Gratitude & Glimmers #108

Making gratitude your default emotion will single-handedly alter the course of your life.

—Topher Pike

1. A couple of evenings ago I noticed the half moon against rose-lit clouds, so I stepped outside for a better look, and was rewarded with a rose-lit contrail and a couple of swallows flitting around catching bugs. A glimmer indeed!

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of March. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. 

RSC Catching Up

Earlier this year, I completed my first Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt. It ended up going in a slightly different direction than I’d first planned. I then got busy with the quilt that’s in the current issue of make modern as well as the planning and sewing for my annual quilt along. I’m pleased to say that I spent the last couple of days finalizing what will be the next RSC project for the year and I am caught up with six months' worth of blocks. Because June is pastel colours, here is my pastel blue block.

I’ve wanted to make this block forever; think the first I saw it was way back on Craftsy! Diann of Little Penguin Quilts made it last year and it reminded me to keep it in mind for this year.

Black With a Pop of Pink Tote Bag

Another one of my yoga peeps in my Yin classes have asked me to make her a tote bag. She wants it for a carry-on for travel to Vancouver in July. She had a look at my Etsy shop and was drawn to the black and white makeup bag. So that’s where we started. She also asked for a pop of pink in it.

She asked for a button and loop closing as oppsed to the magnetic snap I often use.

After several photos and back and forth emails, she settled on these seven fabrics and their placement. I fussycut the Eiffel Tower fabric so that the panel featured two completed images. Those towers are 6” high!

Arabian Nights

I first put this collection of fabrics (minus the tan and gold leaf fabric) together probably a year or two ago when I was either combining fabrics for a totebag for someone or my Etsy shop, or combining fabrics for a a Project Quilting prompt. I am glad to have found a design that lets them shine.

This is a third option in my latest pattern release, Lyra. 

Lyra Quilt Along - Quilt Parade

I think a few of us have been looking forward to today! It is the culmination of my tenth quilt along where we show off our finished quilts! I’ve seen a few floating around the internet, and it truly gives me a thrill to see the variety.

Today would have been my dad’s 100th birthday, that famous Canadian father of mine.😉 Today is also the New Moon, as well as the start of the G7 Summit which is in Evian, France this year. Quite the date!

Leo the Lion

Brady’s Leo the Lion quilt is a very happy finish. As I stated in the progress post, this is a pattern I bought from Tartan Kiwi Designs ten years ago, knowing I would one day make it for him. I intended it to be the centre of a quilt, and even when I first started making it, that was the plan. However, as I often say, quilts talk, and this one decided it wanted to be THE star, and so it has become a wallhanging.

I think he was right: he is the star.

Gratitude & Glimmers #107

The significance is hiding in the insignificant.

Appreciate everything.

—Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of March. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. My apologies that this was not out on Thursday, but where did May go?

1. For the third year in a row, we attended a couple of Jane's Walks in Windsor. Jane’s Walks celebrate our local communities: "neighbourhoods, and the people who live there.” This year Windsor’s festival, the last weekend in April and the first one in May, was the fourth largest in Canada, pretty good for a smaller region. One of the two we did was in Butterfly Lane, a nondescript back lane in Walkerville, which is a neighbourhood in the east end of Windsor.

Homeowners gave permission for artists to paint on their fences or garages.

Local artists did the beautiful butterfly artwork in the lane to raise awareness of brain injury in their community. There were many beautiful pieces.

The Making of a Lion Quilt

Brady turns 18 this summer (how is that remotely possible?) and so I’m making him a lion quilt as he is a Leo.

This is Lion, a paper-pieced pattern by Tartan Kiwi Designs. I bought it ten(!) years ago, knowing I’d make it one day for Brady. Well, that ‘one day’ has arrived. It is a huge block, the biggest one I’ve ever paper-pieced, at 24” finished. The cows quilt blocks were 12”.

