One Monthly Goal - November

I just have time for a quick post today to state my One Monthly Goal for November.

This is such a busy time as a longarmer...we're right smack-dab in the season of the Christmas rush as far as longarming goes! 

But I do have to make time for a goal this month. 

I have a 3yr-old granddaughter and thought it would be nice to buy her a baby doll for Christmas...complete with a doll quilt.

When I started looking for dolls, I found a set of fraternal twin dolls. My granddaughter happens to be a fraternal twin so I couldn't pass up on the dolls! And we know what that means....two doll quilts are needed!

I figured I'd use some orphan blocks so as to speed this project along, if I had any appropriate orphan blocks.

Well, of course I do! These 3.5" blocks are some of many that I made a couple of years ago for a sew-along called the 365 Challenge(?). I became disenchanted with my design choice and let this project go.

There are even more of these blocks, so lots to choose from.

I'll try to use a few of these fabrics that were recently gifted to me, they should work for sashing...

So my goal for November will be to have the two quilt tops completed...then they will be ready to finish off in December in time for Christmas. 

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal, November.

One Monthly Goal - October

I think I have lofty goals for October....but why not try???

I will have two goals for October. The first one is to finish hand-quilting my Shimmer quilt. 

I was poking along quite nicely on this quilt pre-Covid, as I had hoped to have it done in time for the Norfolk County Fair....but when that got cancelled this quilt was quietly forgotten.

I've picked it up again this past month and have made some good progress...and now I just want to make it a One Monthly Goal so it can be done.

 I've been quilting with my favourite thread, YLI, in Coral. I think I was always one to use white or cream thread back in the day. About 15 years ago I attended a lovely quilt display at a local historical house, Cottonwood Mansion. I was surprised to see some of the vintage quilts quilted in bold-coloured thread....dark brown and red are what I specifically remember. Those quilts really made an impact on me, and I think I've used colourful threads ever since.

I've also been using an air-erasable marker to mark the quilting design....love it! The only problem is that the more humidity is in the air, the quicker the mark disappears! At this time of year the mark disappears almost before I can get the motif quilted. When I use the same marker in the dry air of Winter, the mark may last the whole day.

So that's my first goal....to have this quilted and bound by the end of October.

I'm not sure about accomplishing my second goal, as I do seem to have more time to spend on hand-work than piecing by machine. 

I'm just starting a Snowflake quilt, using the fabrics I won during last month's One Monthly Goal.

I didn't make a photo-copy of the first page of the pattern, but this picture may give you an idea of the quilt...

Mine will be a scrappy version, not the 4-colour version. I did take a bit of a sew-therapy afternoon to get a start on this quilt.

Here is the first row of blocks laid out on the design wall...

....and I couldn't resist sewing a few blocks together. They went together surprisingly quickly...

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal. Hopefully I can reach my lofty goals for October. It would be great to have the Snowflake quilt ready for use in December!

One Monthly Goal for September - Completed!

 There's just time for a quick post today as I have to get back to work on a custom quilt on the longarm. I only have about two hours work left to go on it, I think.

Here is a picture of when the quilting first started...

....I love when I get the opportunity to sew that motif!

And I love when a quilt calls for a bit of curved cross-hatching...

I've actually just popped in to say that I have completed my One Monthly Goal for September, which was to finish the top of my Farm Girl Vintage quilt.

It was started quite a while back, and I'm so glad to have it finished. I still love the look of the quilt. I'll enjoy quilting it, but that will have to wait until January.

A special shout-out goes to my friend, Karen Z, for designing the Canadian flag block to replace the American flag that was part of the original pattern.

Last year for Christmas I received the pattern book for Farm Girl Vintage 2....now I can look forward to starting that one! I think I'll make a goal of two blocks per month. I seem to do well with an agenda of some sort.

I was excited to learn last month that I won the prize for One Monthly Goal over at Elm Street Quilts blog. She hosts the OMG every month. If someone posts their goal at the beginning of the month, and then posts that they did indeed complete that goal, the person has a chance to win a gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop.

Last month, that person was me! I ended up choosing a fat quarter bundle to use in an upcoming Snowflake quilt. You'll read more about that in an upcoming post!

Here is the fabric I chose, Polar Magic by Lemonni...

That's it for now....back to work for me!

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal Finishes - September. 

One Monthly Goal - September

 I've been writing a list of my UFO's....and there are soooo many.

