Happy Mother's Day!

 My daughter was here for the past week and she and Finn went home yesterday.  It was nice to have her here.  Finn was very excited to see her.  He loves it when all of us are together.  I did a little bit of cross stitch this past week, but no machine sewing.  I finished the framing stitches and added more sky stitches as well.  I hope to do more today. 

My daughter worked on her crochet while she was here, adding this pretty periwinkle lace border.  If you look at the close up, you can see flowers in it. There are still a few more rows to crochet on this but she is afraid she will run out of this colour so has ordered more.  

Finn and I spent some time outside one day, reading and enjoying the sunshine.  The Berry Pickers is the next book club book and we meet this Thursday to discuss it so I have some reading to do!

The redbud tree is in bloom in the backyard.  

Two more varieties of tulips bloomed this week.   Both of these have very short but colourful trumpets. 

This type of coral bells has beautiful leaves and not so spectacular flowers.  

This tree is in bloom in my neighbourhood.  So pretty. 

My daughter was in Newfoundland in February and went to the quilt store in St. John's and bought these FQ's for me.  We were in this store when my husband and I were there in 2023. 

I will link up with Frederique and Kathy.  Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers, and nurturing women in your lives. 

Sewing to and from QuiltCon in Atlanta

My husband and I drove to Atlanta last week so I could go to QuiltCon.  This was my second time attending this great gathering of modern quilters from around the world.  My friend, Christine and I went to the 2019 conference in Nashville, but unfortunately, she was unable to come this time.  As you know, I like to sew in the car to stay awake on long car trips and this trip was no exception.  I did quite a bit of stitching on my Spring picture. I forgot a couple of floss colours at home so the holes will be filled in soon. The rabbit is almost done and I have started working on the flowers.  I love the bright colours in this piece. 

Speaking of Spring, it had arrived in Atlanta before we got there for QuiltCon!  We spent an afternoon at the Atlanta History Museum and wandered around the grounds where there were lots of flowers in bloom. It was warm, 23 degrees Celsius, and the sun was shining.  

What better way to celebrate Spring than ice cream from Jeni's?  This is by far the best ice cream I have ever had.  We went to Jeni's when we were in Nashville too.  It seems to be a QuiltCon tradition...  I had Brown Butter Almond Brittle and Darkest Chocolate ice cream.  Yum!

Of course, I did a little shopping at QuiltCon.  

My orange fabric drawer was quite depleted so I added some more fat quarters to my stash as well as some dots and some fun neutrals.  I'm looking forward to trying out this new ruler and I've wanted to try making some rope baskets for a while too. 

While at QuiltCon, I noticed several people were sporting Quilty fashion items--jackets and bags.  Here are a few that caught my eye. 

I have a jean jacket in my closet that I don't wear very often...perhaps I will add embellish it with quilting and I can wear it to quilt shows...  

Of course, there were lots of wonderful quilts at the show too and I will show my favourites in a future post. Christine and I are off to a Guild Quilt Retreat this weekend. It may take a few posts to get caught up on all of the quilting news!  I will link up with Kathy on Sunday morning for Slow Sunday stitching.  I have packed my cross stitch to work on at the retreat. 

Take care. 

We Have a Visitor!

Finn is here!  Our daughter is quite busy at work for the next few weeks so we have Finn here to keep us company.  He loves to sit on the back of the couch and keep an eye on the comings and goings outside, as well as watch my husband and I.  Finn likes to keep track of his people.  He's staring at me as I type this blogpost on the computer...obviously, I need supervision!

Finn is not allowed in my sewing room so I have a baby gate up at the doorway so he can still see me but can't get into things in there.  I managed to do some walking foot quilting on my black and white checkerboard quilt after I worked out how to quilt it and marked the beginning of the design on the quilt with a Hera marker.  Now that the first few lines of stitching are done, it will be easy from here on out. I am using fuchsia thread that matches the sashing and border. 

My sewing machine is now in the dining room for the duration of Finn's visit.  This way, I can do a bit of sewing when he is napping.  It feels like having a two year old in the house --I have to keep an eye on what he is getting into all the time and sew during nap time!  I managed to make three more blocks for my Quilt for a Survivor of a Residential School, which several members of the Toronto Modern Guild are making. As a group, we have committed to making 30 quilts for this worthwhile cause.  I am aiming for 12 blocks and will add sashing and a border when the blocks are complete.  A couple of the blocks will be made from four small blocks as you can see in the second row.  I'm using brightly coloured batiks for this quilt--all from my stash. 

I made one more pinwheel block after the group shot above.  

I started making blocks for this quilt in an Improv class with Cheryl Arkison a few weeks ago. We learned different ways to make variations on four different traditional blocks--churn dash, pinwheel, log cabin and sawtooth star.  She encouraged us to just play, which is what I am doing. 

