Mexacali Heat New Borders

Hi everyone!

I woke up this morning in the Cowichian Valley to a chilly -5 C. I know to my northern friends this is "no big deal" of any real kind of chilly. But to me who craves less cold, its a chill! I was up this Monday morning to the visit my new quilting friends, women of a wide age category, wide experience in all forms of quilting and many that are Canadian Snow Birds.

But none the less, they are now my support for conversations, questions, idea exchange and sharing of our mutual love of quilting! But alas, time is getting away from me again.

Up first is my finished on my dining table from last week. My African Violet Craz Quilt table runner. My husband now affectionately calls it the Black Hole table runner.

Over the weekend, I did get some time to actually get started on the finishing of this Mexacali Heat Quilt.

I have begun making the Nine Patch Blocks for the broders.

As you can see, its coming along. I found that as I cut, sewed and pressed I was happy to be in the moment. I seem to have found something that is organizing my approach to just getting finished all the tops.

I like to rythum of doing. I also did some awesome hand stitching in the technique of Alabama Changin Fashions which I just love and support this business. My post on this t-shirt upcycling project that came together super fast on Friday Afternoon and it was all done by Saturday night.

Best for the week, leave me a comment, I love to read your ideas and thoughts on my work.

Mexacali Heat Progressing onto Borders!

When I first  moved to Telkwa many 14 years ago now, I met up with some wonderful ladies who quilt and I participated with one Round Robin quilt exchange with them. We all met one evening and as we distributed our brown paper bags going around the room and I handed off my quilt to the person on my right and we began.

Each participant's name was entered into a ledger of the event to keep track of who would be the next participant for your starting block.

As I have posted before, I made this quilt top with 5 or 6 other quilters in a Round Robin.

Its a tough project to find and design a finishing border for it because its so "WOW -ish" you know?

It has languished like many others in a bin waiting for me to get on with it! But I didn't due to life getting in the way of quilting.

Well I've made some progress on this quilt, in the form of a graph paper design for a border. More on that later.

I made this block when I received all the various blocks back to me. This Round Robin, did start out by this block. I called my RR Bag "Mexacali Heat" and I included a little handmade booklet for participants to fill in and tell me how they arrived at their participating block.

 I made this block above and as you notice the absence of the roses/black background fabric. But I did include some upcycled lace into the shape of a dancer. 

This is part of the challenge with doing a Round Robin. Participating is really good for us as quilters because we all have some bias and ways of doing things and participating with a new theme of someone eles choice forces us to rethink ourselves, let go and have fun!

This block used alot of the fabric, but what a fabulous outcome, hand cut, fussy careful work lead to an awesome block.

I think this block is the Mexican Rose maybe?

As these blocks were on my design wall I was busy envisioning what the border would be like?

What would make this already beautiful quilt pop even more. I decided on sashing based on the design including stars in the border. 

I will post more as this one progresses. In the meantime, I have button holes to sew into the front closure of my purple plaid shirt alterations and finishing up the hand quilting on one of the two wedding table runners.

See ya later!

Have fun quilting. Thanks for reading my blog...HUGS!

African Violet Crazy Quilt Finish!

I am having such fun with setting my own personal goals to get on with finishing the numerous tops I have. I have decided that if I take a top out of the "Finishing Drawer" then I must not start anything new until its finished and gone from my sewing womb. 

I love to call my sewing room, a sewing womb. It reminds me of a good friend who lives miles away. We write real letters between each other.

I started this modest foray into modern quilting by taking my obsession in crazy quilting to more solid colors as that's what I thought the early modern quilting I saw meant by the early days of modern quilting.

That was I confess, in 2005. 

 Then I did my usual quilt as you go in crazy stitching so all that was required on this modern quilting experiment was machine embroidery stitches from my good old trusty Janome.

Then it went into the drawer and another 12 years went by and for one reason or another it sat, I passed it over many times, as I was simply not committed to it. I just wasn't inspired. It sort of looked at me not speaking to me or saying what this peice wanted.

Then in keeping with my new rule, if I take it out of the "Finishing Drawer" it gets priority to become completely finished. And par for the course, in less than 3 hours it was completely done!

I reached for the vibrant stash of Kaffe's fabrics, which are some of my favorites but why do I have all this lovely fabric, if I don't use it?

You know I'm right and for some reason today I need to be right.

African Violet Crazy Quilt is now finished!

I was feeling a wee bit defeated on several fronts. 

Let me share; I have a nodule that flared up in my left arch for 14 days and then I was scheduled to have a minor toe surgeryon the 15th., I'm allergic to latex, bandaid glue and various other medical glues, plus I'm also allergic to Polysporin. My luck, both went on my toe after surgery, I missed this bit while looking away and not feeling anything due to the freezing in my toe. 

It became severly inflamed, sore beyond even the strong constitution I have. Soon it was clear that something very serious was wrong beyond my allergies. 

I went to a walk in clinic on Friday afternoon. 

If its like your town or city, I had to wait for several hours to see a doctor.

