Oak Leaf Table Mat Finished!

I finished the wool table mat that I took at Buggy Barn Quilt Shop with Maggie Bonanomi of Need'l Love. I always enjoy taking a class because each time I'll learn something new. Maggie does her wool applique with plain all purpose thread. For this mat I used one colour of Coats brown. The tongues are another really neat trick. The strip of wool is the width of the mat. I folded in in half and made a little snip in the middle, then I folded the half in half and made another snip. Then I took the half again and divided it in to three and snipped again. This technique gave me 12 tongues on long one side. After I have finished dividing all the sections, I snipped each tongue to about 1/4" away from cutting all the way through (you can see in the picture below). I then rounded off each tongue by cutting from the top of each (not coming up from the bottom). The bottom being the edge that is straight and will be sewn to the mat.
When all the strips of tongues were ready I sewed these to the mat with a whip-stitch on top. I also backed the mat with a piece of cotton to finish it off.

Happy Stitching Everyone. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Four Season's Swap

I've been seeing so many Four Season's quilt in progress and some even mailing them already....stop already....I'm just starting mine. You guys are too fast for me. So here is my progress on my swap quilt. I know your thinking but it's not fall colours. There will be 4 yellow baskets which are representing harvest time and the colour yellow is very much similar to a harvest moon, so that's my thoughts for autumn theme quilt. The jury will be out until we see it all completed.
I've finished the top for my Bundling Board quilt. I'm really liking how the machine applique came together but having said that, I not sure if I would continue to do applique by machine. I can say I tried it. We'll see how I feel when I start another one.

On a personal note, my oldest daughter got a job at the University she attends....I'm so excited for her. She can make some spending money and not have far to travel to work.

Thanks for stopping by to visit, I love to receive your comments and look forward to them often.
Happy Stitching, Quilting, Sewing etc.

I won!!!

Look what will be coming to my postal box very soon. Rose from Thread Bear Creations had a drawing on her blog and my name came out of the box....yippee....wahoo....I'm over joyed to receive a pattern straight from the designer herself. Thanks so much Rose for the stitchery pattern. I can't wait until I get this in my hot little hands.

Happy Stitching to Everyone!

Class with Maggie Bonanomi

The day before the Buggy Barn Outdoor Quilt I took a class working with wool. Maggie is a designer for Need'l Love and she has her own primitive folk shop and patterns called Butternut House.

I arrived very early for the class, I needed time to look around the store before going to class. I spent a long time in the shop before Pam came over to gently remind me, the class will start soon.
The class room inside the barn is large with lots of quilts on every wall. Here we all are hard at work cutting and deciding where the oak leaves will be placed. Maggie is a very good teacher, she helped us all get our arrangements looking good. Not much else to report, only that everyone was having a good time and the catered lunch was excellent.
My wool table mat is all arranged and ready to be hand stitched. I did some hand basting of the stems to avoid having so many pins while stitching. The outer edge of the mat will have green tongues all the way around. Maggie showed a really quick way to cut these, kinda like paper dolls.
This big fabric bundle is to make the quilt shown on the open book. The shop has two samples of this quilt, one in lights and the other in darks. I was first attracted to the light colours and though about it for awhile but finally decided on the darker colours for my quilt. This will be my first buggy barn pattern, I hope I can do it with that tiny star in the centre.
I also found a couple of other items I couldn't go home without. The wool at the shop was hard to resist, they had so many colours and textures to choose from. The patterns are for 2 small quilts I really liked and the Butternut house pattern is for a needleroll.

Thanks so much for dropping by for a visit. Happy stitching.