Lyra Quilt Along - Sashing Units and Quilt Assembly

Aaand… just like that - we are done until the final parade opens on June 15! A few of you have gone ahead and got your quilt top together, so I do hope you'll have a completely finished quilt by then. Know that both tops and finished quilts can go into the parade, though I truly do hope that you finish your quilt. I'd hate to be the reason more WIPs show up in your quilt rooms!

The sashing pieces will go together in a jiffy. Then it's basically a 9-patch layout with borders. But I'm a bit ahead of myself.

Artemis

Artemis, a quilt I designed (inspired by an email convo with my friend Rose) in honour of the Artemis II expedition in April, is finished and ready to be hung on a wall in my home. You can read the story behind it in this post about the flimsy.

We went for a little drive on Sunday, trying to find an appropriate quilt for this full moon quilt. I had thought of the Windsor Astronomical Society observatory, but though MacGyver had mapped it, we were unable to find it. We also knew there wasn’t much chance of getting near it as it was closed and locked on a Sunday. I thought of the giant grey rocks at the Leamington Marina, so that is where the last photos were taken. We did stumble upon another pretty cool backdrop for a glamour shot.

Lyra Quilt Along - Make the Blocks

Well, we’ve got all the units made, so let’s put them together and make some blocks.

There are four blocks to make this week. Next week we’ll make the sashing units and assemble the quilt top!

Diamond Baby in Make Modern

I am so pleased to be finally able to present my latest publication in Make Modern issue 70!

Because there was (eerily) another HRT diamonds quilt submitted just ahead of mine, scheduled for the January 2026 issue, Lara asked if I'd mind waiting a couple of cycles before they released mine, hence four months longer of a wait but that’s okay; it’s finally here.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Update and a Free Quilt Pattern

This was not the plan, but I have a Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt finish with the first three months’ colours!

I’m actually quite pleased with it. January was dark blue, and I did a couple of medium and medium/dark blue 9-patch blocks. February was dark green, and I added in some muddy ones. March was red, which was when I realized my original thinking of a rainbow of 9-patches that finish at 7.5” wasn’t going to work the way I had envisioned; it would be a humongous quilt.

Lyra Quilt Along - Spiky Star Points

This week we are making the last units for the blocks, the spiky star points.

These can be easily and efficiently made using your Tri Recs or Wonder Triangle rulers. There are eight star points per block for a total of 32, as well as the eight that make up the centre star, so 40 all in all.

Gratitude and Glimmers #106

"Perfect happiness is a beautiful sunset, the giggle of a grandchild, the first snowfall. It's the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events. Joy comes in sips, not gulps."

                                                                            - Sharon Draper

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of March. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

1. This is the absolute BEST. I couldn't' stop grinning the entire two videos. Watch both, one comes on after the other) and I am still grinning as I type this! Click to watch Huxley the rescued raven imitate his rescuer's sneeze and say his name.

Another Lyra Quilt Top

I worked hard to include this third version of Lyra in my newest pattern, and then I had a DrEAMi—Drop Everything And Make It—moment and pulled fabrics and looked at the logo colours and adjusted and cut and sewed…

The result!

It’s one of those “eee!” feelings to see it come to life.

Lyra Pattern Release!

And it’s on sale, 25% off!

I’ll admit I was a little disappointed that I did not get the pattern totally together for yesterday’s post in my annual QAL. However, in retrospect, I think this is better, so that it gets its own post, and it includes a third quilt!

My original thought for the cover shot was to get this quilt under a magnolia tree, which are at their peak right now. However, when we were tootling around the little town of Essex this past week, which is just 15 km from my little town of Kingsville, we spied the old train station. It is a beautiful old building and made for a great backdrop, we thought.

Lyra Quilt Along - Square in a Square Units

First of all, thank you to those who linked up—some gorgeous fabric pulls. I have heard that the kite shapes went together very well (yay) and so well, in fact, from one quilter, that she went ahead and finished the quilt top, figuring out the other steps on her own. I think she’s competing with Rose for the speediest sewist award, ha.

This week we are taking it easy and making five square-in-a-square units.

