August Divas Day!

We were finally able to get together for a great Summer Divas Day - at least a quorum, we were missing Karen. Schedules have been pretty hectic for the past few months it seems so we haven't been able to get together for quite awhile. As you can imagine, more talking than sewing, although we did do some of that, too!

We started off by presenting Gourmet Diva Sue with her turquoise and brown quilt (front and back below). Sue had purchased the fabric at one of the quilt shows quite awhile ago and Kristie managed to find time to assemble it over the winter. Sue was quite delighted and thought it was pretty cool that she could buy fabric that would magically convert to a quilt with no effort on her part. Of course we know differently - she's our chef and without her, well - the Divas just wouldn't function nearly as well! :)





Show and tell was next up with Joan and her most recent "eye spy" quilt (front and back below). She's become quite the expert at these. She was concerned that the binding wasn't stitched down but in the pix it's not too obvious.


Then I opened up my "Seeing Stars" quilt - the top is finally complete. It's pretty big! We had to hang it from the deck to get a full pix. It's not a great pix - sun is shining through - I'll do another when it's finished.

We had a Shrimp Fest today - shrimp on skewers BBQd and shrimp in salad. We had peas in a salad with some other yummy stuff and a regular salad. And some smoked salmon on pizza and a spread that was terrific too! That Gourmet Diva always comes through for us!


And as if that wasn't enough - dessert too!

Divas Kristie, Sue, Mary, Dorothy, Joan.

Oh yeah, about the sewing: two small quilts were quilted on Harley and the top for another one well started.

UFO Round Up (Not Cowboys and Aliens!)

I generally like to finish each project before starting a new one. But I've managed to accumulate a few UFOs so decided I MUST get them finished. I was prompted to finish this little birdhouse quilt when my friend Jacquie sent an email asking when we'd be available to visit them out at their recreational property. My plan is to give it to her. She has a birdhouse up for each of her Grandkids. I'm going to call it "Grandma's Birdhouses." Joe is modelling for me. (How do you like my birthday palm trees! I complained after coming back from Mexico and California to horrible Calgary winter weather that I wanted to wake up to palm trees every day, so Joe got these ones for me for my birthday back in April.)

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I started this gold and purple quilt (below) probably about 1 1/2 years ago. Ran out of gold fabric, so started something else. By the time I had more gold, I was well onto my next projects and it's hard to go back! So I finished off the blocks and started putting the thing together. My original plan was to do it offset like bricks AND on point. But I found it was just too unwieldy to work with so I've scaled back on that and it will now be bricks but horizontal setting. It will still be OK - I like it so far, though I suppose some wouldn't. This is based on the ideas in the book Thinking Outside the Block, which I have mentioned before.

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And finally - we are getting some decent summer weather - so I won't be doing much quilting when it's nice. Here are a few bonus pix of our yard and our fish in the pond! We got these little fish last year - they were about 1.5 inches long. Joe wintered them in the garage (it's heated) and right now they are about 3 inches long. I think they like our pond!

Colour Outside the LInes

You will recall from a previous post that I made Colour Outside the Lines for Joe's niece and her family. Kelly (actually she's a great-niece) and Jason live in Lethbridge and we haven't been back since last year - we finally made it back late in June and we delivered the quilt.

Here are Jason and Kelly holding the quilt with Ezra and Veronica, their little girls.

The quilt is black and white in the centre because Jason is colour blind. Hence - "colour outside the lines".
It was fun to watch the girls playing with it! I hope they continue to enjoy it.

Double Happiness

This is the Chinese symbol for "Double Happiness" and is commonly used for weddings. Rhonwyn, who loves all things Chinese, asked if I could put this symbol on the quilt label, which I did. I decided to name the quilt "Double Happiness".

This quilt was probably the most complex and time consuming quilt I've made so far - the things you do for love! Anyway - I'm very pleased with the way it turned out and the kids seemed to like it as well.

And the back.

May you have "Double Happiness" Craig and Rhonwyn! XXOO

Laureen's Twins

Divas made quilts for Laureen, a work colleague who had twins. They are so cute!

Elnora (Nora) above, and Michael below.

Easy Nine Patch

Like the four patch a few posts ago.... Here is a nine patch.

Start with two squares cut three times the size you would cut for the individual patches. This example is a 6 inch square finished size. Two inches for each square, plus seam allowances.

2"+1/2 = 2.5"

2.5*3 = 7.5" squares

Stitch the two squares together on two opposite sides (below).


Cut into three equal strips (below).


Centre strips need to be stitched to the appropriate stitched pair. Arrange accordingly and stitch.

Now you have two almost squares as per below.

Now cut the squares into three equal strips as per below.

Arrange the strips to form the nine patches - then stitch them together!

Voila! Two nine patches!

Wedding Ring Top Done

The top is done! Must get backing, then get it on to Harley for quilting. I will also take some better pix - here it is just tossed on a bed - used the little camera with bad lighting.