Words and more words

Three years ago, I was inspired to make this quilt. Tonya from Lazy Gal Quilting was having an on-line challenge for quilters to make a winter word quilt and I jumped in head first.

All of my quilts are so prim and proper and this type of quilt was totally outside of my comfort zone. I'm sure a few of my followers were probably wondering what was I thinking. :o)

I followed Tonya's tutorials for making the letters and the snowflakes, the wonky trees and the wonky house. There is a lot of me in this quilt and it is by far one of my favourites. Tonya's new and first book: Word Play Quilts is out and if you want to be brave and try something new, this book is a good place to start. Go over here to Tonya's post to see all the other links for wordy quilts and enjoy.

To read more about my WINTER quilt, go here and scroll down through the posts for the explanations as to why I chose my letters and the scenes.

For me, there are ideas for a SUMMER quilt just dancing around in my head. Perhaps 2011 will see a new wordy quilt coming along.

Thank you, Tonya for inspiring so many of us and best of luck with your new book!!!

Have a great day!

Summer Flowers

With my back out of commission, I’m pulling a photo from my archives for you.
I never realized it before, but this was my first ‘free form’ quilt that I made years before my Winter quilt came to be.

On a summer visit to my Mom’s, my sister had an autumn display hanging on the door. What??? She couldn’t find anything summery to put on the door.

So, with absolutely no quilting supplies to work with (everything was at home in Toronto), I made this hanging out of a piece of fabric for the backing and the flowers are made out of felt. No pattern …. everything was just cut out free form and buttonhole stitched in place. The flowers were stuffed with batting and buttons were used for the flower centers.

Outside the entrance, is a small hosta garden that was put in during one of my visits. Don’t they look gorgeous all in bloom? I just thought this was an excellent spot for a shot .... the door looked kinda of boring. :o)

When the VON nurse visited that week, she wanted to know where the hanging came from as she had not seen anything like that in the stores. A lovely compliment.

Have a great day!

Winter is Not Over! - Part 1

Jeez …. Spring has been here for a while now; but we’ve been having temperatures just below freezing lately and there have been some snow flurries reported in areas in Southern Ontario. So, on that note …. here is my ‘Winters of My Life’.

Done is a wonderful word. I would have thought that doing both machine quilting and hand quilting that this quilt would have been finished sooner …. but life got in the way.

This quilt was started back in November 2007 when Tonya offered an on-line class. I had wanted to do a word quilt and this class just fit the bill for me. The whole quilt was done free-form (with a few exceptions in the hand-quilting of trees and straight lines). The Baptist fan was a blast to do (something else that I have wanted to try). Just sitting down with a marker pen and drawing random arcs was very easy to do and stress-free as compared to working with a stencil.

Winter – I bought a packet of snowflake buttons at Wal-Mart and they have been used throughout this quilt

Igloo – Well, I do live in Canada, eh! As youngsters, we tried building igloos; but never could get the top part to stay in place. Do you like my inukshuk pin?












Icicles – Our house did not have insulation in the attic, so we grew marvelous icicles each winter.


















Blizzard – Oh, how do I love a blizzard ….. let me count the ways. Even today, I just love to hear the wind howling and watch the snow coming down. Mind you, indoors is a great way to experience this event. I used to love walking in a blizzard ….. everything was so quiet between the gusts of wind and there were never many people out and about except for my sister and her friend and I.



See next post for continuation ….

Winter is Not Over! - Part 2

-45F - That was the coldest day of my life.
Snow Angels – What is winter without snow angels?
Blue Spruce – They are my favourite winter trees.


Home – Or as my niece calls it ‘icicle house’. We prefer our house temperature around 70F and whenever she visits, she is always freezing. Good thing there are a bunch of quilts just waiting to be used.

























Jack Frost – Growing up in our little house, the windows used to frost up terribly during the cold winter months. My Mom would always say that ‘Jack Frost’ visited during the night. With the heat from the sun, the frost would always melt away during the day.

Brr – Well, that says it all!



See next post for continuation ….

Winter is not over!

Snowmen – What is winter without them? They are so happy, they are levitating. Do you like the quilt on the little guy? The quilting lines are Northern Lights. Only once have I ever seen them and they were just jaw dropping to witness.

Icicles – Yep, I love icicles. There are tiny crystals sewn at the bottom of some of them to represent melting. They always fascinated me and if there was more than one drop at a time from one icicle, that was awesome.








The lake scene – Reminds me of our cottage and the landscape in winter.

Squeaky Snow - Oh …. the sound snow makes when you walk on it once the temperature drops well below freezing.

