Tag: Scrap Quilts

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Scrappy Goodness!!

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Anyone who knows me knows that I love Quilts!

Todays Instagram Quilt Fest post is about scrappy finishes, so I spent a little time looking through my pictures and look what I found!

My adorable Granddaughters enjoying a summer day last year! I had forgotten about the quilt that they are on!

It was made using quilters candies from a once upon loved quilt shop in town called Patchworks! The owner had a candle jar of charms folded into 1” squares with a stitch to hold them together. When I shopped with my girls the owner Diana would pour them onto the floor and my girls were allowed to pick one to add to the collection…

I remember making the quilt to practice Longarm quilting when I first began my business.

One day last December we had a day with grands which always makes for a grand day! Kaija asked me if we could go to my sewing room and make something. Music to this Grandmas ears!!

We made a pouch with scraps and when I dumped out my in use scrap basket I was reminded of my initial love of scraps! She filled her little pouch with scraps and has had hours of fun!

I have made and quilted so many scrappy quilts and my customer quilts continue to inspire more…

I have an early memory of my Mom taking taking me to a neighbours house and this lady had a sewing room full of Raggedy Ann dolls all in bright dresses she also made Barbie clothes…that room was so full of inspiration that never left me I was probably 5 yrs at the time!

Hopefully my sewing room will grow inspiration in my granddaughter’s hearts and minds as well.

Longarm quilting Thunder Bay, Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Marilyn’s Half Square Triangle Quilt

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This is the latest of Marilyn’s Half Square Triangle quilts! I have had the pleasure of quilting them all for her.

Each half square triangle unit finishes at 2 inches and there are 2592 hst units in each quilt! She told me that she makes 2 at a time and trims them to 2 1/2 inches.

These quilts are a true labour of love and will be gifted to each of Marilyn’s granddaughters!

Her use of value over prints brings luminosity to her quilts! I have a lot of fun looking at all of the different fabrics in each quilt…I haven’t been quilting quite as long as Marilyn has been but I suspect that at some point I to will be able to make quilts like hers!

This is the same backing that was used in a previous quilt of Marilyn’s, it is a perfect choice for such a classic design. As always her quilts are returned to her trimmed and ready for binding.

Let me help you bring your quilting projects to completion!

wendysquilting@gmail.com or call 807-251-4261

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Stash and Scrap Piecing

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While many quilters are working along with Karen at Just Get it Done Quilting’s cleaning and sorting challenges I have been working on another half square triangle quilt for Marilyn.

If you have been following along with my blog you will know that this isn’t her first quilt like this!

It takes many years to accumulate this type of stash! When you look closely at her quilts it’s easy to see some fabrics that may have lost favour over the years over new projects and different fabric lines. Some might say get rid of what you won’t use or that you no longer love but something to consider…some day you may have a little more time on your hands for such a project one that will include memories from many years of quilting!

Some quilters work on a project like Marilyn’s over many years and eventually have enough to make the quilt… what projects are you working on?

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

A quilt finishing story.

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Sometimes a quilter with best intentions sets out to quilt their own quilt and for all kinds of reasons after basting their quilt decide that they don’t want to do the quilting themselves…

I haven’t quilted many quilts on my sewing machine, I really admire the skill of those who do. I had intended to devote some time to that this year…the race is on as the 2022 seems to be racing by.

Anyways, sometimes I receive a call from someone who has made the attempt to quilt their project…then time gets in their way or they realize that they won’t finish it themselves. Yes I can help! Yes I can and do undo stitches and sandwiched quilts and finish them on the Longarm.

This quilt top is a perfect example of a project that might have been given up on…

Instead it was prepared for the Longarm and quilted with a pantograph trimmed and prepared for binding!

Ready for binding!
Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Scrappy Goodness

wendysquilting

While I enjoy my coffee, I love looking at quilting posts on blogs and Instagram. This morning I may have found my next scrappy project…though I am determined to finish up Longtime Gone before I can start another!

Joan, is a longtime customer of mine and I love all of her quilts. This last year she began piecing her scraps and had a lot of fun doing so and I think delighted with the results.

Mixing and matching and using low volume prints as background to showcase the fun prints is always a great idea! Half square triangles are pretty easy to make and can be configured into all kinds of designs!