I think I'll try knocking one off the list every month (or two months if that particular quilt needs a lot of work).

This month my goal is to complete the Farm Life Vintage quilt top.

I think it needs three borders, maybe four, one of them being a border of flying geese....like the ones to the left of the picture. 

This quilt has been taken way too long to be a real quilt, so I look forward to having it completed. 

Another thing I'd like done is three hats made of these balls of yarn...

I am just finishing some knitted socks. Normally socks don't take too long to finish, but this pair has been so uninspiring. I'm almost to the ribbing of the second sock, so finally almost done. They also happen to be the biggest pair of socks I've ever made, on a 2mm needle (small!), so that has helped in dragging these out so long. I'll be glad to see the end of them!

My goal this year is for everyone in the family to have a knitted item for Christmas. Luckily the hats will knit up quickly. Only a few more after these ones, and one to knit in secret, and perhaps one more pair of socks, and I'm good.

I wasn't going to show the pair of socks that I'm working, but oh well, why not. The colour is called Hamburger and the one good thing is that they are turning out to be almost identical twins...not bad! I like doing the toe-up method, but I'm not a fan of how this particular heel looks. It's the first time I've done a Fleegle heel and despite not liking the look of it, I did like the knitting of it. 

Edited to add: Now, after a bit more knitting, they are finally complete! Yay!!! On to the next pair...or one of the hats.

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal

One Monthly Goal - August Finish

My goal for August was to complete my Halo quilt top.

This was a quilt that I started a couple of years ago then stalled on. I'm glad that I came across a Halo sewalong on Instagram that helped motivate me to get back at it. We were to do two blocks per week....easy peasy.

I'm so happy that I accomplished my goal...

When it came time to sew the blocks together I used a method of organizing the blocks that I learned on a retreat last year. 

Normally I would gather up all the blocks for the first two vertical rows off of the design wall and sew them together, then gather up each subsequent row and sew it on. 

This method, instead, has you get all of the blocks carefully stacked in a pile waiting to be sewn together.  It's a bit scary, but it works! Thanks to SS for teaching me a new trick!

And, of course, I just had to put a few stitches in....there's just something special about the very beginning of a hand-quilting project.

I'm using Hobb's wool batting, which is like quilting through butter, and Wonderfil Spaghetti thread for big-stitch quilting. For someone like me that has spent 40 years working on traditional tiny stitches, this kind of quilting is taking some concentration. 

I love everything about this quilt....I wish I'd had the patience to make it a bed-sized quilt, but I settled for a lap-sized quilt :(

Meanwhile, I've been a bit behind in the Summer Sampler 2020 sewalong. One block is released each week. The theme this year is blocks that are constructed in a manner easier than they seem. They are all quite unique and are looking good up on the design wall.

In the picture above you can also see a narrow peek of my Leaders and Enders blocks. I've been keeping two little containers near my sewing machine...one with 1" light strips, and the other with 1" dark strips. I'm really wanting this to be a full bed quilt so I imagine I'll be working on it for a while!

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of a bouquet of roses from our garden. They are really starting to flourish (it's a fairly new garden), and they have suffered a little from a couple of heat waves we've had this summer, but we are getting some spectacular blooms.

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal - August Finish, and with Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?.

Old dog, new tricks....

Well, I wish I was someone who used the Covid time as an opportunity to work on their UFO's....but I've been caught up in a couple of sewalongs along the way.

I've said it before....I'm a sucker for a sewalong!

The latest one is hosted by @thenextstitch on Instagram. She started a sewalong a few weeks ago called @shutdownstitchalong....I think because her area in Melbourne, Australia had entered a shutdown again because of an uptick in Covid cases. (I just have to say....up until a couple of weeks ago, I'd never ever heard the word "uptick" before. Now I hear it all the time and here I am actually using it!)

During this stitchalong we are encouraged to slow stitch for at least 15 minutes a day. Hey, I start everyday with slow stitching, so I'm in!!

Somehow during the beginning of the sewalong I saw the quilt Hills 'n' Hollers being shown and remembered that I have this pattern and what a good opportunity to try it. 

Should have worked on a UFO, right?...oh well. 

I thought it would be a great opportunity to use my Jen Kingwell Stash....just needed a background fabric. So, I made my way to my local quilt shop, Quilt Junction. Well, didn't I find out that Lana has started carrying a couple of Cotton & Steel fabrics....and I have a lovely stash of C&S fabrics sitting in a box at home. So I switched thing up to use these fabrics.

