I took a class at our local quilt shop when Deb first opened – she’s just had her 4th Anniversary sale so you know this has been in the works for a long time. Actually it hasn’t been “in the works” because when I finished the class it went into a bin (not even half-done) and never saw the light of day again until this month.

It took a long time to stitch all those diagonal lines; they started out (in the class) at half an inch apart but by the end of the stitching they were meant to be the width of the walking foot but even that wasn’t particularly accurate.

It was scary when I made the first cuts between the lines but once I realized when I got in the channel I really couldn’t get out of it things moved along quickly. I knew that Deb had a special way of cutting so the chenille showed on both sides but all my quilting friends said “No, No, No!” So I did as they said but I’ve later learned how Deb expected it to be done (I guess I’ll have to make another one)!

The final fun was getting it bound and into the washing machine to let all those layers of flannel create the fuzz.

This one doesn’t yet have a home – it may be staying in mine!

Quite awhile ago Elizabeth asked if I would make her something with a specific fabric that she had found. Of course it was a fabric that was absolutely right for her – Live Laugh Love with jars of daisies!

I ordered the fabric online and, because I wasn’t sure what I’d be making, I ordered several yards. Once it arrived and I began planning the table runner I was going to make I realized I needed a coordinating fabric – daisies of course ordered from the same company.

I wanted the Live Laugh Love sentiment to show no matter which side of the table you were on so I split it down the middle, added the daisies in the middle and sewed it up with the writing going in opposite directions.

I had some fabric in my stash that seemed the perfect colour to match the jars of daisies but there wasn’t enough of it for backing so I decided it would be my binding. I had some other turquoise fabric that would work, but the binding colour wouldn’t be right when put right up against it. So I added a couple of daisy borders and voila!

I did some very simple straight-line quilting but, following my free-motion class, I did a few circles around the heads of the daisies.

There is lots more fabric left so this particular project has been called Live Laugh Love #1 – there will be more to follow.

I purchased the pattern for this in Houston; I bought a folding tri-frame and made a version of it for Pat for Valentines 2017.

When the Board started talking about a Member Appreciation Night I thought this might be a good choice for a give-away. I didn’t have another frame but I adjusted the pattern to make either a small table topper or wall hanging.

Hopefully whoever ends up with it will consider it a win!

Kathryn (and crew) gave me a couple of bundles of Fat Quarters as a gift several years ago. I know it was a few years ago because I worked on it at one of the Mount Washington retreats and we haven’t done one of those for at least three years! This project was on my Guild UFO list; it had been sitting waiting to be quilted for probably a year at least.

I wanted to do straight line quilting for this; somehow I thought it would be easier than free-motion. I need to put up a big sign in my sewing room to remind me that straight lines, no matter what pattern, are slow and time-consuming. Lesson learned.

I used four different straight-line patterns for the quilting, depending on the size of the centre square of the block. I started with cross-hatching but by the end I was just making straight lines any-which-way across the blocks.

I’ve never sent a quilt through the mail until now. I packed it in a Space Bag (and sucked the air out of it with my vacuum) and I was surprised that it wasn’t very expensive.