Rainbow Scrap Challenge, Sunflowers and Battle Harbour, Labrador

This week, for the first time in a long time, I spent some time sewing every day!  In the sewing room, I worked on my light blue (June) and red (July) blocks for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  I now have 8 pineapple log cabin blocks completed.  I am aiming for 12 blocks for a wall hanging. I really like working on these scrappy blocks...the fabrics bring back all sorts of memories of other things I have made for us as well as gifts given to and received from friends and family alike. 

These 6.5" square slabs are made from my smallest scraps which I store in plastic shoe boxes by colour. 

I was making great strides on my counted cross stitch sunflowers until I discovered I had not counted correctly and had to take out a bunch of stitches...  I am back on track now and working on the top right quadrant of the picture.  (I will fill in the missing stitches on the top left sunflower when I get to that colour on the one on the right.)

My husband and I went blueberry picking this week and froze most of them, leaving enough out to eat fresh for the next few days.  

I went walking in my neighbourhood after it rained the other day and the sun came out, illuminating the water droplets on my neighbour's hosta flowers.  

Finn had a haircut this week...  Here is a picture from before the haircut--he was doing one of his chores--the prewash cycle of the dishwasher!!
 

And after the haircut...his ears always look very floofy after a haircut and blow dry!

While on our Newfoundland vacation in June, we took a ferry to Labrador where we spent a night at Battle Harbour.  It was an amazing place, where the people who hosted us told the stories of generations of their families who lived and worked in the cod fishery.  After the 1992 cod moratorium (due to dwindling cod stocks), several fishermen were trained to be historic restoration carpenters and the buildings and homes were restored to their former glory as a living museum which hosts guests like ourselves for an immersion experience like none other.  Here are some pictures from our visit to Battle Harbour:

Our guide, Janice, explained how cod nets worked. In the second picture, she showed us how the cod were processed for salting, storage and shipping.  Janice spent her summers as a child at Battle Harbour. 

An iceberg in the distance. 

We stayed in a room in the Merchant Building. 

Most of these buildings are private homes but some are accommodations for guests. 

This is the church where Janice was baptized. 

Delicious, made from scratch meals were served in the dining hall which used to be used to store fish waiting to be shipped. 

My husband and I took a couple of hikes around the island. 

It was chilly but we had the right clothes with us to keep warm. 

Can you find me in this picture?

At one time, the cod were bigger than a small child. 

Battle Harbour was certainly a highlight of our trip!  If you are ever going to Newfoundland on vacation, consider a side journey to this magical spot in Labrador. 

I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Slow Sunday Stitchers on the weekend. 

Local Tourists and Back to the Sewing Machine

I did not have a lot of sewing time in the last 10 days...you see, my cousin and her husband came to visit us for a week.  They live in Scotland and we had not seen each other since 2019.  Since it was their first visit to Canada, they wanted to see all the famous tourist sites including the CN tower in Toronto and Niagara Falls.  So, my husband and I planned an itinerary full of fun and interesting things to see and do...our days were full of chatting and laughing and doing activities together.  Before I share some pictures of the places we went, here is a picture of the very small amount of stitching that I got done while they were here. I hope to make more progress this coming week. 

My daughter is almost finished her Ottawa cityscape.  Just a few more spots to fill in. 

Our company left on Thursday evening so today, I reacquainted myself with my sewing machine by making some blocks for the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild Charity quilt for Quilt Con 2024--four identical 6.5" blocks in assigned colours.  I will put these in the mail tomorrow so they can be added to the quilt. 

I am two months behind on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks so I made a red pineapple block for July.  I will make the June block this coming week. 

In Toronto, we went up the CN Tower where the views were fabulous!  I had only to the CN tower twice before--once on a field trip in public school and once with my daughter about 20 years ago.  The Toronto skyline has changed a lot in those intervening years. 

In the evening, we took a one hour boat tour of the harbour and had great views of the city. 

There was a photo op at the TORONTO sign in front of city hall.  They were amazed at how busy it was and the size of the buildings. 

We spent several hours at "Little Canada" a scale model of various cities and sites in Canada. There were trains running on the tracks and cars driving on the roads and lots of tiny people in all sorts of interesting situations. 

It was interesting to see the buildings in the model and then see them in real life as well. These curvy buildings are in Mississauga, just west of Toronto. 

If you are ever in Toronto, I highly recommend a visit to Little Canada. 

We spent the next day at Black Creek Pioneer Village, a living history museum with costumed interpreters in most of the buildings.  I spotted an old cross stitch sampler and a sewing machine in one of the buildings.  

We spent the next day at Point Pelee National Park near Leamington where we rode bikes and went on a boardwalk hike in the marsh where we saw several turtles, lots of birds and dragonflies and two beavers. 

Next, we went to Niagara Falls where we climbed the Brock Monument... 

Had butterflies land on us at the Butterfly Conservatory...

Went on the Voyage to the Falls Boat tour...  (this used to be called the Maid of the Mist--I had never been on this boat tour before!). This picture was taken from the Journey Behind the Falls. 

We also strolled along the Main Street in Niagara on the Lake and admired the beautiful flowers.

On the way home, we stopped at the Welland Canal viewing area in St. Catharines and watched a large ship go thought the locks. 

Our final full day together was a tour of our home town and included visits to the Elevated Park, local murals, Port Stanley and, of course, Shaws Ice Cream Parlour.   

We all thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the sites together and look forward to when we can see each other in person again. They didn't get to see Finn and our daughter in person, but we did talk on FaceTime several times while they were here. 

I will link up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning as well as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge folks. 

Back from Vacation!

My husband and I have been away for a month on vacation in Newfoundland, which explains my absence on my blog for the last few weeks.  It took three days of solid driving to get to the ferry in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Port aux Basques in Newfoundland.  We listened to an audiobook, "Son of a Critch", by Mark Critch in the car.  Mark's stories about growing up in Newfoundland had us laughing out loud during our journey.  Of course, I did some stitching in the car, making lots of progress on my Sunflower Cross stitch project. You can see that I have just about finished this quarter of the picture. 

We went in June, hoping to see some icebergs, and we were not disappointed!  From small pieces of ice washed up on the shore (bergy bits) to small icebergs in harbours (growlers) to massive chunks of ice floating in deep water, we saw them all. We took an Iceberg boat tour one afternoon from Twillingate.  

This last picture was taken at 8am the morning.  We went to see the Long Point Lighthouse at Twillingate that morning, and just over the cliff, we saw this: 

It is difficult to comprehend how massive these icebergs are---especially when you realize that 9/10's of each iceberg is below the water!  This growler in Baie Verte had a Dr. Seuss like quality to it!

Bergy Bits: 

I had also hoped to see a moose while we were in Newfoundland--we saw 10 of them, including this one at the side of the road one morning.  We had to be very cautious driving, especially early in the morning and after supper,  as there are thousands of moose in Newfoundland and they often venture out onto the roads.  We also saw two caribou and a black bear but did not get any pictures of them. 

  

The seagulls dive for sea urchins (and other shellfish) and drop them on the rocks to break the shells so they can eat the tender morsels inside. 

I will add more pictures and details about our trip in future blogposts.  Because no blogpost is complete without a picture of Finn...here he is!  Our daughter bought some new cushions for her couch...Finn wants you to know he approves.  

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday morning.