Michael – Juanita Collins

May 12, 2013

Happy Mother’s Day Weekend!

My goodness…I opened up the website to write a mother’s day post and saw that this will be post number 201! Now how did that upcoming milestone get past me, I wonder? I think I better start planning ahead a bit better because surely a prize would have been appropriate. Well, never say never, and I will put some thought into that!

Meanwhile, Happy Mother’s Day to everyone, whether you are a mother or not! I have had a wonderful Mother’s Day. Look what I was served for breakfast!

I adore French toast. And didn’t he set a beautiful table, oh my! I must have raised him very well, if I don’t say so myself!

Chef Michael:

And on the sewing front, I picked up Heidi’s quilt for the first time in too long and did some hand quilting whilst we watched a movie on TV last night.

Yesterday I worked on my 3×6 bee blocks. I decided to make disappearing 9-patches this time around. Sometimes I feel badly that I make such simple blocks for this group, but everyone makes the best of their ability, and you are placed in a group by first-come, first-served. So there are very experienced quilters making some very advanced blocks in the group, and then there are the beginner “me’s” who make simple blocks. So anyway, I felt that the disappearing 9-patch was going to be a challenge – and it was, but in a different way than I had expected. The challenge wasn’t in the sewing, it was in the fabric selection. A couple of the blocks I made over because while the colours looked like they would be perfect, when the block was actually sewn, they just didn’t cut it.

So what is a disappearing 9-patch, all my non-quilting friends are wondering? Well, you start off by sewing a straight-ahead 9-patch block that looks like this:

Then you cut it into quarters, like this:

And then you twist and turn the quarters around until you like the pattern!

Pretty cool, eh?

What I learned is that strong colours work best, especially a contrasting colour in the center of the original 9-patch. All of these squares are the same pattern, and the colours I used are according to the chosen palette of each person in the bee. See what you think:

Happy Mother’s Day to you all, and especially to my own mother!

I hope you all had a great weekend, and if you’re hungry, I’ll share my French toast with you.

Bonn Appétite!

April 24, 2013April 26, 2013

I remember

…your shout of glee, your sagging training pants and orange striped socks, joyful toddler leaping to daddy’s arms, flying across the open expanse between coffee table and couch without fear, without thought to falling, landing against daddy’s chest to bounce off and do it again and again and again, neither of you tiring until the last leap, ending in the inevitable knock on daddy’s head with tight fist, ‘body home? ‘body home? squealing with laughter as daddy knocked back “anybody home?” and then you lean in, slumping into daddy as he breaths in a slow breath of sweet toddler sweat as you rise and fall against the beating of his heart.

December 30, 2012

A new quilt: Mon Fils Bien-Aimé

I hadn’t been blogging as much as I’d like leading up to Christmas because I had literally been spending every single spare minute working on finishing a quilt for my son. Now that Christmas is over I can let you in on the secret!

It was in the mid -20s and windy on Christmas Eve when I took these pictures. We were both bundled up, but it was so cold, we had to work fast!

As usual, I had a little help. Sammy gave his approval on the blue binding, and had a little play of tug-o-war before I sewed it on.

I needed to have it finished, wrapped and under the tree by the time I went to bed on Christmas Eve.

I wanted to make as many of my gifts home-made this year, and from materials I already had on hand as much as possible. I had a bit of nice grey fabric that would make a good backing for a small lap quilt, and a few 5″ charm packs of Petite Odile by French General. Because I was short on time, I simply sewed them together until the size was sufficient for the backing I had on hand.

I bound it with a piece of French General Woad Blue, also from my stash.

Each square is hand quilted with red thread in an orange peel design. This is what took so long. I literally quilted until my fingers bled! Yiikes! But I got it done in time! Yay! And bonus…now I’ve got some good calluses on my fingers for more quilting in the new year!

I named the lap quilt “Mon Fils Bien-Aimé”, which is a lovely old-fashioned way to say my beloved son in French.

The quilt is sweet and cozy and old-fashioned and just the right size to snuggle under in a comfortable chair with a good book no matter how old or young you are, even if you are a young man of 27. (Santa also brought him “The Hunger Games” to read, a new mug and a selection of hot chocolates to enjoy with the quilt, lol!)

I’m so glad he likes it!