A Celebration of Quilts XI: Silent Auction - Part 4

Here is my progress on the beading on one of the mini quilts of the silent auction.  It's starting to look really nice and now I can hardly wait to see what it will look like when it gets finished.  It takes quite a while to sew all those little seed beads on, but I find it an enjoyable time passer while watching TV in the evenings. You will need to click on the picture to actually see the detail of the little beads.

A Celebration of Quilts XI: Silent Auction - Part 3

I finished the quilting on the 2nd small quilt I plan to submit to the silent auction that will be held at our guild's quilt show this fall.  Again I kept it simple, just followed the outline of the leaves.  The next step will be the beading. 

I already had a nice pale celery green and a deep maroon but wanted to get a fuchsia pink for this quilt.  I went to Michael's and all they had was light pink but the gal told me about a place called Bead FX which wasn't that far from where I live and all they sell are beads.  I went today and oh boy you could go nuts in there.  I found my fuchsia beads and some nice blue and green ones that I may also use in this piece.  These beads were sold by what they call a hank and there are 12 strands in each bundle and the price ran between $4.50 - $4.65 per bunch. 

In addition I also bought these 3 bundles, couldn't resist and I haven't got a clue as to what I will do with them, but had to have them.  If you are interested here is their web site and they do ship to the states as well as Canada for only $5.95 ($20.00 for international). http://www.beadfx.com/catalogue/index.html

MIA - Missing In Action

Yes it must seem that I have been missing in action since it has been over a month since I have posted anything on my blog.  Work was extremely busy this past month so there was no sewing or quilting after work since many an evening I was bring work home, not a favourite hobby of mine. Then unfortunately a few of the weekends I ended up being sick either with migraines or once it was a flu bug so those were write offs as well. 

This past week I finally had some vacation time and the first few days were just some decompression, relax and get caught up on sleep.  I went up north of Toronto to Horseshoe Valley for part of the week which was quite nice just to get away from the big city.  I did manage to work on some of the beading for the small wall hanging that I plan to give to the silent auction at our quilt guild show this fall.  Here is my progress, it doesn't look like a lot but it's amazing how long it takes to sew those little seed beads on.

So now that I'm back I actually have gotten back to doing some sewing on the blocks for Jade's quilt.  Earlier I was having issues with the pattern, and I came across one more before I left for vacation.  I found out that it is very important to make sure that all the pieces get sewn back together in their proper order.  Even if some pieces look very similar, sewing them in the wring order results in a non-usable block.  As you can see from the picture below it doesn't even look remotely square.  When I tried to trim this to an 8" square there was no way to make it work without ahcking off some of the points.

So for a pattern that was supposed to be easy and stress free, this one certainly became anything but easy and stress free.  I think I have figured out where all the quirks are of this pattern and so far I have made 20 blocks and I need to make another 15.  This is what I have so far. Despite all the issues I think this will be a lovely quilt.

A Celebration of Quilts XI - York Heritage Quilters Guild

The quilt guild that I belong to, the York Heritage Quilters Guild will be holding their 11th quilt show this coming November.  It will be held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in North York Ontario from Friday November 11th through to Sunday November 13th.  You can click on the "Art for Body and Soul" button on the right hand side of my blog to take you to the quilt show web site for further details.

The show is sponsoring the charity called Sketch, a Toronto organization creating opportunities for street involved and homeless people ages 15-29, to engage in the arts in a cross-discipline studio environment or in the community. The are holding a mini quilt auction of quilts that are donated by members of our guild.  I am currently working on one piece and will likely make a second one.  Here is a picture of my first piece.  I have finished the quilting. I have used a wonderful piece of fabric designed by Phillip Jacobs and next plan to embellish it with beads.  The piece will be about 12" square when finished.

So for those of you in the Toronto area, or if you are going to be visiting in November I hope you can come out and see the show.