Camp Kintail Crafter's Retreat Report

My friend Christine and I attended the Spring Crafter's Retreat at Camp Kintail this past weekend.  Since last week was extremely busy, I did not have anything to blog about before I left on Friday, but now, I have lots to share! We drove through some snow squalls on the way to the camp on Friday but the roads were fine.  We managed to get some walking in while we were there, in between meals and sewing.  I always get lots done at a retreat--no meals to prepare, no dishes to do...just sew, sew and sew!

 I started out with a couple of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for April--the colour for this month is pink. 

Of course, we brought our own quilts for the beds in our room.  Christine's Roll Roll Cotton Boll:

My Friendship star quilt, made by some quilting friends for me when my Dad died 4 years ago. 

After breakfast on Saturday, I pulled out my big project for the weekend.  In 2019, I participated in the Coming Home medallion quilt along  online class with Sarah Fielke in Australia.  I managed to keep up for the first 6 months and then life got in the way. I got back at it a year later and made the large house border, and then put it away again.  I decided to bring this quilt along for the weekend to see if I could gain some momentum to get it closer to the finish line. I spent Saturday and Sunday cutting out, glue basting and hand appliquéing doors and windows on the houses.  I finished 2 1/2  "Streets" and now I'm motivated to keep working on this project. Here are some pictures:

I have the next 4 houses glue basted and ready to sew. I hope to work on them later today. Christine made a cloth book for her grand-daughter (I didn't get a picture) and made blocks for a new quilt.  I love the bright and cheerful fabrics she chose to use. She started another project as well.  Both of us are trying to use our stashes rather than purchase more fabrics (except for backings and backgrounds).  

We woke up on Sunday morning to snow falling.  Everything was white. By lunch time, it had melted, thankfully.  The roads were fine for the trip home. 

What a fun and productive weekend!!!  I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers as well as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks this weekend. 

Finn is 4 years old today!  Our daughter bought him two honky pigs for his birthday...He is having lots of fun playing with them!  Happy Birthday, Finn!

My Helper

I made a few more batik blocks this week for my Quilt for a Residential School Survivor.  I only have two more blocks to make.  I am contemplating ideas...  Finn likes to "help" while I am sewing, or should I say, trying to sew... 

I am going to make 12 blocks for this quilt--3 of each type.  Here are my three log cabin variation blocks.  I made the bottom one today and the one on the right with the green border earlier in the week. 

I added the orange churn dash block to the collection today.  I just have one star block and one pinwheel block to make and then I can put them together.  I will likely use a solid for sashing and borders. 

I finished knitting my hat this week, after borrowing some double pointed needles from my friend.  I'm working on the pompom. I like the way the top of the hat looks!

I managed to quilt 1/4 of the checkerboard quilt.  I brought it up to the kitchen to get a picture of the quilting so far and my helper arrived to pose for a picture. This quilt is about as big as I will quilt with my walking foot.  Anything bigger can go to a long armer. 

This coming week is looking really busy but I hope to get some time to do some more quilting...maybe even to finish it by next weekend. 

I belong to the book club at our local library. We will be discussing "The Dictionary of Lost Words" by Pip Williams in early April.  Finn is a very good leg warmer while I read, or try to read!  I highly recommend this historical fiction book if you are looking for something good to read.  

For my slow stitching this week, I have dug out my embroidery that I started a while ago and never finished.  I should have some time here and there this week to add some more stitches to this project.  

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning. I can't believe it will be time to change the calendar to April at the end of this week.  If I could just convince the warmer weather to come and stay...it snowed today.  As far as I am concerned, SNOW is a bad four letter word this time of year!

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!

Two Quilt Backs and Some Knitting.

I tackled one of my least favourite parts of making a quilt this past week, not once but twice!  Some people don't like hand stitching the binding but for me the worst task is piecing the backing.  My lupin quilt used 8 yards of fabric for the backing and wrestling all of that fabric through the machine while trying to keep it all from falling on the floor is not fun. BUT, it's done now and ready to take to the long arm quilter's house.  Phew!

A group of friends is participating in our own little UFO challenge.  Getting my lupin quilt ready for the long armer was my February project.  For March, I am hoping to get this quilt to the finish line.  I make the backing this week from fabric that was in my stash. I had to insert a chunk of pink fabric leftover from the front into the backing to make it big enough. There's only three yards of fabric in this backing so it was not such a chore to get the backing made. I made the quilt top last year as part of the Colour Blocks challenge with Debby Brown on Facebook. I pin basted the quilt today on the kitchen floor so it is ready for walking foot quilting this week when the mood strikes.  I have several ideas for quilting floating around in my head and need to settle on one before I get started.  

My Shweshwe HST quilt top is done and I am in search of a suitable backing fabric, preferably from the stash.  I have already decided how this one will be quilted so hopefully, the backing fabric will appear from the depths soon. 

I made a mistake in my hat that I am knitting and could not figure out how to fix it so I ended up ripping all of it out and starting again.  I have made good progress and hope to finish the hat this coming week. I should be able to wear it this year as we still have some days that are cold enough for a hat when I go walking every morning, especially if it is a bit windy. I have a few hats that each work well in different temperature ranges to keep me warm. 

Our daughter sat on the couch to do some work this week so Finn snuggled up with his head on her shoulder to supervise.  He is an excellent neck warmer. 

The first sign of Spring in our garden:  the witch hazel is in bloom, even though it was snowing the day I took this picture. 

I will link up with Kathy and the slow Sunday stitchers in the morning.