Tap...tap...tap. Is this thing on? Oh good.  There's something about a new year that helps one take stock of where things are at and where they may go in the year ahead. It's been a long time since I've done a WIP list post (well, any post really) and I'm feeling the need for a recap of where I'm at with WIPs/UFOs/PIGs and any other acronyms for projects in the works.  I've started a lot of projects over the last couple of years, but haven't finished many. I have a healthy pile of finished tops, which is new for me. I got a long arm machine a couple of years ago, but I'm still l ..read more

Happy belated New Year all! Starting 2018 on the blog 3 weeks late. Awesome. I usually like to start the year with a look back at the previous year. 2017 -- well, not a very productive year for me on the quilting front. Only 12 posts on the blog. I used to do 12 blog posts a month! I did finish a few quilts, but work and kids took over. And my quilting mojo disappeared sometime around May. The passion and a lot of ideas are still there, but the motivation and energy are not. I would like that to change for 2018. I want to reinstate my 20 minutes a day routine. Hopefully that's doable. Since ..read more

Um, so it's been a while, eh? It's been a little stupid busy around here since January and at the end of the day, I just didn't have the energy to blog. Kiddos are away at camp this week (woot woot!) and lo and behold, I've got some energy back. LOL My current project is my 2016 BeeSewcial quilt. My month for BeeSewcial was all about direction -- I asked my BeeSewcial mates to help me make a village or city. And boy, did they deliver! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to share what the fabulous blocks they made, but here goes: From Leanne at She Can Quilt: A post shared by Leanne (@s ..read more

I've been mulling over an idea about doing a colourful wholecloth using the walking foot quilting technique I learned from Heather Lair, which I've decided to start calling Lair Quilting. I first used it on Heathia, and the rest, as they say, is history. Heather was an amazing artist, who passed away in 2013. I took a class with her in 2011 in St. Andrews by the Sea, NB. She was very generous with her art quilting knowledge and I haven't seen anyone else do her quilting technique other than me. Now that I use it so much, I've decided to call it Lair Quilting after her. Hope she doesn't mind ..read more

My friend Kirstin (@aboutkirstin) and I went down to Savannah for QuiltCon and had a fabulous time. Wanna check out some of the sights with us? First stop - Savannah's Candy Kitchen S'mores rolled ice cream...mmmm Seeing the sights, through the rain Gorgeous ironwork Ya gotta look up! Curiouser, and curiouser. No, really...why?! For my cousins  Williams-Mercer House More gorgeous ironwork Big boats Those are all shipping containers Segway. Pure awesomeness. Bonaventure Cemetery Interesting evenings I spy ..read more

I decided to take my love of the Fibonacci sequence and my love of solids and challenge myself to see what I could do with it using my scraps. I made these Fibonacci blocks several years ago and it sat in my WIP pile. I pulled that out, took off the largest squares and made more 8.5" by 13.5" squares from my scraps. Playing with the layout. Hmm, no.  That's a little more like it. Now for a background that would make those colours pop.  Let's go with charcoal grey. Yep, that's it. A finished top!  I could see making more quilts with these blocks and my scraps.&nb ..read more

When Sew Sisters Quilt Shop approached me to design a block for The Canadian Sampler, a Block of the Month (BOM) Club to celebrate Canada's sesquicentennial, it didn't even take me two seconds so say, "Hell ya!" My block, featured for February, is the Canada By Code block. I wanted my block to have a modern look to it, but still pay tribute to our history. This simple-looking block uses Morse code to spell out our country’s name. Fitting too, since Canada’s primary long-distance communications method during the time of Confederation was the telegraph. And while we don't use Morse c ..read more

For September's Bee Sewcial theme, Anne from playcrafts chose the theme transitions. I decided to do an improv, bargello like block to mimic the colours in and the reflective water of her inspiration painting, Central Park by Leonid Efremov. Getting started - lots of improv strips. More progress.  The finished block.  Approx. 17" by 24". Check out what my bee mates made for Anne in the #beesewcial feed on Instagram. You are always welcome to follow along with the prompts and post your blocks to Instagram under the #inspiredbybeesewcial ..read more

This quilt is two years in the making. I first shared the my design process for this top in September 2015. I wanted to do a vertical version of October Sky, but in reds. Just as I was starting the hand stitching, my mom got very sick. She spent almost two weeks in the hospital and I brought this project along to help pass the time and manage the fear and sadness. After her stay and all the emotion from that time, I just couldn't work on this project for a while. She's had multiple hospital visits since and each time, I've brought this project along. It's been quite therapeutic. I fi ..read more

Feeling that I'd done a lot of red and grey projects lately (Triad, We The North Since 1867, etc.), I needed to try something different colour-wise. I love the work of Lauren Harris, the Group of Seven artist, who painted one of my favourite paintings, North Shore. The way he uses blues and whites in his paintings of icebergs and mountains to capture the light of the northern landscape is incredible. So drawing from that inspiration, I started playing with these fabrics. I cut some strips of many of the colours and started playing with them in a layered mountain formation, with just pins t ..read more