Buggy Barn Outdoor Quilt Show

Ladies...it's absolutely incredible to visit Buggy Barn. You wouldn't believe there could possibly be a quilt shop out in the middle of the wheat fields. We left home on Thursday from Vancouver BC and drove 2hrs South towards Seattle and then headed East to Spokane for about 4hrs, Buggy Barn is about 1/2 hr West of Spokane. When we arrived at the drive way, there was a small red building with cars parked around the building. This must be it, the sign post says its the place. The shop is a red building with white trim, if I wasn't a quilter I wouldn't have believed there could be a quilt shop out in the middle of the farm fields. The shop is so small but packed so full, I didn't know where to look first, there were quilt sample everywhere. I think I stood there with my eyes glazed over for a few minutes... Here is the wagon near the front door of the shop. Can you see the sign pointing to the shop on the left side? The house on the right is where the shop owner lives, short walk to work through the field.
Hubby got comfy right away but he's not staying. I was dropped off for my class with Maggie. He'll be back later to pick me up. I'll post about my class later as I've got too many pictures of the quilt show already. Be warned.....lots and lots of quilt photo's below. This is the front of the quaint store but wait till you see the inside....unbelievable.
Cart wheels leaning against the shop. I love this picture.
Off in the distance is the barn where I'll be taking my class doing wool applique. More about the class on the next post.
And here you go...inside that tiny little store. Packed to the ceiling with fabrics. I was amazed by how many samples they have on the walls, ceiling and in every nook and cranny you could find. Even the washroom has samples on the walls and lots of them. There was wool, needlepunch, bolts and bolts of fabrics....I'm trying to remember everything but it's impossible.
I love everything in the picture. What don't I love....what a incredible shop. I could stay for hours and not find everything there is to see in the store.
Oh...do I have time for this one...oh my I love it.
Books, patterns, wool bolts...to much for one visit.
The outdoor quilt show with quilts on all the building, fences and you'll see quilts on the clothes lines too. We are looking at the front of the store. Can you see the wheat fields in the background? Believe me there is nothing around for miles and miles.
Lots of quilts everywhere...
Quilts on the outside wall of the shop.
More beautiful quilts to see.
I love these houses.
I like pumpkins too.
Quilts blowing in the wind...do you feel like your at the show?
More quilts blowing in the wind. I'm smiling all day.....
Quilts on every building.
The side of the same building above.
Blowing in the wind.
Another building with quilts.
I like this picture...the quilts look like they are floating.
We are back to the store front. I just noticed there is an article attached to this quilt. I didn't see it when I took the picture....I was too excited to see everything....LOL Now I'm wondering what that says....hmmm...I missed something.
One of my "someday" quilts. I love sunflowers.
This is the barn where my class with Maggie is, more pictures of the inside in the next post.
Whimsy quilt of farm animals.
That's me on the left, I'm studying the "Tulip Farm" quilt, one of my "someday" quilts. So where did she put that fabric.
Walking away from the barn down the driveway towards the shop. The big white building off in the distance is where they had a "Folk Art Sale". Lots of interesting things to find in there. Antiques, baskets, linens, small quilts frame as pictures, pottery and more.
The shop looking at the back side, the drive way is on the right coming up towards the shop. The white tent on the left is where you could sit and have a burger or hot dog.

I hope you enjoyed my "photo tour" as much as I did. Check out Nicole and Juliann's they were at Buggy Barn too but we missed each other, I didn't know ahead of time they were also going to be there. We'll have to coordinate better next time ladies.

It was a fantastic trip, I'm still smiling from ear to ear....VBG

I'm off to the barn!

My first visit to The Buggy Barn Quilt Shop and the Outdoor Quilt show in Spokane. I'm so excited, we are driving down tomorrow and I will be taking Maggie's class on Friday. Maggie Bonanomi is a designer for Need'l Love books.

Have a great weekend. I'll miss you.
See you Sunday!

This and That

Time is sure flying by these days, I don't know where all the time is going. We took off early Friday and headed for the Ferry going to Victoria. We didn't expect to get there and NOT have to wait but got lucky and caught the Ferry leaving in 10 mins. We were mentally getting ready to sit in Starbucks for an hour sipping our coffee but got lucky, I think....I missed out on my latte...boo hoo

After having lunch in Victoria we were off to see the Titanic Exhibit at the BC Museum. What a tragic lose of so many. It was interesting to see dishes still in tact and wine bottles with wine in them, not bad for laying on the bottom of the ocean for 80 years. Wouldn't want to drink that wine...

That evening we drove to Lake Cowichan for some relaxation and a little paddling on the lake, in between the rain storms, well one big storm. My FIL and MIL were so kind to attempt picking blackberries for me. Ouch...those thorns are worse that a rose bush. So when I got home I made Blackberry jam and since I had a few raspberries they went in the jam too. But then I thought what the heck and through in some blueberries. So here you have it "Mixed Berry Jam".
Made some progress on my Bundling Board blocks, as you can see I've only finished one block and the other 2 have pins in them but are ready for sewing down. The fourth block is ready for "starch ironing" of the pieces. With only 4 blocks the quilt will be done soon. The finished size is 63"x63", not a bad size for a cuddle quilt.