November... the dark and dreary month

 We have finished with October and all my projects.  Some have been quilted and bound by me while some of my community quilts for donation are being quilted on a long arm at the Mill Lake quilters by a member of the modern guild.  I am also continuing to do the labeling and binding on the many quilts they finish each week.  Never a quiet, dull or boring moment!.

I did finish up a quilt top using jelly rolls... an hourglass block but decided that it needs a border so that means dragging out fabric to see which one works best.  Borders are cut and need to be added to the top and off it will go to the community quilters.  

I had a number of quilts that I have finished and needed binding so another stack of fabrics dug out to see which ones match the best.  I never plan my binding until it is time to add it to the quilted top.  

This is the stack of quilts waiting to be bound. 

And more in this stack waiting, patiently.

And, they are all finished! 

There was a bit of an interruption to my inside time when my husband wanted to try his driving skills and his vehicle came out of the garage.  We went back roads in our area and he was really pleased to see a buck wandering past us.  I did yard work and our grass is cut and look quick because in an hour or two, more leaves will be covering it.  

This is a Quilt of Valour that I made using hug blocks created by my traditional guild along with an aboriginal map of Canada.  It took a bit of math, but, it got pieced, quilted and bound. 

Our Wednesday Diva group decided to make blocks from our animal prints - mainly cats and dogs but someone had chickens so that got used as well.  These quilt tops were made with a variety of the cat blocks plus some strips of fabric.  

Another cat quilt with strips of cat fabric.

This third one is chickens with strips of chicken fabric.  We are contemplating donating to the SPCA in our area.. something they can raffle off to earn some money?  

This quilt is the Villa Rosa pattern for October called Main Street and I pulled out charms from my bin of Halloween/autumn fabrics and the blue is a spooky fabric that was in there.  I did cut more 5" squares to make it a little larger.  While I was putting the fabrics away, I found another set of blocks, more hourglass glass blocks made from strips of fabric but, there weren't enough, obviously, to make a top.  So, before the fabric gets put away for 11 months, I decided to cut more strips, get more blocks made and make another quilt top.  You can't have too many Halloween quilts!  

Some quilts are finished and I am up to date on the bindings for community quilts.  I have the border to add to the hourglass quilt, more blocks to make for the found project for Halloween 2027, and a few other small projects waiting for me.  I want to make the railroad blocks for the block lotto for Modern Guild, a block lotto for the traditional guild, and also start a quilt of Valour using a split 9 patch.  I have two quilts waiting to be quilted that were donated to quilt of Valour and I do have the backings made and the batting cut for each of them.

My goal however, for this month, is to dig out the Advent box projects leftover from Christmas 2025 and work on some of those and complete a few things before it is time to start opening the advent box for this year!  

Wait for my next post to see if I actually accomplish that goal.  

As always, better late than never?

 When I think about adding to my blog, the thought occurs to me that if I wait one more day, I will have more completed show and tell.  So, I procrastinate in sitting down and writing.  I am so behind on all my correspondence with so many friends... and don't get around to it.  My dad gave me a coaster, many years ago, that was round... and on it said 'round tuit'.  I am guessing I inherited his tendencies to make a plan and postpone it until later. 

I am working on bindings, weekly, from the Mill Lake and Modern guild quilting groups.  The Mill Lake group happened as a spin off from the Modern 
Guild community quilts when a quilter with a long arm offered his space and lessons on using his long arm.  It happened when the group doing community quilts explained how much space the donated fabric was taking up and three of them wanted their space back.  So, we now have a quilter with a townhouse who has a entire bottom floor dedicated to quilting with fabric storage, a nice sitting room, long arm, another room with sewing machines and design wall and his garage has shelving to store the finished quilts.  An assortment of quilters meet on various days (with lunch made for them!) to organize, piece, quilt and figure out the batting, backings and bindings.  I bring home the quilts that are ready for binding and I label and finish them.  We also have a quilter who figures out the places in need of donated quilts and she is always finding somewhere new.  The latest to be on our list is a brain injury group, adolescents that are getting help in finding a place to live, as well as the local transition house and a group called, Best for babies.  Some of the cute baby quilts are donated to the gift shop in the hospital which is also run by volunteers.  

