Finally Finished!

Just in time to meet my February goal for the Lovely Year of Finishes, I finally finished my Maple Leaf Rag Quilt top.

Maple Leaf Rag, pattern by Sarah Fielke in Material Obsession 2

I am so thankful that it is done. Each and every ring has 6 different prints. That's 240 different prints! And that's not including the crazy pieced kites. And to make my day, Sarah Fielke, the mastermind behind this gorgeous pattern even commented on one of my instagram photos. What a way to make my day!

I found the perfect backing fabric on sale a while ago, Flea Market Fancy brown posies.  It seems fitting to put one of my all time favourite prints on the back on one of my favourite quilts.

Maple Leaf Rag and Backing all ready for the the long-armer

Now I have an empty design wall. (Please ignore my ironing cover...clearly I need a new one). I have so many UFO's to finish...perhaps it is time to pull out one of those?

Blank Design Wall. What next?

Or maybe I could start just one new project?

Thanks for enduring all of the posts about this quilt. I dropped it off to a local long-armer on Tuesday, so I should have some finished pictures to share soon.

Linking up with a Lovely Year of Finishes.

A Wonky Quilt and a new Swap

Hello Friends! And Happy February. How is it already February? And time to set goals for A Lovely Year of Finishes. As you probably could have guessed, I didn't actually get my quilt top done for January. But I did get all of the blocks made. So it I'm carrying it forward for February.

Maple Leaf Rag Quilt - all the blocks are finally finished!

 My goal for February is to get my Maple Leaf quilt top and backing finished. I've actually started sewing a few of the blocks together, and it is one wonky quilt. The wonkiest I've ever made. And it isn't supposed to be a wonky quilt. Oh well. I'm just going to go for it.

And I am so excited to be in a new swap on flickr. Since it was a US only swap, I was so excited when Leona let me participate. (Never mind that I begged :)) But Katy and I were thinking that maybe we could start up our own Canadian Edition. What do you think? Do you want to swap some text charms?

Fabric for TEXT me a charm swap

We are thinking that we will aim for 28 Canadian swappers. If we all buy 2 half metres of fabric, we can swap 56 charms. What do you think? Any interest?

It is beautiful and sunny here! I'm off to enjoy the sunshine. Enjoy your day

I'm a Dance Mom.

Progress on my Maple Leaf Rag quilt has been pretty minimal this week due to upcoming dance performances and festivals.



My daughter is dancing the Cake Walk on Saturday at Robbie Burns Night. So in the last week, I've made a circle skirt, a pair of short pants and a vest.  I upcycled my old Highland costume from when I was a kid to make the skirt and vest. And I used a cute dark blue corduroy for the pants. Please cross your fingers that they will all fit. I only have 5 days until the big show! (I think I'm more nervous about the costumes than my daughter is about the dancing). I used these tutorials for the skirt (I used a band rather than an elastic waist), Burda 2622 for the vest, and McCalls M6143 for the pants. However, since making the skirt, I found this great tutorial on Sew Pony, and I would use it next time.

I did manage to get a couple of webs done. But realistically, I doubt I'll get the quilt top done this month. And I think I'm okay with that. It has been so long in the making,  I'd rather not rush it at the very end just to get it done.

 Thanks for all of the encouraging comments on my last post, and I am so sorry I didn't get a chance to reply. Please know that I love all of your comments, and my goal this year is to be a better communicator. So that means responding to comments too. I am a work in progress.

Anyone else making costumes?

I'm linking up.

WIP Wednesday 1

I guess since I made all of those New Year's goals, I should probably keep tabs on them. I've been watching lots of my favourite bloggers chart their progress with WIP Wednesdays, so I think I'm going to join the gang.

On the Go...

Here's my Maple Leaf Rag so far. (I know many of you have seen this on flickr already, but thank you for indulging me). I just moved this project from my 'design floor' to my 'design wall' (aka a piece of batting pinned to the wall), so I'm hoping to make a bit faster progress. When it was on the floor it got ran over by crawling babies and Thomas the Tank Engine on a fairly regular basis.

I love this quilt. I love using my favourite fabrics. I love that I only have to use a little bit of my favourite fabrics so I don't feel like I'm committing. This is my for fun project.

Maple Leaf Rag in progress

I also got a little quilt destined for our local NICU basted today. I was going to quilt it too but my machine was skipping stitches and generally being a big pain. So I gave up and went back to my fun project.

On hold...

• Wonky 1/4 Square {Bee Inspired} Quilt
• Colour Wheel Quilt
• And oh so many others that I'm not ready to admit to yet. Give me time. Please.

I'm hoping to link up to WIP Wednesdays as much as possible this year. I'll try for every week, and hope to get twice a month actually accomplished. 

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I was wondering if any of you could help me out? How do I use photos from Flickr here on blogger? Right now I'm doing 2 uploads - one here on blogger, and then again on Flickr. Any suggestions?

(Edit: Thanks to all of your helpful advice, I finally figured out how to post a photo from flickr. Thank you!)