This project was two years in the making. I found the pattern by a Victoria, BC designer on-line. On a trip to Victoria I was able to pick up the pattern from one of the quilt shops.
The train cars were filled with chocolate coins when I gave it to Taylor and Dylan in December 2013.
UPDATE: October 2017
The pockets were really too small to hold much so I’ve made a set of cross stitch ornaments that will fit inside the pockets. On any particular day the kids can pull an ornament from one of the train cars and attach it by the buttons.
Quilt Show 2015 – Daphne Greig from Victoria taught the Give and Take appliqué technique for the Guild. Her zero-waste method of fusible appliqué creates a unique positive/negative design. The piece is machine quilted on my home machine.
This Give and Take appliqué class was taught by Daphne Greig from Victoria. I’m not much into abstracts or free-form creativity, but I was pleasantly surprised; not only did I enjoy the technique, but I found it simple enough that I was able to keep up with the class. Daphne also set me straight on the settings I needed on my machine for a good zig-zag stitch; Pearl will be my go-to machine for this from now on.
We started with two sheets of blank construction paper; with the darker piece folded we drew and cut out a few patterns before we decided on the one we wanted to keep.
Next the images were traced onto Steam-a-Seam and appliquéd to two different fabrics. The two pieces produced mirror images of one another.
I chose to create two additional images to complete the piece. Pat suggested the two-coloured border to carry on the mirrored look.
The finished piece (21″ x 21″) will be either a wall hanging or table topper.
Although I didn’t make a lot of different things as gifts this year, I made a lot of the specific patterns I chose.
Taylor’s BagDylan’s BagAlex & WillGavin (left), Emma (centre), and Madison (right)
I started these bags in July and I can’t imagine having waited any longer. They were labour intensive (but not difficult) and I’m sure the Guild ladies didn’t think they’d ever be finished. There were times I doubted it myself. It was so worth the effort though when I saw the kids get off the plane carrying their bags.
Clockwise Taylor, Will, Dylan, Alex
I made socks for the grandkids that were here for Christmas. Everyone was able to get their socks on, but it was a struggle in every case. The size I made for Will and Dylan were a perfect fit for Alex and Taylor. I’ll have to go back to the drawing board and make a larger size for the older boys. Getting the right size for Elizabeth’s kids will be a challenge too, but I’ll go bigger rather than smaller.
I made about a dozen fabric baskets this year as gifts. I thought they would use up some scrap fabric and they did, but not nearly enough. I neglected to take a photo of the group before I sent them out, but Diane was good enough to send me a photo of her basket. Didn’t she put it to good use?
Many of my evenings were spent crocheting this afghan for Dylan. It is a Jacob’s Ladder stitch and worked very nicely.
A rose garden theme proved to me more difficult than I thought it would. Many of the paper-pieced patterns I looked at were already used. I decided on an easy appliqué pattern, but I didn’t think that the colours we were given showed off the flower as well as it might have. I used some stitching lines to highlight the petals and the leaf, but they don’t show up very well.
April Theme – Ocean
When I saw the theme for the box I thought it would be simple. But when I saw what everyone else had done I knew I had to up my game a bit. I searched for ocean quilt blocks but didn’t find anything that caught my attention. When I was logging into a website, one of the ads had a diver swimming across the page. I couldn’t find a diver silhouette that I liked, but I did find a mermaid that I adapted for this piece.
March Theme – Tea Time
Now this was a theme I didn’t mind dealing with. One of my first quilting projects was a wall hanging for Diane and it included one of these appliquéd tea pots. Once I got the first piece done correctly (and it took a couple of tries) I was able to finish it quite quickly.
February Theme – Pumpkins
This was a little out of season for February. Most of the blocks had already used an appliquéd pumpkin of some sort, so I made a disappearing four patch block. The colour choices could have been better as the centre patch doesn’t show up very well.
January Theme – Bras
I knew this box was in the mix, and I really hoped I would never get it. Now that I’ve had it, I’m really hoping I don’t win it back in the draw!
December Theme – Christmas Tree
Perfect timing for this block!
November Theme – In the Garden
My newly-acquired obsession with English Paper Piecing was put to work for this block.
October Theme – Butterflies
I loved the fabric and didn’t expect to have any problem with making a butterfly. I picked a pattern I hadn’t made, but it was paper-pieced and I do that all the time. Either I had a mental block or the pattern was wrong because I tried it three different times and it still didn’t fit together correctly. By this point I was running out of fabric and had to made-do with what I could put together on my own. Not my best work by a long shot.
September Theme – Nursery Rhymes
Nursery Rhymes
I loved the theme and the fabric pieces that were included with this box. I recently saw a pattern in one of my magazines that used novelty fabrics so I immediately had a plan. I added a few of my own novelty fabrics to the square, in a variation of a wonky log cabin. I didn’t like the result so took it all apart and started over again.
My interpretation!
Because the fabric was perfect as it was, I added some matching colours along one side and the top. I liked this version much better.
The pockets were really too small to hold much so I’ve made a set of cross stitch ornaments that will fit inside the pockets. On any particular day the kids can pull an ornament from one of the train cars and attach it by the buttons.
