait" (it had a single strip of HSTs both above and below the maple leaf, instead of on the sides) and eventually decided I could add a couple more strips of HSTs on each end to make it a twin bed sized quilt. But without them, it would still make a great QOV, and I have actually considered offering the design to Quilts of Valour Canada. But I'm not a famous quilt designer and don't know if they would be interested, and maybe I'll see if I can profit from it personally instead. 
My design plan was to use a red-themed layer cake, utilizing what I call the "quick quad" method, where you stitch two 10" squares, right sides together, ¼" seams on all 4 sides, and then cut it diagonally in both directions. Yes, you end up with all bias edges, but it's a quick and easy way to make 4 HSTs at once. You just have to be careful not to stretch the edges when working with them. Nevertheless, it can be very difficult to find an all-red-themed layer cake. No problem - I had sufficient red fabric in my stash, mostly left over from Log Canada, but I had some from some other projects as well. 
With our national Flag Day (February 15) coming up and our current political situation, I was suddenly motivated to get this quilt made. And I started cutting red fabrics. And solid white, of course. 

Meanwhile, I've been studying our denomination's Sabbath School lesson (can be found at Sabbath School Net), which is currently on the Bible books of Philippians and Colossians. The lesson for February 7-13 is titled, "A Heavenly Citizenship" and the memory verse is:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6 NKJV

And the verses following have this to say:

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

Philippians 4:7.8 NKJV

These verses gave me some definite admonitions to follow and promises to claim. And the introduction seemed to be written specifically with me in mind: 

"Even when things don't go the way we would like, which happens more often than we would like, we don't need to be worried or anxious or discouraged. Instead, there are principles that will help us find inner strength to face the challenges that life brings, and thus we can experience a settled and lasting peace that only God can give. The present and the future are in His hands, and He will supply everything we need.

"Most important, we need not place our hopes in earthly systems of government, which regularly disappoint us. As Christians, we are citizens of God's heavenly kingdom."
(Extracted February 7/2026 from A Heavenly Citizenship - Sabbath School Lesson 07, 1st Qtr 2026, emphasis mine)
So, yes, I recognize that, even though I remain a patriotic Canadian, I need to focus more on where my true citizenship lies, and that my KIng is still sovereign of the universe, no matter what happens to the nations of this world. And claim for myself that "peace that surpasses all understanding" that He promises. 

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
John 14:27 NKJV

And yes, I did get the quilt finished in time for Flag Day. And I did have some challenges with the bias edges, but managed to make it work. I chose Maple Grove for the pantograph. 

In hindsight, maybe I should have used Maple Syrup. 

Maple Syrup pantograph on Log Canada quilt

The designs are quite similar, but I don't think Maple Syrup is as "crowded". Or maybe it just looks that way because the white spaces are so much larger in the Forever Canadian quilt. 
Anyway, I did write up the pattern for the Forever Canadian quilt, so if you're interested, message me via the contact form in the right column. I'll be charging $12 for a PDF pattern, and I include instructions for both the throw size (76"x64" - appropriate for QOV) and the twin bed size (100"x64"). As I do not have an online shop, and likely won't unless my quilt designing suddenly "takes off", payment will be via e-transfer or PayPal (if I can figure that out) and I will send the pattern via email. 

Maple Leaf Forever Scarf and More

 

I introduced the Maple Leaf forever scarf back in November when it was almost finished (see post here). I finished it in the meantime and had sufficient yarn to make a matching toque, but I didn't want to make it using multiple double pointed needles. While I do own some, I have never used them to actually knit in the round and have no desire to, using them only when I need them for a cable or other fancy stitch. Especially when I also own knitting looms. While I can generally hand knit faster than I can "loom", I just didn't want the hassle. There's probably a way to make a toque with a circular needle instead of double pointed needles, but I would have had to find a pattern. And I had made loom-knit toques before. However, when it came down to it, I didn't remember which pattern I'd used. I think I finally found it, but now I don't honestly remember which pattern I used. I believe it was for a slouchy from LoomaHat, but she has a lot of different patterns and videos. I modified it anyway as I incorporated the maple leaf design from the scarf pattern and made it shorter, so it wouldn't be as slouchy. If I had to do it over again, I would move the maple leaf closer to the brim and made the toque even shorter as it's still slouchy, and I don't like slouchy hats. Yes, I know I was using a slouchy pattern, but my previous efforts didn't turn out slouchy at all... Perhaps it was a totally different pattern that I had used before. 
I finished both the scarf and the toque by the middle of November, but I've been so busy getting other projects finished before Christmas that I haven't blogged about it until now. One of the projects was Tartan Delight, another one of Fabric Cafe's 3-yard quilt patterns. 

