A Little QNIC

Tonight, I went to Chris' house and we had a couple of hours of QNIC. I did not bring my sewing machine with me this time...

I worked on cutting out the squares for another spinning 4 patch quilt. I bought the fabric at Cherished Pieces in Tillsonburg a few weeks ago. I also bought two other fabrics, one blue and one coral, for sashing, but I don't have any pictures of them yet.

Here are my square sets, all ready to sew!

I have enough squares for 34 blocks, but I think I will use 30 of them for the quilt and 4 for a table topper.

Come back soon to see pictures of my blocks!

I also finished hand sewing the binding on my Spinning Squirrels and Maggots quilt. I will take a picture of it outside soon and post a picture.

I have some pictures from the CQA Quilt Ontario show too and will do a post with them soon. By the way, my in-laws loved their pillowcases!

What's New in My Neck of the Woods?

My computer has been on the fritz for the last few days so I have not been able to download any pictures from my camera...hence, no blogging!  My husband got everything back up and running again, so I am back in business.

Last week, the Elgin Piecemakers met and we had a great show and tell. Here are the churn dash blocks that we all made for this month's charity quilt. There are still a few blocks to be handed in  so there should be at least 12 for this quilt.

Heather and her partner put the Tennessee blocks together into this quilt top for a chemo patient at our hospital. It still has to be quilted. This should brighten someone's day!

This red and white quilt is now completed and ready to donate. I made the middle block in the bottom row.

There are more quilts in progress and I will post pictures after our June meeting.

Here are some more show and tell quilts... Doesn't this one look like stained glass with the light shining through from the window behind it?

The baby quilt above is a gift for a new baby girl and has a nice soft flannel back.

Chris made this black and white bag with pockets inside.

Pat has been hard at work on her Indian Orange Peel quilt. She has the centre finished and is working on the paper pieced sections for the border.   Spectacular!

This past weekend, we spent the weekend at the Tulip Festival in Ottawa. If you click on the link, you can read about why there are so many tulips in Ottawa. There was a tent set up with a quilting frame for people to add a few stitches to this tulip quilt.

The tulip festival area was decorated with lots of tulips that had been painted with various themes. This one is called the Friendship Quilt Tulip.

There were tulips made from Lego!

We even saw some real tulips in many different colours.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day to spend outside. We have not had very many sunny days lately. The weather person on the radio reported that we have had 20 days in May with rain so far this year.

On our way to Ottawa, we stopped in Belleville at "Fun with Stitches" (link in sidebar)--one of my favourite quilt shops, where I bought fabric to make my MIL and FIL pillowcases for their birthdays. My MIL likes sheep so here is here pillowcase which I made last night.

My FIL grew up on a farm and his pillowcase features barnboard fabric and farm animals.

Today, I went to the Quilts of the Netherlands show in Ailsa Craig with my friend Karen after work. I forgot to bring my camera so there are no pictures of the quilts to share. (Sorry!)  I bought 5 Dutch fabric FQ's though so here they are...

I love the chicken fabric!  There were many beautiful quilts at this show which is on until Saturday. If you are in the area, it is well worth the trip to Ailsa Craig. Karen and I  also went to a lecture tonight about Dutch culture, quilts and how the scenery in Holland influences the quilt designs.

This Saturday, I will be going to the Canadian Quilter's Association show in London, Ontario for the day. Is there such a thing as too many quilt shows???  I don't think so!!! 

The Next Charity Quilt Block

This month, I have picked this block, "Filmstrip" out of my new Volume 3 of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine for the members of the Elgin Piecemakers to make for our charity quilt project. (Quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital). I am giving each person in the group the fabric for the 4 1/2 inch square in the middle of the block and then each person can pick two fabrics from their stashes to co-ordinate with it for the little squares. I just used a white on white for the background. Our meeting is tomorrow night so I decided to make my block ahead of time to show everyone. I hope they like it!

It is still raining most days here but we did have a couple of warm sunny days last week. I took some pictures of the flowers that are in bloom in my garden.

My bleeding hearts are blooming like crazy!

These flowers are on our new Fothergilla bush that we planted last summer. It did not bloom last year but is covered in these fluffy white flowers this year.


I picked up my "Spinning Squirrels and Maggots" quilt from the quilter's house last night and made the binding tonight. I hope to finish it this weekend. Pictures to follow.

Spring is in the Air!

At the April London Friendship Quilters' Guild meeting, one of the members put a pile of magazines she no longer wanted out on a table for members to take home with them. I picked out a couple of the magazines and this is one of them. In it, I found the instructions to make this block which I used to make a Spring table runner for myself.

I picked out 7 charm squares from my Moda "City Lights" charm pack and sewed them together with a 3.5" white border around them.

I then traced the pattern onto the fabric as directed and cut them out. Each square was then twisted as shown below.

I sewed the blocks together and added a narrow yellow border and a wider blue border. I machine quilted it myself--I just do straight line quilting--no fancy free motion quilting!