How much fun is her backing choice, which will also be used for the binding.

Rhapsody was the chosen pantograph and it really brought this quilt together with both a perfect density and fun design.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Crumb Piecing Your Scraps

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I have mentioned before that I have an almost lifelong love of fabric and sewing, as a child I loved nothing more than being given bits of fabric to play with add to that scissors and a needle and thread!

My early sewing years involved dolls and Barbie’s, later moving on to clothing for myself and a little later on for children. Discovering quilting changed my sewing world completely!

Being left handed, the rotary cutter made so much of a difference, as left handed scissors never really seemed to do the job well. My brain adjusted to the rulers designed for right hand people. Of course now there are rulers coming out for us lefties!

Could it be that a lot of lefties are quilters?

So having been a collector of quilting cotton for much of my life and having followed Bonnie Hunter from way back in her early blogging days….I recall her pointing out that we paid just as much per yard for scraps as full yardage. This is partially the reason that my studio holds a few special areas for storing scraps.

My LongtimeGone Quilt project is a scrappy quilt so one would expect the scrap pile would be shrinking…not so…it seems when the day is done and the lights are out the scraps get together and multiply!

Of course I still have some piecing to do to complete this project Longtime Gone and more scraps will be added to the top…still I keep anything that might fit into something else.

There are so many ideas online about how to deal with scraps, the one that’s pulling me in these days is Crumb Piecing and this morning a blog that I follow and have shared before on this blog posted a tutorial on her method.

Anne has many tutorials and shares so much information her site is well worth visiting.

https://agilejack1.com/2022/07/04/agilejacks-crumb-block-tutorial/

I am sharing this picture of what I made one evening while listening to a zoom meeting…it started out as a small baggie of scraps that a dear friend shared with me. For someone who just loves playing with her sewing tools sometimes, crumb piecing really fits the bill.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Summer Piecing

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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.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Fun Scrap Quilts

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How much fun is this quilt…well it was for me. I love scrap quilts and this one made with the makers scraps from all of her other quilts just blended into a beautiful collage of colour.

Years ago I made a quilt by cutting a few strips each from many fabrics in my stash and divided them into dark and light piles and placed each pile into paper bags. My rule was…what came out was what I would use and made a log cabin quilt. That was a fun project and the result was a beautiful quilt that was fun to look at.

This quilt reminded me of that project…one I may just repeat sometime.

The swirl pantograph played so nicely adding to the fun of this project.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

May!! Spring and Cathy’s Quilt

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Spring May finally be arriving! We still have a ways to go before the snow disappears, the ground is still covered the yard with more than a foot in unplowed areas and the bush is still heavy with the stuff.

The good news is the weather forecast is for sunshine and warmer temperatures and no overnight freezing temperatures.

Onto Quilting.

I have quilted many quilts for Cathy and always enjoy our visits. When I first met her she was still working as a community nurse and had been my Moms Nurse after she had cancer surgery. My Mom really liked her and it wasn’t long before they discovered their link of quilting. This led to Cathy meeting me.

Cathy’s latest quilt really helped to brighten some very grey days around here.

I have always loved scrap quilts, they are so much fun to make and to look at!

I chose the pantograph Helix which really adds motion to the kaleidoscope.

Cathy chose a very soft flannel for the backing.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Snow, Stellar, Quilting and Life

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Well…yes it’s still snowing there is even more forecasted for Wednesday yet again! The trees are heavy with snow and an attempt to walk to the back of our property failed due to it being waist deep!

The good news is that it’s not too cold, the snow is wet and heavy to shovel but it did feel good to be outside this morning and the sun was trying hard to break through the clouds. hopefully the sun will shine tomorrow.

11:30 am April 18 2022

On Friday I spent some time pressing and started cutting the fabric for Stellar, the third quilt from Season 4 of the Color Collective. It is comprised of 2 paper pieced blocks that mirror each other.

Marilyn’s third half square triangle quilt left this morning. Theses quilts are full queen size and such fun to look at. Her stitching is so precise and her quilts are always square.

Folded in half

I am presently quilting a super fun 2 sided quilt that is nice and bright! I always press the tops and backs before loading, it’s worth the extra time in my opinion. This quilt like the Minecraft Quilt has a very pieced and fun backing.