Wednesday, December 29, 2010

New Year's Resolutions

I can't believe that Christmas is over and the New Year is only days away! The studio tour has come and gone and although it was fun, I am glad that is all finished. I have decided to not do the tour again, as it is a HUGE amount of work and there is HUGE time commitment involved. I've decided that I would rather devote that time to other ventures. Although I don't usually make a lot of New Year's resolutions, I do have a list of things I would like to do this coming year:

1. Spend one day each month clean-sweeping a different room of my house.
2. Spend time creating just for "fun".
3. Read all of the "Quilting Arts" magazines that I bought from my friend Colleen (at our huge quilting garage sale) and try out some of the different techniques in them.
4. Write a new book with Nellie.
5. Take a yoga class.
6. Keep up with this blog.
7. Use my new AccuCut machine.
8. Use my felting machine more often.

I'm sure there are other things I should work on as well, such as eating better, exercising more etc. etc., but I think my little list is a good place to start.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

One more week!!

I can't believe that the Studio Tour is only one week away!! I have so many things made, and have been working on it for so long, that I think I will be surprised by what I have accomplished when I go to set up in the middle of next week. I have finally finished quilting the four "Noel" wallhangings that I started making in the summer (while we were at the Sumler cottage), now I just have to sew on the binding and they will be reading to go. Here they are all lined up on my quilting frame.
If you have a chance either next weekend, or the first weekend in December, stop in to see me at Studio #7.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

New UCQP patterns available online!!!

The two newest patternds that Nellie and I have designed using Northcott fabrics are now available on the Upper Canada Quiltworks Publishing website.
"Country Rose Garden" and "Flower Power" are now both available for purchase on our website. Check out the "Patterns Page" for ordering information.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Funky Gift Bags


Last year I bought this fun line of Laurel Burch Christmas fabric, but had no idea what to make with it. One day I was in my studio and decided to make the fat quarters into Christmas gift bags. I had co-ordinating fabrics that I used to make the ties. As I was looking through one of my cupboards, I found a bunch of Christmas felt cut-outs (reindeer, snowflakes and ornaments) that were just perfect to applique on each bag. They are all so cute and colourful, I think I will have to save a few for myself, but the rest are going to the Studio Tour.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Funky Stocking Kits Now Available!!

I've finally had a bit of time to sit down and do some maintenance on our website. As a result, the kits for my "Funky Stocking" punchneedle project that is featured on the cover of the 2010 Festive issue of A Needle Pulling Thread magazine are FINALLY available online!! These kits include the Valdani 3-strand embroidery floss and weaver's cloth needed to complete the project as well as one of my "Fresh and Fun Punchneedle" books FREE!!!!
Check our my website for ordering information!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Stockings


At our house everyone has a homemade stocking - even the two dogs and the cat!! So of course I wanted to make stockings for the studio tour. I had a bunch of leftover Jim Shore Christmas fabric (which I LOVE) so I found some co-ordinating fabrics and made the stocking bottoms using a quilt-as-you-go technique then added felted wool cuffs. There are green, blue and red ones and I think they turned out quite cute.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Bookmarks

A few months ago I decided to make some bookmarks for the Studio Tour - I thought they might make nice gifts, especially to give along with a special book. I used "Fast 2 Fuse", fabric scraps, decorative stitches and fun ribbons - and my new "Crop-A-Dile" to set the eyelets. They were fun to make and I hope they will sell well.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Halloween 2010

Since Carson was sick last Halloween, he didn't get to wear the AWESOME Ninja costume that I made him. Luckily (for me) he decided to wear it this year - and (luckily for me) it still fit. Aidan decided to not dress up. Instead he stayed in (where it was WARM) and handed out candy.

Friday, November 5, 2010

A very productive (and fun) day!!