This one is the It's a Snap pattern from the book Pretty Darn Quick. I had purchased the fabric on one of my quilt shop hops. I love tartan fabric and I think it turned out very nice. The recipient suggested blues and greens, and this was the best match I had in my 1 metre/yard collection. I used a royal blue minky dot for the backing. 

Anise is the pantograph I chose. It was one I received for a pantograph of the month program that I was in briefly, but I haven't used it as it didn't really appeal to me. However, now that I've stitched it out, I do find it rather pretty, though it will likely never be one of my favourites. 
I worked on this one at the Lutheran church sew days, but when I got it home and put it up on my design wall to measure for the borders, I thought, "What is wrong?" It definitely did not look right. I finally figured out that I had gotten all the blocks in the correct order in each row, but then I had stitched the rows together in the wrong order. I think I only ended up with two out of the 6 rows in the right place. I gave the stitch ripper a workout that day. 
Next up was Higher Ground, using the Stepping Up pattern. I had gotten the pattern as one of the freebies that Fabric Cafe shares. They switch out their freebies every couple of months, so it's a case of you snooze, you lose. But I try to keep up with their pattern giveaways, so I don't lose out. 

I was kind of loathe to part with this one because the colours and the fabrics are just really awesome, but the recipients loved it. I had to make a few design changes - a couple were deliberate, based on my fabric available (I didn't have quite enough of the navy blue, so had to rearrange fabric placements, and decided to make the mauve border wider). And I accidentally made one too many of one block and one too few of the other, so my rows are arranged slightly differently than the pattern. But it's still a beautiful quilt, in my opinion. 

I had some mauve minky dot in my stash that I used for the backing and Zoidberg Feathers for the quilting. This is a pantograph that I have used before, but I had to choose something that would work with minky - nothing too dense - and would look good on the quilt top. It's probably one of my favourite designs - it's very pretty and works up relatively quickly. 

As a matter of fact, I decided that it had the right qualities for stitching up fabrics for bag-making, and I used it for quilting the fabrics for a travel bag for my grandson, seen here on the longarm, and a backpack for my daughter. I was really hoping to get these bags finished, plus a couple more quilts, in time for Christmas, but I just ran out of time. As a matter of fact, I didn't even get all 3 of my Christmas trees up and decorated until Christmas Eve. And other Christmas decorating around the house was pretty sparse. Hopefully, I'll get the bags finished soon and you'll hear more about them then. 

Bad Choices

There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.

Proverbs 16:25 NIV

I actually considered a few different names for this quilt. One was Fabric Vomit because it's so busy that you can barely discern a pattern. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, kind of like the dog ate some fabric and then vomited up this quilt. Except that I don't have a dog. I also thought of Anything But Subtle, because this quilt kind of shouts. Another name I came  up with was That Wasn't a Good Idea. And it wasn't. It really wasn't, but I ended up calling it Bad Choices because I made more than one bad choice in the making of this quilt. Let me tell you its story. 
I wanted to make a quilt for someone and was trying to come up with an idea that would be relatively quick and use fabric from my stash. A lot of my 1 yard/metre collection was either boring or not quite what I wanted. So, I was rummaging around in my stash to see what else I could come up with. 

I found some leftovers from Chelsea Rose Pop, and there seemed to be enough of these two that I might be able to make a 3-yard quilt work, if I could only find more fabric from the same line for the third fabric. Or maybe an alternate fabric that would coordinate well. Unfortunately, the only other fabrics I found from this line were just small scraps - not enough to work in a 3-yard quilt. And I didn't want a really loud 3rd fabric. 
My first bad choice was not learning from Chelsea Rose Pop. I never really liked that quilt because it was too busy with these fabrics and difficult to discern the pattern of the blocks. 

My nephew Peter gave me this book for my birthday. As I flipped through the pages, I found a few projects that I wanted to try, one of which was the Shadowed Square Lap Quilt. The Shadowed Square is a quilt block consisting of a half square triangle of the focus fabric on one half and the other half is varied piecing. In this project, there are 6 variations. 
Since I couldn't find a good coordinating fabric to make a 3-yard quilt with the Chelsea Rose fabric, I opted to make the Shadowed Square quilt as a scrappy quilt. After all, I really loved Weather Alert and so I thought that the scrappy look would work great here as well. However, my second bad choice was deciding to use the Chelsea Rose fabric as the focus fabric. There's just too much going on in this quilt top to use this large and bold print, and the half square triangles really aren't big enough to feature this fabric adequately. It's a very pretty fabric, and would have been great in a not-so-busy pattern with more subtle complementary fabrics. But my third bad choice was to use fabrics that I thought would coordinate with the colours in the focus fabric, and it was just too much. 
My final foolhardy decision was to use a small fleece throw that I had as the backing.

