Old Hockey Game Quilt

These days I devote almost all of my sewing time to making BeColourful quilts, but when I saw this one at a recent retreat I knew I had to drop everything and make it for my partner’s birthday.

The pattern is the Good Old Hockey Game by Kristieocd on Etsy.

I quilted it using a loose meander and backed it with Moda Fireside to keep it soft and cuddly. The colours are for the Montreal Canadiens. The best part is that he LOVES IT!

Now An Authorized BeColourful Teacher!

I am so pleased and proud to announce that I am now a fully Authorized Teacher for BeColourful quilts.

Here is my bio: 

After admiring quilt magazines in grocery stores for years, Melanie finally worked up the  courage to make her first one in 1998. She had a borrowed sewing machine and absolutely no  knowledge of quilting, whatsoever. The results were predictably disastrous, yet she was  completely and immediately hooked. In the twenty years since she has become an extremely  adept and ambitious quilter, always willing and excited to try new techniques and tools. What started as a hobby has turned into a lifelong passion. Melanie is always making quilts,  talking about quilts, admiring quilts, looking at patterns, petting fabric, going to quilt shows, or  packing to go on retreats with friends who are equally obsessed passionate about quilting. There is only one thing Melanie enjoys as much as quilting and that is encouraging others in  their pursuit of the art. As a former corporate workshop facilitator, Melanie strives to create a learning atmosphere  that is welcoming, fun, and encouraging. She wants all students to leave her courses feeling  empowered and proud of their efforts.

While she enjoys teaching all forms of quilting, her favourite by far is paper piecing the BeColourful way. She saw her first BeColourful quilt online in 2011 and became determined to one day make them all! She has attended several of Jacqueline’s courses and is extremely proud and honoured to be an Authorized BeColourful Teacher.

Melanie lives in beautiful Ottawa, Ontario and is available to teach in Central and Eastern Canada.

Follow her on Instagram at melaniemmacdonald or on her blog at lazylabquiltcompany.blogspot.com.

I am already scheduled to teach the Picnic and Lemonade patterns in Kingston, ON on December 15, 2018 and January 19, 2019! 

I am thrilled about this new adventure! 

Wish me luck.

Aurora Is A Completed Quilt Top

Aurora is now a completed top! Hooray!

This is a level 5 BeColourful pattern.

I started this top at a class with Jacqueline de Jonge in June at Nancy’s Calico Patch.

This is my 5th BeColourful quilt (I made Brilliant Beauties of Joy twice, so maybe this could be considered my 6th?).

I’m focused now on completing Enchanting Stars, a level 6 pattern. I’m keen to get that one finished so I can start making the 2018 BC patterns, which are STUNNING! Wish me luck!

Circle of Life Quilted and Bound

I am so pleased to show you my completed Circle of Life quilt.

This is the very first Be Colourful/Jacqueline de Jonge quilt I ever saw. I marveled at it. Looked at it obsessively online and thought “I could never do that”. But, here it is and I could not be more pleased with it. 

It’s special on its own, but even more special to me as it was mostly constructed during my class with Jacqueline at Nancy’s Calico Patch in Newport News, Virginia. What an incredible experience to spend a week with my favourite designer! Everything about the experience well exceeded my hopes and expectations. 

Jacqueline has just released her 2018 designs. Each one is spectacular and on my “must do”. I have to hurry up and finish my Aurora so I can get to the new patterns! 

Aurora Update #6

I had a couple of weeks without much desire to sew. I guess I needed the break.

 But now I’m back at it and loving it again!

My centre square is now sewn to the outer square. I’m not 100% happy with my Y-seams, so I’ll go back and redo those once I’m finished with the spiked border pieces.

Once the Y-seams are fixed and the spiked borders complete there are just two small borders to attach  and my Aurora will be complete. My goal is to have it done by September 8th.

Aurora Update #5

I think I was subconsciously avoiding working on this quilt this week, thinking that the 4 Y-seams would be a nightmare. But, it’s going along great. I have two of the four sides attached and it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had feared. Circle of Life had 16 Y-seams, so maybe that makes this feel easy-peasy.

