International Plowing Match and a Parcel in the Mail

Today was the first day of the International Plowing Match in Central Elgin, just west of St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. I volunteered in the quilting tent for the morning where I sold raffle tickets with another local quilter from the Elgin Piecemakers Guild. We had lots of visitors from all over the province and one lady was from Quebec!
This is the sign outside the quilt tent--Elly is the mascot of the IPM this year.
Here is my quilt on display. All of the quilts were covered with plastic in case it rained and the tent leaked! No rain today. Warm and sunny all day!

When I got home, there was a package on my front porch--it was my pumpkin wall hanging for the Quilted Table Yahoo group swap from Joan, a quilter from Denver, Colorado! She sent along a few goodies too.
Thanks Joan for the wonderful parcel!

Quilt Show

Yesterday, I spent the day in Shedden at the International Plowing Match Quilt Show. The quilts were judged on Wednesday and the show was hung on Thursday. Friday and Saturday, they were open for people to come and see the quilts. I volunteered as a "white glover" on Saturday. There were about 80 quilts in the show and around 700 people came to see the quilts.
I enjoyed the day, walking around looking at the quilts and talking to people I saw at the show. I took pictures of several quilts including mine, shown above. I really liked working on this quilt and loved how it turned out.

Here are some of my favourite quilts at the show:This quilt won a prize in the applique category. It was heavily quilted as was the pink and white one beside it, also a prize winner.
Here is a close up of another of the prize winning applique quilts. You can see the entire quilt as well as some other pictures from the show over at Nancy's blog.


I would love to make a house quilt someday!

The leaf shape was quilted into the black parts of the quilt.

A quilter from the Elgin Piecemakers Guild made this one.

This postage stamp quilt was made using a cross stitch pattern--one 1" square of fabric per cross stitch on the pattern--thousands of 1" squares... The quilt to the left was also a prize winner--an applique piece depicting the Canadian Parliament Building in Ottawa.

The organizing committee had a block competition and then put the submitted blocks together to make 4 quilts which are being raffled off. I took pictures of 3 out of the 4 quilts. (The 4th was not in a good place to be photographed.)




















Here is the block that I made. We had to use at least 4 of the 5 fabrics provided. There was a great variety in the blocks submitted--No two the same.
Of course, the mascot of the Plowing Match was there...
I haven't been doing any sewing lately. We are working on our garden these days: moving plants, weeding, purchasing new plants and planting them, thinning out some of the perennials, etc. There is a large pile of mulch in my driveway at the moment, waiting to be put onto all of the gardens. This job will take several evenings to do but should result in less weeding--always a good thing! Tomorrow night is MNIC at my house--"Mulching Night in Canada"--if anyone cares to join us, bring your own shovel and wheelbarrow--Did I mention we have 6 cubic yards of mulch to spread around???

While my husband and I were eating supper outside on Friday, we saw a red bird in the tree behind our house. I ran inside for my camera and my telephoto lens to get a picture to see if we could identify the bird. If you know what kind of bird this is, let me know. I have not seen one like this before. I hope he comes back to visit again!

Fly Away Home has flown the coop!

"Fly Away Home" is done. I finished the hanging sleeve when I got home from my vacation and I delivered it to one of the co-chairs of the International Plowing Match Quilt Show today. The quilt competition and show are this weekend--Friday and Saturday in Shedden, Ontario at the Keystone Complex at the Fairgrounds. If you are in this area, you might want to stop in and take a look at the quilts. There will also be vendors and a refreshment area. I will be there most of the day on Saturday. The judging will take place on Wednesday and the show will be set up on Thursday, and then open to the public on Friday and Saturday. The quilts will be displayed again at the International Plowing Match at the St. Thomas airport in September.

I just signed up for Amy's Online Quilt Show. I hope all of you enjoy my sampler quilt. Click on "Grateful Heart Sampler" in the list in the sidebar if you want to see close-ups of each block as I was working on them. I spent a few months piecing the blocks for this quilt and then had it machine quilted by a local longarm quilter. The original pattern came from a magazine.

I will do another vacation blog shortly.

Binding

I sewed the binding onto my Fly Away Home quilt tonight. I thought that I had made lots of binding, but in the end, I had to cut a little bit more out of the scraps that were leftover from the border of the quilt. These two small pieces are all that are left now that I have the binding on! Thank goodness I had enough!








