Wendy’s Quilting and Life

We have been experiencing normal deep freeze winter weather here for the last week or so ago. For the most part winter weather doesn’t bother me.

I do love a bright sunshiny January day and yesterday was one of those days!

I am over due in sharing this special quilt that was made during 2023 for my daughter Mary. It has a lot of significance personally and was a joy to make.

After quilting the quilt with the pantograph Butterfly Charm and a beautiful variegated thread, I added additional quilting with my domestic machine and wonderfil Glamore thread to add more glitz.

My daughter loves purple and butterflies and she told me that she had wanted a quilt with this quilting design from the moment it first arrived in my studio so many years ago. When she saw the quilt as a kit on a Keepsake Quilting Catalogue she quickly requested it.

Her son Liam asked to make the label for this special quilt and he did a fantastic job!

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Starswirl Quilt

January 17, 2024 wendysquilting

Starswirl is a beautiful pantograph design, it has a really nice flow to guide my machine over creating a beautiful even density of stitches over the quilt.

The stitches are so pretty and really shine on the blue backing! The daylight was not overly cooperative yesterday, the first picture is a truer image of the green in this fun quilt.

The quilt is trimmed and ready for binding. This quilter is making quilts for each grandchild and saving them for when they are grown.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Betty’s Polychromatic Quilt

January 12, 2024 wendysquilting

Betty and I have been friends for many years! I have always been so appreciative of her friendship and life guidance over the years, she is an encourager and cheers me on.

We first met when I was a young Mom, and I have been quilting for her for almost 19 years. At 89 yrs she is still making quilts!

Betty pieced the pattern Polychromatic by Elizabeth Hartman for her son. He and his wife chose the pantograph Belly Bop for the quilting design.

My pictures does not fully capture the beautiful brightness of this quilt.

The gray background fabric is Essex Linen which is made with 55% linen and 45% cotton. This fabric is a looser weave than regular quilting cotton and has a bit of a stretch and also frays very easily. Betty told me that it was a challenge to work with.

I kept a close eye for stray threads that migrated from their place to lay under the lighter fabrics as they really showed up.

Isn’t that backing pretty!

Betty’s quilt is trimmed and ready for binding.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

January Quilting and Life

January 9, 2024 wendysquilting

My view this morning…I love the snow laden tree look!

I am almost finished binding the second of the two pink quilts!

A couple of posts ago I shared a picture of the backing fabric being prepared for this quilt.

In my opinion it is well worth the time to do things well. This includes pinning and making sure that my end result is a beautifully quilted quilt that lays flat without puckers or pleats. I know that there are short cuts, however I also know that shortcuts can result in issues that I am not happy with.

It’s a wonderful feeling when I finish a quilt that I know that my customer will feel proud of.

The backing:

Joan has been using her stash to create fantastic quilts!

I really enjoy a good splash of colour in my studio!

Her quilt is trimmed and the binding prepared and ready for pick up.

What are you working on? Do you use your scraps?

Most of my quilting time is spent helping my customers complete their quilts. I do however schedule in time for myself to piece.

I like to have a few projects on the go at the same time, do you?

My current fun is the scrappy postage stamp quilt which I will be working on for a while!

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Coffee

January 6, 2024 wendysquilting

I have enjoyed beginning each morning with a cup of coffee…well make that two cups every morning for as long as I can remember.

In my early days in first apartments there were Melita drip setups and then the Mr. coffee type set ups. I also mastered percolated coffee for camping in the motorhome.

Erik and I have visited Finland together twice…before the first time I remember asking his Mom if there would be morning coffee while we were there. She assured me that there would be coffee!!

Yes there was coffee, really great coffee! In fact every home we visited had a coffee maker that was very different from what I was familiar with, every home had a Moccamaster.

My favourite mugs were abundant in Finland…I did add a couple to my collection while there.

Even found a more serious Moccamaster at Eriks cousins company.

We looked into buying one here, the price was a lot more than our usual machine and we decided that it wasn’t a high priority…

Fast forward to a huge surprise this Christmas when we were gifted a Moccamaster coffee maker!!

The process is different and slightly more time consuming, but oh the coffee is so much nicer…so much so that I find myself having a little coffee break in the afternoon.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Preparation and Longarm Quilting

January 4, 2024 wendysquilting

Now that the holidays are once again ready to be tucked away and added to memories of Christmas pasts, I am ready to get back to sharing my work!

