A Weekend at the Cottage

 My friend, Christine, and I had a few days away at the cottage last weekend. We brought our sewing machines, projects, and handwork with us, as well as some books to read and good food to eat.  It was a pretty relaxing weekend.  A storm blew through and the power was off for 12 hours, but we found lots to do.  We even toasted bagels and boiled water for tea on the BBQ!  

I started a Tiny House quilt (online class by Jo Avery).  My houses still need roofs and chimneys but I did didn't have the right colour of fabric with me to do them when we were away.  I need to make more houses and trees before I put it together to make a table runner.  

I took an improv tree class with Cheryl Arkison a few months ago and added a few more trees to my stack while we were away. 

Our guild is making some Quilts of Valour and I made these blocks to hand in for this group project.  The centre squares were provided and I used my own fabrics for the frames. 

There was knitting on the screened porch when the power was out. 

My flannel scraps baby quilt got some attention.  The centre is pieced together now and I put enough scraps together to finish off two corners.  I will have to piece more scraps together to finish the last two corners.  I didn't bring enough scraps with me...but do not fear, I still have lots.

Christine reupholstered a chair at the cottage with some selvages.  The old seat cover was looking a bit tired and now this chair has a new life!

One of Christine's goals for the weekend was to learn how to use her hand crank singer sewing machine.  She could still sew, even though the power was off!  She sewed her Quilts of Valour blocks on this machine and then started a new project.  She wants to piece the entire quilt top using the hand crank machine.  

On Saturday afternoon, our friend, Cathy of Eagle's Wings Quilts came for an afternoon of hand stitching and chatting.  There were also a few treats consumed...  Cathy worked on a paper pieced quilt--she has received squares from several blogging friends to use in this quilt and we added more squares to her collection when she arrived. Christine added more stitches to her cross stitch project.  It is almost done! I did some rug hooking on my pitcher plant picture. 

We ate our meals out on the screened in porch, overlooking the lake.  

One evening, there was reading time on the dock.  (until the bugs chased us back into the cottage!)

I came home to an explosion of colour in my garden!  Lots of flowers blooming at the moment.  

Several of the quilters who made quilts for the hospice were on hand last week to present 22 quilts to the new hospice which will be opening in July. (Not all of the quilts are in this picture.) The staff at the hospice were thrilled to receive our donation!  Thanks to all who contributed to this worthwhile project. 

It's been really hot this week, but Finn still wanted to spend time outside.  Don't worry, my daughter did not let him stay out too long in the heat.  

I have started working on the blue sky and the flowers are just about done. 

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers as well as Frederique. 

An old UFO off the to do list

My 10 year old Sashiko project is finally completely done and can go out on display!

I stitched in the ditch around the navy part and then did three rows of quilting in the border.  The binding is on.  I didn't do any quilting in the sashiko panel--I could still add some if I decide later that it needs it. 

The backing is a fat quarter I had in my stash. 

I had a chance to knit several times in the last week and added another 5 inches to my scarf.  It is 56" long now. 

I finished the stems on my pitcher plant rug hooking project and did more of the brown at the bottom of the picture. It's coming along!

The scrappy flannel baby quilt also had some attention this week.  The centre part is sewn together but the selvage borders are not sewn to it yet. Yes...there will be partial seams on this one. 

The flowers in our gardens are bursting out in lots of pretty colours. Here is my Serbian Bellflower.  It doesn't bloom for long, unfortunately. 

My front porch is shady so I have a pot of begonias by the front door.  They do very well in the shade. 

This is a Blue Jay Columbine, a little past its prime. 

I noticed that our neighbour's tulip tree is in bloom when I was out for a walk this week. 

We went to visit our daughter and Finn last weekend.  They planned a mystery adventure day for us to celebrate both Mother's and Father's Day.  It included breakfast at an interesting cafe, a hike at a conservation area, an outdoor quilt show, a stone 5 arch bridge, a stone oven pizza and salad picnic with a view, ice cream, a textile museum and poking around the shops of a small town where several Hallmark Christmas movies have been filmed. We all had a great day--the weather was perfect.  Finn was very tired that evening!

The "Gear" exhibit was fabulous!  If you live within driving distance of this museum in Almonte, Ontario, I highly recommend that you try to see this before it closes mid July. 

I will link up with Kathy and Frederique. 

Have a great week!

Orange Month for the RSC

Orange is the colour for June for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge so I dug into my 2.5" squares bin and pulled out all of the orange squares.  I cut a few from my orange fat quarter bin to add some variety before making 6 orange hollow nine patch blocks. I am getting quite a stack of these blocks!  When I run out of the centre squares, I will put the blocks together to make a quilt. 

I continue to knit away on my scarf when the mood hits me...Maybe it will be done in time to wear it next winter.  It is now 51" long. 

Ten years ago, I bought myself a Sashiko kit and completed the hand stitching.  Since then, it has been sitting on a shelf, waiting to be finished.  I recently purchased some Japanese woven fabric to use for borders and binding.  I added one border this week and would like to quilt this to make a small wall hanging.  My question--do I just machine quilt the border or should I quilt the hand stitched part too?  The hand stitched part is 12" by 12".  

I finished off the last two selvage strips for a scrappy flannel baby quilt this week. I will work on getting my scraps sewn this week to fill in the middle of the diamond and the corners.  This will be a square baby quilt.  Of course, the flannel scrap and the flannel selvage bins don't even look like a dent has been made in them.  

My husband's birthday was in April.  His gift from me was a three night getaway at a bed and breakfast near Orangeville.  There are several places to hike in the area and we chose two ...Mono Cliffs Provincial Park and Island Lake Conservation area. Mono Cliffs is a popular hiking spot and can be quite busy on the weekends and during the summer.  Since we are retired, we were there on a Monday and there were very few other people around.  Such a beautiful spot and the breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay.  Island Lake was formed by damming the Credit River to control flooding downstream.  There is an accessible 8 km trail all the way around the lake which we hiked on Tuesday morning.  Here are some pictures from our hiking adventures.  The highlight was a close encounter with a porcupine beside the trail at Mono Cliffs.  He quickly climbed a nearby tree when he saw us. 

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The next few pictures are from Island Lake.

Don't you just love the spring green colours this time of year?

We found some interesting local restaurants for dinner after our hikes and indulged in these decadent desserts at Mrs. Mitchell's restaurant in Violet Hill. My husband had carrot cake and I had tartufo.  Both well worth the splurge. 

When wandering around Orangeville, we came across their library and went in to check it out.  It is in an older building--a Carnegie library--which has been completely gutted and renovated into a beautiful, accessible hub for bibliophiles.  The local theatre created some giant books to create an entrance to the story room in the children's department.  We were very impressed!

Speaking of bibliophiles, here are our daughter's crocheted book squares and books for the month of May. 

Finn and our daughter had some great weather for being outside this past week.  

I will link up with Kathy, Frederique and the RSC folks this weekend.