It was just taking up space that a quilt could take up and I figured why not use it as a quilt backing. Unfortunately, since it was just a cheap little blanket, it stretched A LOT! When I first compared it to the quilt top, I knew that it would be a tight squeeze. It was maybe 2-3 inches wider than the quilt and 4-5 inches longer. But I figured I could make it work. I used pins to attach it to the leaders and wasn't planning on using the clamps on the sides. But it was droopy on the sides, so I tightened up the quilt by rolling the pole. But I still found that I had to use the side clamps, which made it very difficult to quilt because I had to keep repositioning them to keep them out of the way of the machine when I was quilting close to the edges. And as I advanced the quilt, the backing stretched lengthwise, which pulled the sides in. I had to keep pulling on the sides of the backing to make sure it covered the whole quilt top. And I ended up trimming off about 10 inches off the bottom when I was finished quilting, plus 1-2 inches off the top. As I said, it stretched a lot, and the backing is a lot thinner than it would have been had it not been so stretched out. And the quilt top ended up rather pucker-y, especially along the left side. But the puckers seemed to mostly work themselves out with the binding, and it just looks extra puffy in some areas. But I did notice that it tends to curl back on the bottom when I hung it up to take the picture, thanks again to the over-stretching. Perhaps I should wash it in hot water and the shrinkage in the cotton quilt top would make up for it... 
The quilting design I chose is Sweetpea Scramble. It's quite a pretty design and I'm hoping I won't hold a "grudge" against it because of all the challenges I had quilting this quilt. It's one of the Golden Thread designs that is now sold by Handi Quilter. 

Hmm, I do have more fleece throws, but will I use them as quilt backing? If I decide to try it, I will check out the throw first to see if there is more stretch in one direction, and put that direction horizonally on the frame. Secondly, I will likely use regular quilt batting, instead of polyester fibrefil, as the quilt top is easier to manage with regular batting. I will also have to be more careful to ensure both backing and top are aligned, as my top in this quilt seemed to be migrating to the left, which is part of the reason for more puckers on that side and I had more problems with the backing disappearing on the left. And finally, I would make sure that the size of the quilt top is more appropriate to the size of the throw. 
I had already decided that I was not going to burden anyone with this quilt when I put the blocks on the design wall. But I decided to put it together anyway because what else was I going to do with those odd blocks? So, now that it's finished, it's going to remain in my own collection. And it's kind of grown on me. Even though, it is quite loud and busy, the fabrics and colours are quite pretty.  And I actually like it better than Chelsea Rose Pop, although it will definitely never be my favourite quilt.  
Now for an object lesson. Sometimes we can make important life decisions - ones that are far more consequential than fabrics in a quilt -  that seem right at the time. Or fit our agenda. Or make us "happy". But, as the Bible verse at the beginning of this post says, those decisions can not only get us into trouble, but sometimes the results are permanent, sometimes very obvious and ultimately sometimes can result in death. Ours or someone else's. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. And that's a pretty serious consequence for a "bad choice". I want to align my decisions with the Word of God, the Bible, and avoid those serious consequences of misguided choices. 

Democracy Defended

Last year, for my birthday, I was given the Christmas 2024 edition of Quilter's World magazine, A Very Merry Quilted Christmas. As I flipped through the pages, I found the pattern for "Noel Surrounded" by Lyn Brown. The green colour appealed to me because it wasn't the traditional "Christmas green" and I thought I might make it work for one of my great nephews, whose favourite colour is green. When it came to purchasing the fabric, however, I switched out the red for a dark purple, not wanting it to appear to be a Christmas quilt. I also decided that I wanted my quilt slightly smaller, so I left off the final inch and a half of the border.

The quilt block used, Burgoyne Surrounded, is a rather large and complex block, It finishes at 22½" square and is composed of 97 pieces! Yes, that's per block. But there were only 6 blocks and the designer simplified the process by using strip piecing techniques. 

