Photos as promised

This is my first machine pieced machine quilted (not in a grid) quilt. I will be entering it into the YHQG show. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, so much so that I have decided to keep it for my first grandchild.
This is a "cheater panel" baby quilt which I quilted in a simple diagonal grid. The next photo is with the corner lifted to show the back. This one's for my neighbour's new baby due any day now.

The black, red and white was pieced following a free pattern on the internet for charity quilts. It is also quilted in straight diagonal lines. The next photo has the corner lifted to show the back. This one is going to Project Linus after I show it at the Pomegranate Guild's show and share.

Baby quilts

I have been occupied doing baby quilts. The two shown here are not pieced or appliqued.
They're printed fabric panels we bought on our January field trip to Hamilton. The blue one with the friendly jungle animals is now in Israel, en route to Noam, our new grandnephew. The second one, the neon coloured jungle animals, is en route by airmail to Germany, where it will become a gift from my daughter & her SO to her SO's ex's new baby girl. (The photo shows it unbound, the binding is actually a lovely fuschia colour).
I have another printed panel sandwiched and ready for quilting for my next door neighbour's baby due in June, I think. PTF when finished.
I have also finally finished my PTF multi-coloured baby quilt for my first grandchild...
And I have finished my first PTF Project Linus baby quilt -- black, white and red.
Yesterday we popped into Fabricland to pick up two rolls of burlap for camp mifkad esh. While there, I bought some yellow fabric for an inside border for another Project Linus baby quilt I hope to finish this week. And some patterned fabric for the backing of another wholecloth baby quilt. And after that, I will go back to piecing my Project Linus baby quilts.
We're invited to Yunkie and Mindy's for Friday night and I want to make a table runner from fabrics samples I have. I sort of know what I want to do but haven't quite decided on the "how" yet. Also something I'm hoping to finish this week, if not today.
I ordered a book online called "Art Quilt Workbook" and I am probably joining an online group to work our way through the workbook. It looks delicious and I am looking forward to it.
So I'm busy stitch-wise.
Since I prewash my fabrics, I am off to the basement to see the machines' progress.

* PTF = photograph to follow

Two posts in one day!!

Multi-coloured quilt coming along nicely. I've finished quilting within the blocks and have done simple straight lines in the small border. All I have left to quilt now is the wide border which I will do free-motion. I tried earlier but since I hadn't done any FMQ recently, I forgot to drop the feed dogs and naturally had crummy results (and it took me a few hours to realize why...)
So my day has been fruitful. Yay!!

I'm back

What with Noam's Bar-Mitzvah and then Pesach (Passover), I haven't been in my studio much and haven't done any sewing.
But now I'm back and will try to get into a routine of sewing an hour or two a day and a bit more on the weekends.
I readied my studio, junking clippings of stuff I will never make, templates for projects I no longer care to do, etc.
This morning, I resumed quilting my curved multi-coloured baby quilt. I wasn't happy with the quilting which I started with a walking foot. But I decided to keep going and finish it. In "the big picture", the wonderful piecing will be the main event and the stitching will hold it together. I'll get more creative in the future. At this point, I just want to finish it.
Same with the quilt for Lior and Neta's new baby whose name at the moment escapes me. Oy, is the memory fuse ever faulty!
I have also decided to finally tackle Inbal's quilt to do the quilting. It doesn't have to be perfect, just heartfelt. And the charity baby quilts of the one a month new year's resolution of which so far none have been completed...
On more encouraging news, FibreArts Toronto has applied for exhibition space at the Toronto Public Libray. We won't know til mid-June if we've been accepted but it's a step in the right direction.
At the Pomegranate Guild meeting last week, we had a "garage sale". I didn't get anything packed up in time to sell but I did buy a bag of "stuff", mostly needlepoint yarns but also some fabric, for $2.00. My "fibre diet", you ask? It was a small bag and for a good cause. And everyone falls off the wagon now and then.
We were in Perth this week to check out winter damage at camp. There didn't appear to be any. Hopefully the vandals will not be overly active between our visit and June 1st when Menachem goes up for the summer.
Our next trip there is planned for the Labour Day weekend. We'll take up the stuff we need to set up our room and hopefully have a mini-vacation before the summer starts.
Back to stitch.

Studio clean-up

Just a post to let you know that I haven't given up on blogging but haven't been doing much sewing so didn't have too much to report.
I received the "Studio" issue from "Cloth, Paper, Scissors". What can I say? A Yiddish "eh". In my opinion, nothing to write home about. The good thing about it is that it motivated me to do a little tidying in my studio. I went through all my "files" holding things I may some day do or which appeared at one time to provide inspiration. Since I am more realistic now, I pared down the files to about half which opened up room on my shelfing unit. I also took out my boom-box radio with its speakers and freed up a whole shelf (the boom box sat on one shelf and one of the speakers on a second.) I had already started culling my books by donating some of them to the Pomegranate Guild library (that way I can "visit" with them when I want) and the ones which I have no intention of revisiting to the York Heritage Guild. My studio was pared down anyways and my fabric diet appears to be working except for the occasional small falling off the wagon episode of a fat quarter here, a trim there.
With Noam's bar-mitzvah last weekend (btw, he wore the kippah) and Pesach next, I am taking a small hiatus from sewing and am doing a mild spring cleaning.
We are again hosting the first seder and expect approximately 20 people. Approximately 20 because our guests sometimes bring others. The karp has been purchased and cleaned, so we're half way there already.
We're invited to Alissa and Mel's the second night and I may just sew up something for her. I'll see if the muse strikes.

Muse on vacation

I wish I could say that I spent this past long weekend stitching up a storm. I didn't.
I guess the muse is on vacation.

What I did do is realize that I am falling woefully behind in my New Year's resolution to do a charity quilt a month. I have two tops ready to quilt, maybe even a third -- I just don't remember. So I guess that's what I'll be doing when I get back to sewing.

And I made a kippah for Noam for his bar mitzvah from one of my father's ties. I'm not sure he'll want to wear it, but it's there if he does.

And I made three bookmarks for Rafi's 60th birthday to go with a gift certificate to Chapters.

So I guess the muse hasn't totally abandonned me after all.

Explanation to follow

This is a my journal piece for Adar II. At the left is a plate of hamentaschen (oznei haman), the same technique I used for the postcard exchange I took part in. On the right is the opening of Megilat Esther, downloaded from the internet and freezer-paper backed printed onto dupionni silk. And the quilting, of which I an not particularly proud is a simple scribble in variegated thread. Here are my FibreArt Toronto "blue" challenges. This first one I made, bottom of the page, is my "playing it safe blue" -- same wavy pattern as previously done, very little quilting stitches but embellished with ribbon, braids, etc. The thought behind it was texture.
This one, immediately below, is my "outside my comfort zone blue". I started out with a technique I had meant to try but had never yet done--sewing bits and pieces of threads and fabrics between two layers of Sulky soluble fibre and then washing out the soluble. It turned out nicely and I got to use up all the bits and pieces from piece #1. Then I decided to try a wholecloth facing instead of binding, which allowed me to have a wavy edge to the piece. And agains, bits and pieces, beads and trims to add texture.

The next FiberArts meeting is on Pesach (Passover) so I won't be attending. The challenge is to make something recognizable for the house, i.e. potholder, tea cozy, etc. I am going to make a bookmark(s) which will take very little time. I made one for Jeremy for his birthday and he liked it.
Then I am going to go back to conventional quilting and try to finish off several quilts I have started.
And then, I am going to use my brown circle and make three wallhangings with them in shades of brown. Or maybe throw in some colour if the muse hits me.