Lyra Quilt Along - Piecing the Kite-Shaped Star Points

One of my favourite things about hosting these Quilt Alongs is seeing everyone’s fabrics, so when I saw the fabrics Susan in Australia (Granny Smith Quilting) has pulled, I thought, for the second time, and am now acting upon it, that we need a link-up to show off our fabric choices and/or cutting. If you don’t have Instagram or a blog, just email me (click ‘View my complete profile in the sidebar) a photo, and I will happily post them for you!

I thought we’d tackle the more intimidating shape first. I’m sure you’ve found that cutting the kite shapes is a bit of a pain in that they don’t nicely line up along the fabric length. I did update the cutting post with a photo of that step. This results in some weird leftover triangles which is annoying, I know. It’s worth it though for the cool effects they add to your block.

Kite Shapes in Blocks

Geometry is just so cool, but it can make your brain hurt sometimes too! Quilting is so good for our brains isn't it? We do geometry, measurements, and all sorts of calculations. For the Lyra quilt, four kite blocks are in the corners, creating another starburst. I used these same shapes in my very first QAL, Freefall, which was ten years ago. As I said, I love that connection from the first to this current one. Here is the ‘bad boy’ in question:

I’ve made a paper-piecing template for it, which is how we did this block in Freefall. You can get the link to download it here. It’s in Dropbox as well, and again, you do not need a dropbox account to access the file. You'll find a paper-piecing template for the square-in-a-square block in the same PDF.

Lyra Quilt Along - Cutting

This week we are cutting into our fabrics, and I can’t wait to see what beauties you are working with. Just wait until you see Rose's (somethingrosemade) pull—be still my heart! Please don’t be intimidated by the spiky triangles or kite shapes; the way the templates’ seams are angled at the pointy ends makes for perfect alignment. Truly. And Rose gave us all another simplification if square-in-a-square blocks are your nemesis, so be sure to read to the end.

Lisa (Lisa in Port Hope) had mentioned to me last week that a rainbow colour scheme would be an idea, and well, great minds think alike, because that’s where Rose is headed!

What I’ve Been Up To Lately

I’ve been mainly focusing on the quilt along, but I have been doing a little work on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, the second version of Circadian Rhythm, and putting together a fabric pull for another yoga student who has requested a Positive Flow bag! Here’s a quick look through these projects. I finished up enough snowball blocks in March’s colour which was red.

These are not the same block as January and February, which were dark blue and dark green nine-patches. What am I doing?

Lyra

This quilt is made with a few chunks of Hazel by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew that I picked up over a sale or maybe two several years ago. It has been patiently waiting for the right quilt, which is this year's Quilt Along quilt. All but two of the seven pieces went into this quilt.

There certainly is lots of movement in this design, and I'm so pleased with how it turned out. It's a block I sketched when I was in the 30 Quilt Designs in 30 Days Challenge in 2017. I drew up four designs using it.

Lyra Quilt Along Kickoff

Welcome to the tenth annual Quilt Along here at mmmquilts! Once again, this free Quilt Along kicks off today, on my birthday, and ends on June 15, what was the birthday of one 'famous Canadian', my dad. I am so glad you are here, reading this post, and I hope that you will join in. This year's quilt along features a smaller quilt, and, as usual, the pace is nice and slow, so it's easily worked in with your regular quilting projects. 

If you are new to my blog, welcome! I hope you'll peruse the tabs up top, maybe check out some of the activities and makes of mine. Be sure to follow me (see the buttons 'Get new posts by email’, Pinterest and Instagram on my sidebar) to be notified of new posts over the next 2.5 months of the quilt along. Feel free to grab the graphic for the QAL and post it on your social media with a link back here so others can find it.

Gratitude and Glimmers #105

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of March. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

Peace and joy happen, neither in the quietness of the forest, nor out of the accomplishments of the marketplace, but only from within.