Unfortunately, that did leave me with a lot of already-stitched together leftover strips. If I were to do it over again (and I have no intention of it), I would have completed the last few units from individual pieces rather than strip pieces, which would have left me with more usable fabric leftovers, rather than already stitched-together strips. However, I do appreciate the fact that trying to write that into a pattern would have made it overly and unnecessarily complex. 
I have to admit that I really love my fabric choices. The green and the deep purple together just really "zing". 
As I was working on the quilt, I was trying to come up with a name for it. Certainly, "Noel Surrounded" was not appropriate for a quilt that wasn't a Christmas quilt. The designer included this blurb with the pattern: 

Hmm, as a Canadian, I tended to side with the British. Canada is a member of the British Commonwealth, and officially, King Charles III is still our head of state. And we were able to peacefully evolve into our own sovereign nation without bloodshed. And without severing ties with the British crown. And my feelings were further complicated by the fact that the current president of the United States is threatening our sovereignty, and has made himself - essentially - our enemy. No, I definitely did not want to celebrate the United States of America by calling this quilt "Burgoyne Surrounded". Not to mention the fact that that name would mean nothing to the recipient. Or the vast majority of anyone other than the astute student of the history of the USA. 
So, I was still looking for a name for this quilt when I started seeing photos and videos of the protests against ICE's (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) heavy-handed tactics in US cities, like Portland. And of course, I realized that there were many US citizens who were not happy with the decisions and directives coming from the White House. And so the "No Kings" movement was born, protesting the fact that the president, instead of being the servant of the people, was acting like a dictatorial monarch. And because of an inflatable frog costume worn at a peaceful protest in Portland, the frog became an icon of "the resistance". And more and more frogs appeared. And I found myself siding with the frogs, and the unicorns, and dinosaurs... Because we all recognize that democracy is at stake. 

And as I looked at the green in this quilt top, I realized it was the same green as the frogs (or very similar), and I decided to quilt it with frogs in solidarity with the protesters. 

(The design is Pond Lily, and I just used it recently in Swan Lake Surprise.)
Initially, I thought about calling the quilt Portland Defended. But then I realized it was much broader than that and decided on Democracy Defended. And I believe that that is very consistent with the original meaning behind this quilt block. - freedom from autocratic, dictatorial control. And makes a lot more sense to the non-historian than "Burgoyne Surrounded".
I have to admit that I was thinking of Betsy Ross as I was working on this quilt. But what difference will a quilt make? What difference will all of the protests make? Will they make a difference? Or is it too late in this world's history? Allow me to explain. 
I believe that the United States is portrayed in Bible prophecy in the book of Revelation:

 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
Revelation 13:11

If you want to know the explanation for why and how I believe this beast is the United States of America, this video gives a good overview:

The question is: Will the United States recover from this, or is this the beginning of the final downward slide that leads to the enforcement of the Mark of the Beast? I guess only time will tell. But the Bible gives us this admonition: 

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man (Jesus) will come at an hour when you do not expect him. 

Matthew 24:44 NIV

Celtic Dragons

 

Earlier this year, my daughter, grandson and I visited a large fabric store in the city. Damian and I went in search of dragons, and found them in the form of a 6-dragon panel, with Celtic motifs at the top and bottom of the panel.

I purchased the panel, and later decided to continue the Celtic idea, using the Celtic Twist quilt block that I had used in the Tales of Ireland quilt. Since the individual dragon panels were 10" square, I decided to reduce the size of the quilt block to match. 

It made for some relatively small pieces. And it is a rather challenging quilt block. Nevertheless, I made 14 of them. Originally, I had thought to incorporate the Celtic motifs from the panel into the quilt top, but didn't see any way to make that work. I may later make use them in a pillowcase to coordinate with the quilt. 
Damian and I chose colours from the dragons to use in the quilt blocks. He said that he wanted the quilt to be slightly larger than Dancing Snowflakes, that I made him for last Christmas.I used my Quilt Pro 6 design software to plan the layout and calculate yardage. (I purchased my software, but you can now download it for free because they're not making it any more), and included a narrow border of each fabric. I ordered what I was hoping were the best colours online, but when they arrived, the red was more pinkish - definitely not a dragon red. Fortunately, I also had an orange-red in my stash, so we substituted it for the pinkish one.
When we went to the close-out sale at our local quilt shop, we found a thick black minky with an arrow design. They didn't have any of the regular black minky left, or not enough, and I figured since dinosaurs are rather medieval and arrows were used during medieval times, shooting them from slit windows in castle walls, the arrow minky was appropriate. 
The original plan was for this to be a joint project - me making the blocks, and Damian stitching the blocks together. But recently, when I thought about making it for him for Christmas, I didn't want to leave him out if he still wanted to be part of the project. He didn't. So, I went ahead and made it up. 
I've been going to the local Lutheran church for their weekly craft/sew day, and made up the first block there. I like to have one block made, especially for complex blocks, to see how it looks and use it for reference when I make up the remaining blocks. But since it is rather complex, and I tend to get sidetracked by the socialization (I make more mistakes there than I do at home), I decided to finish the quilt top at home, rather than at the church. 
One night when I was having trouble sleeping, I got up and finished the binding on a couple of quilts, and added the first two borders to this one. 