My longarm has new wheels and is ready to get back to work!

Preparation is key to great results! I often piece customer backings and as I have mentioned before there is no additional cost for this service.

In my opinion most backings when piecing yardage look better when the pattern is matched and so I do take the time if there is enough fabric supplied and my customer wants it done.

Preparing both the top and backing with a good pressing, also enables me to double check before loading just in case there might be issues that can be corrected easily before quilting. Loading freshly pressed backings also assures that there won’t be puckers or pleats in the quilt after quilting.

As I enter my 20th year of Longarm Quilting for customers, I am looking forward to continue helping others to complete their quilting projects.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

New Years and Quilting

January 4, 2024 wendysquilting

Welcome to 2024!

We enjoyed welcoming in the new year quietly.

The second day of the year was spent with two of our Grandchildren. Kaija and I finished making her pouch from last weeks sewing first.

She found a small scrap of fabric with Olaf from the movie frozen and she chose her fabrics from my scrap basket to grow it into a pouch. She has so much fun with my basket of scraps!

Kaija loves to fill the bags and pouches with little bits of fabric that she finds in my sewing room to take home with her! 😊

Later she discovered left overs from the pink quilts and my empty design wall. She had so much fun with the squares and putting together 9 patches to put together to make a new quilt!

I love how interested Kaija is in my sewing, it will be fun to see where it takes her.

Grayson wanted to sew as well, his interest lately has been hand stitching, he worked on a little pouch last week and this week how to sew a button on. We had snow over new years so what he really wanted to do involved Pappa and a snowmobile!

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

The Week Between

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023 wendysquilting

Let’s start with my morning view!!! That looks more like it for this time of year ☃️

Somehow the week between Christmas and New Years has flown by! Not without a lot of fun. We had Grand parenting days. While there was no snow so no snowmobiling, Erik took the kids on Quad rides instead.

If I haven’t mentioned it before we have several trails throughout our property, we really enjoy them and visiting the pond as well. Well the Grandchildren love the trails!

Grayson decided that he wanted to learn some sewing and asked if he could learn to hand sew! Maybe this was inspiring

Grayson even got Pappa involved in the sewing!

Grayson is getting really good on the machine as well, working on the bag that he is making

Kaija discovered my newest scissors and enjoyed snipping scraps and cutting out the sloths from a trimmed piece.

Kaija and I made a bag together, she likes to use the foot petal while I guide the fabric. She loves choosing the fabrics as well. it won’t be long before she is using the machine.

She was really silly when I took the picture…how scary does that marker look. She is really careful about colouring though.

Minka and Romee joined in one afternoon! Grayson and Pappa built a fort for the girls. They made full use of it and had a lot of fun together.

I love this picture my daughter sent of Minka’s fort at home, she is inside with a quilt sleeping and using Romees quilt to cover the fort! I love to see the quilts I make in action!!

Today is the 19th anniversary of my Longarm quilting machines arrival, I also like to call it her birthday. My Millennium is an amazing machine and I have a special treat for her that I will share soon.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Christmas 2023

December 26, 2023December 26, 2023 wendysquilting

Christmas Morning…no snow and above zero Celsius temperatures! There isn’t any snow in the forecast and temperatures continue to be very mild.

Winter solstice was very welcomed, without snow the darkest days of the year seemed even darker as the snow does reflect what light there is.

The extra lights from the tree and other Christmas decorations are so welcome and add such a cozy feel to life!

Our family brunch which we host the Sunday before Christmas has become a wonderful tradition and this year was no exception. It’s a very busy fun filled day and one that I don’t have pictures to share but lovely memories to cherish.

Eriks Mom hosted Christmas Eve with a beautiful dinner that has become more of a potluck style meal as the grandchildren are grown, though she still roasts the turkey makes her famous amazing mashed potatoes, carrot casserole, salt fish sandwiches and moccasins as the children call this very traditional Finnish treat.

My daughter and son in law invited me to share their joy of Christmas morning with them and Joy it was watching my granddaughters see the transformation of their family room with tree decorated and lit and gifts and stockings from Santa.

I gifted myself with time to hand sew in the afternoon, as we were invited to my youngest daughters for Christmas Dinner. It was delicious and a truly beautiful evening!

It’s been a very busy season of quilting for my customers and making sure that their quilts were ready for gifting. I am so thankful for my customers that entrust me with their quilts!