Finally, my name was called and I hobbled into the examination room only for the doctor to take one look at my toe and pronounced that antibiotics were in my future. He asked how long has this toe been inflamed, about 12 days I confessed. He rose his eyebrows and waved a nagging finger at me that if I'd waited longer, I'd be hospital.

I am relieved to report that finally, my toe has stopped thumping and that I do believe a noticable change in my toe is happening.

So its the right time to hand quilt this blue zig zag table runner, you should see this completed in the next post. 

Plus, I have the circles table runner ready for sandwiching too!

 I have been able to do more writing while keeping my foot up, and playing, reading and researching on my laptop, discovering new ways of doing things, so more on that later. I've had time to watch more Olympic sports and watch our Canadians do well. 

I really love to watch Slope Style Snow Boarding, Figure Skating and Curling!

Maybe it was just time to slow down.

I'm linking up with Slow Sunday Stiching Link Up today!

I wish you all a beautiful day of stitching!

Stitching Crazy

I am super charged like a wee bunnie! And I wanted to reassure my readers that I'm NOT going anywhere. You can be content that I will still be posting the projects I'm working on and give you all a progress report for my new adventures!

I am back to working on the new details of Blooming Crazy which I started last year. And its given me a new perspective on what is actually crazy quilting.

Stitching happy little trails and new pathways is about me finding the bliss I've wished for quite some time. New pathways and happy little trails are just where my steps will take me. I have begun to find my bliss and I'm determined to get back to fun!

Fun stitching, fun sewing and fun life.

This a long time crazy that is getting finished and will soon have a complete version for you.

Do you find yourself singing while you stitch? I have a new friend who is helping me with gratitude. While she is working on my feet and I'm relaxing, I listen to her soft voice singing songs of relaxation. Its really something this reflexology.

Here is shout out for anyone living in Duncan or area and you want to have a look at reflexology, Stephanie is a special person, very qualified and super calming. 

HappinessHeals.

Stephanie is reaching her goals of increasing her muscle mass. 

I have been so stressed out for so long with real estate, its been massage, reflexology and more exercise to get my head in line with my body. You all know that once you're over 50 years young, you are not going to shed bad vibes and stress right away. That darn stress gets into your viens, your muscles and it needs to be trained out of my body anyway. 

Meeting Stephanie has given me a new way of looking at things, people, judgements etc. If you want to follow her blog and get the affirmations of love for the planet and all thats offered freely to us from the Great Mother Earth, follow Stephanie's blog.

What do you do to de-stress?

Personally I love to stitch, I find that very relaxing while invigorating my brain at the same time. Maybe I don't know what de-stressing is?

Maybe I'm going around in circles. I need to reach out and start meeting more local quilters.

And have a table runner of circles getting finished her this week, maybe even tonight.

And my first altered clothing piece is coming to a close as well, so keep your eye peeled for me modeling,,,,,yikes that is a crazy thought!

I've added ties to this mix as well. They will form a better foundation for button holes and buttons.

I have added another gathered section because it was way too short! This is fun for sure and I encourage you to give it a whirl!

Happy stitching! Till next time.

Blogging My Way Somewhere New

Do you ever think about why you are writing a blog?

I ask myself this question frequently. I have much to share on quilting, stitching, and free form embroidery. I'd dreamed of being able to work from home like many others have done too, right?

We all love to hang in our PJ's, being productive and efficient if we could right? Its amazing how many of us wish to make some money from the hobbie/addiction crafting activity we all love. If you share this idea, have a blog and want to expand your intermediate quilting by some of the ideas I've shared with you in this blog, let me know?

 I began writing my blog with a spirited awareness of the enormous size, complexity and complicated nature of the Internet. I understood that our very large world could read my blog or not.... if you don't pay attention  and forget about your blog, your ideas can sink to the bottom of the lake!

I am a person who loves to read. I have wide interests and with gardening right around the corner, I am very excited about that first garden in the Cowichian Valley.

2018 is here, its clear there is no going back to the height of the 1970's when my nimble fingers hand sewed without stopping for hours on end. Back to the days of making my own clothing by hand and enjoying every minute of it or can I do that? Wait, yes, that's all possible again.

I found a box inside a box recently and came across 7 journals. Mostly it was old stuff that isn't really important to my quilting today or to anyone else. I began watching a Netflix movie last night and going through these journals and the glorious fun memories I have discovered.

And look at the joyous books I found??

Have you heard of Maria Peagler?

I discovered her sassy style and out in front style of social media left me learning a pile of good stuff from this young woman.

I've been reading and gleaning everything I could from her book "Promote Your Quilt Product with a Blog Tour" and some of that will become evident soon enough.

I have created some awesome workshops online for anyone to purchase. I will soon share all the details, but finding those books has been a major gratitude dance this first month of this privotal year for me.

And this little circles table runner has gone into the pre-quilting stage, while the other table runner is going to start hand quilting tonight. I've had toe surgery today and need to get my foot up right away.

I have lots to share of the developments I've been working on in the back ground for quite sometime and really excited to be almost there to share with all of you.

I can say it now, I'm going to be moving towards a new blog site later this year. And no, chickens are not involved! unless they are on the barby!