When I got up the following morning, and went downstairs, I was rather startled to discover that one of the links in the quilt top appeared to be glowing. It was an almost perfect square of light from a window in another room, highlighting that one link. 
I chose Irish Swirls as the most Celtic-looking pantograph I own and quilted it with a variegated thread that featured the colours in the quilt top. 

I used a black Glide 60 in the bobbin, so I was close to finishing the quilting before the bobbin ran out. After I changed the bobbin, the top thread broke, so I rethreaded it, did a machine tie-off and started quilting again. And it seemed to be quilting fine without any issues until I was further down the row. That's when it started skipping large areas, so I knew that there was a bobbin issue. Somehow the bobbin thread had come out of the slot/guide (whatever you call it), so I rethreaded it, did another tie-off back before the stitching had started skipping and finished the quilting without further problems. 
While I was attaching the binding, I noticed some of the stitching in the quilting was really loose, so I figured I would have to re-stitch that area. But when I pulled on the loose stitching, the thread kept coming and coming. The entire length of quilting between those two tie-offs had come loose. And it had looked like perfect good quilting. But there apparently was no bobbin thead. What I later concluded was that the bobbin thread must have come loose with that thread break and the upper thread was rather rough-textured, compared to Glide, and that the extra thick minky was holding it in place until I started handling the quilt during binding. 
But now I was left in a quandary as to how I was going to replace all of that quilting. My Red Snappers would not snap over the thickness of the quilt in order to load it back onto the longarm. I don't own corsage pins (except for a few in some corsages that I still have around) and my regular pins were not heavy duty enough for the job. So, I ended up doing the job on my Janome sewing machine. There are a few zigs and zags where they don't belong, but it's really not noticeable unless you're looking for it. 
Finished, thankfully, and ready to gift on Christmas day. 

I'll Fly Away

If you were to ask me what my favourite colour is, I would say purple. While my preference is for the bluer, darker purples, I like all colours in the purple family. And most people, when I ask their favourite colour(s), say green or red or whatever. They don't get incredibly specific and say emerald green or scarlet... That is most people. However, recently when I asked a friend what his favourite colour is, he said "sky blue." Since I was planning on making him a quilt, that made it rather challenging. What I would consider sky blue and what he would consider sky blue are not necessarily the same thing. I rummaged through my fabric stash trying to come up with what would be sky blue, which only increased my unncertainty. I actually googled "sky blue" and that just made things more confusing because it came up with multiple colours. 

"Sky Blue" from Wikipedia

Then I thought, well if he wants sky blue, I will give him sky blue. I have several "sky" fabrics in my stash. Initially, I was going to make him the dolphin quilt, which includes both sea and sky fabrics and is on my quilting bucket list. But then I thought I don't have time to mess with applique, and I'm not sure which fabric to use for the dolphins. This was before Christmas and I had to finish 3 quilts I was giving as Christmas gifts, in addition to wanting to get this friend's quilt finished as well. The dolphin quilt became a UFO and I decided to try something different. I decided to pull several sky fabrics from my stash, figuring he could pick which blue he liked as "sky blue" out of the various blues in this quilt top.

I didn't have a metre or yard of each, so I couldn't use a 3-yard quilt pattern. Instead, I devised my own pattern, using stash fabrics. And I think it turned out pretty nice. I "borrowed" the blue minky dot fabric I was going to use as backing for Eccentric to use as backing for this one. (I then used some black minky from a UFO to back Eccentric). 

As for the quilting, I picked Airplanes in the Clouds, and that's how I got the name for the quilt, I'll Fly Away. 
Just a doctrinal note about the song by that name, I'll Fly Away. It's actually not Biblical because we don't go straight to heaven when we die. We go to heaven when Jesus returns and raises His followers to life. To learn more about this, you can read, Are the Dead Really Dead? Or click on Ghost Truth or Hell Truth in the sidebar on the right. 
And my friend liked his quilt and said it was the right colour. 

