Sampler Quilts

I know that I shouldn't be reading all these old magazines. I'm above that - toss them and be done with it. Buy no more than you can read. However, I have to say that I LOVE reading them. They are almost more entertaining than reading the current ones, which tend to be filled with patterns I'll never make. 

Here's what I learned from a quilting magazine that is over 25 years old! The magazine is called Sampler Quilts by Quilt and has a copyright date 1999. 

Sampler Quilt magazine

Didn't everyone make a sampler quilt when they learned to quilt? There were blocks with piecing, Y-seams, applique, paper piecing, and as many techniques as they could squeeze into 12 or perhaps 20 blocks. Remember? 

I don't know if anyone would even consider making one today. Can you imagine those "huge" 12" blocks in a mishmash of shapes and styles? That's horrible. 

However, I got a kick out of this article. GASP!!! Make a sampler quilt with 6" blocks? Make four times as many as needed if you had made 12" blocks? That's just crazy! This was a novelty (not original) in 1999. 

A sampler quilt with 6" blocks

But wait—let's stop and think about it: Sylvia's Bridal Sampler, Farmer's Wife, Tula Pink 100 Modern Blocks (or any 100-block project), Dear Jane, and so on! Yep—they are all sampler quilts, except we no longer call them that! 

It's hilarious that we have made more work for ourselves, but I love creating and looking at a sampler quilt with 6" or smaller blocks than 12". 

So a couple of bad things happened at my house yesterday. It's not super bad, but you know how easily I get distracted. 

I was in Studio U, and this puzzle was calling my name, so I laid out all the pieces while I had my afternoon snack. I left a space to work and lay all the pieces around. YES - I know I could get puzzle sorter trays and might do that one day. 

The next puzzle is laid out

Then, I pulled all the border pieces. One MUST always start with the border. Not a border person? You are brave! 

The border pieces

The border is all together except one piece. That was easy! I'm still eating my snack. 

Done except for one piece

Oops. Then I got involved in my audiobook, working a bit longer than planned. I tore myself away, and thankfully, it's upstairs where I won't be tempted to stop and put in a "few" pieces as I walk by. It's a 500-piece puzzle. Oh, can anyone guess what the name of the puzzle is? It's a building in the US. 

The state of the puzzle

While in Studio U, I also finished cutting the blocks on the agenda for the SAMPLER quilt. The fabric bins got put away, and I need to walk these bags of pieces downstairs so they can be sewn. 

My sampler blocks are ready to sew

That was a good thing that happened. 

The other naughty thing I did was purchase an Aura digital frame before Christmas. I didn't post about it because I bought one for M and Dillion. Neither of them reads my blog, but I wanted to be sure it would be a surprise for them. Purchasing the frame wasn't the naughty thing—it was what I put on it. You'll see it in a minute. 

Well, it took me a while to get things prepped so I could send another package to them, and I needed this one to arrive before New Year's Day. The package arrived on time. It was picked up Friday night in Mississauga and delivered to West Vancouver around noon on Monday. Except they were away, which I didn't know they would be! And so was their landlord. So a neighbor took charge of the package, and they only opened it last night! They LOVE it, which I knew they would. 

It's Bluetooth, and I started with a few pictures of the girls. But then I've added all kinds of pictures, which is the bad part. 

My Aura Frame

I've loaded pictures of my Camino walk, and as I relive the memories, I need to go again. It was such a fantastic trip, and it was such a great feeling to be there. I think it's the peace and quiet, the solitude, the need for very little stuff, and just pure heaven! I'll go back - just not this year. That's the naughty part! 

If you invite friends, they can share photos on your frame and vice versa. I know I'm going to love my Aura Frame. Check it out—it's a fantastic gift. I will remove all the other picture frames in my house and just use this one. Thanks to Susan for letting me know about it. 

How did I make out on the sample making? I made good progress but did NOT finish, and it was not even close. However, I got over the things I was procrastinating about, which was good. 