You can see that I basted down all the pieces first to make sure the "hills" were spaced out nicely across the fabric. 

I baste in my applique once in a while....normally to attach all the "vines" in a piece of applique. It takes extra time, but I find it worth it in the end.

When I posted a picture on Instagram showing my progress in the sewalong, a friend commented that it looks like surfboards....I like that and I think this quilt will now be known as Beach Blanket Bingo!....anyone old enough to catch that reference???

Once the surfboards were in my head, my brain somehow leapt over to a pattern I bought recently and thought that if I incorporated part of that pattern it would kind of look like sun rays. The pattern is "Hunt" by Carolyn Friedlander...

So I read through the pattern and was surprised to find out that she uses a whole other method of applique in this design. 

It scared me and thrilled me at the same time, lol!!!

I've been a quilter for over 40 years now and I've got a lot of my methods down pat....but I always enjoy learning a new tip or trick that I may be able to add to my toolbox. 

Here are all the pieces pinned to the background...

The next step was to baste each piece down....with the stitches precisely 1/4" from the edge of the applique piece. Not difficult when you've been a quilter for a while as the 1/4" measure comes quite naturally, right?

Then I was to needleturn applique the pieces. But wait a minute....for years now I've been finger-pressing my seam allowances....how was this going to work????....that was the scary part. I was prepared for the fact that this would not be my best work, but it would be a learning experience.

So I started this morning...on a straight section as the curves were going to be the messy part...

Well, here's the brilliant part of this method....those basting stitches really make a nice "edge" that my needle used to follow as I was needle-turning. So pleasing in an inexplicable way.

Then came the curvy bit, and it worked out just fine. I'm quite happy with my work this morning, and I can see using the "Hunt" pattern for a full-sized quilt.

I will digress for a moment.

A long time ago I read this book and I came to call it my applique Bible...

Almost everything in this book revolutionized my method of applique.

 When I have trouble with curves (and circles were my nemesis for a long time), I always remember this bit of the book...to just make that next stitch a good stitch, concentrate on just that stitch...and this passage of the book served me well again doing the curves this morning. 

My design wall is full at the moment, but I had to see how Beach Blanket Bingo was really looking...

I like it....a lot!!! I can even hear Annette Funicello singing in the background as she dreams about Frankie Avalon.

This quilt has been quite the journey that has morphed in many different ways since I began the #shutdownstitchalong!!

On the design wall is my Halo quilt....a long-time UFO that will finally be a real quilt because of another sewalong on Instagram.

I put the blocks up haphazardly to live with for a while and shuffle them around when I see something that needs shuffling...

Already I know that this is a quilt that will call for hand-quilting.

Halo will be my One Monthly Goal for August. I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal.

I am also linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching

One Monthly Goal - April

I've been working on the mystery quilt that has been generously brought to us by Edyta Sitar. 

She offered this to help us get through our isolation at this time. There has been one block per day over 15 days...but each day you have to make a few multiples of that particular day's block. After 15 days we have 100 6" blocks.

Today is day 14....one more day to go!

Here is my quilt so far...

I may put a bit of a border on when it's done...not sure yet. I don't know if I have enough of any of my 30's prints to make a border. I guess I could do a white border.

I will put these blocks together using a Doug Lenko's 3-pin method. You can view his method on YouTube, HERE. 

I've actually tried something similar in the past, but he has a couple of tips that I'll incorporate into what I have done before.


We're in for some beautiful Spring weather in my area. My hope for all of you....please try to get some fresh air. We are all feeling edgy and worried, and that's to be expected. I believe that some fresh air is so good for our mental health at this time, even if it means just sitting out on your front porch and listening to the birds sing. 

I've been worried that my local park will shut down....I go there frequently for a run. Last Fall they paved a 1.1km walking trail around the baseball diamonds for people to use safely away from traffic. There's hardly anyone there when I go for a run....and the track is at least 8ft wide, so it's easy to be socially distant. I'm always glad to see this track utilized by local seniors, walking to promote their health. 

Sometimes I wish I could just step out my door for a walk or a run, but it's not safe as I live on a provincial highway.

I think of all that has transpired over the last month and realise that only a month ago I'd never heard these phrases before...

Social Distancing
Self Isolation
Flattening the Curve

...and now we hear them on a daily basis....as well as the word "unprecedented". I think that that will be a word that I will not miss when all this is in the past.


