Two Quilts Pin Basted, Navy Scrappy Blocks, Sunflowers and Visitors

 It is so much easier on the knees and the back to pin baste quilts on a table rather than the floor.  I took advantage of the tables at the Ingersoll Creative Arts Centre this past week to get two quilts ready for quilting.  The first one is a pattern by Christine at Tesselate Quilts.  I pieced the top over a year ago and it has been hanging out in the pile of completed tops for too long!   

My Kaffe Fassett Overlapping Tiles quilt was also pin basted this week. I have a quilting plan for both of these quilts--using my walking foot.  I hope to get to quilting them over the next month or so. In the meantime, I have some gifts to make that have a deadline.

I brought my navy scraps to the sewing day and made four 6.5" square slabs with my tiny scraps.  I will make a navy pineapple log cabin block this week as I have all the pieces cut out and ready to go.  These blocks are for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects this year.  I think most people have already made dark blue blocks but I didn't so I made them now. 

My sunflowers cross stitch had a little bit of progress -- We have company this week--Our daughter and Finn are here for a visit. We went to see "Much Ado About Nothing" in Stratford one evening and to a family BBQ another day.  There was not as much stitching time this week as usual. 

I discovered why my parsley plant has not been producing much parsley this year.  This caterpillar will turn into a Black Swallowtail butterfly. It is very fond of parsley!

Finn loves to lay in the sun!  My husband and I were reading in the gazebo, staying in the shade. 

There was a trip to the pet store to get dog food one day early in the week. Finn gets very excited to there and doesn't like to leave the store. You can see his quilt that I made him a few years ago in this picture. It helps to protect the car seats, when he sits on it!

We took a long walk in Port Stanley one evening and went all the way out to the end of the pier. 

We were rewarded with a beautiful sunset as we got back to the car. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Stitchers in the morning and the RSC folks today. 

Five Placemats, One Baby Book, Sunflowers and Gros Morne National Park in Nfld.

I have now finished my five placemats for Meals on Wheels.  The yellow and gray one was an orphan block which I made wider by adding strips to the sides of the block.  I also took a picture of the backs of the placemats--you can see that I used up some of the fabrics used on the fronts on 4/5. These will be collected by the Oxford Guild for distribution at Christmas. 

At the guild sewing day on Monday, I finished off the placemats and made a cloth baby book from a panel.   This will be a gift for a friend's new grandson.

I finished off this large sunflower this week as well as adding more stitches to the two smaller sunflowers and the leaves.  It would be nice to finish off this quadrant of the project this week.  I will be working on this for Slow Sunday Stitching tomorrow. 

Have you seen the videos on Facebook of dogs collecting the "Cheese Tax"?  Finn is an expert cheese tax collector!  

He always stares at our daughter with love in his eyes...

I promised a few more pictures from our trip to Newfoundland.  We did a lot of hiking on the trip and found the trails to be spectacular, if not a bit challenging at times.  We spent several days exploring Gros Morne National Park.  We did a guided hike at the Tablelands in the rain.  We wore our rain gear and stayed mostly dry. The Tablelands feature the earth's mantle layer showing for all to see--only one of two places in the world that this occurs. 

This is a picture of the tablelands on a sunny day.  We hiked up to just below where the snow is. 

We took a boat tour on Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne--it was foggy going out but the fog cleared as we headed back to the dock, revealing phenomenal views of the rocks surrounding this "pond".  In Newfoundland, a pond is what we would call a lake. 

The Green Garden Trail had some very steep sections.  I rented hiking poles to do this hike due to the uneven ground and steep hills.  All of the hills were worth the effort for the views at the end of the trail.  The red muskoka chairs are often seen at the end of a trail in Canada's National Parks. 

I took lots more pictures on our trip but I think this is the end of sharing them on my blog.  Thanks for your interest in our trip!  We highly recommend Newfoundland as an adventurous destination. 

I will link up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.

Placemats for Meals on Wheels, Sunflowers, Ottawa and a Field Trip

The members of the Oxford Quilter's Guild are making placemats for Meals on Wheels recipients for Christmas so each member of the guild has been asked to make 4-5 placemats.  I decided to get mine done early. So far, I have one done and three in progress. This first one was made with some charm squares that were in my stash. 

This one still needs to be quilted. 

I have had this tool fabric in my stash for a while and I'm sure someone will like it!

I used more of the lighthouse fabric on the back of this nautical themed placemat. 

