Zebra Love

This fantastic zebra is a test for Juliet of The Tartankiwi. I can't say enough about how I love her work. Her original is (here). I reversed the colourway and made a rainbow zebra with black and white in the background. I amazed myself with the number of zebra skin types of prints I had collected over the years just waiting to be used. The block is 20" square and paper pieced. I got it a little overcropped for this photo. I wish I were better at that aspect of things.
She is working on a 40" zebra. She has done several other animal blocks, I was fortunate enough to test one of her elephant blocks. She is currently running a Quilt-Along with bird outlines. There is a nominal cost for each pattern.
Other than that is has been a busy quilty week. We had the June meeting of the Scrapbag quilters on Wednesday and on Saturday I taught a beginner quilting class at Shoreline Quilts in Port Elgin (our local quilt shop).
I have decided it is time to take the upper hand with the chaos in my sewing room so there may be more organizing that sewing for the next little while. Piecefully, Joanne
Edited to add a link to Jeneen's Quilt Art Designs Friday Link party. quiltartdesigns.blogspot.com

A little leader and ender fun

The little blocks for this project were assembled leader and ender style. I was gifted with a bag of 1" strips of varying lengths. Corey Yoder (Little Miss Shabby) had a tutorial on the Moda Bake Shop using the 2 1/2" candy squares. So I rummaged through my 2 1/2" squares for all manner of pink ones and made these little blocks that were then assembled into a top. Current size is 18" by 21" but it needs to grow. If it doesn't then it will be a doll quilt for the Salvation Army toy drive next November.
Other than that I have been doing more testing. We have been assigned about half of the blocks for the next Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine and I have a couple of paper piecing projects I am testing. For me the only real downside to the testing is that for the most part you can't talk about it. A couple of the designers I test for are happy to have the pre-release buzz happening but most (90+percent) prefer total secrecy prior to the pattern release.
Have also been working on samples for the store (Shoreline Quilts Port Elgin, ON) and taught a bag class last week. So one way and another I am keeping busy. Piecefully, Joanne

Edited to add Linking up with Cynthia's  Oh Scrap! Linky party at Quilting is more fun than Housework here (Oh Scrap!)

the boys are giving me a brain work-out

Our after dinner fun tonight was giving Grandma long division and long multiplication questions and then using a calculator to see if she got the answer correct. I am pleased to report so far I only got one wrong. Guess you can figure there won't be much sewing happening this weekend. Piecefully, Joanne

Hands to Help finale for 2015

I did a little laundry today. I like to wash a quilt before it is donated. Nita will be getting the second from the right quilt and the wife of a friend from the gym will be getting the third from the left. The others have not got specific homes yet. Quilts 3,4 and 5 on the line were all Mystery quilts and they turned out OK. Or at least I think they did.
My other donated quilt for Hands to Help this year is going to Project Linus through our quilt guild. I have what feels like a million tops that need quilting so I need to knuckle down and get some more ready to donate. I really feel that is what I should be doing with my time at this point in my life.
I enjoyed a wonderful retreat in Tobermory with some local quilting friends. It was fairly cold so nice to stay inside and get some sewing done. The women who plan this event do such a great job. We ate well, we had fun, we got some work done. And this year we had a totally unexpected surprise. On Saturday afternoon a woman came to the door at the Lodge. She was a quilter who was going out of quilting and giving away what remained of her stash. We were all invited to come to her place at 4:00. We went, we had a ball. She had bags for us and everything was laid out by colour. I got several quilts worth of very nice scraps (fat quarter sized pieces). Everyone got something. Piecefully, Joanne