A Parcel in the Mail and Borders Progress

Robin, my swap partner for the recent Quilted Table Yahoo Group candle mat swap, made me a second candle mat because we all thought the first one was forever lost in the mail. She decided to make this one with a spring theme since we were already well past St. Patrick's day. So, now I have two candle mats! By the time I let her know the St. Patrick's mat arrived, this one was already in the mail. She sent a magazine about the Finger Lakes area in New York State as well as a FQ along with the mat. I am feeling quite spoiled getting two packages within a few days of each other.
Last night, I cut out the rest of the pieces I need for the pieced border on my Grateful Heart Sampler. I marked the diagonals on the little squares for the flying geese units and piled everything up by the sewing machine in preparation for some sewing time tonight. The weather was so beautiful today that I decided to do some outside jobs when I got home and after supper until it got dark--I was in an office all day and could just look outside at the sunshine. So, I vacuumed my car, put away the winter greens arrangement on the front porch, cleaned up some sticks in the back yard and put the table and chairs out on the patio in the back yard (with a little help from my husband). I did manage to do a bit of sewing when I came inside. I will keep working on the flying geese tomorrow. I hope to have everything pieced by the end of the weekend. For the last two years, I have been driving 1 hour and 10 minutes each way to work. I have been transferred to the office in my home town now so I only have to drive 6 minutes each way to work now. I have lots of extra time in the morning and after work to get things done! This is so exciting! More time to sew...

I took some pictures of my first daffodils today as well. The one on the left is less than 2" across. The one on the right is a regular sized daffodil.

St. Patrick's Day Swap

My garden is coming to life and with the warm weather forecast for this week, it will be bursting with more colour soon. I love the way the columbine leaves unfurl. I have many different kinds of columbine in my garden--I think they are my favourite flowers.

These crocuses are blooming like crazy in my front garden. The rabbits have not yet discovered them...
I also have some daffodils that are about to burst into bloom. I will add more pictures this week.

Back in February, I told you about a St. Patrick's day candle mat swap that I participated in through the Quilted Table Yahoo group. This is the candle mat that I made and sent to my swap partner in New York State, USA.

I waited and waited for my mat to arrive. The swap organizer, the quilter who made my swap and I were all perplexed about why my mat had not arrived since it had been mailed at the end of February. Finally, on Friday, my package arrived! I soon realized why it had taken so long to get here...When my swap partner did the label on the computer at the US post office website, she accidentally clicked on "Canary Islands" instead of "Canada"!!! Haven't we all done something like that before!!! I sent her an e-mail to let her know the mat had finally arrived and how it had taken the long route to get here. Thanks Robin for the beautiful mat, St. Patrick's Day mat and pencils. I look forward to using it next year!

Pictures!!!

The final layout for the Grandmother's fan block, already sewn onto it's row: The pieced strip on the end is not attached yet.

Here are the flying geese that I have made so far--some of them are not trimmed yet.


My goal is to finish piecing the flimsy for this quilt by the end of the month so I can take it to the Longarm quilter's.

National Quilting Day

Friday night, I celebrated National Quilting day a day early by going to Cherished Pieces in Tillsonburg with a few friends. I purchased fabric for the borders and back of my Grateful Heart sampler. The fabric was washed and dried on the weekend and now needs to be ironed and cut. I started to sew the first row of the quilt together after sewing the Grandmother's fan block into layout "C". (see previous post)

I spent National Quilting Day at Canada Blooms in Toronto with my husband. Lots of flowers and gardens to look at as well as booths full of gardening supplies, furniture, seeds, plants, etc. I did not really buy anything but we did speak to the man who will be building and installing our new gazebo later this Spring. Last Fall, we had our backyard landscaped with a new patio, bubbling rock, etc. The gazebo will be at one end of our patio and will provide a shady spot to do some visiting and maybe even some hand sewing!

Tonight, I spent the evening at Jacqui's for a QNIC. (Quilting Night in Canada) Chris worked on her braid quilt and Jacqui did some machine quilting while I made flying geese for my Grateful heart Sampler. I need to make 156 flying geese and I got about 1/2 of them done tonight. My camera battery needs to be recharged so I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them to my blog for all to see.

Come back again later this week to see the pictures!

HELP!

