The Guild Quilt Show

The biannual Oxford Quilters Guild Show in Embro, Ontario happened over the past couple of days. As you know, I spent much of my sewing time over the past couple of weeks sewing sleeves onto my quilts for the show. On Wednesday morning, I dropped off my quilts and Christine's quilts so that they could be hung for the show. I entered 11 quilts and my barn quilt into the show and took pictures of each of them at the show.  

This is one of the quilts I made for the new Hospice which will be opening this summer.  It's a potato chip quilt. 

My modern sampler was my only bed sized quilt that I entered into the show.  It was a bit too long for the quilt rack so the bottom of it was pinned up. 

This big quilt was made by Megan using a pattern from "Quilts of Iceland".  My Shadowbox quilt is on the chair beside it. 

Here is my Overlapping Tiles quilt. It has all bias edges which is why the bottom is a bit wavy. 

I can't remember who made the house quilt but Christine made the pink and gold quilt.  My Crumby Stars quilt is on the chair. 

This is a better picture of Christine with her Pink Pineapple quilt. 

Christine called her hollow nine patch quilt "Jelly Beans."

Here is my scrappy nine patch.  You can see that both Christine and I like to make scrappy quilts!

Yet another scrappy quilt--this one is an I Spy Potato chip quilt. 

This is a Poppyprint pattern--I forgot to get a picture of the label and can't remember who made it.  You can probably tell why I liked it!

Several years ago, three friends and I ran our own round robin one summer.  This is Christine's quilt.  I made the triangle border.   (More scraps!)

Lynn made this fabulous teal/turquoise quilt during the pandemic. 

My Arizona Adventures quilt...

It was fun to see two barn quilts at the show--this one is mine and Christine made the second one, but I did not get a good picture of hers. 

My Whistlestop quilt was displayed with another quilters "cats in teacups."

This is Christine's recently finished Christmas quilt. 

"Put a Ring on It"-- machine pieced and hand quilted by me.

I really like making I Spy quilts... this one was  made with Half Rectangle Triangles.

I suggested that we offer a Scavenger Hunt for younger visitors to the quilt show. After the quilts were hung, I went back and made a list of things that could be found in the quilts.  I typed it up and the chair of the quilt show committee and I made prizes for participating in the hunt.  I made several rope bowls and Gwen made some pouches and crayon rolls. I was at the show on Friday and there were several children that completed the challenge.  It was fun to watch them looking at all the quilts to find everything.  (Feel free to borrow this idea for your guild's quilt show!)

Finn and I did some reading on the front porch this week.  I started a new book. 

Our gardens are bursting with spring blooms. 

When in Newfoundland in 2023, I purchased a rug hooking kit. This flower, a pitcher plant, is a carnivorous plant and is the provincial flower of Newfoundland.  Here is a picture of the plant in full bloom--this is not the pattern that I am stitching.  I have started hooking the border as you can see below.  This will be my slow stitching project for the next while. 

Christine, Katharine, and Carol and I are doing another round robin starting this month.  Here is my centre block and the fabrics I am including for people to add borders. I will not see it again until the big reveal at the end of the summer. 

 I will link up with Kathy and Frederique as usual. 

Lupin Cross Stitch is Done

I added the last outlining stitches to my lupins cross stitch this week when Christine was over to sew one evening. I will take this to the framers soon, along with my Winter Woods project.  I purchased this kit when we were in Newfoundland in June 2023.  I also purchased a kit to make a pitcher plant hooked rug when I was there and hope to work on it next. 

I found my bin of cotton clothesline cording and made a couple of rope bowls this week.  I will probably make a few more this week to use up the cording that is in the bin. The pink fabric was leftover from a quilt backing and was in my pink scrap bin. The darker spots are little birds. 

At the church sewing group, I made another apron for the Christmas bazaar---there is a pocket--Can you see it?  I matched up the pattern so it is not obvious.  I also made a little stuffed rabbit but it still needs a pompom for the tail. Next up, I will be working on an Advent Calendar panel.  

My scarf is a few inches longer --I managed to have two knitting sessions this week.  It needs to be about 15 inches longer than it is right now. 

I tried a new recipe for Lemon Blueberry loaf this week.  It smells heavenly!  

Our azalea bush is in full bloom!  It is such a bright spot of colour in our front garden.

The deutzia bush is in bud.  Soon, it will be covered in small white flowers.  So pretty. 

We took Finn for a walk in the woods at a local conservation area this week.  There were a few wet spots but we managed to stay relatively mud free.  

This Friday and Saturday is the Oxford Guild Quilt Show.  I have 11 quilts plus my painted barn quilt block in the show. If you are in the area, we would love to see you there!  

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning and with Frederique now.  

Last Post of 2023

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and some time to relax this past week once the festivities were over.  I have managed to do a bit of knitting this week as well as some un-sewing (more on that later in this post!).  During the month of December, I worked on knitting a new hat for my husband whenever he was out or otherwise occupied.  Despite my best efforts, I did not get it done in time and he ended up unwrapping an unfinished gift.  He was surprised and pleased with my gift to him, which makes it all worthwhile.   The hat features three colours of wool and 6 moose figures--I had to learn how to do colour work with the help of YouTube and my friend, Pat.  The pictures below show the hat in progress...

The hat pattern is from a book I purchased in Newfoundland when we were there in June.  "Saltwater Classics" by Christine Legrow and Shirley A. Scott.   We saw several moose while we were in Newfoundland.  I started doing the decreases for the crown of the hat earlier today but have to change to DPN's for the last few rows...I need to borrow these from Pat in order to finish the hat.  I should have it done in no time once I have the needles. 

I like to make gifts for family and friends.  This year, many of them received rope bowls.  These bowls are about 7" across and fairly shallow...perfect for some jewelry, a watch, etc.  I tried to make them in each person's favourite colours. The bowls shown below are a sampling of the ones I made. 

A few years ago, I started some cross stitch ornaments in a month by month stitch along with the intention of making all 12--well, I ended up cross stitching three of the designs and only one was ever finished and gifted to my friend Pat. This year, I finished off the last two and gave them to a couple of friends.  

I made pillowcases for my husband and my daughter.  The whale and blueberry fabrics were purchased in St. John's, Newfoundland.  I have fabric to make myself a Newfoundland pillowcase as well, but ran out of time.  This will be a January project. 

I unstitched the worn out binding from my daughter's quilt and will make and machine stitch the new binding to the quilt tomorrow.  I will get the hand sewing done before she goes home.  This will be my Slow Sunday Stitching!  You can see that the old binding has done its time!

Finn gave me a cute Sewing Store puzzle for Christmas!  He's a great shopper!

He also likes to be comfortable on a soft pillow for his naps...

We had butter tarts and fruit skewers for Christmas dinner dessert.  I purchased the butter tarts from our local farmer's market...they disappeared quickly!  Santa was keeping his eye on them!

I made my SIL a Christmas wall hanging at one of the retreats I attended in November.  I could not show it until now as she often reads my blog!

My daughter received a couple of counted cross stitch kits for Christmas and has started one of them.  

That's all the news from here for this week.  Happy New Year!  I will link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching crew in the morning.