Look what I bought and found!

Hi all!
I just had to share what i bought and found today. I bought this little stool today at a store for a few bucks because I have been wanting to recover a stool with a rug hooked cover like on this page. You may have to wait to see some of the photos but they are worth it :) this stool is in a bad enough condition that I don't feel bad about taking off the cover and replacing it with something that I make. If it doesn't work out then I won't feel bad about it. The legs are metal so some type of gold would be nice. I see some type of gold and green and maybe make it look funky but oriental and old at the same time. What do you guys think? I think this stool has some very great promise.

You can see my oldest dog Zen in the picture along with Chi's paw. Zen is now 14 and starting to show his age but he is still a happy active old dog and we love him.
This jar I found in this state, beside the grocery carts in the grocery store parking lot. I picked it up, originally, to get it out of the parking lot if it was broken; but, I soon saw that it was completely intact! Both the lid and the jar look great but they are dirty. I can't believe that someone would throw the jar away, with the shopping carts, when it wasn't broken or cracked or anything. I have no idea what I will do with it but it is a nice jar, with a lid, that could do something very useful in it's future :) What do you all think? Is this jar screaming out for some purpose?

Stitch and Flip Jacket Finished

I finally finished turning the binding on my jacket today! Yey!! Just in time for the quilt guild tonight. I am really pleased with the way that this jacket has turned out. I love all the bright colours, and, I love the decorative stitching in gold rayon thread on the jacket. You can see the one embroidery, that I decided to put on the jacket, on the left sleeve. It is my "sunshower" sun that I like to put on some of the work that I do.

This was a fun method that used up a lot of bits from my batik stash but I will say that my sewing room was a real mess while I was piecing this jacket. There was no sense clearing it away since I would just have to get everything back out again to do the next section. I thought that this would use up a lot of fabric but it didn't make a dent in my stash!

This is the back of my jacket. Doing a piece this large (the back) was challenging, but, I developed a system that allowed me to appliqué some of the pieces down so that they wouldn't get overly big. You can see the two appliqués along the right side of the jacket. I think that doing a jacket like this in 1930's prints might be really nice too. It would also look nice it the jacket was made up of individual blocks that were crazy patched then laid over the jacket instead of having one large crazy patch.

Rearranging Quilts

I decided to put some new quilts on the wall in my sewing studio. I am trying to decide if I want to try and sell a couple of quilts so I thought that I would put, the one on the left, up on the wall to see if it grows on me :) Well, putting these two quilts up in the corner above the gas fireplace has completely transformed this corner! I actually like the two quilts together. The quilt on the right is called "Sue's Favourite Blocks" I designed it as a Block of the Month (BOM) for my local quilt guild. I designed this quilt so that people would learn a new skill or unit each month. I wanted to make it so that if people made a block for the guild draw and a block for themselves they will have a nice wall quilt for themselves. The project went over really well and people liked doing a sort of group project.

As a side not I am completely determined to redo my quilting room this summer. I think that I will paint the walls a light tan or cream and put in berber carpet. I like carpet in this room because I like to sit on the floor in this room. It will be A LOT of work just to take all he "stuff" out of this room but I think that it will be worth it in the end.

Baby Quilt Finished

Well, I finished another baby quilt and it is delivered to the woman who ordered it from me! She is really happy with it so that is always really rewarding. Even though they picked out the fabrics and the pattern themselves I couldn't help but be a bit worried that they wouldn't like it. I always get like that :) every time I give a quilt as a gift I worry that they won't like it.

Do we all worry that our work will be appreciated and liked? Probably. It's silly though.


I have another baby quilt to make for two of our friends who are due in May and I had a bit of a brainwave today about it. I think that I will do another 4-patch 1-patch quilt using the yellow and white patches and the blue batik bears as the feature fabric. You can see the border fabric with corner-stones but I am not sure what to do for the first border. I have three different fabrics in there. I like the pink/purple fabric or the green the best I think. We are not sure about the sex of the baby so I am leaning towards the green fabric myself but a purple batik might be nice too. I'll have to go and hunt through my stash again :)

Which fabric do you guys think would look nice for the first border and probably binding?

Latest Projects

Hi all;
I haven't been blogging much lately because I have been working hard on this project here. It is my latest sweatshirt jacket. I finally finished covering the sweatshirt with batik pieces and finished with the decorative stitching using a gold rayon thread. I used the stitch and flip method to do the crazy patch using the sweatshirt pieces as the foundation. I like this technique because after you are done the stitching the quilting is done but I really think that the decorative stitching adds a lot to the garment and provides a bridge between the colours. I am thinking of adding some machine embroideries to some of the patches to really set the jacket off and make it a bit more like traditional crazy patch quilts. When I teach this class again, on Saturday, I will assemble the jacket and add the binding. I am thinking about curving the neckline for some added interest. If you'd like to see my tutorial for making a sweatshirt jacket please go to this page for part one and this page for part two.
I am going to start another baby quilt today as well. I am going to use the same pattern as the quilt that I made here. It is my favourite baby quilt pattern and I love the size that it makes up. I am making it for a woman to give to her grandson. They want it a bit longer than I usually make it but that isn't a problem. The top fabric is the feature fabric and the others are the supporting fabrics. The bottom fabric is a really nice flannel fabric for the back. I think that it is going to turn out very nicely :) The fabrics are washed now to press and start cutting.