Sewing Machine – Wendy’s Quilting and Life

I had a wonderful day yesterday! Most of my days are wonderful for the most part as I do my best to embrace life in a positive manner.

Our summer weather is here so I began the day with a 10 bike ride in the sunshine.

My love of the Small World quilt began when I first saw it finished by my friend Louisa…

https://louisaenright.com/tag/small-world-quilt/

The pattern is by Tara Faughnan. She is an excellent teacher even from afar! My friend Louisa is an excellent mentor from afar and increasingly inspiring with her quilting projects!!

I chose the pattern along with her video course last summer she included a way to contact her if need be and I did have questions initially. When I sent my question she responded with a zoom meeting to figure my question out with me!

I do love the paper piecing technique that she teaches.

I find with a project like this one it needed my full attention for a bit and with my customer quilts and life keeping me busy…small world was put to the wayside for a bit.

This was not one of those quilts that can be done in a weekend…not for me anyways. I slowly plugged away at it as time permitted and at one point I put it away.

It really was exciting to finally sew the final seam joining the two halves of this top together just as it was time to turn off the lights for the day…I left the trimming for the morning.

Hmmm what to do with the left overs…

A quilt with so many seams ending at the edges like this one is fairly vulnerable to seam pops. The victory lap of sewing the edges with a seam securing the piecing is essential in my opinion!

I am so in love with the finished quilt top! I am on the look out for a backing and am mulling over quilting ideas.

One of the things that really appeals to me that Tara Faughnan offers in her courses and patterns are her colour palettes. I find it fun and challenging to be given colours that I may never have chosen to work with…

My next several projects are chosen, though I also have block studies that will be tucked into my piecing time…

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

A Funny Quilt Story

June 27, 2026 wendysquilting

The maker of this quilt is a prolific piecer she is also what I would call an advanced piecer! She loves a challenge and often chooses patterns that many would run from!

This quilt however was one she decided that she wanted to use up a couple of layer cakes that were in her stash. She chose to make hour glass blocks or half square triangle blocks depending on how you look at the quilt.

When her husband initially saw the blocks that she was making he said they were ugly and it would never be on his bed!

Thankfully his comments did not detour her plans!

When she brought the quilt to me she told me that she had named it the Ugly Duckling Quilt. She also asked me to quilt a duck somewhere one the quilt…so I did.

Can you see it?

The we chose the quilting design Finesse. This design added a layer of elegance to this stunning quilt.

The backing in its rich purple colour couldn’t be a more perfect match!

Her quilt was trimmed and ready for binding at pick up.

Also, her husband changed his tune regarding it being ugly.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

The Lion quilt!

June 26, 2026June 28, 2026 wendysquilting

This amazing paper pieced Lion quilt recently left my studio!

We chose the quilting design Waterworld with its fun movement that mimics the fur on the lions mane.

His stare makes you almost feel like he is ready to pounce doesn’t it!!!

Some fun facts about this quilt…

The pattern had more that 100 pages due to it being paper pieced.

It was made almost entirely from scraps that its maker had on hand…I challenge everyone to play with and make use of your scrap fabric or share them with friends!!

The backing fabric with its swirls was a fun choice and the quilting plays so nicely with the swirls in the fabric.

This quilt was trimmed and was ready for binding at pick up.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

The Postage Stamp Quilt

June 4, 2026 wendysquilting

When I began piecing my Postage Stamp Quilt, my plan was that I could slowly work on it with no deadline. Just a fun easy relaxing quilt to make!

I wrote about it almost a year ago here https://wendys-quilting.ca/2024/07/20/postage-stamp-progress/

Well today, after many relaxing hours working on it over the last couple of years or so…I sewed the victory lap around the 6,480 1” (finished) squares!

One of my Granddaughters (she was 5 at the time) told me when it was about halfway pieced that I didn’t need to worry, that when I finished this quilt that she would have it for me 🥰. Last week her younger sister offered to help me finish the quilt…she is 4 yrs.

