Several years ago there was a wonderful quilt shop in Grand Marais Minnesota. It’s funny now that we all called it Crystals Shop (the owners name was Crystal) though I am sure that it had another name.
Crystal carried a lot of batiks and had developed a pattern and sold many many kits called The Perfect Ten, I recently had the pleasure of quilting one for a customer.
My customer has two daughters who also quilt and they had challenged each other to get their ufo’s complete. Mom won.
The backing was such a perfect choice.
Living in Thunder Bay, many quilters here have often enjoyed day trips across the border for a drive along Lake Superior for shop hops. We now have one in Lutsen to visit along with Quilters Corner in Beaver Bay.
With so much of my quilting time taken up with Longarm Quilting for others…which I love by the way, it is very easy to neglect piecing time which is a major passion of mine.
I began piecing my Longtime Gone quilt a year ago last March! Being a very scrappy quilt I have loved the challenge but it also involves many bins of my scraps that can wreak havoc in my sewing room which often overflows with customer quilts and is also Liam’s favourite place to sleep when he is here.
The Color Collective also took front and centre stage this year taking up my precious piecing hours.
Well my scrappy quilt has been calling so I began puttering with it again.
Sometimes spending too much time planning a scrappy block isn’t a great thing… I was almost finished this block when I noticed too much of the same thing in the upper left of the block. I also should have made the outside geese scrappy.
I decided to leave the outside geese as they are at least for now but did make a change that I much prefer.
This block is the most subtle of the blocks…
I have more than half of the blocks finished for this quilt, and might just work on kitting up the rest of the blocks so that I can just pick up one as time permits and tuck the scrap bins away for another time.
It was a hot day yesterday and Liam and I had made important plans for after school when I picked him up.
First thing was to head to Dairy Queen as he and Pappa had run out of ice cream cake in he freezer. Liam suggested that also have a small cone while there, his disappeared almost instantly and then he suggested that he finish mine…which he did.
Our special start to summer cake
As soon as we got to the house he raced in to get his swim suit on…he likes to be first one into the pool each year.
Such a happy day!
Followed with bison burgers for supper
And of course cake…
And more swimming!
He has 3 more days of school and then summer break.
It is officially summer! The days will gradually get shorter again daylight wise. Sunrise was 5:55am and Sunset today 10:03…summer days here are long. Of course we pay for that in December.
We were under a heat warning yesterday and it was extremely hot. At one point it was 33C and with the humidity much higher. The black flies and mosquitoes have been abundant so other that my gardening tasks I hid out in my studio quilting my day away.
The robins nest is looking very full
Last week while cutting the grass Erik discovered a bunny nest. It was such a treat to see especially because Liam was with us and was able to see it.
Unfortunately two mornings later the nest was empty, we found one lone bunny not far from the nest.
Bunnies are so well camouflaged!
Knowing that it’s best to leave them we let it be, however it didn’t move and after a huge thunderstorm it was soaked and still so we brought it in.
One of Eriks daughters is a true animal lover and encouraged us to rescue this bunny and she found someone to take over for us. We got word yesterday that the bunny is thriving.
The night before discovering the nest, there was a bunny looking in my Long-arm room window, when I brought Liam into the room to see, it hopped onto the window sill and stood up looking right at him. Later I noticed it was hopping erratically all over the yard. I wonder now if it was the mom and was aware of the predictor that took her baby’s.
The pool is almost set up again and yesterday when I went to check the water temperature there was a bunny resting beside the pool. They often hang out around the house.
Baby quilts are so sweet and this one was so nice to quilt. I used the pantograph popcorn giving the quilt a nice airy feeling…this design reminds me of clouds and I often choose it for that affect.
As a young busy single Mom I was blessed to have many friends who were ahead of me on this life journey we are all on.
Most of these women I met through the Quilt Guild and by quilting for them. When I first checked out our local guild, I only peeked in the door and didn’t stay…I wasn’t quite 30 then and it looked like most of the women there were a lot older than I was. I mistakenly thought to myself that they wouldn’t welcome me.
Oh how wrong I was, and when I ventured back I was so welcomed, and mentored. I loved sitting with these women and watching and listening to them at guild meetings.
When news got out that I was getting a Longarm they were truly excited for me and supportive! That’s when I started quilting for Leila. She at the time was the local Elna dealer and she was determined that I needed the Quilters Dream Pro sewing machine. She kept inviting me over to try it, I kept declining, knowing that I would most likely love the machine and also knowing that it was priced way out of my budget.
Still she persisted and one day when I dropped one of her quilts off to her she insisted that I sit down and try out the machine…so I did. Of course I loved it. Well she had a plan, she said that she knew it was beyond what I could afford but what if I just quilted her quilts for it!
She sent me home with that machine and I love it to this day! She also sat me down and taught me to service my own machines a gift that has served me well many times.
A couple of months ago Leila called me to let me know that she hadn’t been well and was moving to Southern Ontario to live closer to her family. We had such a nice visit.
How can you not smile when you look at this fun quilt! The fabric choices were perfect and it was such a joy to quilt!
It was quilted using the Pantograph Waterworld. I like a well quilted baby quilt with the hope that the quilt will be well loved ad will withstand the many washings that are need from being well used.
One of the things that I really enjoyed before the pandemic was my weekly Rec centre quilting day. Before we all had to stay home , once a week from 1-9 quilters gathered, worked on their projects shared ideas and stories and laughter, a lot of silly giggly laughter.
It’s been so nice to be back lately and this week it hit me, that I really did miss the laughter! I really don’t mind being at home, which works really well with a home based business however it sure is nice to be back with friends!
This week I decided to revisit my Longtime Gone Quilt project. I had put it aside while working on a few other projects. I had been bringing my Stellar quilt however that pattern really requires concentration and is best suited for working alone in my studio.
These are the blocks that started my decision to make the quilt.
Have you seen the hats being made? This morning I read on a blog that I follow that she is making one with crumb piecing, that looks like fun.
I have been reading this blog for a while now, her Franken bags are so inspiring and now her hats!! She shares the links to her tutorials on a recent post including one for Finnish Salmon Soup. Here is a link to her fun blog!
Parchment has become a very popular pantograph for my quilters it seems. I have used it fairly often and I used it to finish this recent quilt. I used a baby blue thread colour that really popped against the black.
My pictures of the backing really didn’t do the actual colours justice. The backing is a beautiful blue batik that really showed off the perfect stitches.