Today I spent the day in Morrisburg with the ladies at Nellie's Fall Quilt Retreat. Since I have had a few weekends away over the last couple months, I decided that I was not going to attend the quilt retreat this fall, BUT since I was off today Nellie invited me to come up to spend the day (I got to use my friend Trudy's table before she arrived late this afternoon). While I was there I worked on my ornaments for the Studio Tour. I started them last weekend, and have been working on them whenever I had a chance, but with 5 dedicated hours today, I managed to finish up 45 of them. Here is a sample of what I have been making. I have 25 more to finish (but I still have 3 weeks!).I hope the retreaters have a great weekend and get lots of quilts made!!!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Studio Tour - only 4 weeks away!!!!

YIKES!! I can't believe that the "A Country Home Christmas Studio Tour" is only four weeks away! But I have been busy all year long (or so it seems) making things whenever I had a chance. So far I have tablerunners, stockings, some really cute bookmarks and a few new wallhangings that are either finished or well on the way to being finished. Now to get everything done!! Here is the website for Thousand Islands Arts studio tour : http://www.tiarts.org/tour_cc/index.php

Friday, October 29, 2010

Mod Garden fabric line

Nellie and I have been doing some more designing for Northcott - one of their new Spring lines is called "Mod Garden". It is a fun line line with butterflies and paisleys done in hot pink, lime green and yellow. Here is the quilt that we designed - we are working on the pattern right now and will soon have it up on our website. Look for the pattern and fabrics at your local quilt shop!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Carson's Recycling Adventure

While at school one day, Carson heard about recycling Kool-Aid pouches into tote bags. So, of course, we had to give it a try. It took a couple weeks to accumulate enough pouches (some of his classmates donated theirs too), but eventually we had enough to start sewing.
First of all, we sewed the packages together into strips, then sewed the strips into two big squares (my sewing machine had not idea what was happening to it - it has NEVER had to sew any material like THAT before). Then we added the sides, bottom and handles. Here is Carson modelling our creation - it is a strong bag that will be great for carrying books or heading to the beach!!!
Now we are saving up more pouches for another project - possibly a Hallowe'em costume for Pugsley (?). Or maybe just another bag!

e

Sunday, October 24, 2010

OMG - I'm a COVER GIRL!!!!!!!!!

OK - so it's not me on the cover, but it is my punchneedle project! Yes, my punchneedle project "Funky Stocking" graces the latest issue of "A Needle Pulling Thread" magazine (which was debuted at the CreativFestival this weekend). Needless to say I was SUPER EXCITED when Nellie and I arrived in the booth and I saw the new cover!! Nellie and I also have another project - our "Gingerbread Sampler" - in this issue as well. Subscribers will get their issues in the mail this week and then the magazine will be available in stores the next week.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Keepsake Quilting

In July my family travelled to Lincoln, New Hampshire for our summer vacation. What a great place! Lots of things to do AND only 1 hour away from Keepsake Quilting. So one day I convinced the boys that I HAD to go there to do some shopping. Luckily there were other shops and an ice cream parlour nearby, so Mike took the boys for 1 whole hour and I got to shop. Here are some of my "treasures".
They package every sale up like a special treat!
If you love batiks (like me) you NEED to make the trip - I have NEVER seen so many batiks in one place!!

Little resin figures I couldn't resist.




Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Road Trip to Toronto...


Actually, it will be a train trip, and my kids don't know about it yet, so don't tell them!!!
Nellie and I are heading to Toronto early Friday morning (like 7:07am early to be exact) to go to the CreativFestival! We will be doing demos in the "A Needle Pulling Thread" booth and signing autographs/doing demos in the "Garden Thyme Quilts" booth. We are staying just one night and then taking the late train home on Saturday night. I can't wait - it's always fun to get away and going somewhere "creative" is an extra bonus!!!