I had to dig out my serger for part of it this morning. You have to LOVE an air-threading serger. 

Air-threading serger 

I had to switch to cover stitch (it took a minute) to make that happen. The hardest part is changing the needles. The rest is a breeze. And then loading the thread into the openings and touching the SWOOSH button, and in milliseconds, the serger is threaded? It doesn't get any better than that!! 

I love it when the thread comes shooting out!

That one is the Husqvarna Viking Amber Air S600, and I wouldn't be without it. However, when I opened it up to thread it, I was SHOCKED at how dirty it was inside. I think I need to get the vacuum out! The poor thing. 

A bizarre thing happened yesterday morning. Murphy is so much better on the SAME route every day. She gets less excited, and we pass a gas station on that route. The price of gas was 155.9 at 7:45 AM. Lexi and I can take any route we want, and yesterday, we just happened to pass by the same gas station about 40 minutes later. The price was now 151.9. It had dropped FOUR cents in less than an hour. Then, when I walked to the grocery store at about 2:00 PM, this was the price. 

The fluctuating gas price

The price had dropped another 3 cents. I laugh because in Saskatchewan, or at least in the North Battleford area, the price doesn't change for weeks, probably months! 

The moral of this story is that if you live in a large city (I assume this applies to all large cities), fill up your tank in the afternoon or evening—never in the morning when the prices are premium!

The weather was very bizarre yesterday. There was a little snow when I took the girls out, but as we got home, it started snowing like a blizzard. The flakes were big and fluffy, and visibility wasn't great.  

MOM -- this is my weather!

The girls were in their glory and having a blast chasing each other. It's hard to get pictures of them doing that because if they see me, they stop! So I enjoy watching them and sneak a few photos when I can. 

Hey LEXI -- I can see you! 

Then the snow stopped, the sun came out, and the sidewalks and driveways were bare. What was that all about? 

Thanks to someone who has identified two states I might have missed in my US trek; I'll check that later today. I zoomed into Google Maps, and I'm starting at the MGM Grand in Detroit. 

The start point of my US virtual trek

Traveling virtually around the States over the next three years will be super fun, and wouldn't that be a fantastic real road trip. If I were doing it in person, I'd want to stop in different cities. I just picked cities to ensure I had a stop in each state and to keep the distance down as much as possible. 

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm very goal-oriented. I also like numbers, so when I checked out my stats on Goodreads (yes, I know who owns them), here's what I found. 

I read 73 books (actually 74, but I never logged the last one yet). That book with the 944 pages? That was because I read that on my phone, and the book is huge in any format! 

I have to laugh at this stat. I read Harry Potter - Goblet of Fire, and so did 5,737,402 other people. Seriously? This book is over 20 years old or close to it, and are there still that many people reading it? Incredible!!!!

The other book was about the Camino, written by someone from Sudbury. Only 57 people read it, but those 57 people are important! That book was published in 2018. 

I set the goal of reading 52 books in 2025. If I read more, that's great; if I don't, I'm not worried. 

I started reading one of the books loaned to me, and I'm intrigued. It's a good book - I'll tell you when I'm done. 

I also managed to do a lot of writing and editing. I should get one more assignment out the door today and try to finish those samples completely. I am my worst enemy because I can't stop making the darn things. I need to have a cutoff for the number. I swear I did, but then I ignored it!

I have two clubs on Sunday, so I'd better organize myself. I've been working on stuff, but I need to finish it! 

I try to set a goal of three things each day, but most days, more than three must be done! So, I prioritize three things, and anything else that gets done is a bonus!

On that note - I'm out of here. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!

Show n tell

I'm making this a wee bit short n sweet this morning. I'm off to a training course for most of the week. It's in town so I'm not away which is good because I've got a wee bit of work to get done in the evenings. It means that my paperwork is going to sit for the week. Too bad because I was starting to feel like I was making headway. Hopefully, nothing piles up while I'm occupied this week.