This week's quilts  - 8 of them with a pile of those I have bound and another pile of those that are waiting their turn.  

I guess I need to back up to early September when I did my last blog posting.  

I had been working on a stack of preemie quilts for the local NICU and had them all quilted, ready for binding.  I love striped binding but my stash is diminishing!  
 

These are all the finished quilts.  I made a few that were larger and they went to the Mill Lake Quilters as a contribution to the groups that baby quilts are given to.  The rest, all smaller, 30 x 36" (approx) were handed over to my traditional guild that keeps the NICU supplied with quilts. 

I spend quite a bit of time as a caregiver for my husband who requires immunotherapy every 3 weeks for his skin cancer... we think it is working but it means blood tests as well as oncologist appointments and I take him to all of these events.  He continues to have skin cancers removed with monthly surgeries and the bandage on his arm was a surgery the day before.  

At the September modern guild meeting, one of the members gave me a stack of blocks, ready to be stitched  and put together that she had been given by a third person who was a guild member.  That member knew she would never finish it so it is now put together and send to the Mill Lake quilters to choose backing, cut batting, and search for a suitable binding. 

On Jelly Roll Saturday, I chose a very old jelly roll from my stash and started making hourglass blocks.  

A lot of my time was spent searching and test driving new vehicles.  I loved my Lincoln and there was nothing wrong with it other than it was 10 years old and I feared that possible repairs were pending.  My reasoning for a new one is that I will 80 on my next birthday and it would be nice to have a new, reliable vehicle for my last, possibly 10 years, of driving?  I am enjoying the hybrid and not having to fill up with gas every two weeks.  The dog in the picture is the neighbour's and he was checking out the car because he is a great watchdog and needed to learn that the vehicle is not stranger danger.  

This is another quilt made from blocks handed to me at a modern guild meeting.  These blocks were won at a guild block lotto a few years ago.  I added a frame to them and put it together and it is also now waiting with the Mill Lake quilters to be finished and come back to me for binding.  

The picture above is number one of two tops I made using the Standing on the Corner Villa Rosa (Running Doe) pattern which made a small dent in my sports themed fabric bin.  This is waiting to be quilted by me. I decided that our fabulous weather was a good time to give our upstairs patio a good cleaning and while I was at it, hung up my solar powered pumpkin lights.  On dark days, we don't get much light from them at night but sunny days, they work great.  

 

This Halloween themed quilt which is actually a Riley Blake fabric line called "old Made" and based on the Old Maid card game with funky witches and sewing themed, orange, black and white fabrics, was donated to the Mill Lake quilters and when it came to me for binding, I opted to purchase it. Everyone was happy because we really didn't know where it would be a good place to donate it.   

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My Wednesday group has been working on making "happy blocks" from our cat and dog themed fabric, thinking of the SPCA.  We all dug out any animal prints we had on hand and turned out we also made a chicken quilt.  We are using strips of fabric to set off the blocks and get the quilts a decent length.  None of these are quilted and still more tops to be turned in.  

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My little sister celebrated a big birthday and is now officially a senior.  This picture was taken many years ago but brings back memories of younger days.   

Thanksgiving was coming and I wanted a hostess gift plus some fabric bowls for the guild meeting door prizes and of course, one for our table for Halloween.  Done! 

We had a special visitor for Thanksgiving leftovers and how awesome that they brought a high chair since mine is long gone.  She is almost a year old!  

This top (waiting to be quilted) was the October challenge from Running Doe (Villa rosa pattern) and I used up some Halloween themed fabric.  The blue is also a Halloween print though difficult to see that.  Will it be quilted by the 31st?  This is quilting week according to the timeline I like to follow so who knows?  

I have been working on this Aboriginal Canadian panel.  The traditional guild makes blocks from Northcott Oh Canada fabric and for every 20 blocks we collect, we get a panel and kit from Quilts of Valour.  Most of the panels use 20 blocks but because this is horizontal, I had to do some math to get a quilt of an appropriate size.  It is also another top waiting to be quilted.  

These are the kits that came with panels, pattern and border fabrics that I add 20 blocks to and hope that I can find quilters who like to contribute to Quilts of Valour with their stitching time. 