Moving on from quilts to my kitchen, in the world of economics, there is a principle called "economies of scale". In a nutshell, that means the bigger the customer base, the lower the prices. So, in a country like the United States, which has a population of over 333 million, it's only logical that most things are less expensive there than in Canada, with a population of 41 million. And that things in Ontario (population 14 million) are generally cheaper than in Alberta (population 4 million). But customer base not only affects prices, it also affects availability. Recently, in my small town in rural Alberta, I looked for wasabi powder and tamari. I couldn't find them anywhere. 
Just one of my pet peeves about too many of my cookbooks: price and availability of ingredients. And it came up because I made the Beet Burgers from this cookbook: 

Don't get me wrong - I really appreciate the work of the authors in producing this cookbook.And so far, I've been enjoying it. But I'm sure that it's a lot easier to find wasabi powder where they live than where I live. And it may be fine for them to put a whole cup of nutritional flake yeast in a recipe of 10 or 11 burgers (Wow!), but nutritional yeast is not cheap where I live. 
So, using expensive and hard to find ingredients is one of my biggest cookbook pet peeves. 

As for the burgers, they weren't bad, but not great. I used horseradish instead of wasabi powder, and maybe I should have used more. And I only had about 2/3 cup of nutritional yeast left, so that's all I used. Perhaps those contributed to the fact that I found them rather bland in taste, even with ketchup and mustard. I think they could have used some salt. But, for the most part, the recipes in this cookbook do not use added salt. 

Beet Burger with Grilled Pineapple, saurkraut and alfalfa sprouts

Which brings me to another pet peeve. Too many whole food, plant-based/vegan cookbook authors seem to think that flavour mostly consists of "hot", as in spicy hot: chili peppers, wasabi, black pepper, hot sauce, etc. And I'm not a big fan of "hot". I actually enjoy the flavours of lentils, chickpeas, navy beans, and seasonings like oregano and sage, flavours which just disappear in the onslaught of "hot". I remember years ago, after visiting a vegan restaurant, discussing it with a fellow vegan, and I told her that the food had been too hot. She responded that she felt that too many vegan cooks seem to try to make up for the absence of meat by the use of hot spices. Maybe that's it, because the fat in meat carries flavour. But I've eaten lots of delicious vegan food without it singeing my tongue. 
I had really wanted to like these Beet Burgers (and I still have 9 left) because they are so nutritious, but they are fairly labour-intensive for a burger I just found rather bland. In my many cookbooks, I have lots of burger recipes, many I know that I like, so I don't think I want to buy wasabi powder or play around with other seasonings to try and give these ones more zip. And using a whole cup of nutritional yeast seems rather excessive as well as expensive. So, I likely won't be repeating these burgers. 