--Sadhguru

1. One of the (many) things I love about living in Canada's southernmost town is being in the Carolinian forest, where winters are mild (though this one slapped us hard with more cold and more snow than usual) spring is early. Snowdrops and winter aconite are out as early as the end of February/early March. Snowdrops especially amaze me that their blooms can withstand frosts without so much as a shiver. Here is a lovely little clump of wild crocus that are blooming everywhere down the greenway paths between subdivisions where I walk.

The force of nature is astounding: these little beings push up against a fairly heavy leaf cover; the blooms close during cool grey weather and open, literally blossom, in the sunshine. They make me smile every year on every walk.

Project Quilting 17.6 A Happy Handful

What a fun way to end this year’s challenge: with a small joy-inducing project. This week Trish asked us to make something that we could hold in one hand, "small in stature, but full of joy." I've had this image in my head for the past several weeks, wanting to work it somehow into a quilt.

I made a mug rug with the symbol for female on it.

SAHRR Finish: You're Golden

Because I'm planning on donating this, and hopefully as a comfort quilt to someone in need, I wanted a sunshine-y, upbeat, pretty flowers type of name and after pondering for a bit on the yellow that shines all the way through the quilt, 'golden' came to me, and then the expression, "You're golden," meaning you're good, you're not at all wrong, you're fine.

It was extremely windy today, and incredibly foggy all morning. I feel at times as if I live by the sea when the fog comes rolling up the street and over and around the trees and houses. I guess a Great Lake is an inland sea, and it does create its own weather. The sun came out in the afternoon, so I was able to get some good outdoor shots.

Project Quilting 17.5 Circadian Rhythm

This week's PQ challenge was 'My Complements' where we were asked to make a project using two complementary colours. Here is my quilt, which I named Circadian Rhythm.

I just love it! Read on for the story of how it came to be.

SAHRR Round 6 Quilter's Choice

At first I was not liking this prompt from Anja at Anja Quilts because I like the challenge of having a specific direction in which to go. However, knowing that I wanted to end with the floral trellis border print that brought the original four blocks together, made me think to just get over myself and do that! So today was the day to measure and cut and make borders.

I had to quick take the shot as it was fairly windy all day today, even at supper when I zipped outside to take a photo while we still had daylight.

With An Open Heart

Well, I don’t make my plan A in time for the Project Quilting deadline but plan B did get done. However I was not going to let plan A sit idle! I’m so very happy I pulled this too-long-on-the-shelf bundle out and went for it, despite knowing it was a bit of a reach. I am even more happy that I finished it!

The warm sunshine made for a beautiful outdoor shot today.

Gratitude and Glimmers #104

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of February. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. 

1. I love this house for its brightness. Despite it being small, with no closets to speak of, and having painted-over panelling from the late 1940s (it was built in 1947), the brightness due to lots of windows, and something about the lot upon which it sat, told me it was a good place. Slowly over the years, we well mostly MacGyver, have renovated this house to the point where there isn't a room or wall that he hasn't touched/redone. When we did the major renovation in 2019, converting the half story to a full useable second level, we moved my sewing room to where we'd originally thought our bedroom would be, because of the light, which our wise builder had noticed. I love how it streams in through the entire day, thanks to windows on three sides that face east, south and west. Yes, it can wreak havoc on fabric and quilts, but I am careful to move them or shield them if in direct sunlight. This gave me a glimmer of joy early one morning when I walked by.

I made this cover for my longarm in 2019 when I was an Island Batik ambassador. filling it with all kinds of quilting motifs.

Gorgeous fabric and a gorgeous if I do say so myself, double ribbon candy motif.

SAHRR Round 5 Two Colours

This time it was Gail of QuiltingGail, the creator of this fun round robin activity, who chose the prompt for this week's round. She asked us to use just two colours in this round. I already had the one purple, a marbled-ish berry, and I decided to put a lighter blue with it.

It definitely brightens up the quilt!