Here is my completed runner, ready to take to the next guild meeting for show and tell!

My friend, Jacqui, made some of these recently as well. Here is a link to pictures of her twisted runners. These runners are quick and easy to make--I already have another pile of charm squares picked out to make one for a friend!

Red and White Quilts

Karen at the Selvage Blog recently did a series of blogposts on the Red and White Quilt exhibit in New York City. It was a spectacular show and I was thrilled to be able to visit the show vicariously through Karen's blog. I would have loved to have been able to see the quilts in person!

My MIL and FIL had these quilts at their house and gave them to me quite a while ago. I have been wanting to take pictures of them outside for a few weeks now but the weather did not co-operate until this past weekend. The sun finally came out and I even had two people here to hold the quilts for me while I took pictures! 

The quilt below is made from two red print fabrics which I am sure were a brighter red when the quilt was made. These first two quilts are hand-quilted and are still in very good condition.  We think all three were made by my husband's great-grandmother.

 This spectacular applique quilt top was made in 4 blocks which were then sewn together. The applique stitches are very tiny. It is not quilted yet--I would like to have it quilted by hand some day. It needs some type of border, I think.

You can see my tulips and daffodils blooming in my garden in these pictures. We were supposed to spend this evening outside--cutting the grass, weeding, trimming back last year's perennials in the backyard, etc. but as soon as we were ready to go outside, it started to rain and thunder started to rumble in the distance. So, instead of gardening, I am inside blogging about my red and white quilts!  Do you have any red and white quilts to share?  I feel inspired to make my own red and white quilt...

A Fun Mother's Day

Each year, the London Free Press publishes a "Shunpiker Mystery tour" for Mother's day.  A Shunpiker is someone who likes to travel on the back-roads. We have been on many tours over the years--sometimes it has been cold and wet and other times, it has been warm and sunny. Today, we were blessed with a warm and sunny day. My father, my in-laws and my husband and I ventured out after lunch for this year's tour. Our first stop was the Canada Southern Railway Station in St. Thomas. This old building, built in 1873, has been lovingly restored over the last several years for office/retail space as well as a lovely room which can acommodate receptions. The renovations are still underway and we have been there several times to view the progress being made.  The above picture was taken in the "Men's waiting room".  The ladies waited in a separate room so they would not have to listen to the men cussing!

Next, we went to Steed and Company Lavender Farm where we sampled jams, jellies and salad dressings made with lavender. They also sell lavender chocolate as well as soaps and other toiletry items. I felt relaxed just walking through the shop--the lavender smelled heavenly!

We also saw the lavender growing --not in bloom yet. We will have to pay another visit later in the summer.

I loved this windchime which was hanging outside the shop.

The Gay Lee Dairy Heritage Museum was our next stop on the tour. The museum houses a large collection of milk bottles, butter churns, and other dairy farm artifacts.

(Click on the above picture to read about these cream top mild bottles)

The last stop on our tour was the Erie Shores wind farm where we saw 66 wind turbines in action and read about how they work and how the electricity is transported to the grid.

I took this picture of a pussy willow bush coming out into leaf at the side of the road.

The trilliums were out too. For those of you from other places outside Ontario, the trillium is our provincial flower and it grows wild in the woods in this area. Most trilliums are white, but there were some burgandy and pink ones as well.

After the tour, we went out for supper in Tillsonburg and then drove home. A great time was had by all.

Baby Quilt Done

I finished off this baby quilt tonight. My MIL purchased the kit for this quilt which included the centre panel, the borders and the binding. I sewed it together for her and a friend quilted it for me. My MIL will use it as a baby gift for a friend who is having a baby soon. The binding is black and white gingham. A cute and simple quilt for some little girl!

Many thanks to my favourite quilt holder--my husband!

QNIC with Chris

Chris came over tonight to do some sewing. Our Elgin Piecemakers Guild continues to make a charity quilt each month for chemo patients at our local hospital. We met last week and everyone handed in their asterisk blocks. This month, we are each going to make a churn dash block (12 1/2") in beige, brown and green. I made my block tonight as you can see above. I also machine sewed the binding onto a baby quilt that I am making for my MIL to give as a gift to someone she knows who had a baby girl recently. I will show a picture of the quilt once I have all the binding on. I got about 1/2 way around the quilt tonight, hand-sewing the binding down.   Chris worked on a black, white and pink bag for a cancer fundraiser. She should be able to finish it off tomorrow. I started to organize and cut fabric for a new project using my new layer cake. I will show pictures of it later as well. I didn't get very far on that tonight!

This past weekend, my daughter was home from university for a few days. Exams are done and she had a few days off before she started her summer job. Since she did not make it home for Easter, we had an Easter egg hunt on Saturday morning. Some of the eggs were hidden outside!

On Sunday morning, she made me breakfast in bed for Mother's Day. She won't be home this weekend for Mother's day so it was nice to celebrate a week early. She made me a delicious cornmeal and cheese  scone--one of my favourites!  She even made it in the shape of a heart!

I feel well loved!