Finally Finished after 2 years

Good Evening all

My day has gone pretty good but am getting really tired....didn't get a nap today. LOL

This is just a quick post to tell and show you all

I'M FINALLY FINISHED!!




The cone I've been working on for over 2 years is finally finished. I can't believe how long this cone lasted me. Its either a lot of thread or I'm a really slow piecer.

I've been working steady on this project and learned a lot of things that I'll catch you up on in the next few days.

My little guys birthday is tomorrow - he's turning 7. Tomorrow is gonna be a busy day.

Have a great day!
Vicky K


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Design Wall Thursday

Good Evening All
We are under a storm watch tonight. They are forecasting another 20 cm of snow. Its a good thing I live in Alberta as I love snow. I'm getting excited about taking kids for skiing lessons again this winter. Last year, my kids and the neighbour kids took an hour private lesson. It was a great introduction to skiing. I've only skied 5 times in my life so it was an experience for me too. Myself and the other mom were allowed with the kids for a discounted rate. Someone should have been taking a video of my first attempt on the magic carpet. I'm sure it was quite the site! Trying to get my 3 year old on it without her or myself falling. Got her on and then its my turn. Oh My Goodness! I couldn't get my upper body forward, so I'm waving my arms with the poles that are supposed to be pointing down but slashing through the air to prevent myself from falling on my but. I think I finally got my balance halfway up the teaching hill LMAO. Can't wait to see how I'll do this year. :)
Yesterday I started cutting out my next project. I'm hoping to to be finished cutting the block pieces tonight. I won't cut the sashing and corner blocks until the blocks are put together.
Here are the pieces on my design wall.




I like purple but just don't play with it very often. This is a turning out to be a very springy quilt. I'm trying to get it finished so that I can enter the quilt into the Iron Quilter II competition at Missouri Star Quilt Co that's due November 30. Better get off the computer and get back to cutting.
Have a great night everyone!
Vicky K
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WIP Row Robin #2

Good Evening

I've been missing in action for a while because I was sicker than a dog for over a week. I had the worst cold and cough and could not stay awake for longer than an hour at a time. Went to doctor, got meds, feel better. But now my little girl is going on her 5th day of fever and cough. Taking her to the doctor tomorrow. Hope she gets better soon. When she's sick, she has to be near me and she won't sleep without me.

So I decided to join up with Freshly Pieced's WIP today. I'm having trouble adding the button tonight and will play around with that another day.

I've been working on the 2nd Row Robin for my quilting guild. I had lots of fun and frustration working on this row. The theme was Women's Intimate Apparel.

Here is the top that I received.


I was thinking of doing a row of shoes but when I reread the note from the creator, I figured it wasn't intimately appropriate. So I tossed all the designs I came up with for shoes and I must say, my runner was amazing. LOL

So here are some of my blocks during creation:














Its getting late here and I'm gonna have a busy day tomorrow. Hope you have had a productive WIP Wednesday!

Vicky K


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Scrappy Binding for Son's Quilt

Good Evening All

Today is a snow day with just me and kids home. Hubby is out hunting again. I really wanted a whole day of quilting and playing in my room. But I was feeling bad for leaving kids alone. So I spent all morning and most of the afternoon with them. I got in about an hour after lunch. Right now I'm working on the scrappy binding for my little guy's quilt.





I'm pretty excited about finishing the quilt. Its been a long time coming.

I'm back in the sewing room tonight for hopefully a few hours. It'll depend on when little girl comes on down. Have a great evening.

Vicky K

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Binding Question

Good Evening All

Hope you had a great Halloween! I had an awesome time with friends and family this year. Great memories. Both kids had parties at school and then my friend had a party for 12 kids and everyone had a blast. Then my niece, her husband and 18 month old kids met at our house with my friend and her kids and we headed out Trick or Treating. It was lots of fun for all to have so many walking together. And the weather was so nice. I feel like this was the first Halloween that I've been able to get into the festivities with my kids since my Mom passed away. Things are starting to settle down with the estate. Its been a long 2.5 years. I can't wait for Christmas! I even attempted to make eye balls from apples. They worked out pretty good but they aren't "Take to a Party" food. Kind of have to be eaten right away.

I've been working a lot in my sewing room the last few days but I can't show what I'm working on. I've been working on a Row Robin that I joined at the Fort Sask Quilting Guild and its a Secret. I know one of my readers are in the exchange with me so Mums the pictures LOL.

On October 30, I went to Sparrow Studio to quilt my son's quilt. It been sitting in my room, sandwiched, waiting for quilting for at least 2 years. My son is turning 7 at the end of November, so I figured I should get it finished while he still likes what's on the fabric. I picked a spider web panto. I think my little guy will love it!