Project Quilting 17.4 Of Another Era

Well, I did not get the original quilt project finished, so on Saturday evening, I turned to Plan B, which was using some Debbie Mumm fabric from about 25 years ago. I'd recently used one of the three squares from the panel on the back of my Happy Christmas quilt. I had thought that the backup plan would be to make a table runner using these two with a star block in the centre. However, with limited time, I knew I'd have to do something even quicker, and suddenly I thought I could make a tea cosy! Heaven knows I'd made four mug cosies this week, so one more large one shouldn't be a problem.

A little less than two hours later, on Saturday evening, like 10 pm, I had it done. Incidentally, that teapot is circa 38 years old, and the table topper is made (in 2005) from the same fabric line that I was using in the Plan A quilt!

SMGO Still!

SMGO--So Much Going On... Still!

I've been fairly quiet online here because my sewing machine has been whirring like crazy since my last post of my SAHRR round 4.

I got an order for a tote bag and a day or two after that an order for three mug cosies. Here is the tote bag, another one I absolutely loved, but because it's going to a good appreciative home for a returning customer, I was happy to send it off!

This is part of my pattern Positive Flow which includes instructions for two quilt sizes of interlocking plus blocks that flow across the quilt in three waving rows.

SAHRR Round 4 Show Off Our Curves and Another Publication

Round 4 came from Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts. She asked us to show off our curves. I've had lots of fun over the years with improv curves, and a cool method that uses the bias to make fancy curves, but would you believe I've never made a traditional curves block à la Drunkard's Path? Out came the Betty Crockerass curves templates! 

Another one of the many things I love about Project Quilting and SAHRR is the challenges and prompts that push me to make the time to try something I've always wanted to try. I've done bajillions of set-in sleeves over the years along with the improv curves, so doing this block was actually really easy. Here is where my SAHRR sits right now.

SAHRR Prompt 3 Animal Kingdom

This one gave me pause (paws--ha--just thought of that as I typed). Emily of The Darling Dogwood was our 'director' this week and she asked us to look to the animal kingdom for inspiration, be it animal named blocks, appliqué of an animal, pieced block that looks like an animal or animal fabric. Once again, Kathleen's post was a good one to get the creative brain juices flowing. After round 2, I had a tentative plan to somehow extend the double flying geese into this round to accentuate the diagonal 'pull' they gave. I also had planned to incorporate purple into this round. Here is where it is.

Project Quilting 17.3 Bees

Here is my quilt for Project Quilting 17.3 Year of the Horse. This was a quilt that got finished and then linked up with 11 minutes to spare. I work well under pressure, but I don't like cutting it that fine! I'd like to say that I rushed home after teaching yoga Sunday morning and got straight to work making the binding and applying it, as that was all that was left when I had to stop at 10:30 Saturday evening. However, I had to make a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up some necessary items, and then take Rufus for a walk, and then finally, I got to work. Could I have waited for the groceries and Rufus's walk? Probably, but in this never-ending cold, I didn't want to go out more than once, and dogs do like their routines.

Thank goodness for sun at 12:39 EST which is the time stamp on the first of the three photos I uploaded to my Instagram post! It really shows the quilting. Don't mind the quilt waving happily; it's currently drying after being blocked on my design wall!

SAHRR Prompt 2 Make it a Double

Happy Full Snow Moon and first of February. When I first read Kathleen's prompt on Tuesday for this week, 'Make it a double,' I immediately thought of a double-double. Like 'Make it a double,' it's referring to a drink, though non-alcoholic. A doubles-double is Canadian speak for a Tim Horton's coffee with two cream and two sugar. 🫶

So we were to incorporate the idea of double, or two, in or round this week. I let that thought simmer while I spent the bulk of the time since working on my upcoming pattern in Make Modern. I took a break from the computer on Saturday to work on my SAHHR, since the PQ 17.3 challenge is released on Sunday. Here is where my SAHRR sits at present after this week's prompt.

Yay for some beautiful blues skies and sunshine for an outside pic

Gratitude and Glimmers #103

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of January. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. 