Ah - so you want to know about the magazine quilt? It has a binding and a sleeve on. I just need to hand sew the sleeve on this morning before I leave. On my way, I hope to stop at the UPS store and have it out of the house. If not, then on my way home I'll drop it off. As I mentioned, it's unusual, but I like it. And it was custom quilted - it's not big. Just shy of 60" square.

Now to do a bit of tidy up in that studio and move onto the next urgent thing. I will get ahead - I know I will. But I have no idea why I wait until the very last minute to do these things. I knew this quilt was due on June 6th. I've known that for SIX months. And I've had all the material for it for SIX months. Oh well - that's just me.

And I finished that book last night. That's why I have to sew the sleeve on this morning - because I had to finish that book. Not quite the ending that I envisioned, but it was a thriller, to say the least. It's called Find you in the Dark by Nathan Ripley.

Now for Show n Tell. I moved half of the pictures to my computer to edit, but I don't have time this morning to put them up. I hope that tomorrow I can get them up. Those are the ones for the class homework. The show and tell today is the non-homework quilts that students brought to show.

I think you've seen this first quilt before. This is Lynne's quilt. Lynne is part of our UFO group. She started off with a pattern and then realized that she didn't like the pattern. So she changed it around. The only thing she kept from the pattern is the outline of the cat. She did an amazing job on this quilt adding a machine embroidery face to the cats and some butterflies to the background of each cat. That was the easy part. She struggled with the quilting. But she persevered and now the quilt is done including the mice that are embroidered as part of the quilting. You can see a detail of the block on this blog post. You have to scroll down to see it.

Lynne's cat and mouse quilt

I believe this next one was Barb's. It's a panel, but she's done a lot of hand embroidery on the panel to make those pansies pop. I really should take close up pictures so you can see some of the detail. It's hard to see from the picture all the work that she had done. And sometimes very hard (we're pressed for time usually) to take a lot of pictures in the class.

Panel embellished with hand embroidery

She wanted to make the panel into a quilt and it's out of proportion. That's one thing that drives me crazy. Panels that measure 24" by 42" are out of proportion for a quilt. So you need to add something to the panel.  Here are a couple of articles that I wrote about panels. One of them is how to trim a panel.  This one is how to use coping strips on a panel. And this one presents several border options for a panel. 

I have several other panel articles that I want to write. Shoot - I've written them, but they appeared in a trade magazine. I guess I should rejig the articles and write for my blog. OK - add that to the list of things to write.

This next quilt is Diane's. Diane has become obsessed (NO - Diane is just super focused) and she made this paper pieced pattern from the new Northcott Stonehenge Celtic Solstice collection. The pattern is Solstice by Tamarinis. It's a very current pattern so you should be able to find it in the local quilt shops.

Solstice pieced by Diane

Speaking of local quilt shops, I'm thrilled to see a Canadian quilt shop in The Spring/Summer issue of Quilt Sampler. The shop is called The Cotton Harvest Quilt Shop in Seaforth, Ontario. I've never been to this shop, but it's Shelly's "go to" shop and she keeps raving about it. I guess I'm going to have to make a trip one day. They sell Cherrywood Fabrics and have hosted the Cherrywood Challenge. 

Canadian shop highlighted in the current issue of Quilt Sampler

Here's one last thing for you to contemplate today. The fall 2019 Creative Festival is October 17 - 19. I heard that Mary Fons is going to be in attendance. Seriously?? I'd love to hear her speak. I'm not sure what she's going to be chatting about, but she does some great lectures on quilt making and yes her mother is Mary Fons of Fons and Porter fame. That would be very interesting. How to get out of booth duty????

AHA --- there's the information.


On that note, I'm out of here to sew that sleeve on. I sure miss those bright lights in Studio B, especially in the early morning and late night (OK - never a late night), but you can't beat working up there in the daytime. I LOVE Studio U and it's the warmest room in the house on these crazy days.

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!!