An Early Christmas Present . . . . .

On the eve of Christmas Eve, I got a call from my long arm quilter, Dawn at the Sewing Basket, she had a quilt all done and ready to come home, Sassy Toulouse!!

The pattern is Toulouse by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company and the fabric is Maison de Noel by 3 Sisters for Moda.

I finished this quilt back in February, it sure was a wonderful addition to my holiday weekend fun to be able to enjoy this quilt. Christmas Eve I was snuggled under this quilt on the red couch watching it snow. What a perfect way to break in a Christmas quilt!

This project was a sew along with Nicole/Sister's Choice and Lisa/Stashmaster. Nicole named us "Les Triplettes de Toulouse".

After working on this project for a couple of weeks, the red and cream background fabric started to overwhelm me, but once the top was all pieced, I warmed up to it and thought it gave the quilt a sassy Christmassy feel.

Well the background is still red, but absence has made the heart grow fonder, I really like it, the quilt shouts Christmas.

I love this pattern and the fabric is one of my most favorites, it will be hard to only have this quilt out on my red couch the month of December. The pattern went together so easily, I'm considering making another one, I think it would look good in Bliss, or some Fig Tree or Kansas Troubles fabric.....well, really, any fabric would look great with this pattern!

The quilting is a custom job, a nice amount of quilting in the center blocks, borders and flying geese. Running down the center of each Goose in the Pond block is a loopy Christmas Tree pattern in gold thread.

It's very subtle, and really hard to pick out in this picture, but I think it was a clever addition, a little Christmas surprise.

Sassy Toulouse finished at 75 X 75, has approximately 1561 pieces, and is Lifetime Quilt #55.

To read more about this project, select Quilt #55 from my Lifetime Quilt list on the right.

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She's Done . . . . . . .Part I of III

When I held up Toulouse, after sewing on that last border, I thought to myself, "she's done"....then I was like, hey when did Toulouse become a girl! My quilts aren't just gender neutral, they're genderless! In the past it's always been it, it, it, when I think of my quilts, but this one is all female. And you remember how I thought the red and white background was a little too bold in the beginning? Now I like it, I think it makes her sassy! So that's her name, "Sassy Toulouse".

This is finished quilt number 55, she measures 75" X 75", and has 1,561 pieces. I started her right after the first of the year and finished her on 2/1/10. Two days later than my schedule but that's OK, sassy ladies always keep you waiting. This is a Miss Rosie's Quilt Company Pattern.

I used Maison de Noel by Three Sisters for Moda, the fabric Carrie used for her pattern.

Now that she's done, I can tell you that she was troublesome as a child. At first, it was just getting the fabric. This family of fabrics came out several years ago and is scarce! Then it was trying to decide how to best use the fabric that I got, then we all decided that "controlled scrappy" was the best way to assemble the blocks.

Then once I added the sashing and started connecting the rows, I had this problem . . .

See it..second row of 9 patches, third 9 patch from the left....see how it looks like an 8 patch, that right hand upper corner just blends in with the background fabric. It was scrappy red fabric, but that piece had too little red in it! I told myself it was OK, once I got all the piecing done it would not stand out. I told myself that all night long. What would you have done?

Well the next morning it was still really bugging me, but I knew if I took that one little one and a half inch square out, I risked getting a better color but with a poor fit. And truth be told, it looked OK up close, it was just when you stood back that it screamed, "lookie here, look at this 8 patch block". I knew myself well enough to admit that my eyes would be drawn to that corner every time I looked at that quilt. So I swapped it out, and it only took around 20 minutes! The best 20 minutes I've ever spent on a quilt.

So I got the rest of the center pieced then I had this to deal with.....

as I've mentioned in other blogs, Lisa/Stashmaster and Nicole/Sister's Choice were sewing along on this quilt pattern too. Lisa had the Maison de Noel fabric and we did a little exchange where Lisa provided the fabric, we both made 4 flying geese from each set of fabric, then mailed 2 and kept 2. I was thrilled with my assortment of geese, but liked to drove myself crazy getting the perfect order. I arranged them in 4 rows, the first attempt took an hour. Two hours later I came back and made a few changes, then went to bed. I dreamed that I took all the geese down, wrote down all the possible combinations and started again. I did not do that, but I did move a few around that morning. One more look-see, a few more tweaks, then I sewed the geese into rows. Lisa grabbed one from her stack then one from my stack and sewed. I can hardly wait to see how that worked out......oh to have such faith in the quilting fairies!

There are several things that I really like about this pattern, one is the sashing...see those little one inch pieces..I love that sashing..how clever was that!

And these stars in the corners....perfect. Additionally, this quilt came together like no other. I sewed those geese together and they fit on that border perfectly, no fudging required.

Thanks Carrie Nelson, designer extraordinaire!

