Before the Tweets

"Before the Tweets" is the title of this little quilt. It is just 11.5" square. This is my entry into the annual "Wee" Quilt Challenge held at McDougall Cottage. The theme this year was Greetings from the Auld Sod. The title and postage stamp look speak to the fact that before social media (email, Facebook, Twitter)  took over over lives, greetings from afar generally came with a postage stamp attached.

I always like to challenge myself in some way.....doing a technique I've not done before, the use of prairie points were new to me and for this piece, I told myself to leave the flaws, there were to be no " do-overs" ....that second part proved much harder to deal with....and of course things did go wrong.....but I left them be and carried on.
The quilt began with me drawing this bird outline.....from it, I would create my pattern.

I cut scraps of fabric that had been prepared with wonder under. My fabric choices revolved around a single piece....a little scrap donated by a friend.....I saw a perfect eye.....actually, I built the bird around it.  Note the plaid at the under wing and legs.....The quilts for this challenge must be no larger than 24" square and MUST include a piece or 2 of plaid

The bird components were simply cut, placed on the background and fused. I stabilized it, did some quick thread painting, the text was added using transfer paper, the piece was machine quilted, the prairie points were added and the quilt was faced to finish it off.
This one was a quick and easy...no muss..no fuss project.

I liked the bird so much, I just had to create a doodle as well.....so, you see, in this case, the quilt was kind of sandwiched in the middle......between the outline drawing and the doodle.
Curious about the saying around the perimeter?.....I want to extend my thanks to Kay at Borderline Quilter as she helped me find a lovely old Scottish greeting.....Lang may yer Lum reek!!!!

Pecking Order

Which came first?

The Doodle?

or the Quilt?

All about the Colour

As many of my readers know, I LOVE challenges, there is just something about challenges and themes that drive me to create.
Each year, one of those challenges is a block contest held at Joseph Schneider Haus......a theme is chosen, criteria laid out, blocks are entered, a quilt is made, hand quilted during a day long quilting bee by amazingly gifted Mennonite ladies...said quilt will be finished and then later raffled off to raise funds for many of the ongoing projects at Joseph Schneider Haus.  I really need to practice my hand quilting skills, the ladies offered to allow me to take a place and the frame and add some stitches but I declined.....my skills are not on par with theirs....not even close  :-).....but maybe one day...maybe

Photo snagged from The Friends of JSH facebook page

This coming week is Quilt Festival time in the St. Jacob, Kitchener, Waterloo area....if you are, or will be in the area, you can find a long list of wonderful events here

For this year's block contest, the theme was "From the Stash"  at least 50% of the fabrics used by the maker were to come from the "stash" also, the colour Orange needed to be incorporated.

I chose to use up prepared bits and pieces leftover from an earlier applique project. 100% of the fabrics in this block came from my stash. I created a small bowl for the flowers added a little hand stitching and called it      "Bowlful of Leftovers"

I was delighted and quite honoured to learn that the block earned a first place finish.  I am sorry that I don't yet have photos of the actual quilt as it was still on the quilt frame, nearing completion  (I hope to get and post one here later) 

This is the 6th year that I have participated in this block contest, if you are curious about some of my other submissions you can find them here

Finished

My little Janome inspired quilt is finished.....I decided to call it "In Stitches"

 

It is just a small scrappy sampler style quilt. It all began with that embroidered pin cushion design, the rest of the piece sort of grew around it.  I am not used working in a manner where measuring and cutting needs to be accurate.....I am much more comfortable making quilts I can "eyeball"   so I must say I learned quite a lot playing with this.

I had fun with the quilting and then finished it off by using all sorts of buttons, pins, snaps and other sewing related bits as embellishment.

Giveaways.....gotta LOVE them!

Can you believe the amazing items some companies give away?  have you noticed this growing trend? Do you enter? 
Recently I came across a giveaway for Aurifil Thread......well I absolutely LOVE Aurifil thread, it is my thread of choice, so of course, I was sure to leave a comment for a chance to win. At that time, the prize was a collection designed exclusively by Michele Scott of the Pieceful Quilter.  Yup the entire collection! 12 full size spools of deliciousness!.......and guess what?  I WON!!!! it arrived by Fed-Ex all the way from Italy, Thank you VERY much! I just may have to come up with a special project for this wonderful collection.

It seems that Aurifil has giveaway's going on all the time......look for them and enter.....btw....if you have not yet tried this thread, you are missing out.

Another amazing giveaway that you HAVE to check out, is one by FaveQuilts......they are having a month long contest that will end with a lucky LUCKY winner receiving a Janome MC9900

oh yeah!!!!...that IS the machine that contains a few of my designs.....you KNOW I am entering!!!!
It is SUPER easy to enter......you can find the giveaway here 

This is one of the designs built into the machine.....my own doodle.....this Bee

aren't these stitches beautiful!?

Are you still here?  Go enter!  :-)

My little Janome inspired quilt

A few weeks ago, I showed you the start of this little quilt..........at the time, I was just working out the design/layout in this post.

Here is a look at some of the stitch lines I used in the quilting.

Once it was all quilted and bound, I added some common sewing room items as embellishment......I'll grab some photos and show that soon. I still need to create a label, but first, I need a name for it....any suggestions?