Hop along with me!

Hi, I’m Terry from Southern Ontario and thanks for stopping by my blog!

Over the years I’ve explored various crafts – some I’ve only dipped my toes in, and others I plunged in as deep as I could.  From tole painting, flower arranging (I tried to start a business and was hired to do a few weddings), paper tole (remember those 3-D pictures in frames?  Gosh…they ARE lots of fun to do!), stenciling, wood crafts, buttons, bows, ribbons, and pipe cleaners are not unfamiliar to me.  But there was always something in my way. For the most part it was usefulness.  Like really…how many flower arrangements does one person need in their home…seriously?!

I’ve always loved sewing but there too – once my children started school the only way I could get them to wear something I made was if it was Halloween…hmmm…should I be insulted?

But then it happened…my daughter informed me of the impending arrival of my first grandchild.  That was it … a baby quilt. I had made quilts for my children when I was expecting them, but at that point all I knew was to get a panel, sandwich it (I used poly, cuz I didn’t know any better), and hand stitch an outline.  Ta Da! Ya…well…not for me.  It was all I could do to make my third (and last) baby quilt. Good riddance!

But now…well, we’ve come a long way, baby!  Or at least quilting has.  My cousin, Gail (Gail’s Quilting) lives in BC and has been quilting…gosh, I don’t really know how long. All I know is that our family raves about “a quilt from Gail”.  Sew…. “Hey Gail…whaddup?!”

Yes, and before you know it, and before my grandson was born February 10, 2017 (7 months after I started quilting), I had 6 quilts completed.

Hey Kolten – what do you think of Grammie’s quilting?

What a journey it has been.  I often felt much like a sponge..soaking up as much as I could – watching videos, shows, reading blogs, reading articles…anything I could get my hands on!

This summer I am coming up to the end of my second year quilting – it seems like I’ve been doing it forever, in a good way!  I just completed my 23rd quilt (I haven’t counted any of the other smaller projects I completed, or started – zipper bags, placemats, table runners, etc.)

Here is some eye candy from my latest…

And a few others – I can’t actually say which are my favourites…

“One More Hand” – gifted to my Dad Ross McMullen March 2017

“Home Sweet Home” – gifted to my friend Lilly Bain March 2017

My quilting tip: I place a large piece of plexiglass on my sandwiched quilts and use a dry erase marker to plan what to quilt.  Then I keep the plexiglass handy so I can check back to it.   If you had to give a new quilter a “secret tip”, what would it be?

Sew – a bit more about me, outside of my quilting life…

I’m a project manager for a large insurance company and am fortunate to have the luxury (for the time being anyway) to work from home most of the time.  The commute to my office takes between 60-90 minutes and is on a major highway in Southern Ontario where I live – I’m sure my Dad started sleeping better when I started working from home.

I love music and enjoy finding not-so-well-known artists who simply amaze me!  When I’m sewing or quilting, I listen to biographies or historical documentary videos…I enjoy learning.

I have my beautiful daughter, grandson, and son-in-law (as I mentioned) and two kind and caring sons.  This photo was taken last summer (2017) and the pose is a reproduction of a photo from when my kidlets were 4, 6, and 8.  I LOVE how it turned out!

Oh – we have two cats – Rikki, a black domestic short hair who is a talker; and Bobbie, a white domestic short hair who sheds more hair than 17 cats put together!!  But he’s such a sweetie, he’s too hard to resist.

Life is good.

In the 2018 New QuiltBloggers Blog Hop I am part of hive3 – the

“>Happy Stitching Team

– along with the following ladies…take a moment to hop over and see what they are up to!

Karen – tunaquilts
Rashida – no3quiltstudio
Sherry – poweredbyquilting
Liz – savoreverystitch
Terri – meanderingsalonglizardcreek
April – jandabendquilts
Stephanie – lowcountryquiltsandembroidery

Thanks for stopping on your hop!  I would love to hear from you – you will likely be hearing from me…I’m still full of quilting questions!  Speaking of which – Do you prefer to use pre-packaged fabric/kits (which also includes fat quarter packs/layer cakes/jelly rolls, etc.) or do you prefer to select every fabric in your quilts separately?
~Cheers~!