I still have a lot of scraps along with some finished blocks left over and block parts ready for piecing so this postage stamp journey won’t end but will continue. I have plans to make several more over the years!

This quilt isn’t in the queue yet…I do plan to eventually add it in though.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

A Beautiful Modern First Quilt

June 4, 2026 wendysquilting

One of the things I enjoy most about longarm quilting is seeing how the quilting design brings a pieced quilt to life.

For this quilt, we chose the quilting design Here and There. The flowing curves of the design provide a wonderful contrast to the strong geometric piecing. Rather than competing with the sharp angles of the blocks, the quilting softens them and adds texture and dimension across the entire surface.

The quilt is my customers first larger quilt and she did a fantastic job piecing both the quilt top and backing!

Her quilt was trimmed and ready for binding at pick up!

If you have a quilt top ready for quilting, I’d love to help bring it to life. Feel free to contact me at wendysquilting@gmail.com for information about my longarm quilting services.

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Sunshine and a Special First Quilt

May 15, 2026 wendysquilting

Oh the joy of having sunshine flood my studio!

Spring has felt long in coming this year with many extra snow falls since our return and what felt like days on end of cold grey weather.

This quilt was pieced as a birthday gift for my customers daughter. The colours were requested by her daughter for her new house that they will be moving into.

This quilt was also my customers first large quilt and in my opinion she certainly did herself proud!!

When she picked it up she was really excited to see how it turned out and that she would have it finished in time to gift it!

We looked a several options for the quilting design and decided to use Bayside.

Often with angular piecing a curvy design works really well. Bayside also loosely mimicked the flow of the printed squares.

The solid backing fabric really show cases the quilting!

Her quilt was trimmed and ready for binding at pick up!

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

A Donna Jordon Quilt, pieced in Batik

May 12, 2026 wendysquilting

This recent quilt was a treat to work on! It was pieced using a pattern by Donna Jordon of Jordon Fabrics in Batik fabrics. She was a fantastic teacher with so many wonderful online tutorials.

Most of my customers ask me to choose the quilting design, which is something that I really enjoy and often know almost immediately what will work well on a quilt.

In this case I had a few ideas so I sent the three ideas to the quilts maker and she chose Nocturne Feathers a design by Bethanne Nemesh. (The third picture below)

Her quilt was trimmed and ready for binding at pick up!

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

The Quilting Side of Life Donna’s Selvage Quilt

April 24, 2026 wendysquilting

My year has been busy both in the studio and in my life away from it.

On the Quilting side, I do have many customer quilts to share and I will try to catch up in the coming weeks! I will also share more about our winter vacation and what a fun adventure it was.

I had so much fun working on Donna’s selvage quilt…

A selvage quilt is pieced using saved selvages from fabrics often saved from years of quilt making and often donated pieces from friends.

Donna shared these statistics with me…she used a total of 23,400 inches of selvage, that’s 1,950 feet that’s approx 1/3 of a mile. I weighed her quilt after quilting so it included the foundation fabric used for piecing the 100 percent cotton batting along with the batting and it weighed 13.5 pounds. She has since added the binding.

We, well mostly Donna’s husband Tim chose the quilting design Prism. The angles of the design are a fun contrast to the piecing stitches and looks fantastic on the back.

Her quilt was trimmed and ready for binding at pick up…and she didn’t waste any time adding the binding!

She also shared this picture of the quilt on their King size bed (before binding)

Her quilt will be displayed at the quilt show in Dryden in you happen to find yourself at the show and you will very likely run into Donna and Tim there as well!

Wendy's Longarm Quilting, Thunder Bay, Ontario

The Snowflake Quilt

March 13, 2026 wendysquilting

It is no secret that I love blue and white quilts! I love small intricate piecing and this quilt was so beautifully pieced and such a pleasure to quilt! Yes it did go home with its maker but not until I added my touch!

The pattern is Tahoe from Laundry Basket Quilts and it began as a kit from there however it needed to grow and so more fabric was purchased and it was made to fit the bed.

As it was named the Snowflake Quilt by its maker, she chose the fun bold snowflake quilting design for it.