Snowflakes – When I see these snowflakes, they remind me of ice skaters doing their spin. I did have beads on the centre of a few; but took them off and replaced with the snowflake buttons.

Thank you, Tonya for issuing a challenge to join your class.

Have a great day!

Stipple Fun and tagged!

I've been awarded with the "You make my day award" by Loulee . The awards rules are to“Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on.

Well ……. I’m naming Loulee 10 times back! :o) Loulee is a new quilter but just dives in and comes up with such creative items. She is the one that has inspired me to just try free form quilting. If Loulee can do it …..well, me too!

You know that I’m a huge fan of hand quilting. Without question! For this section of my Winter quilt, I started hand quilting and didn’t like what was coming from it. So, all that work got ripped out and I turned to machine quilting and love what I’ve done. This is my third piece where I’ve done stipple machine quilting and am in love with it. So ….. Loulee, you are the reason for my new inspiration and fun.

Squeaky Snow ...... what do I these words mean? When the temperature dips to very cold, the snow squeaks when you walk on it. I just love to hear that noise when outdoors in the winter.

Have a great day!

Winter is Here!

And with a vengeance, with lots of snow and freezing rain. Yesterday was a good day to stay indoors and just sew and stay warm and not venture anywhere with the car.

I’m getting closer to assembling my Winter quilt. Just a bit more on the bottom section and then the sides can be sewn together.

When I first started this quilt, the colour choice became evident after going through all my winter fabrics. There was a lot of blues with snowflakes on them. I’m amazed how over the years, I seem to have accumulated a lot of this colour fabric and how perfect they are for this quilt. Snowflakes are the theme, and even the red fabric in the house has some printed on it.

I'm trying to finish the top as soon as possible .... there are Xmas gifts to make and must make time to do those up!

Have a great day!

Winter is Here!

No, seriously …. WINTER has finally arrived here in Toronto. Driving yesterday was a nightmare and so glad that we didn’t have to go anywhere.

Things are coming together quite well for this quilt. Another week or so and it should be pretty close to assembling. The letters are slowing me down, but once you get the hang of it, then they become easier to make.

My sketched design keeps changing. I keep jotting down ideas, cross some old ones off and then think about how a block can be made up.

A couple of my trees looks like they are doing the hula dance ….. it’s so cold and windy here, the trees are dancing to keep warm!

Indeed, it is challenging, but …… what fun to see something in my head come together in fabric.

Did you folks south of the border have a great Thanksgiving yesterday? So, who is going out shopping on Black Friday for bargains?

This week, I finished up my SSCS gift and it's now drying and waiting for a label and then it can be sent to ....... Nope, you will have to wait until after Xmas to see who got what!

Have a great day!

Winter Time

I mean the quilt …. not the weather …. mind you there are a few flurries floating around this morning.

I have been taking the free tutorial classes with Tonya and this is what has been accomplished so far. This has been fun in the making and hopefully it will be done before the end of November. Looking through my stash, there was a lot of blue fabrics with snowflakes on them, so that determined the colours for this quilt. This is sure different from my usual quilts, eh.

Tricks of fabric. In my previous post, there were a number of comments about the use of gray fabric in my Trip Around The World quilt.

Actually, there was no gray used, but it sure has that effect with the one fabric that looks kind of blurry. In this close-up, you can see that the fabric (left of the moss green block) is moss green with yellow, blue and cream against a black background. The pattern is quite busy giving the illusion of a different colour from a distance.

After we shot the photo of the quilt, my husband noticed the effect and he wondered if others would too. You folks are quite observant!
Have a great day!

Just winging along

Well, I just have to say that this process is sure different than what I am used to and very rewarding at the same time. No templates …. OMG! Just free form cutting and sewing and those letters are harder than I thought. My first attempt at making the W ended in the garbage (but after parts of it was used for the R). The I has a snowflake button to complete the letter.

For the snow people, felt is being used with stuffing behind them and secured with buttonhole stitching. The little one looks cold, so it is going to get a mini quilt to wrap up in.

The icicles are just strips of fabric sewn on in an random order; but at the same time keeping in mind gravity and points to hang sort of straight down. I am using printer paper as a stabilizer for sewing the strips onto as there are a lot of bias edges with these icicles.

Anyway, it is a lot of fun working on this hanging and it is coming along quicker than first thought.

Thanks, Tonya, for tempting me to join in. :o) I have wanted to do something with letters for a long time now and this is a great opportunity for me to just ‘try’ it.

Have a great day!