I also hand sewed the binding on two more table toppers tonight. Only 3 to go now! I will be sewing binding again tomorrow night on the sampler quilt. Then, I will have to do the hanging sleeve...the hand sewing just goes on and on and on... I will be glad when it is finished!

Fly Away Home is back!

I went to pick up my sampler quilt from the longarm quilter's house tonight. She had it all laid out in her living room when I arrived. She stitched in the ditch in the body of the quilt and on the flying geese border. The outer border has a pattern called "Chantilly Lace". The pink border has a wiggly line quilted onto it. I just love this quilt! I took my time to make each block and I have learned so much piecing this quilt. I have enjoyed every minute of putting it together, except maybe adding the borders! Here is a close up of the house block. The door needs a doorknob. Any ideas on how to add one???
Tonight, when I got home, I pieced another table runner. I used hour glass blocks made from a charm pack for this runner. I bought some fabric to use for backings for all of the table runners today. It is being washed as I type.
I have a quilt guild meeting tomorrow night and I have lots to bring for show and tell--all of the table runners and the Fly Away Home quilt will be coming with me, even though they are not all done yet.

I just found some leftover blocks from my "Off My Beaten Path" quilt that I made a couple of years ago. I think I will use them to make a couple of table toppers and then I will be caught up with the gifts I need to make.

This weekend, I am going to a quilt show in St. Mary's, Ontario, Canada with a couple of quilting friends. I went to this show with Karen a couple of years ago and was very impressed with the quilts, the food in the lunch room and the antique quilt bed turning that they did at the show. I am looking forward to a fun Saturday with friends! The rest of the weekend, I will be quilting my table runners and adding the binding to my Fly Away Home quilt. Sounds like a perfect weekend!

A Trip to the Longarm Quilter's!

I spent my sewing time on the weekend adding borders to my Grateful Heart sampler. Last night and today after work, I finished piecing the backing. My label is pieced right into the backing and is made from one of the butterfly pictures from the panel that came with the Northern Solitudes fat quarter bundle that I used to make this quilt. I must say that I am relieved to have this quilt done and off to the longarm quilter's! Putting borders on and making the backing are my most un-favourite parts of making a quilt!

Here is a close up of the borders that I added to my quilt. There are 156 flying geese in this quilt and they inspired the name of the quilt "Fly Away Home". My SIL came up with the name after looking at some pictures of the quilt blocks on my blog while we chatted on the phone together. Some of the blocks, for example, the house block, the rail fence, the log cabin, etc., reminded her of HOME. The flying geese traveling around the outside of the quilt, reminded her of the movie "Fly Away Home" (This is an excellent movie that you should rent and watch if you have not seen it already!) so the name stuck! My SIL is not a quilter, but is a very artistic person so I value her opinions on my quilting endeavours. She calls me a "quiltaholic"--I told her she is an "enabler"--after all, she did buy me the Elvis fabric shown in a previous post as a gift from her recent vacation...



My friend, Karen, and I took the quilt to the longarm quilter's tonight. Here it is, all laid out as we discussed how to quilt it. I will post a picture of the whole quilt when it is all done. Her Gammil quilting machine is in the background. As soon as she is finished the quilt she is doing now, my quilt will go on the machine. I should have it back within a week!!!

Grateful Heart Sampler Progress

I sewed the evening away tonight and finished putting all of the blocks together for my Grateful Heart Sampler. I just have to add the borders now. I also ironed the border fabrics. One more evening of sewing should do it!! I will be glad to get this one off to the Longarm quilters! I have other projects I would like to work on---Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas Mystery Quilt for one... AND I would also like to finish my Spinning Squirrels and Maggots quilt, as well as my Fractured Squares quilt--it just needs borders and then it can be taken in for quilting. Sew much to do, just not enough time!!!

Grateful Heart Sampler Progress

I have been working on the flying geese border for this quilt all week. Most nights, I was cutting out squares or sewing or trimming up the 156 units I needed for the border and the main part of the quilt. This morning, I finally finished putting the flying geese together. This is a very colourful border!







This afternoon, I have been putting the blocks together in rows. This is a long slow process as I am trying to match all of the seams and keep all my points pointy! My daughter is home from university for the Easter weekend so she helped me adjust the layout of the blocks slightly before I go ahead and sew them together. It's good to have an extra set of eyes or two look at everything before finalizing the design. The first two rows are done and I am currently working on the 3rd row.

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.

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.

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.