Field Trip close to home.

Do you ever visit museums in your area? Isn't is surprising that we will travel long distances to visit other interesting places, but we rarely look around at what is in our own backyard.

This summer, my son kept begging me to make the 7 mile drive, to take him to visit the dinosaur museum in Morden. For all of you who visit our great quilt show every spring, do you realize that you are standing on top of a basement full of dinosaur skeletons? This is actually the largest dino display east of Alberta, and all of the fossils are found in our area. In Alberta, all of their fossils are of land dinosaurs. In our area, all of the one's that are found are from water dinosaurs. Right now the display is housed in the basement of the Morden Rec. Center, but they do hope in the future that they will be able to build a new museum, so the dino's will be able to be brought above ground.

So I used the picture from our field trip, to introduce you to our latest project, that is on newsstands now. In the Winter 2009 issue of Quilts and More, you will find this simple and sweet project. The staff at the magazine affectionately gave it the name 'Dino might' and I can't say that name without thinking of an old TV character named Jimmy Walker. Wasn't that his favorite expression? And does anyone remember what show he was on?







Anyway, I hope that you will enjoy this latest project, and take time to discover what is in your neighbourhood.

See you soon.
myra

FREE pattern

As promised a free pattern for you to enjoy, this is one of my favorite quilts because of the fabrics. For the small squares I fussy cut out of a big floral print, it still gives it a circular feeling. Enjoy!

You can download the pattern here.

Finished Quilt Size: 38" x 50"

Sashing: 2"

1st border: 2"

2nd border: 3"

Yardages

1 1/2 yds of Fabric A for background, 2nd border & border to blocks

3/4 yd of Fabric B for sashing & 1st border

1/2 yd each of Fabric C,D,E & F for blocks

1/2 yd of Fabric B for Binding

2 yds of Fabric G for Backing

42" x 54" of Batting

Cutting instructions

From Fabric C cut:

2-4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles

1-4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square.

From Fabric D cut;

3-4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles

From Fabric E cut;

5-2 1/2" x 42 1/2" strips

2-2 1/2" x 34 1/2" strips

From Fabric F cut;

10-6 1/2" x 6 1/2" squares

From Fabric A cut:

16-1 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips

16-1 1/2" x 7 1/2" strips

4-1 1/2" x 4 1/2" strips

4-1 1/2" x 7 1/2" strips

2-3" x 46 1/2" strips

2- 3" x 38 1/2" strips

From Fabric B cut;

3-4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles

1-4 1/2" x 4 1/2" square

Block Assembly

Begin by framing each one of the 4 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles and 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" squares of fabrics B, C & D.

Using the 1 1/2" x 7 1/2" as well as the 1 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips to frame each rectangle.

The plain 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" squares were fussy cut out of a large floral print, to give the illusion of circles.

Quilt Assembly

The quilt is assembled in 4 horizontal rows.

1st row; 6 1/2 square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, sashing strip

2nd row; oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, square block, sashing strip

3rd row; 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, sashing strip

4th row; oblong block, 6 1/2" square, oblong block, 6 1/2" square, square block

Continue by adding the first border sides, followed by top and bottom. Repeat for the outer border.

~c

Sharing
Take a look at this quilt! One of our very dear "retreater's", Laurel. She shared this photo with me yesterday and I was so excitted I just had to share it with the rest of you. She just finished this quilt for her grand daughters 2nd birthday. Isn't is gorgeous! You want to know something else that is amazing about this quilt? I thought you would...it is HAND quilted! Can you believe it. I don't know if you can enlarge the picture but I just love the vine motif in the green section. And, I think she used Ric rack for the antenna!! How cool is this quilt, lucky little lady! If this inspires you check out the Little Lady pattern in our shop.

Thanks so much Laurel for sharing, if anyone else has something to share email me.

Stay tuned to our blog and website, changes coming...again and I have a free pattern to post this week!

~c

Idea!
I hate to admit it, but I don't have a lot of quilts displayed in my house. Considering I am part owner of a collection that exceeds 100 quilts! I have a few quilts on my kids' beds and a few little things here and there but,what to do with larger quilts when I don't want to hang them on the wall or have them all over the place. Myra gave me this idea one day, out of necessity. We were packing up from a quilt show, she rolled the quilts and stuck them in a bucket (they would take up less room that way). So off to the store I went and bought this basket and rolled my quilts and change them up every now and again. I really like the way it looks, especially by my wood stove. I just thought I would share in case any of you are looking for a new way to display your projects.

