My Second November Quilting Retreat

Christine and I attended the annual November Crafter's retreat at Camp Kintail this past weekend.  We both love these weekends away to get lots done on our current and new projects.  I just noticed that a lot of my projects are green in this post...  I made this I Spy HRT quilt top at the Oxford Guild retreat early in November and managed to get it quilted and bound at the retreat.  I finished off the hand stitching on the binding at home this week. 

I found this fun green and white striped fabric in my stash for the binding. 

The backing fabric was also in my stash, but as you can see below, I did not have quite enough of the dotty fabric so I added in a couple of strips to make the backing big enough. 

Christine also quilted a baby quilt and added the binding at the retreat.  With us is Mary, a knitter, who also attends the retreat each year. She was making socks for her brothers for Christmas. 

I made the last two pineapple blocks for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project...gold and dark green.  I have not sewn these blocks together yet but you can see my 12 blocks below. 

My green hat is just about done--I just have a bit of the seam to finish sewing up and then I can wear it!

I have started my scarf to match...I found an easy pattern on Ravelry.  knit 2, knit one in the back, pearl one.  Rinse and repeat.  I like the texture! The scarf will be a lower priority over the next while as I work on Christmas gifts. 

I finally quilted my Whistlestop quilt, a pattern by Christine at Tessalated Quilts.  I made the top a while ago and just never got around to quilting it until now.  Again, more green!

I chose to do some orange peel and straight line quilting with my walking foot.  I added the binding at home this week and will work on the hand stitching this weekend. 

Here is a cute picture of Finn as a brief break from all of my project photos!

Camp Kintail was decorated for Christmas, inside and outside.  This is the path from the building where we were sewing to where we had our meals. 

As I said in my last post, I put my sunflower cross stitch aside and have started a Christmas project.  It will not be done for this Christmas but it is fun to work on a seasonal project at this time of the year. 

My modern sampler quilt has most of the backing pieced with fabrics leftover from the front of the quilt as well as other fabrics from my stash. I have one more piece to add at the top and then I can take this to the long armer.  It is a twin sized quilt and too big for me to quilt on my DSM.

Another view of the path through the woods at Camp Kintail!

This quilt is an Elgin Piecemakers comfort quilt for a chemo patient at our local hospital.  Lynn put the blocks together and I am doing the binding.  I have lots of slow stitching to keep me busy this weekend!  I made the boat block in the bottom row of the quilt. 

I will be linking up with Kathy and the slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday morning, as well as the Rainbow scrap challenge folks on Saturday morning and at Frederique's blog too on Saturday.  I am off to work on some Christmas gifts.  Yikes! It is December 1st tomorrow!

Sunflowers, A Knitting UFO and Borders

 There is a reason why they call it SLOW stitching...it takes a long time to finish a project.  I am still working on the second quadrant of my Sunflower cross stitch.  I don't have a deadline for this picture so it will get done when it gets done.  

I found a project bag with this knitting in it this week--I started this dish cloth in February and it got put away... it was about half done. I decided it needed to be finished! I'm not sure why I waited so long.  I bought some wool to make myself some mittens, a scarf and a hat so one of those will be my next knitting project. 

There is a little town north of London, Ontario called Exeter.  On their welcome sign, it states that they are the home of white squirrels.  I have been to Exeter many times over the last 38 years and had never seen a white squirrel, until this week! Apparently, the white colour is a genetic mutation of the more common gray squirrel. 

My husband and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary this week.  He brought me flowers... so pretty.  

I added asymmetrical borders to my HRT project earlier this week and managed to keep all of my points!  I have to figure out how to quilt this one so for now, it will be in the "to be quilted" pile. 

My husband and I went to a Heritage Farm Show today.  The chickens and turkeys were my favourite part of the show. I managed to get a few good pictures of these rapidly moving targets!

One of the old tractors had this little tractor in its Pre-Cleaner...LOL!

Finn was given a new bandana this week from our nieces. Both of our nieces worked at a Provincial Park this summer and bought this cute bandana for Finn as well as one for each of their two border collies, Skye and Kindle.  All these boys are looking very dapper!

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.