4? Country Quilting Projects: Rainbow Biscuit Quilt

The book: 50 Country Quilting Projects by Margit Echols, 1990
The project: Afghan Quilt, pp 236 & following
The first comment I want to make is about the name of this quilt: Afghan Quilt??? Either it's an afghan or a quilt, but not both. In this case, it's fabric with batting (or stuffing, in this case) and backing, so it must be a quilt. I'm not sure if the designer called it that because it's about the size of an afghan (though afghans can actually be any size) or because the layout of the blocks reminded her of an afghan. Either way, I consider it a rather silly name for a quilt and I prefer a more imaginative name, like Rosy Sunrise or Pink Lemonade, since the quilt in the book is done in shades of pink. Or, since it's laid out similar to a Trip Around the World quilt, how about Biscuits Around the World? Wait a minute, that gives me an idea. Since there are over 200 biscuits in this quilt and about 200 countries in the world, I could do an individual biscuit to represent each country in the world. <sigh> So many ideas, so little time...
My real concern about this quilt pattern, however, is not the name, but the inaccuracies in the fabric requirements. The quilt in the book uses 5 different fabrics, not 6 like mine, but that isn't the issue. The squares for the biscuits are 4". Allowing for selvages, you can count on 10 squares per width of fabric strip. The pattern calls for 3/8 yard of fabrics B, C, & D. Three eighths of a yard equals 13.5". Fabric B is fine at 3/8 yard, requiring only 20 squares or 2 strips. Fabric C, however, calls for 28 squares, which would require 3 strips or 12". That's cutting it pretty close to the 13.5" in 3/8 yard, especially if you have to allow for uneven cuts. I prefer a bit more margin for error than that. But 3/8 yard is definitely not enough for fabric D, which requires 36 squares or 4 strips, 16 inches. And with fabric E, the pattern only calls for 1-1/4 yards, or 45", which is really cutting it close to the 44" required for the 11 strips. If it weren't for the fact that I live in Canada where we use the metric system and I had to do some conversion before purchasing this fabric, I might not have caught these errors and I wouldn't have been very happy. In case you have this book and would like to make this quilt, here is what I purchased in metres:
Fabric A - blue - 0.6 m (In the pattern, fabric A is also used where I have the red squares as well as for the backing. The requirements in the pattern, 3-1/4 yards, should be sufficient for this).
Fabric B - orange - 0.3 m
Fabric C - yellow - 0.4 m
Fabric D - green - 0.5 m
Fabric E - purple - 1.2 m
Fabric F - red - 0.3 m
Calculating for just straight squares is pretty simple, so I'm at a loss to understand the reason for the errors in fabric requirements. I certainly hope that this is not an issue throughout this book as I've already purchased the fabric for the Iris Medallion quilt, which I plan to make for my oldest sister.
Back to this biscuit quilt - I just called it the Rainbow Biscuit quilt - as I mentioned, the one in the book is done in shades of pink, and has lace edging and ribbon ties. Mine is for one of my great nephews, so pink, ribbons and lace wouldn't have been appropriate. 
My original plan was to make this quilt for Canada's Sesquicentennial  As I was perusing the book,300 Years of Canada's Quilts,  I found this statement, " Anna Strum of Mador's Cove, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia made an elaborate and beautiful quilt for her only son in 1874. Of German descent with a strong heritage of featherbeds and down quilts, Mrs. Strumm made what is now called a 'biscuit' quilt. Each little 'puff' is filled with uncarded wool..." (p. 52). This quilt can still be found in the Desbrisay Museum in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Unlike the book, however, the museum exhibit states that the quilt was made in 1877 of many types of fabrics stuffed with cotton, and contains 945 squares. (I was able to find this information online before the museum changed their website). Personally, I lean more towards what the book states: sheep can be raised in Canada, but not cotton. And since Canada had not yet developed a textile industry, I question whether "cotton stuffing" would be readily available to make this quilt. An interesting connection, Bridgwater is only 25 minutes from Lunenburg, where the Bluenose II is located, the schooner featured in my pixel quilt.
So, the biscuit quilt was in existence around the time of confederation and at least one was made in Canada not too many years after confederation. 
(For some interesting background on the history of the biscuit quilt, see Those Peculiar Biscuit and Puff Quilts). 
My plans don't always turn out the way I planned them and this quilt never got finished until this year. It's actually incredibly tedious making all of those biscuits. But the most frustrating part is stitching them together. The instructioins in the book say to complete each biscuit individually and then stitch them together in rows and then stitch the rows together. It was really a struggle trying to get all of that bulk under the presser foot on the sewing machine in order to stitch them together. I just got quite frustrated with that process. 
When I finally got back to this quilt this year, I continued to do what the book said until finally I got the brilliant idea to stitch a row of unstuffed biscuits together and then stuff all of them and stitch the whole row closed at once. Yes, it was much easier that way. But still I struggled to get those bulky rows together. And sometime during the process of trying to push all that stuffing togehter and force it under the presser foot, I managed to get my finger too close to the needle and did something that I don't think I have ever done before in my 46 or so years of sewing: I hit my finger with the needle. 

Thank the Lord, it wasn't too serious. It didn't hurt that much, but bled a fair amount. I poured hydrogen peroxide on it and then applied a bandaid. I still can't figure out exactly what happened. The needle must have hit my finger nail and then entered the skin beside the nail. But it went in more parallel than perpendicular. I'm sure my guardian angel was doing his job. Since this project, the lowest thread guide on my sewing machine - the last one before threading the needle - has been bent. I have no idea how that happened or if it's in any way connected to my injury. I'm not rough with my sewing machine, so I really have no explanation for it. 
My next brainstorm for completing this quilt was to stitch the whole row of unstuffed biscuits to the previous - already stuffed - row. That way, I was only dealing with the bulk of one row of stuffed biscuits, not two. That worked much better as well. My final brainstorm didn't happen until I was going to put the binding on, but that was after I came up with a couple of not-so-brilliant ideas. 
The instructions in the book said to put the quilt top and the backing right sides together and stitch them together, leaving an opening to turn. Then turn it right side out, stitch the opening closed and sew a bar tack over a ribbon in multiple biscuit intersections, but not all of them. As I mentioned, this quilt is going to a great nephew, so I didn't want ribbons. I also didn't want to tie the quilt. My experience with tied quilts is that the knots work themselves loose with wear and laundering and I'd have to go back and re-tie or replace them. I also don't think they look as nice. And I wanted quilting around every biscuit, not just a bar tack at certain places. So, I decided to mount it on the longarm and stitch between all of the biscuits. And to compound my foolishness, I also decided to add a layer of polyester fibrefil batting... All of that bulk really became quite unmanageable and my quilting between the rows tended to go in whatever direction the biscuits pushed it. Definitely not nice straight rows. Nevertheless, I got it done. But now, because I chose to quilt it on the longarm, I also had to bind it, something I wouldn't have had to do if I'd followed the method in the book. And I had added to already incredibly bulky quilt by including batting...That's when my final brainstorm came in. I decided to use the Brother sewing machine. Its ¼" foot is narrower on the left side than the one on my Janome. That meant the bulk didn't have as much presser foot to fit under. Even so, I nearly ended up crying - and considered burning the quilt - while fighting to get the binding on. 
Thank God, it's finished. There are a few more biscuit projects in this book, but they are all smaller projects and I at least learned a few tricks to make the going easier while constructing this quilt. 
Here's the fun backing fabric I chose for this project. 