My goal for the coming week is to get the other 2 sides attached.

Aurora Update #3

I’m still having a great time slowly working on my Aurora quilt.

All the New York Beauties are now attached to the Flying Geese units.

My goal for this week is to sew in the 8 semi and quarter arch units into the middle star unit.

Aurora Update

Now that Circle of Life is finished I can focus on completing “Aurora”, the other quilt I started during my time with Jacqueline de Jonge.

I used fabrics that I had on hand. Some of the batiks have prints on them which have resulted in a “riot”of colour. While this chaos pleases me I notice (with disappointment) that it distracts from the technical aspect of the quilt. It’s hard to see the perfect points, etc when the fabrics are screaming for attention.

I do like it, but it the future I’ll shy away from busy fabrics when I want the piecing to shine.

The goal for this week is to get the last New York Beauty arc done and to get four semi-circles sewn in.

Circle of Life Completed Quilt Top

Two weeks ago I was very, very fortunate to spend 6 days with Jacqueline de Jonge!!! Wow! What a dream come true!

The session was being taught at Nancy’s Calico Patch in Newport News, VA. It was almost 1200kms from my house, but it was the closest course I could get in to with Jacqueline before 2019. So, I made the trek and it was well, well worth it.

I can not say enough about Jacqueline. She is an amazing designer AND teacher.  I am planning on taking more classes with her as soon as I can.

As I was staying for 6 days (two 3 day classes) I brought two quilts to work on; Aurora and Circle of Life.

Below is my completed Circle of Life quilt top. I had all the components completed before class. They just needed to be sewn together. I thought it would be quick and that I could move on to the second pattern I had begun earlier in the week.

Well, I discovered that I had made several critical mistakes with Circle.  But, with Jacqueline’s help all were addressed successfully and now I have a beautiful and flat top.

As always, I learned a TON through the mistakes and the corrections and I’ll be a much more competent quilter as a result.

Thank you, Jacqueline, for all your help! Can’t wait to take another course with you!

White Brilliant Beauties of Joy Finished

i just got back from my spring retreat. My friend and quilter brought my white Brilliant Beauties of Joy quilt back. She did a wonderful job and it looks stunning.

This is a Jacqueline de Jonge BeColourful pattern called Brilliant Beauties of Joy.

I had the binding ready to go and it is now a complete quilt.

This top was a joy to make and went together so well. I made a black version previously, you can see it here.

I love the pattern so much that I am thinking about making it a third time.

Mod Flamingos Finished!

I’m happy to report that after a year of languishing in the UFO Pile, my Mod Flamingos is finished!!!

A year ago I got confused and overwhelmed by the instructions and put it away.

When I decided to finally finish it, it went really fast and was so fun that I couldn’t believe I didn’t finish it sooner.

It’s finished and I’m delighted with it! I’m also thrilled that I now have an empty project box. Yeah!!!

Circle of life Progress

I started my Circle of Life quilt a couple of weeks ago.

I cut all the pieces in advance which really helps speed the process up and allows me to “just sew” which is my favourite part. I have all the pieces labeled in ziplocks in my project box. I love being able to just go to the box, pick out the right bag, and sit down to sew with no thinking about sizes and cutting, etc.

I had a few difficulties with my lone star. The instructions were clear and I liked how they finished, but for some reason each piece ended up a bit larger than the template. I used the template to trim them down to the proper size. I hope that was the right thing to do. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?

I had a great time sewing the checkered border which is straight paper piecing. Because I had all the pieces cut, it was rather mindless sewing (which, to me, is a GREAT thing) and I was able to watch the fourth season of Grace and Frankie which is the best season yet!

So, now I need to use 16 Y seams to attach the checkered border to the lone star unit. This is the point at which I’ll learn if I made the right decision in trimming the lone star pieces and if I attached the New York Beauties to the lone star correctly. Yikes.

I feel this could go either way - a huge success or tremendous disappointment. We’ll see!