I'm working on the binding now. I'm going to do a scrappy binding. It'll have the solid colours - Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Orange. How long do you make your strips when doing a scrappy binding?




My kids and hubby will be back from gymnastics soon, so I need to get off the computer.

Have a great evening!

Vicky K



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String Block Day 6 and final day

Good Evening All
Hope you've had a wonderful day. Mine was pretty good. I was able to accomplish a lot in my sewing room today. I finished taking the paper off all the string blocks. Now I just need to address and stuff the envelopes.

Here are all my blocks finished:




Pretty excited about them. I'm really liking this project. Can't wait until I receive all my blocks and can put them into a great quilt.

Tonight I still have to un-baste a quilt. I basted it before thinking/knowing I would be getting a longarm quilting machine. And tomorrow, I'm renting a longarm at Sparrow Studio so I can quilt it. Its a quilt for my little guy who turns 7 at the end of November. I figured I should get my act in gear as he won't be liking the theme soon. LOL This quilt has been a UFO for at least 1.5 years. It'll feel really nice to be finished it.

Here is a picture of my little guys quilt before I removed the pins.





I've been trying to figure out how I want to quilt it. Should I custom quilt it with machinery, should I just do fun free motion, or should I do a pantograph. This will be the 5th quilt I will be quilting using an APQS and I still feel like a real beginner. So I'm leaning toward a pantograph. I need to start somewhere to grow and I'm sure this is not going to be the last quilt I will be giving my little guy. The next one can have custom stuff done to it ;)

Oh and I thought I would tell you a funny story about last night before I sign off:

My little girl was, of course, still up when I went to bed last night. She crawled into bed with hubby and me. When she gets too awake at night, she will talk or sing to herself until she gets sleepy again. And I also like to read before going to bed. Lately I've been catching up on Facebook stuff before turning out the lights. So around 2 am, as my hubby is sleeping, my little girl starts singing quietly. I end up reading a post about Auto-Correct. I started laughing so hard, I just couldn't keep it in. All of a sudden, hubby is awake and worried about me because he thinks I'm crying. My daughter pipes in and says Mommy's laughing not crying. I'm can't talk because of laughing so hard and also kind of nervous to tell him that I'm reading Facebook and waking him up. One thing about my hubby - he likes his sleep in the night. Gets really grumpy if he gets woken up. Could you image soundly sleeping and then all of a sudden your daughter is singing and then you think your wife is crying. The poor guy LOL. He took it pretty well, even made a joke about it this evening. Its been a long time since I laughed that hard and it felt really good.

Have a good night everyone and hope you've had a laugh today.

Vicky K


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String Block Day 5

Good Evening

So I wasn't able to get into the sewing room yesterday. I got lazy and ended up staying upstairs watching TV and playing on Facebook. The evil time consumer. lol

As I was feeling lazy about yesterday, I made myself come downstairs tonight. It took a while to get motivated to cut the strip blocks but I finished them. I'm a procrastinator when it comes to cutting fabric. I'm thinking that's my biggest hurdle in quilting. And its not like I don't have enough fabric in my stash if I made a mistake. (wink) When I was first learning how to quilt, I miscut a few times (or should I say many times), so now when I buy fabric for a quilt, I usually buy an extra .25 meter. I have lots to spare in my room. Especially when I'm doing stash busting.

I learned something while cutting tonight - Include extra fabric past the edges of my foundation. It can/will shrink up with seam allowances.

I cut my paper foundations to the size of blocks required - 8.5". The first one I trimmed tonight, I used the paper as a guide. Trimmed all four sides. I then started trimming the second one the same way. And something made me stop and actually measure. Well, good thing I did. The paper foundation was 8.5 X 8.25. One side shrunk. I changed the way I trimmed and started using the measuring using the ruler.

So then I started debating with myself about removing paper first before trimming as it seems that the blocks will distort slightly after removing the papers. I decided to cut first and then just be really careful when taking off the paper. I looked at some of the other blocks that I received from my swap partners and it seemed like the blocks also got distorted in the mail. So I figured as the blocks are cut on the bias, its gonna be really hard for my partners to receive perfect blocks and to not worry so much. I'll do my best to send great blocks but I'm relieving the pressure of perfect.

Do you get stressed for perfection when quilting?

Here are some pictures of my night.

Before picture



The difference out in paper foundation



Here are all my cut blocks and the pile of scraps leftover. I'm excited to have more to add to my crumb block scraps.



As I didn't sew tonight, there's no new picture of my thread cone.

I guess I should get up to bed, its 1:30 am and my little girl came into my sewing room tonight for the 3rd time. Halloween is really getting to her, she won't sleep without me when she wakes in the middle of the night. We finally got her going to sleep on her own without too many issues.

Have a great night!
Vicky K


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