1. I love this quote which, I think, embodies all that we who link up with LeeAnna feel—

It's so easy to get bogged down especially as the media emphasizes all that is wrong, and rarely do we hear about good things, so taking time to notice the good things, no matter how small, is extra-important in these times.

SAHRR Prompt 1 Hourglass Block

I love designing in EQ8 (especially using the Symmetry tool where magic happens) and I really love designing in my graph paper notebook (I do love colouring, rather zen-like still at my age), but there is something at another level of magic about designing as I go on the design wall. It kind of combines the magic and zen of the first two. Every time I do a SAHRR, it happens, and it happened in this first round where Brenda of Songbird Designs (I'm linking this post up there) gave us the prompt to add the hourglass block, also known as a quarter-square-triangle, aka QST.  Here is where I am, first prompt complete.

 You may think, okay, magic... and? Because this doesn't look that magical. Well, let me explain.

Project Quilting 17.2 Scads of Plaid

I wanted to make the Plaid-ish quilt by Erica Jackman Kitchen Table Quilting for a very long time. So when I saw Trish's prompt for this week’s PQ challenge at Kim Lapacek, I knew right away that’s what I was going to do. And I think I accomplished it, though with not as much success as I had hoped, yet I'm reminding myself it is Plaid-ish, much like Erica’s original which also uses mostly prints with a fair amount of tone-on-tone ones, though brighter. The most successful part of this was that: A. I got a finished comfort quilt and B. I used up a ton of 5" squares, several 4" squares, along with strips and various other scraps.

I missed the sunshine we had for three quarters of the day, so we have a blueish tinge to photos.

Silent Sentinels

Although I managed to get my trees quilt finished on Sunday by 5:30 pm, I didn't get it done in time to take advantage of a couple hours of beautiful sunshine we had in the mid-afternoon. Luckily the clouds cleared this morning and I was able to do a photo shoot in fresh snow that we got overnight.

As I mentioned when I wrote about the flimsy, I bought Amanda Jean's Trees! pattern quite some time ago, before buying the main fabrics, and even when I did buy those three, I did not plan for them to be in this particular quilt. However... I am really pleased that the pattern and fabrics came together as they have! Simmering is a good thing, right?

SMGO

So. Much. Going. On.

And it's all wonderful with lots of blue! I've joined in once again with the SAHRR. Here is my post about the centre I'm starting with.

I'm once again participating in the RSC: Rainbow Scrap Challenge with Angela of soscrappy. This month's colour is blue. She didn't specify light or dark so I did light, bright and dark! 

SAHRR - Stay At Home Round Robin

This is the fourth year I've participated in this fun, great for the creative brain activity, dreamed up by Gail of Quilting Gail, when we were all in lockdown. The first year I participated was in 2023, and I haven't missed a year yet. If you'd like more information, click the link to Gail's post that explains how it works.

Here are the my previous year's quilts. There are four because in 2025 I made two, one in the round robin style and the other all blocks.

Lower right, coneflower—2023; lower left, fishies—2024; top right, Arabesque—2025; top left, aquamarine blocks—2025

Each one is so very different, no? Three of those four were built in the round robin style of adding a round around the centre. The blues and greens quilt was done in the bloc style where each week’s prompt saw me making a block as opposed to a round. It’s your quilt, so you can choose how you want to build it as long as you fulfill the prompt.

Project Quilting 17.1 A Clean Slate

The first challenge for this year‘s project quilting challenge was 'A Clean Slate'. Trisha always includes within the first prompt the Pantone colour of the year, which is not even a colour: white aka Cloud Dancer. We were in Cuba up until late Thursday, so, because many American sites are blocked due to the American embargo on Cuba, I did not know what the prompt was until I got back. That left me two days to figure something out. I knew it would have to be a smaller project so I chose to make a couple of placemats.

I’ve made many placemats over the years using this stitch and flip, quilt as you go method that I first saw on Janine‘s blog, Quilts From the Little House. It’s a great way to use up those proverbial ever present strings, batting scraps, and make a useful item.