Hoot Hoot Greetings

I've finished appliqueing the owl to my Hoot Hoot quilt.

I'm currently searching for my big needles to embroider "ear hair" and claws. I'm getting a bit impatient to get going, so if I don't find them soon, I'll go and buy new needles.


Question for you: I also can't find my stash of embroidery yarn, do you think wool will do the trick or should I just go and buy some thicker yarn (embroidery or darning or whatever)?

Film Cafe Top - In Love

Here's another quilt I love these days!


The top for the filmstrip quilt using Moda's Bistro line (mostly) is done. I'm not supercreative with this name: Filmstrip Cafe (there are coffee cups on some of the prints that I didn't use in this quilt). It feels like I'm going to a special kind of cafe when I look at the quilt though - and for some reason my brain thinks "French" when I think of the quilt. Probably because I associate both Bistros and Cafes with Paris/France :)

Guess it needs some ironing ;)

As I commented back to some of you already, I'm still madly in love with this line of fabrics. So a day after I completed the top, I draped it over the bookshelves next to my bed so I can gaze at it on either side of sleep :) Sigh. It'll probably stay there still I have a chance to buy the necessary batting. I have a fabric for the back in mind already; it'll be non-pieced and one of the pretty fabrics I've been holding back on other quilts.

I Love My Monkey Mechanic!!

Have to say, this turned out to be one of my favourite quilts!!!

I left off in July at this stage:


Wondering what I could do in the in between fields to not take away from the swirly pattern.

Well, after humming and hahing, I just set it aside waiting for inspiration.

It struck.

In a moment of haziness, it seems, because my inspiration was PEBBLES!

Argh. Why??? It took *FOREVER* to pebble all the brown spaces. And it, of course, used a ton of thread, blah blah blah. I have never read a single post about pebble quilting that didn't comment about the amount of thread used ;) It does seem excessive for pebbles, I admit, especially since I go around 2 or 3 times for most pebbles. And in this quilt, in the pointy bits of the 4-armed swirl, I did very tiny, 1/4" pebbles at times. Suffice it to say, I'm all pebbled out now, but I LOVE it! The polyester batting worked really REALLY well for pebble quilting - I felt like I was doing trapunto quilting without actually having to shove more batting in between the layers! But have a look yourself (and don't hold back with the comments :) Doesn't it look awesome? I'm so excited!!!)


Don't you want to jump on the little pebbles and bounce???

And check out the pebbles from the back!


And, oh my goodness, I LOVE the back too!!!


But you probably would like to see the rest of the quilt front? :)


I just want to shrink and bounce on it, from pebble to pebble, and then run and hop along the swirls... I've never had a quilt make me feel like that before - it's a teensy bit scary :)


My puffy swirls are still all there and visible:


Sigh, I could have put another 10 photos of pebbles from all different angles here, but let's not overdo it ;)

I'll leave you with the complete top - I'm off to push my fingers into pebbles again and giggle at the puffiness :) (Better than that bubble-wrap!)

Filmstrip Cafe

Ah handquilting, progress is truly slow doing that, especially in summer, when a hot quilt on my lap is not my favourite way of passing the time...

So I finally gave in and started a new project, well, technically I finished an old one (the Mossy Monkey Mechanic, pictures soon!), and I'm 90% done piecing the top for the filmstrip quilt recently featured at the Moda Bake Shop. I like a lot of their project, but have never realized one of their ideas so quickly!

Here are pictures of my pieces laid out - again, pics of the completed top coming soon!


Most of the prints in this quilt are Moda Bistro. I bought the fabrics 2 years ago at a little shop in New Brunswick. I loved the prints so much in the store that I bought them despite being over 15$/m - I usually abstain from such expensive fabrics, but couldn't help myself. I ended up buying a quarter yard of 9 or so prints. I added in a fat quarter of Moda Tranquility that I picked up in Kingston, Ontario (it's the center square in the bottom row). I love remembering exactly where I bought fabrics...

All these fabrics are very special to me, some of my treasure fabrics - that's whey they were still patiently sitting on my shelf. I was waiting for a pattern like this one - not just big squares, but enough of them to really showcase the prints.

I matched everything to the dark brown sashing (instead of the black from the pattern) and am quite pleased with the overall impression. I have a quarter yard of Bistro fabric left, in red with coffee cups. I thought about adding it in the mix, but it was too much "zing" for my taste :) I might used it for the backing, if I piece that...

I modified the pattern slightly, using solid 4.5" strips for the outside instead of pairs of 2.5" precut strips. Also, I only separated the center from the top and bottom film strips with 2.5" sashing, not 4.5". I thought it looks more balanaced that way.

Anway, it's been extremely satisfying working on such a quick project. I checked the pattern out on Thursday, cut everything by Friday and have most of the top together today (Saturday).

Tomorrow is a quilting bee meeting - I have a lot of hanging sleeves to sew on those quilts I want to put in the quilt show of my quilt guild in September. Lot's to do, with a deadline - exactly what I don't like :) I may have to downsize my contribution to the show!

Oh, and I'm done with going on vacation for now, though I've had a lovely time over the past 5 weeks, with only 9 working days - life could be so beautiful... :)