This potato chip block quilt was the first one I made and I was thinking about the rainbow scrap challenge that I hadn't been doing monthly.  Every block is from scraps and it was quilted for donation by a modern guild member on the long arm at Mill Lake quilts.  Bound and ready for donation.

This pattern, Sheryl, is a Running Doe monthly quilt... (I think August) and is a Villa Rosa pattern.  Same as the quilt above, quilted by modern guild member at Mill Lake quilting.  Also has been bound and ready for donation., 

A finished quilt that was made from the panel kit sent by Quilts of Valour and this one quilted by Karen, a member of the traditional guild.  It is bound and ready to donation to an injured Canadian armed forces member.  With the tragedy in Wainright, Alberta, there will be a need for many quilts to be sent to the injured men and women so this one can go in the pile heading there.  The blocks were made by members of my traditional guild and fun that so many had a hand in being a part of the quilt.  

One last picture of my special little girl.... Love this!! 

Labour Day 2026 - Autumn is coming!

 The really hot days of the summer are diminishing and we are now hovering around 26ºC mid afternoon and all of the rain experienced by the west coast of BC and Washington State missed us completely.  So, we are dry!  The leaves on the trees are turning orange/yellow/brown really quickly because they are so dry.  

My life continues as usual with tennis 2 - 3 mornings a week along with the appointments that my husband needs to deal with his skin cancer eruptions including immunotherapy (which also means blood tests and oncologist appointments).  In my quilting life I took out all of my bins of kid's/children's fabrics and went crazy making happy blocks and then another week spent making quilt tops.  My heartstrings group chose 5" squares/charm packs for August and I found a container full of squares of a variety of sizes but lot of the charm size.  Lots of fabric cutting including some 10" squares since I have a stack of kid's prints in that size. 

This is what I am doing with the "happy" blocks - framed 5" squares. This is the first one made and ready to quilt.  But, why stop there?  Keep reading to find out how many I made. 

I also made blocks for a falling charms quilt. 

Lots of squares and frames ready to go. 

Of course, I have two Quilts of Valour that I am working on but, they got pushed to the side.   And in the picture below... what a mess with fabric everywhere.  

The final result of three weeks of making small quilts - I have one empty container and the rest are labeled and organized and back on the shelf. 
 I completed 5 preemie sized quilt tops from my framed blocks. 

There are six larger quilts for kids ready to be quilted.  That means a day of dealing with cutting batting and backings.  All of these quilts will have flannelette on the back of them.

In the meantime, I also am working on L blocks and some 10" squares cut up into this other block.  

A quilter in my modern guild asked for pictures of our sewing spaces.  It is hard to get a good picture of where I quilt but these are taken from where I am sitting at my computer desk.  There is a small kitchen unit which is perfect with a coffee maker, electric kettle and microwave.  The back wall is covered in the fabric used for making nightgowns - a knit fabric and it is stapled to the wall.  I like using a stapler because it makes really tiny holes.  I have two sewing machines - my Brother 1500 which I use for piecing and a Janome Continental M7 used for applique, stitching that isn't straight stitch, all the bindings I do for the Mill Lake Quilters at Leon's and doing the quilting on smaller quilts.  I took a second picture to give you a bit of a different angle.  I love the thread rack because when I do bindings, it is easy to match the thread to the binding and the backing.  There is a cutting table which is a bit difficult to see but it is against the wall.  I have a white board on the wall which I use to keep track of quilts I am currently working on, quilts that need quilting, and another list of "one day" projects that I would love to eventually make.  

This last picture is taken from another angle... it looks like a disaster zone because I am in the midst of working on the QOV that I mentioned last blog (4 patches) and now have the kid's quilts to get ready for quilting and of course, a couple more ideas of small quilts to make.  If I waited until this was clean and tidy to take a picture, you would have wait quite a long time. 

I am NEVER bored but, if I wish to take a time out from quilting, I have a sofa and television as well as a bookshelf with lots of unread books on it.  

I have not shown my fabric storage... maybe next blog I will have taken some pictures of my storage and organization for fabric that is patiently waiting to be cut and stitched.   

I need to prepare for two guild meetings this week and get these quilt tops ready for quilting.