From A - Taking the Long Way

A good friend recently had her first child. She and her husband love Toronto. When they were married a few years ago, their wedding invitation was a beautiful hand drawn Toronto skyline, made by the groom himself.

It has been very difficult to buy her a gift since she really isn't into baby "stuff" and she really doesn't like animals. An interesting combination since basically everything made for babies is both cutesy and covered in animals.

After turning the gift problem around in my head for a week or two, I realized that I wanted to make them a hand quilted, whole cloth Toronto skyline quilt.

My friend loves the colour green so I picked out some amazing shot cotton in a gorgeous emerald colour for the back and a soft white print from Lecien for the front. I chose four different colours of hand quilting thread in shades of green and turquoise.

I drew an image of the skyline on tracing paper and transferred it the quilt top.

I hand basted the quilt together and now, after about 6 months of prep work, I am finally ready to start quilting it.

This project is a bit of a personal Everest for me. It is the first time that I have made my own pattern from scratch and the first time that I've done any hand quilting. I'm sure that it is going to be wildly time consuming but extremely satisfying.

I'm really hoping to get it finished before the end of August. If I can figure out how to manage an 11" x 17" Q-snap frame, scissors and thread on the plane then I might actually get it done. Wish me luck!

From K - Finished: Star Crush Pillows

This past weekend we hosted a couple of great friends who came through town. Lucky for them the stars aligned and they had the pleasure of enjoying the last stay in our current guest room before 'Project Craft Room' (as i know lovingly call it) initiates tomorrow. In the meantime I'm pleased to say that the stars aligned for me this weekend too, that is, in the form of finding the time to complete both of my star pillows. Punny I know, but all joked aside I'm pretty pleased with how these pillows turned out.

I can't seem to get enough of Anna Marie Horner's Innocent Crush line, so I have incorporated a couple of my favorite prints from it in these pillows. My previous post provides a full listing of materials used in these pillow tops.

When I needed to decide on a binding I was torn but in the end I'm really glad I incorporated more of this red/pink print.

When hand binding I always like to use office binder clips to hold binding about a foot down from where I'm working (in this photo I am working left to right). These clips were bought at a local dollar store and they have revolutionized hand binding for me.

For the pillow backings, I used a traditional linen and I love the contrast in materials. The tops give these pillows a polished appearance while the backings ensure they still maintain a relaxed style.

I quilted within the star profiles of each pillow to emphasize their shape using straight line quilting. On the border I added extra texture by using a dense stipple meander. Unfortunately the cream thread I used doesn't show up prominantly against the Michael Miller Antiquity Old Script print but trust me, it's lovely.

I just got home from picking up paint for my new craft room and I can't wait to start painting it later this week. I have no doubt these pillows are going to look great in there once it's complete.

From A - Half a Swoon

I've been off work and away on vacation this past week. After some quick negotiating with my significant other, I packed my sewing machine and the fabric for my Swoon quilt.

Since I'm generally an early riser, I was able to spend most of my mornings sewing while my Mr. slept in. I finished up the last four blocks and pieced them all together into a finished quilt top. Vacation weeks are the best for making big progress fast! Here are blocks 6, 7, 8 and 9.


I found it very difficult to settle on a final layout and spent days agonizing over it. I even started sewing blocks together and then ripped them apart, moved things around and started again. I ended up with this and am glad I took the time to play with it until I was happy!

I used my original inspiration to guide the layout. The block with the most vibrant purple was placed in the centre of the quilt as a focal point and the blocks with hints of green and lighter purple were placed in the four cardinal points to help move the eye around.

Since I'm planning to use this quilt on a Queen sized bed and had tons of background fabric left, I decided to make a wider border to better frame the blocks. I settled on a 6.5" border all around. The finished quilt should end up at about 88" square.

The background fabric I'm using is an old Anna Griffin print that has a lace scallop close to the selvedge. There is a significant colour difference between the lace scallop and background. While assembling the sashing,  I made an effort to stagger the WOF joins to distribute the darker portions of the fabric throughout the quilt top.

I'm working on my backing now and am aiming to get this basted sometime next week.

Hope all of my American friends had a safe and happy 4th of July!