Also, thanks to the folks who helped me with my fabric acquisitions, I couldn't have done it without you.

And finally, now that's it all done, what I like most about this quilt is that I made it with friends.

Lisa and Nicole are blogging about their Toulouse quilts today too, go check them out, I've yet to see them myself, I can hardly wait!

On another note, if you've not shared something quirky about yourself yet, don't forget to do so on yesterday's post to qualify for my 100th Post Giveaway! If you have left a comment, go back and read them all, they are really funny. I laughed all day yesterday as they came in.

And finally, my blogging friend Rene is celebrating her 100th post today. We started our blogs about the same time. I'm sure she has something fun planned too, we better go check it out!

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Goose in the Pond . . . . . .

In October I blogged about these little pink weights, see them setting all pretty and perfect and ready to do the job there on my shelf next to my tea cup? They're just so handy to keep fabric in place when sewing or ironing. I use them all the time.

And every time I used them it never occurred to me to wonder what was inside those cute little nubbins.......

But evidently somebody else in the house was curious about them.....

Now we BOTH know.... Gee Thanks Cooper!!

I've pieced enough of the little blocks that make up the Goose in the Pond center blocks of Toulouse to begin to wonder what is the best use of the fabric that I have.

(To see original pattern look below at January 8th post.)

You get to help me decide! There are three choices, the differences are subtle. The red seems a little strong to me but I'm hoping it tones down when all the piecing is done and the outer geese are added.

Choice # 1 - Identical blue HSTs in each corner, matching pairs of green HSTs .

Choice #2 - Blue HSTs still in each corner, but no longer identical, green HSTs also in same place but scrappy. (FYI, I only have 3 different blue fabrics and 9 different green fabrics)

Choice #3 - Scrappy, green and blue HSTs mixed up, no pattern.

So what do you think would be the best use of my Maison de Noel fabric?

Thanks!!

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Les Triplettes de Toulouse - Part Deux

Did you get any snow?

This was the view from my window yesterday morning as I drank my coffee. This snowstorm was no surprise, I ran all my errands the day before meaning it was a snow day/ sew day!

This is my next project, Toulouse, by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company. Nicole from Sisters Choice and Lisa the Stashmaster are also making this quilt. Nicole is going green and red scrappy with a white scrappy background and Lisa and I are going with Maison de Noel by Three Sisters for Moda, the fabric Carrie used for this pattern. Additionally, Lisa is going with a blue on cream background and I'm going with a red on cream background. (shocking I know, me and the red) This makes the quilts triplets, but not identical triplets.

I made a quilt very similar to this pattern a couple of years ago,

it's quilt #20, Father's Fancy.

The blocks are the same size for both patterns, just the setting and borders differ.

This is the fabric I'm using for the background. It should give it a different and more Christmas feel.

Are you familiar with Maison de Noel by Three Sisters for Moda? It came out at least 3 years ago. I was not familiar with it until I saw this pattern, but have since learned that it was a popular family when it was released and more so after Carrie published her Toulouse pattern. It's hard to come late to the party when it comes to fabric. This pattern is readily available, don't get attached to the fabric, it is not. For the first time in my quilting career I found a project that I wanted to make but could not easily find the fabric to get the job done.

I asked one fellow quilter if she had any Maison de Noel she didn't want only to learn she was trying find some for herself.

I ordered a pack of 5 fat quarters on ebay billed as Maison de Noel, only to receive the fabric and then find that only 2 of the 5 fabrics were Maison de Noel.

I was able to order two of the greens and 3 of the blues from some online quilt shops.

There's an online quilt shop in the UK that has some but refuses to mail fabric to the US!

Another quilter had some, the background fabric, and is sending it my way.

It's lovely fabric and easy to understand its appeal.

Lisa had a fat quarter bundle of the family of fabric and offered to share her leftovers.

I just got them! Thank You Lisa, I'm going to use each little scrap! When I looked through the fabric that Lisa sent (fondled is more like it) I thought the red on red looked familiar.

Sure enough, here it is in my Father's Fancy quilt.

And in my Myths of Avalon quilt!

I got all excited, could I have some of that valuable fabric in my stash? Is it possible that while I was searching the internet that I had some of that fabric in my sewing room? I went through my stack of reds, no Maison de Noel, then through my sack of scraps from each project that I have completed......and here is what I found....

One 1 1/2 inch strip!

But hey, that's just the size I needed for the 9 patches so I'll take it! I really liked that red, little did I know that when I was throwing it in every quilt I was making that it was such valuable fabric. But here's the real lesson, keep those scraps!

So even with Lisa's generous leftovers and the fabric I was able to beg, borrow, and buy on my own, I'm still going to need to supplement some other fabrics. I'm eager to see how it all comes together and having to work so hard to get the fabric makes me appreciate every little strip all the more.

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