The last two are quilted now and the binding is on--tomorrow's job is to do the hand stitching. 

Finn was woken from his nap to model my daughter's finished Ottawa cross stitch picture. 

I worked on the darker coloured sunflower this week.  I should be able to get it done this coming week during slow stitching time. 

My husband took me on a field trip to a surprise destination this week.  He had heard that there were quilts at the Lambton Heritage Museum and thought I might like to see them.  Besides the guild quilts, there were some antique quilts on display as well. 

The museum was recently renovated with new displays installed, highlighting various aspects of life in Lambton County over the years. 

One of the displays was about the Campbell Family.   The plough in the picture below was originally purchased by my husband's 3x great grandfather in Wardsville, 30 km from the farm where he lived.  Archie was very strong and carried the plough home, walking those 30 km. 

There was a picture from a Campbell family reunion that took place in Lambton County in the early 1980's.  My husband is a descendent of the original Campbell settlers so he was at that picnic.  I took a close look at the people in the picture and found my husband!  He's wearing a blue golf shirt.  I don't think he was expecting to find a picture of himself at the museum!

While out for a walk one morning this past week, I noticed the sun shining on this spider's web. 

 

We have had rain off and on all day today.  Tonight, we were out for a walk and noticed these interesting clouds with the sun shining from behind them.  

I will try to add a few more Newfoundland pictures to my next post.  I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. 

UFO Progress, Yellow Blocks, Sunflowers and Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve, Nfld.

 Christine and I got together this week for a few hours to sew and chat.  Christine cut out squares for a disappearing nine patch baby quilt and I finished sewing my Overlapping Tiles quilt top.   I have not trimmed it yet--I may even do that after it is quilted to avoid all those bias edges as I quilt. The backing fabric is ready--it is the turquoise with the pink flowers that is the constant in the quilt top.  My husband held the top for me to take a picture --it was a bit breezy!

I bought myself a Half Rectangle Triangle ruler at Quilt Con in Atlanta and tried it out to make these blocks in March.  I finally got around to sewing them together this week.  I am pleased that my points are all pointy!  I have to decide if I will add a border or not.  I am leaning towards an asymmetrical border, varying the width of the border on each side.  I will have to get some coordinating fabric out this week and see how that might look before I cut anything. 

Yellow is the colour of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge so I got my yellow scrap bin out and made four 6.5" square slabs and a yellow pineapple block.  I am up to nine pineapple blocks now. 

I am listening to an audiobook, Talking to Canadians, by Rick Mercer, read by Rick himself.  I listen as I walk each day as well as when I am cross stitching.  My husband and I watched "The Mercer Report" on TV for years and even attended a taping of the show at the CBC in Toronto years ago.  

On our recent vacation in Newfoundland, my husband and I took a private guided tour of Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve near Raleigh, Nfld.  Our guide was Ted, a local businessman who has a particular interest in the plants and geology of Burnt Cape.  After telling us the history of Raleigh as we drove around this small community, he drove us out to the cape.  The conditions are very harsh there, with little or no soil for plants to grow so at first glance, it appears that it is just a barren rocky area. Ted had us looking closer to see a great variety of very small plants that we had to be careful not to step on!  He also showed us a sea cave, carved out by the relentless waves of the ocean.  

That is a Canadian dime to show the scale of these tiny flowers.  The next picture shows the entire plant. 

The orange on this rock was caused by seagull poop!

Ted called these red growths British Soldiers...

Some of the trees and shrubs, all very small and close to the ground, were over 100 years old. 

The sea cave entrance.  

It was quite cold and windy on the cape so we all wore our hats and warm clothes. 

Ted recommended this book so I bought a copy at the next store that we were in.  We used it several times on our trip to identify plants that we saw on our hikes. 

These are frost polygons, caused by the frost heaving the rocks out of the ground into these patterns. Each depression in the ground creates a microclimate where small plants can grow. 

This small purple flower is a type of primula. 

These yellow flowers, the Burnt Cape Cinquefoil, are only found at two places in Nfld., one of them being Burnt Cape. 

The Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve is across the bay from Raleigh. 

Sunset over the Burnt Cape, taken from in front of our accommodations in Raleigh. 

I hope you are not getting bored with my vacation pictures.  I still have a few more places I would like to share with you over the next few weeks. 

Finn likes to keep at least one paw touching my daughter at all times.  The second picture was taken while I was talking to Finn on FaceTime this week. 

I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday morning and with The Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday morning.  Take care.