Tag: Scrap Quilts

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

A Special Pink Quilt

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When it was discovered that our newest grand would be a girl…her Mom requested a pink and peachy pink quilt! Music to my ears and the pictures that were shared with me were scrappy quilts…even more music to my ears!

I just had to use my pink Oliso iron for this project!

Erik and I had a lot of fun choosing the fabrics for this quilt, starting at Hannah Johnson’s in Duluth MN…thankfully Megan was working and she helped pull together a fantastic selection of fabrics for us! You can follow her on Instagram megface_makes

On the way home we stopped at the quilt shop One Old Loon in Two Harbours and added more pinks to the collection…and of course I shopped my stash.

Oh, one of the fabrics at Hannah’s that I fell in love with ended up not in the cutting pile!! Thankfully Megan was able to send me this super cute print!

Using 3 1/2” squares I somewhat randomly placed them onto the design wall making sure no two the same were next to each other. I didn’t tweak it too much as I find with this type of quilt you can play with it forever and still will find things to change.

The quilt was so much fun to both piece and quilt. I used the pantograph Two of Hearts and of course used Pink 40 wt thread (glide)

I love the backing! Those puppies are so adorable!!

I love hand stitching the binding, it’s a labour of love and an opportunity to sit and relax. Machine stitching binding is popular and for donation quilts that will be heavily laundered it is more practical but for my personal quilts I still prefer the look of hand work.

Of course the very best thing about making a quilt for a new Grandchild is meeting the baby.

Welcome to our family Olivia Lynn!!!

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Children and Creativity

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Our house was full of activity this week! We are truly blessed with grandchildren! Our time with them involves a lot of activities from soccer, quad and dirt biking and even target shooting (and other adventures which I will write about in another post).

Music to this grandmas ears is when Kaija who is almost 4 yrs asks if we can go to my studio and make something! She loves my scrap basket, looking and checking out my notions and my sewing machine.

This week she pulled some crumb piecing from the basket and we added some fusible batting to them and spent time together quilting the two pieces…just nice relaxing stitching using the walking foot and pink thread…her choice. Her job was the foot petal and some guiding with help of the quilt sand which. She loves to push the thread cutter and needle up and down buttons as well.

She was pretty proud of her work!

When we finished stitching she decided to add some colour to the back and very carefully wrote her name on each piece and coloured in the squares with a highlighter pen. The original plan was to make another pouch and she had picked out a pink zipper and fabric for a lining…instead she wanted to colour the back.

She proudly took her art home 😊 it may or may not come back to be turned into a pouch and that’s fine. I think it’s more important that she had fun and enjoyed the process and was allowed to make her project into what she envisioned!!

Kaija also spent a lot of time examining several different notions wondering what they were and what they were used for! I remember playing with my Moms sewing tools, I much preferred them over toys! I hope that she will continue to ask if we can make something 😊

My friend Ana Paula is offering Sewing Camps this summer in her fun bright studio. If you have budding artists and creators who are curious or interested in sewing you might consider checking out what she is offering! I know that as a child I would have been overjoyed!!!

htmlhttp://www.canadapaulabrasil.ca/sewing-summer-camp.html

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

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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.