If you are going to the CreativFestival stop by one of those booths to visit us AND don't forget to pick up a copy of the Festive Issue of A Needle Pulling Thread - Nellie and I have a wool tablerunner project in it AND I have punchneedle project featured as well. See you there!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Country Rose Garden


Here is the newest pattern from Upper Canada Quiltworks Publishing - Country Rose Garden. It uses Northcott's new line of flannel fabric called "Rosie Posie". http://www.northcott.net/?sid=2&layout=2col&content=fabric_details&colid=384&colorid=630

The fabrics will be available in quilt shops in August and the patterns will be available soon from your local quilt shop or online at http://www.uppercanadaquiltworks.com/uppercanadaquiltworkspublishingco/index.html

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Economical quilting - waste not, want not

When I had all of those tablerunners and other projects ready to quilt I loaded one backing fabric and large piece of batting onto my frame and quilted EVERYTHING onto them! I just sprayed the back of the small items with 505 spray and stuck them onto the batting. It worked just great. I managed to get two large wallhangings, five tablerunners and three other smaller pieces all onto the same backing - I hardly wasted a thing!

Here's Willow - right in the middle of things as usual!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

More tablerunners

Here are two more of the tablerunners that I made using up my leftover bits and pieces.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Using up my leftovers

For a long time now, I have been cutting strips and 2 1/2", 3", and 4" squares from whatever small pieces of fabric I had left over from a project. I have little tubs that are marked with the sizes and I have almost filled each one - but I haven't been using them to make all those scrappy quilts I thought I would make. So when I finished making some bigger projects, I decided to make some tablerunners to use up the leftovers right away - instead of putting more squares into those boxes! Now I'm wondering what to do with them all. Here are the first two.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Hmmm.. I guess I didn't have it after all....

Trying to put these punchneedle videos onto the web has proven to be much more time consuming and frustrating than I EVER thought possible!! YouTube uploaded three of the videos (after multiple tries) but for some reason #3 and #4 are just not working. So I tried to upload all of them on Flickr - nope. So then I tried putting them right on my website - nope again. So then i decided to take a break and print some of our new pattern "Country Rose Garden" and my laser printer stopped working. So then I decided to use the ink jet printer in the boys' room, and it ran out of ink. Tried to do some laundry and the washing machine stopped mid-load. Hmmm... do we see a trend??? So, I'm back to the beginning again and working on YouTube. PLEASE, PLEASE work!!!!

Friday, June 11, 2010

By George, I think I've got it!!!

For the last three days I have been trying, in vain, to get my new punchneedle videos onto this blog. It has taken HOURS to upload the individual videos, I had to open a YouTube account to link my blog to, the Internet kept crashing, and in the end I had to upgrade my browser, but FINALLY (I think) it has worked.
You'll see the videos listed on the left side of the screen. There are five separate videos going through all of the steps. Watch them in order, but you can watch each of them as many times as you need to! Let me know if you like them and if you find them helpful!

Monday, May 31, 2010

My diamond quilt

When I was at the quilt show in Ottawa last May, I bought an assortment of Japanese butterfly and dragonfly fabrics from Kallisti Quilts. I ended up having to buy more fabric for the border off of her website: http://www.kallistiquilts.com/ - she has a great selection - check it out.

I wanted to make a quilt using all of these fabrics together and came up with this diamond design - only problem was that when i finished piecing the top it WASN'T SQUARE - by A LOT!!! So, instead of crying, I mounted it on my frame and just kept tugging at the sides as I quilted it - it really is amazing how you can "Quilt it out". It's almost perfectly squared now!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Saying goodbye to a friend

It's been a hard week in the Baker household. Our good friend Steve Armstrong passed away suddenly last week of an aneurysm - he would have been 45 last Friday. He and my husband Mike have been friends since grade 2 - over 37 years. I've been his friend since I met Mike - 20 years ago. He was an usher at our wedding, and gave the most hilarious toast to the bride EVER. We travelled to Cancun with him for a week's vacation a couple years after we got married, and when our area was hit with the big Ice Storm of 1998, Mike, our dog Casey and I moved in with Steve for 5 days as he had a gas furnace and therefore had heat AND hot water for showers. Steve never married, or had kids, so for the last 10 years or so we would only see him sporadically, but he could always make me laugh so hard that I would think my sides would burst. I just realized today that he is the first friend that I have ever had die. We've had lots of family members pass away and family members of friends, but he was the very first "friend" that we have lost - and I just can't believe that he is gone. Today was the visitation at the funeral home - i couldn't look at the open casket - I didn't want to remember him that way. I will remember him with these pictures and all of the funny things we all did together. Goodbye our friend - love Mike and Christine.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Winter Warm-Ups

