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!!! 

Fall Quilt Festival

Amy is once again hosting the Bloggers' Quilt Festival and I have decided to enter a quilt.

This quilt is made from selvages, the edges of the fabric that I used to throw in the garbage! I have been following Karen Griska's Selvage Blog for a couple of years now and have been saving my selvages for about a year. I washed all of the fabric in my stash this summer and cut off all of the selvages as I ironed and folded the fabric pieces.  I had an overflowing drawer full of selvages and decided it was time to make a quilt with them.  My husband gave me Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran's book "Freddy and Gwen Collaborate Again" for my birthday earlier this year. As I wandered through its pages, admiring the quilts, I found the one I wanted to use for my selvage quilt--Liberated Wedding Ring. 

One day, I decided to try one block, just to see how it would look. These blocks are foundation pieced on muslin. I liked the results and soon had one complete ring finished. The next day I decided to make a few more and within two weeks, I had finished piecing the entire quilt. It was addictive!

A long arm quilter at the London Friendship Quilters' Guild did the quilting--lots of feathers and I LOVE the way it turned out. The selvages hold lots of memories of friends who saved them for me as well as clothing I made for myself and my daughter over the years. There is even a selvage from my dress I wore on my honeymoon over 21 years ago in this quilt!

Thanks for visiting my blog to see my quilt. You are welcome to visit any time!

"Harvest of Quilts"

The biannual quilt show of the London Friendship Quilters' Guild is packed up and cleaned up now. Lots of people came to the show--family and friends of members as well as people who saw our advertising and dropped by to see the quilts. There were an abundance of items at the raffle table and many of our charity quilts were on display. The tea room served delicious treats. The quilts were beautiful and showed the hard work and artistic talents of the members of the guild.

This blue and white quilt had only two fabrics in it!

They say diamonds are a girl's best friend!

This one was made by Christine at a disappearing 9 patch workshop last Fall.

One of the guild members took an Indian Orange Peel workshop with Heather Stewart.  I am organizing this workshop for myself and 17 other quilters in November.

This quilter does beautiful applique work and had 4 applique quilts in the show.

This afternoon, I added the borders to my niece's Christmas quilt. I will finish her sister's quilt top before taking both of them to the machine quilter's to be quilted. This quilt looks a bit wild but it is made of material leftover from PJ's that I have made each year for my nieces' birthdays. 

I hope to get the other quilt top done this week.

Quilt Show Season!

Today, I went to the Oxford Quilt guild show in Ingersol, Ontario. "Pieces of Magic"--lots of beautiful quilts. Several showed different colourways of the same pattern such as Friendship Braid. They had a FB class at the guild. It was interesting to see how different the quilts looked with the fabrics that each quilter picked. I only took a few pictures. They had two places where the quilts were displayed--Trinity United Church and the Ingersol Art Centre. I took pictures of my favourite quilts at each site:

Lots of tiny pieces in this sampler!!!  Maybe I will try one of these one day as a new challenge to myself!

These quilts were made at a workshop led by a guild member who had learned about the Gee's Bend quilts. I picked the one in the bottom picture as my favourite at the Art Centre.

Tonight was the first meeting of the season for the Elgin Piecemaker's Guild. Lots of good show and tell. I had my camera but did not take any pictures.

Tomorrow, I have to be up bright and early for the London Friendship Quilters' guild show. I think I am Over-Dosing on quilt shows this week...

Ready for the Quilt Show

I spent most of the afternoon making labels and sewing them on the last few quilts for the quilt show. Finally, they are all ready to go! 

I have spent time over the last few days working on my nieces' flannel disappearing 9 patch quilts. Here is a sneak peak at one of the quilts, without all the blocks sew together yet:

The other one is still waiting for me to sew  the blocks back together after cutting the 9 patches into 4 pieces.

These are Christmas gifts --I am hoping to have them done early as I have some other gifts that I am working on as well.

I also finished off my Gee's Bend Challenge today as well.  We are getting together later this week to reveal our projects. I will post a picture after the big reveal.

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!

Online Quilt Festival with Park City Girl

In the Spring, I entered a quilt in Amy's Online Quilt Festival. It was fun and inspiring to visit the other sites to see the quilts that everyone had made. I have been thinking about which quilt I would like to enter in the festival and decided on "In My Garden". I made this quilt from a pattern I found online. It had been done in Christmas fabrics. I had recently purchased some summer/garden themed fabrics at "Sitting Pretty" in Ridgetown, Ontario and decided to use them to make this quilt.



I took this picture, appropriately, in my garden! We had lots of rain this summer so the grass was green and lush all summer long.

This quilt top is currently at the long arm quilters and I have been told that it is next in line to be quilted. I can hardly wait to get it back and add the binding and label to finish it off! There are some quilt shows coming up locally and I hope to put it on display for others to enjoy.

Thanks for visiting!