I finished the 4 little 6 inch Grandmother's Fans tonight. I hand appliqued the curved edge down. I am not really fond of the layout for this block in the magazine where I got the pattern so I decided to try a few options, take some pictures and see what all of you think. This is the last block for my Grateful Heart sampler. So...here they are:
"A""B"
"C"

When I got home tonight from work, my crocuses were blooming in my front garden. I ran inside and grabbed my camera to take a few pictures. It is supposed to get cold again this weekend...just when I was getting used to it being warm!!! The picture at the top of my blog was taken last Spring, before the rabbits ate the flowers.

#24 Tree of Life

I did it! I pieced the dreaded "Tree of Life" block! I have been putting this one off for ages and finally decided to tackle it this afternoon. I cut out all of the pieces last night while watching curling on TV (The Brier--the men's national championship). One more block to go--Grandmother's Fan. I shall start it tonight after supper and see how far I get. More curling on TV tonight so I may get no further than cutting out the pieces again.

#23 Fish Tales

This block took much longer than I thought it would--there was a big delay in putting it together because the power was out for over 2 hours this afternoon. I said in an earlier post that this weekend would have excellent weather for sewing--RAIN! Unfortunately, the rain came with some wind as well and a branch must have come down on a power line somewhere! There are a lot of big old trees in my neighbourhood so this is a common occurrence when the wind blows. These fish do not mind the rain! Only two blocks to go. I will try to get another one started today.

Delectable Mountains

Only 3 more blocks to make for my Grateful Heart Sampler! Here is number 22. I was a bit intimidated by this one because of all of those "mountains" but it wasn't too bad at all! I am still feeling a bit scared of one of the blocks I still have to do--"Tree of Life", but I will be trying to finish the last blocks this weekend. Onward and upward! Stay posted for my progress.

Log Cabin

My friend, Pat, came over tonight and she knitted (she's making socks for her husband) while I sewed. I made this log cabin block and started the "delectable mountains" block. I will finish it this weekend. It looks like it will be good sewing weather this weekend--rainy!!! I still hope to finish the blocks by early next week and then work on the flying geese and HST's that will be filler strips in my Grateful Heart Sampler. Tomorrow night is guild night so I won't be doing any sewing.

QNIC Tonight!

Tonight, Chris and Jacqui came over for a couple of hours of QNIC! Jacqui worked on some pinwheels for her menopause quilt and Chris worked on piecing her braid quilt.















I worked on my row for the row robin for the London Friendship Quilters Guild. The theme of this row robin quilt is "winter" so I added some sawtooth stars with snowmen in the middle. This fabric all came from my stash.
We had tea and homemade apple crisp for our snack.

I also made a quilted book from a panel for a baby shower gift. My cousin's daughter had a baby boy in January. This book is for Aaden.

Ocean Waves

Nancy at Life is a Stitch came over this afternoon to show me her method for making this block. She originally used the magazine's method, which involved set in seams, for her block but found it did not work well. She tried another method when making the block a second time for Denise's quilt and it worked out much better. We added triangular "chunks" to the 4 sides of the centre square and then added "setting triangles" to the corners. I only have 5 more blocks to make for my Grateful Heart Sampler. I hope to get most of them done this week.

Spring is sprung! (And, another sampler block)

Today was a beautiful day, sunny and 10 degrees Celcius. The snow was melting at a fast and furious pace and I could see lots of daffodils and a few crocuses peeking out in the garden in my front yard.



My husband and I spent the afternoon at the Stratford Garden Show. There were several display gardens and lots of vendors to get people thinking about digging in the dirt once again. I bought some seeds for my vegetable garden and look forward to warm weather when I can plant them!



I did some sewing last night and made this block, called "Harmony". It is an 8 inch block. Only 6 more blocks to make for this sampler quilt!!! Then, of course, there are pieced filler strips and I am going to make a pieced border as well. Still lots of sewing to do.

Patchwork Fantasy

Here is block 18 of 25 blocks. This one has a lot of pieces, but I still managed to get good intersections and points! The middle square is from the panel that came with my fat quarter bundle. I am off to do some tidying and then try to get to bed early tonight. Another busy day tomorrow!

Tree Top Twist

This was tonight's project, after I did the dishes. Tree Top Twist is block 17 of 25 for the Grateful Heart Sampler that I am making. I hope to make another block tomorrow night. I like the way the wavy stripe fabric looks in this block.