New pattern number two is finally ready and now available on my website.
"Winter Warm-Ups" features a snow globe, fuzzy mittens and a nice warm mug of hot chocolate. What fun it was to do applique with batiks! I'll be dipping into my stash again - SOON!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Have a peek at the back...

I was so impressed by the back of Cathy's quilt that I just HAD to take a picture of it. The fabric is actually light yellow with white polka-dots. This picture makes me want to make a whole cloth quilt. Maybe someday...

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

A Beautiful String Quilt

My latest machine quilting involved this lovely quilt made by Cathy Wood. Although Cathy says it was "totally out of the box" for her, I think it turned out just beautifully. I used one of my favourite quilting designs - this great echoed flower design! The fabrics were just perfect for it.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Long haired boy

Aidan has decided to not cut his hair - for awhile now. As you can see from this picture, he could be easily mistaken for a girl (and has had that happen a few times now). But I still love this picture - he looks so happy, a boy and his dog. Today is Willows 1st birthday! Happy Birthday Willow!

Friday, May 7, 2010

An anniversary too!

Last Tuesday was also my Mom and Dad's 42nd anniversary. To celebrate both occasions we all went out for dinner. While there Mom presented Carson with his birthday present - a new quilt for his bed! He just loves it - and tells me so EVERY night when he crawls in under it. Thanks Grandma!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Happy Birthday Carson!!

Carson's 9th birthday was last Tuesday. I can't believe that my "baby" is NINE YEARS OLD! But he was so happy with his presents and VERY excited that we had a huge SNOWSTORM on his birthday - that has NEVER happened before. It wasn't enough snow to cancel the buses, but it was exciting anyway.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

FindAQuiltPattern.com

My patterns are now listed on the FindAQuiltPattern.com website. On this site you can use the search engine to look through a HUGE array of patterns (300+).

Check out their "Button, Button Who has the buttons?" game which starts TODAY! Look for buttons that are hidden throughout the website to try to win prizes like patterns and books. here is the link:
http://www.findaquiltpattern.com/link.html

Friday, April 16, 2010

Costume Club fabric

Here is our newest pattern "Little Tricksters" which uses Northcott's new line of Halloween fabric "Costume Club". As I type, I am printing patterns to send to Northcott - so look for them soon in a quilt shop near you!!! It will also be available on our website by going to this link: http://www.uppercanadaquiltworks.com/uppercanadaquiltworkspublishingco/pages/patterns.html

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Spring has Sprung

I can't believe that it has been a month since I last posted!! But, in my defense, I have been a little busy.

At the end of February I attended the Quilt retreat in Morrisburg that Nellie organizes. I didn't quilt though, I decided to SCRAPBOOK since I am way behind in my pictures - I got lots done and had a great time!!

For two weeks in March we headed down to Florida for our annual March break vacation. A few days visiting Mom and Dad in their new little house, a few days in rainy Cocoa Beach then a four day Carnival Cruise with our friends Lynn, Blake and Alexia. That was lots of fun - but we ate WAY too much!!! And now that Easter has come and gone, I think it is time to think about more exercise and less food!!!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Favourite Haunts

Back in the summer, Patti Carey at Northcott Fabrics sent us some digital images of their next Halloween fabric lines and asked us to design a couple quilts for them. This week they called to say that one of the fabric lines will be arriving soon and to start publishing the pattern. This is our newest pattern and it is called "Favourite Haunts". It will be available in Quilt shops and on our website http://www.uppercanadaquiltworks.com/uppercanadaquiltworkspublishingco/index.html soon!