On another note...the winners of the charity contest are... Diane & Mary Grace. Ladies, could you please email me your mailing info? To the rest of you, I am so sorry we couldn't send you all fabric. I know all the charity's are worthy.

~c

Dandelion

Hi there, Karen here. I have a confession to make - I'm a procrastinator. If it wasn't for the last minute, I wouldn't get anything done! Having said that, I enjoy working under pressure. Well, serious time constraints came with this quilt top! Cori may wish to tell that story another day but for the moment I'll share the inspiration for the stitching design I used for this project.

The dandelion appliqué called for echo quilting of some sort. Rather than stitch a quarter inch outside the entire shape, I copied the applique and offset it the fourth inch. This created a shadow effect. This technique is effectively used with rubber stamps.

For the remainder of the quilt, I chose a cute branch motif and flower doodle from the design elements printed in the fabric then exaggerated them to fill spaces with vertical rows of stitching.

Next time you are looking for a machine quilting design for your project, look closely at the shapes printed in the fabrics. Pick one, enlarge it and stitch it, freehand, all over your quilt connecting each motif with loopy lines or stippling.

Happy stitching!
Karen

You are not kidding, this was quite the deadline to meet and lucky for us we have a wonderful quilter who's always willing to do whatever it takes to get it done! Thanks Karen!! I think we may have had about 1 week to sew, hand applique, quilt and ship. And well the shipping is a whole other issue. We researched every possible way to get this quilt to Houston by quilt market, which was about 5 days time. From Canada that's a challenge. Again...lucky for us Karen also has some great friends and they took it with them to Wisconsin and shipped it UPS from there to the hotel where the Robert Kaufman staff were staying... ffeeww...it made it in the nick of time and it hung in their booth for International quilt market! I do think that this pattern will be available as a free download on their website. I will let you know when it's up. I hope you enjoyed Karen's quilting inspirations - we do.

~c

A BIG update

We had a great weekend...our 7th annual retreat!! Here is our group photo. We started the weekend with fashion Friday. Everyone was invited to wear there most fabulous shoes and handbag and this picture is the proof that we had a very fashionable group. We had lots of laughs on Friday that's for sure. We also had show and tell, what a creative group of quilters. I will have to share those photo's another time. They spent all day & evening Saturday as well as Sunday sewing up a storm. The food, friends and fellowship was absolutely wonderful. Thanks ladies for a GREAT weekend. (but I am still recovering from sleep deprivation :)

The next 2 photo's are some pictures from our recent photo shoots. Ric Rac and Central park. These are the patterns that RJR will be kitting using their stripes and dots collection. The patterns will be up in the shop shortly. My cousin was willing to borrow her bug for the photo shoot. Oh, that brings me to another point - OUR new home page on our web site! Have you seen it yet?

A few days ago I mentioned a new give a way coming soon. Well today's the day, I know so many of our customers make quilts for donation to many good organization/charities. that is why Myra and I have decided to give a way some fabric for you to make donation quilts. This is what you have to do.

- enter your name by leaving a comment on the blog
- tell us about your charity of choice
- if your charity has a web site please share that with us too.
- tell us why you would like to donate a quilt and why we should send you the free fabric.

I won't tell you how much fabric we are prepared to give a way or how many people will receive donation fabric. So get to it, leave a comment and just wait and see what happens.

~c

2 more sleeps!

That's it only 2 more sleeps until our 8th annual bmd retreat. I can hardly wait, I think we are mostly ready just have to move all of our stuff over to the hotel and set up. I really wanted to blog about some more of our new stuff but I can't spill any secrets before retreat. I know that they are all watching the blog.

In the next few weeks we will have an announcement to make for a give a way. It will be Charity based - so for those of you involved in a charity that makes quilts to donate...keep watching.

Talk to you next week...lots to tell you.

~c

coming soon
You may be wondering what we have been up to. Well here is one of the new patterns coming out this fall. We have been doing a lot of freelance pattern design and Spectacle is a pattern we have done for RJR fabrics using their new dots and strips collection.

We always have a hard time finding new places to shoot our covers. Thanks to Myra's neighbor and his scooter!

Also check out the new logo at the bottom. Thanks to Karen for teaching us how to use photo shop.

There will be more projects to come (4 more!!). Spectacle will be hanging in the RJR booth this weekend for Quilt Market in Houston. As well there will be one of our designs hanging in the Robert Kaufman booth as well. Can't wait to share that one....later.

Other updates include;
~Myra is back at home and doing well.
~our 8th annual retreat happening Oct. 16-18th CAN NOT WAIT. Getting lots of stuff ready for that too.
~working hard to get ALL the patterns done and in the shop.

~c