Elizabeth gave me a gift certificate to Traditional Pastimes, one of the quilt shops in Calgary. Pat, Elizabeth and I went shopping and we came home with this Block of the Month kit from Leanne Beasley; all the blocks were included as well as the fabric.

I made the first block (minus the embroidery) at Panorama when I went quilting with Stacia and Deloise in the spring of 2014. It wasn’t until the Texada Retreat in the spring of 2015 that I got down to business and got going on the remaining blocks.

It took most of the summer to finish the embroidery but I enjoyed every minute of it.

I was able to take the quilt to Elizabeth in September on my way back from a week in Panorama.

There are over 250 Lazy Daisy stitches, and almost 300 French Knots in this 49″ square project. When I was quilting the piece I realized that the quilting I planned wouldn’t cover the 4″ maximum called for by the batting I was using. It was Stacia’s idea to use the buttons to hold things in place.

By clicking on any of the photos below you can get a full-sized view.

This was my Guild library project for November. I loved that part of the hanging was done as English paper piecing and then it was finished with traditional background and borders.

The English paper piecing was done in Christmas fabrics so, rather than using the Welcome Home lettering that the pattern suggested, I added the word Joy.

When I quilted the piece I used a Slip and Sew product and I think the results were quite good.

I used a holly template when I quilted the outer border but, because of the pattern in the fabric, it doesn’t show well on the front.

If all my other projects are ever done I’ll borrow this book again; there are many other projects in the book that are quite stunning.

This was my November contribution to the Mini Meez group. The pattern came from an old magazine that is no longer in print. Each month we are allowed to take home one of our leader’s magazines (provided we’ve returned the previous one). I had this particular magazine for a few months, but I knew I would eventually get around to making this pattern.

These miniatures take a surprisingly long time to create, but they use up very few material scraps.

When holidays roll around I often make the same pattern three times – once for each family. This year I decided to make three different projects and it was much more enjoyable (and perhaps more work).

Boo (from Word Play Quilts)

As part of my commitment to the Guild Library I volunteered to review a book each month and make a project (or a part of a project) from it. Since I needed a Hallowe’en pattern, when I found this in one of the library books I killed two birds with one stone by reviewing the book and giving the project to Christy.

There were no real patterns for the letters; I just looked at the picture and cut fabric pieces and put them together in the form of the letters – very improvisational. I have enough trouble when I’m following a pattern so I’m not very comfortable improvising. I had a terrible time getting the letter “B” to work out. The piece originally had a black border but when I saw it displayed at a Guild meeting (prior to quilting it) I decided to change it for the green.

Hallowe’en Blades (adapted from Christmas Bells)

I have a much larger project that calls for curved piecing so I started on a much smaller scale with this pattern. I swapped out the red and green fabrics called for in the pattern for four different Hallowe’en fabrics.

Kathryn will get this one. She has a glass cutting board on her counter and these squares fit nicely under it to give her kitchen a seasonal (whatever the season) look.

Table Runner (from Fresh Quilts magazine (Fall/Winter 2014)

I had to hunt to find the third pattern but when I did I knew right away that it would fit Elizabeth’s table very nicely. It was easy to piece but the quilting took a long time. There were a lot of spider web ends that needed to be buried.