Operation Healthy Balance

This past wednesday I attended a quilting day class at Picket Fences Fabrics in Brockville.  My mother had signed me up for this class as a Christmas present (thanks mom).  The class was for a friendship braid quilt so I picked out my colours and away I went.  The quilt consists of 8 strips of "friendship braids" and then borders are added.  I worked the entire day at the class and got 4 1/4 of the strips done.  Waking up early before I went to work, I ended up completing the 8 strips by friday morning which allowed me to grant myself permission to go pick out border fabrics and batting on friday.  Saturday I plugged away at the borders and voila....here is the quilt top finished.  It measures 66" x 74" and I am soooo happy with how it turned out. Here is a shot from a different perspective with careful photography so you can't see my disastrous bedroom:) And one more picture to show the back of the quilt top.  I love looking at the backs o...

All of the fancy and really talented quilt bloggers out there always do a year end summary of their quilt finishes for the year.  They usually have so many that it is a picture collage and they are absolutely beautiful.  Since I only have two project finishes for the year (c'mon give me a break, I only started in September) I thought a photo collage would be a bit overkill;)  So here they are: A table runner for a thank you gift that I gave to an awesome Halloween party host. And my first ever quilt.  FYI, my teacher has it hanging in her quilt shop as a display quilt for the beginner class.  I took that as a huge compliment.  She even wants me to enter it in the local quilter's guild annual show/contest (not sure what it is called) in the category of first quilt.  I took that as a compliment too. But I digress....these are my finishes for 2011.  I think it is obvious that my personality would warrant a challenge to myself.  Can I fini...

Last week I finished quilting and binding my quilt. I'm very pleased with the final result. It was definitely a labour of love. Thankfully it was only the lap-sized quilt. Here are some pics.

Grandma Bryan has been gone for 6 years now and honestly I think about her everyday. All of her quilting stuff has sat untouched since her passing and after checking with the other members of the family, I've begun sorting through her glorious quilting stash. To my delight I found an entire quilt top, some completed blocks, and tons of fabric scraps. I felt like I struck it rich. I grabbed a couple of totes and headed home. My goal is to be able to make myself a quilt out of Grandma's stash. As I started to iron, fold and organize the pieces of cloth, I came up with my quilt idea. There was a quilt block that Grandma had made surrounded in light green fabric; this will be the centre of my quilt. I then found a tutorial for a starflower quilt block on Ellison Lane Quilt Blog , which I thought would be great at displaying the stash. I pieced together one of these blocks and I love the result; these star blocks will make up the rest of the quilt. I already love it!

I have finally pieced all of my quilt blocks, sewed them into rows, completed the sashing and voila....here is what I have so far. Blocks from the top down: friendship star, flying geese, 4-patch, paper-pieced trees and a house, more 4-patch, more flying geese, pinwheels, and lastly a row of 9-patch and shoo fly.  I've decided to place appliqued hearts in each corner with a keyboard border connecting the hearts....sounds fancy doesn't it? I only have one more quilting class, in which I will make a "quilt sandwich" with my pieced top, batting, and the backing and then we will get to the quilting business.  It is going to be a little bittersweet to be done with my first quilting class; the instructor and all of the ladies in the class have been super nice and it feels like they are my comrades.  We all started with nothing but a bunch of fabric and big expectations and what we each ended up with is a beautiful unique creation and great new friends. I just might h...

Last week was my first quilting class.  I was oddly very nervous at the start of the class.  Worried about my sewing abilities, the 'cheapness' of my Wal-Mart sewing machine, messing up my beautiful new fabric etc. etc.  The class consisted of seven women including myself; I was the youngest...go figure? There was one particular woman who sat in front of me that caught my attention.  She was so insecure and anxious which made me kind of sad.  I immediately felt the need to make her feel better so I commented how nice her fabric was and she began to talk a bit more.    She said that she used to sew when she was 'younger' but then got too busy with family and work that she hadn't sewn in quite a while.  Turns out she is a retired home-care nurse.  At one point she turned to me and said that she couldn't wait for 9 o'clock to come so she could be 'allowed' to leave.  Which got me feeling that her situation was quite sad; how could a woman...

I like to think that I am a "crafty" person and I have successfully taught myself how to sew, crochet, knit, draw and paint.  Before I was a nurse and before I had children I used to sell my wares at a local craft market with a friend.  We were mildly successful in our first year but then both of us were pregnant and well time was scarce so we stopped. A fond memory I have of my Grandmother Bryan is that she always was creating a quilting masterpiece in her living room.  I remember handing her pieces as she sewed quilting blocks and helping her roll the quilt on her quilt stand.  She was a very talented lady and I bet she made over 100 quilts in her lifetime; for weddings, anniversaries, new babies or whatever people asked for. I've tried my hand in quilting as well.  I've started piecing a "friendship quilt" and I think I managed to finish 5 blocks.  I loved sewing the fabric together to create a pattern but never really could fit my hobby into my day....