And I lost track of my countdown of projects I've completed in this book, as seen in the title of this post. I haven't quite figured out how the author counts 50 projects, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Colour My Classroom

 

When I first made The Art and Science of Mathematics, my youngest sister, who is an elementary school teacher, commented that it would be a good quilt for the reading corner in her classroom. That quilt already had a recipient, but I have kept in the back of my mind the fact that Cindy would like a reading corner quilt. 
Initially, my plan was to make a bookshelf quilt, maybe adding a terrarium with a tarantula on one shelf, using black yarn to couch the tarantula. And maybe a cat somewhere on another shelf, also using couching to define the cat. Maybe I would add the titles of favourite books from Cindy's classroom to the spines of the books using the alphabet embroidery function on my sewing machine. That would be fun, but getting around to it was another matter. 
Then one day, as I was exploring my fabric, I took a good look at the fabric in this jelly roll. 

I had originally purchased it to use in a children's/baby's quilt, but since I currently have a stash of 5 or 6 of those, I really don't need another one. My grandson has been given the John Deere Triple Irish Chain quilt, Dinosaur Days, the quilt made from the Northcott Connector Playmats, the small quilt for the floor in his card table tent, Sew Fast and a couple of quilted wallhangings, plus 3 afghans. So, I really don't think that he needs another quilt either.
And then I remembered the reading corner quilt and realized that this fabric is perfect for an elementary school classroom. I also had the one-metre cut of the black print that was part of this line (used in border 2 and the binding), that I decided not to use in Sew Fast. And then, incidentally, I had bought 3 metres of this fabric to back a children's quilt,

not realizing that it coordinated well with the jelly roll. It's just a different line of Crayola fabrics from Riley Blake. (Sorry, the picture is a little fuzzy. It's rulers with the Crayola logo on them). 
I chose the Zig-Zag Shangri-La pattern from the book, Strip Delight, by Suzanne McNeill. I used some of the leftover strips, plus some of the backing fabric to make the third border, making them 2½" wide, rather than the 1½" called for, and eliminated the fourth border, resulting in a quilt about 43" x 59". I didn't need a 54" x 70" quilt for 9-year-olds. By the way, the dimensions given in the pattern are incorrect. The length to cut the width-wise border strips is over by 4" for all 4 borders, and the final width should be 54", not 58" as stated in the book. Unless I miscalculated somewhere. 
For the quilting, I chose Alphabet Soup #2 by Patricia Ritter for Urban Elementz, and used a rainbow variegated thread that I had in my stash. 

I happened to have a mostly full bobbin of the same thread and just wound one more. I wasn't sure how much bobbin thread I would need and variegated thread is expensive, so I have pretty much made up my mind to not use it in bobbins any more and I didn't want to wind any more than I needed. Well, I lost at bobbin chicken about a row and a half before finishing, but I had another part bobbin of a different variegated thread. It was close enough that I doubt anyone will notice the difference, so I used that to finish the quilt. 
I did however, win at batting chicken. 

I had a piece of batting that was just slightly longer than the quilt top. I didn't want to cut another piece from the roll, or go to the trouble of adding extra batting to the end of this piece. 
I also knew I was cutting it close with binding, but I made it. 

However, I did have more of this fabric if I needed it. 
One of the things that bothers me about patterns for pre-cut fabrics is the leftovers. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these. 

Another thing that bothers me is the fact that patterns designed for pre-cuts generally use a specific fabric bundle. And the pattern may call for a certain number of strips/pieces of a given colour or of a dark/light/medium fabric which works well with that particular bundle, but you may not have that number in your particular pre-cut bundle. So you have to wing it. Or use a different pattern that works better with the bundle that you have. 
That's one of the reasons I love my Waves of Blue quilt. Not only is it a beautiful quilt, in my opinion, but it used all of every strip in the jelly roll.