Now for my One Monthly Goal for April. My goal is to complete the quilt top on my Edyta Sitar mystery (shown above). I'd even like to have it quilted if I can find an appropriate backing in my stash....but the goal will be to at least have the top done and not have this be a UFO!

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal.

One Monthly Goal - Finish

Well, it's the end of the month already and I almost forgot to post my One Monthly Goal Finish for March!

My goal was to get the main body of Farm Girl Vintage together....finally!!!....and I'm happy to say that I accomplished it!

I'm really happy with it. I think I will make a goal to have it done in time for the Fair this year. It still needs a pieced border, etc...but the end is in sight.

I've had some extra sewing time. The longarm is not very busy at the moment so I'm taking advantage of the lull.

Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts has been offering a mystery quilt....a new block every day for 15 days. Some days we make as few as 4 of the daily block....the other day we had to make 16.  There will be 100 blocks total, which will make a nice lap-sized quilt.

I decided to do mine in 30's prints as I have a lot of them, and I do still love them. 

Here is mine after Day 11...

There are some bits I'm not too sure about, but it's staying as it is.

I will name this quilt in some way to remember that it was made during this pandemic :(


And...wouldn't you know it...Bonnie Hunter has started a new mystery quilt to keep us busy during isolation. At first I thought, "no way"...I want to concentrate on my UFOs.  But I'm doing it....I haven't participated in her mystery quilts in quite a few years as they usually take place between American Thanksgiving and Christmas....a longarmer's absolute busiest time!

Well, I'm not so busy at the moment, so I'm jumping in on this one!

It's called the Unity Quilt-along and you can find Part One on her blog today, which you can see HERE.





You can have a look at her Intro post HERE to see Bonnie's suggestions about fabrics.

One of my goals during social distancing is to make some sense of the sewing room and get it tidied and organised.  I've been saying it for a few days now, and after I finish this post I will actually start. I think one of the things I will do is start a box for donation to the free table at the guilds...I'd like to part with 5 UFOs that I will never get back to doing. I'm sure I can come up with 5. 

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for the One Monthly Goal linky party.

Singing the blues....

Does anyone else get blue this time of year? 

Does anyone use one of the lamps to help you get a bit more "daylight" to help your mood? If so....do you find it helps???

This hits me every year in February...I almost thought I was getting away with not getting the blues this year, but last week it hit me hard. The only consolation...Spring will be here soon and the days are certainly getting a little longer.

Something cheerful?...I actually finished my One Monthly Goal for this month!

My goal was to have all the blocks completed for my Farm Girl Vintage....and here they are...

It's almost unbelievable to me that I have the blocks done...this has been an ongoing UFO for a couple of years now....not that that's too unusual, right?? lol

A note to myself...When I begin Farm Girl Vintage 2 I think I'll stick to muslin or a pale solid as a background. I'm wondering if the background in this version is a little busy????


Another "cheerful"...an impulse buy of this knitting book, which showcases the knitting style of  knitters from Newfoundland....

I'm determined that'll be the end of impulse-buying for a while! 

So sorry to be such a debby-downer....maybe a little extra stitching today will help :)

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal - February

A year of finishes???...off to a good start...

On this last day of January 2020, it looks like I already have two "finishes" under my belt.

Maybe I'll be making up for 2019, when I had very few quilts that were finished.

This week I'm putting the finishing touches on my Temperature Quilt for 2019.

It didn't take long to quilt as it isn't very big... 60"x60"...

I worked on the binding this morning...only a little bit to go. I even managed to put on a label. I learned this method of putting a label on from Bonnie Hunter's blog, Quiltville.

Here it is on the design wall, almost done....

Not a great picture, but I am glad to say it is actually nice and square. I'm happy with the result.

Now, on to my Temperature Quilt 2020!

In a previous post, which you can find HERE, I wrote about this year's temperature quilt...and about my doubts of how it was starting out.

 Well....later that same day I change things up! At this early stage, I knew that it was the time to change my mind if I was not enjoying the process already, only two weeks into the year.

This is the new start of my Temperature Quilt for 2020...

There will be a flying geese unit for each day, showing the forecast high temperature of each day. After each round of geese there will be a sashing of background before the next round of geese.

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Well, I have to admit that I didn't get a speck of sewing done to complete my "one monthly goal". 

