Thanks For Noticing :)

Oh my...where has the time gone?  I confess I have been AWOL from blogging...but I'm back :) Thank you for all the emails, phone calls, and notes in the mail asking if all is well.  It is. I've been busily and happily quilting away, and getting ready for spring and fall workshops.  I do appreciate that my absence was noted. Thank you.
So...for a quick catch up, here's a few things which have been on my machine.  This queen sized scrap quilt was finished up a couple of weeks ago.  We found a perfect fence in Five Islands to photograph it.

It's a big quilt, and I did have concerns about doing it on my domestic Bernina, but honestly it was no problem at all.  I used Legacy wool batting, which scrunches up nicely on the machine bed.

Much of the quilting was simply stitch-in-the-ditch with the walking foot, as I wanted it "puffy", but I did work in a free motion feather in the inner border.

I used my favourite Aurifil 50 weight tan thread both top and bottom, and it showed up nicely on the backing.

I've also been playing with geese - both in structured blocks, and free form.  The blocks below are for a secret project, but I'll show you soon.  It's rather exciting :) Since these blocks are small with lots of pieces, I switched to a finer 60 weight Aurifil so there was as little bulk as possible in the seams.

The free form geese are a blast to sew .  I made several "swooshes" before deciding where they would work in a project.

This red, glittery one made me think of Santa blazing across the night sky, with a trail of exhaust billowing behind him!

It ended up as this wallhanging, which I will teach at a workshop during our Fibre Arts Festival this fall.  

I can't wait to get the red one finished up;  I've been looking for the perfect background fabric, and think I've found it.  These "goosey" inserts add a nice bit of pizzazz to a project, and are surprisingly simple to stitch.

Since there was a waiting list for the free-form curved seaming class at last year's festival, I will be re-offering that as well.  You can find more information on both classes here: http://www.karenneary.ca/workshops_2017.htm

(Just know that these workshops are filling quickly, so if you want to join us, please contact me soon to get your name on the list.)

Now I am piddling away at 16 patch blocks to use up some batik from my stash.

Thanks for reading, and for your patience.  Don't forget, you can always catch me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sewkarenlycreated/