My knitting project, a hat for myself, is stalled until I can borrow some double pointed needles from a friend this week so I can finish off the decreases at the crown.  I have some yarn already for the pompom so I will need to make that this week too. 

I made some additions to my thread collection this past week. The turquoise and orange spools were purchased to replace some that were just about gone--the rest are colours that I did not have before.  

I received a fabric store gift card for my birthday so did a bit of stash enhancement!  --3 yards total.  I still aim to only buy backings and background fabrics for this year, besides this small birthday indulgence! 

More of the Witch Hazel flowers came out this week with the warmer weather.  

I will link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. Happy International Quilting Day!  I hope everyone had a chance to do a bit of quilting today!

Knitting and Stitching!

Last week, I showed you the block I made for one of the TMQG members for a round robin of sorts.  That block was supposed to be done and mailed by the end of July, but I was obviously late!  In an attempt to be caught up by the end of August, I made these 4 blocks for D.  She had requested black and white with a pop of colour and some words that reflected the times we are in on her block.  I found some fabric in my stash with French words on it--Bonjour and Merci were the words I wanted to share with her.  (hello and thank you in French)  Bonjour--because I have been actively saying hello to the people I meet when out on my walks each day and Merci--because I am thankful for the health care and essential workers who have kept us all going during the pandemic. 

I left the blocks whole but they could be cut up into quarters and reconfigured or into HST's or QST's.  I will leave that up to the recipient. 

I did some knitting in the car this past week.  Thankfully, I did not drop anything between the seats in the car this time!  I have added another repeat of the cables on my project. I might be the world's slowest knitter!  

Several of you have asked what I am making.  The plan is to make all three snow-people but the one I am currently working on is the snow-person on the left in the picture below.  This is a free Mary Maxim pattern which you can download here. 

I picked up my rust and brown swap blocks quilt from the long arm quilter this week and the binding has been applied by machine.  I am in the process of hand sewing it down on the back of the quilt.  I will finish this tomorrow and do some more knitting for my Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy. 

The pantograph is called Maple Syrup and features swirls and maple leaves.  The centre square in the centre block of the quilt has jugs of maple syrup on it.  I had just enough of the rust coloured fabric to make the binding.  There is a little bit left which will go into my scrap bins.

My husband and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary this past Thursday with a field trip day planned by my husband.  We had lunch on a patio at a winery followed by stops at a lavender farm/winery,  a quilting store in Waterford, a garden walk and then supper on another patio in the evening.  It was a fun day.  I had no idea where we were going when we headed out in the morning. I bought 4 one yard pieces of fabric...the white fabric with the circles on it will be the backing for my pineapple log cabin quilt. 

Have a good long weekend!  Finn says hello!

Gifts for My Family

A few months before our trip to Scotland and England, I decided to make several Quilty gifts for my family member that we would be visiting on our trip.  This Christmas star table topper was given to my cousin and his wife.  I used a Jaybird quilts pattern to make it. 

The backing is Christmas fabric I had in my stash. 

I made 6 wide open zippered pouches for various cousins as well. All of the fabrics were in my stash---obviously, I have too much fabric...

Canada themed pillowcases were given to my uncle and some other cousins. I bought these fabrics especially for these gifts.

I'm told that these went onto the pillows right away when they got home!

My cousin, Alison, loves to drink tea so her pillowcase was made with teacup fabric which I found in my stash.

I also brought along 5 lap/baby quilts as gifts...The first one was for my aunt who loves the colour purple.  

My step grandmother was given the scrappy trips lap quilt that I made earlier this year, just for her. It reminded me of her pretty garden.

My cousin and her husband were the recipients of my batik triangle quilt.

There were also two baby quilts--one for a recently born baby boy and one for a baby which will be arriving early in the new year.

You may wonder how I fit all these gifts into the suitcase...

We purchased vacuum bags and put all the quilts and pillow cases and zipper bags inside.  Once we sucked the air out with the vacuum cleaner, the bags were much smaller and fit quite nicely inside the suitcase.  We just had to watch the weight of the suitcases for the plane, but that worked out fine.

When we were in Inverness, we went out for supper and then decided on ice cream for dessert.  We looked on the internet for an ice cream shop within walking distance and found this one a few blocks away...  You will never guess what was next door!

A quilt shop with lovely quilts in the window.

I hoped that they would have some of this Scottish themed fabric in stock for me to buy!

The shop was closed but plans were quickly made to visit the shop when it opened in the morning. Across the road, we saw this shop...

Laskey's book shop is a famous used book store which is in an old church.  My husband loves to read so he headed here while I went to the quilt store.

The sun had just set as we headed back to our bed and breakfast inn.

There may have been some stash enhancement at the quilt store....