My goal was to complete the rest of the blocks for my Farm Girl Vintage...

I am rolling that goal over to February...I really want to get these blocks done! It would be nice to have this quilt completed at some point this year.  

Today I am linking up with My Quilt Infatuation, and with Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?. 

I am also linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal for February.

Happy New Year 2020

A whole new year, a whole new decade!

I'm sure you are the same as me, in that you think ahead to which quilts you'd like to complete, continue, or, dare I say, begin.

I have an actual finish this past week...my Temperature Quilt for 2019.

Well...the top is finished. I hope to have it quilted up very soon, though. We have visitors next week from Alberta, so quilting will have to be put hold for a bit.

I learned that I need to make sure there is a bit more contrast in my colours for a Temperature Quilt...way too many similar reds, I think. On the other hand, you can't really plan ahead too much, as the temperatures dictate how the quilt will play out, right?

I hope you will consider a Temperature Quilt....I thoroughly enjoyed doing mine. I had thought to put off doing another one until 2021, but didn't I come across a beautiful bundle of fabric, on sale, that would be perfect for a Temperature Quilt....and I came across a pattern that called out to me.

Here is my layout for 2020...

It's not a very big quilt and it done with English Paper Piecing. Each star represents one week of the year. I will only be using the high forecast for each day, but there is an option using highs and lows. If you google Fiona Sandwich I'm sure you can find the pattern if you want to play along.

Here are January 1 and 2...with my thimble so you can see the scale of the blocks...

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This year I am motivated to get back into participating in the One Monthly Challenge hosted by Patty at Elm Street Quilts.

For January I'd really like to have to blocks completed for my Farm Girl Vintage quilt. This has been a UFO for much too long now and I still love it, so would like to see it graduate into becoming an actual quilt!

Here are the blocks I have done so far...

I have to give a shout-out to Karen Z for designing the Canada flag block to use instead of the American flag....awesome!

They aren't in their proper layout yet. I think I have 8 more to go, so it's definitely an achievable goal. There are a couple of blocks that I was going to replace...

....they are the ones with the red "cheerio's" in the background fabric. I thought it would be nice to introduce a second background (maybe 2 years ago, lol) and it wasn't until I put them with the others that I noticed that it isn't a white fabric like the original background fabric. They look dirty to me. Actually, today they don't look as bad as I'd thought....but I think I still have to replace them :(

I did manage to do a block on Tuesday morning...to get the ball rolling. Well, I'll have to call this my "humility" block, if you get my meaning...

I do like it though...it uses a few of the new fat quarters I've picked up lately. 

One of the "pushes" to get this one done is that Santa brought me a new book for Christmas, Farm Girl Vintage 2...

....and I really shouldn't start this one until the original Farm Girl is done!!!

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Now I'll confess to the new quilt that I will start this year. It's a Jen Kingwell pattern called Halo. I've had the pattern now for a couple of years and I think I've put it off as it's a bit intimidating to me.

I don't have a picture to share yet as I've just started a bit of cutting and don't have any blocks done yet.

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Another finish this week is my first pair of knitted socks in a very long time....

I am very happy with how they turned out and happy to get back to knitting, especially socks. I learned three techniques on this pair, one of them being knitting them from the toe up, which I really liked.

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I usually have a two-week break from longarming at the end of each year, but I'm extending it a bit this year as we have house guests arriving next week for 5 days. 

I'm taking advantage of this time off to get one of my own quilts quilted, my Queen's Garden quilt.

As always, I started with doing the Stitch in the Ditch work...especially so since I wasn't sure what I'd do in the borders. All I knew is that it would be some sort of feathering, reason being...I just really feel like doing some feathers, lol.

I looked back at notes from some longarm classes I've taken in the past years. I did a bit of doodling the other day to try to get some creative juices going. 

I'm always so nervous to get started, but then I start and it becomes lots of fun.

I'm liking the first bit of stitching...

I only did a bit more before the lighting started to make it difficult to go on. For this picture, I actually shut the light off hoping to see the effect of the quilting a bit better...

I like it, and it's turned out to be a lot of fun to execute. I will try to fill the space more as I progress. It would really "pop" with some pebbling in the negative space, but this quilt will not be so heavily quilted.

I wish I had time to do more today, but I'll be going out soon to a friend's house to do a bit of "wet felting"...we'll be making cat caves! 

Today I am linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal, and with Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Fridays.