This has been one busy year for me and the finishes are not coming fast and furious, but never being one to give up hope I'm compiling a list for this last quarter of the year.
I'll start with the Circle of Friends Quilt. It just needs to be quilted, and to add to that There is the Charm Pack Quilt which also just needs to be quilted.
Another quilt that just needs to be quilted is Preppy Pod. This one is likely to get done as it is for my grandson.
And I would like to finish this quilt which I started several years ago.
It's a pretty colourful group of quilts isn't it. It should be fun working this grouping closer to completion. I'll be linking up with the 4th Quarter FAL linkup at She Can Quilt and with the Let's Bee Social linkup at Sew Fresh Quilts.
This past weekend Wendy and Cyndy and I had our annual retreat. This time we went to Cyndy's sisters place close to Paris Ontario. It was a beautiful quiet place to get some quilting done and an awesome place for photo shoots.
We arrived on Friday before lunch and stayed till just after lunch on Sunday. Cyndy's sister and her husband were away visiting friends so they left their dogs Beau and Sam, to be our hosts. This is Beau.
And this is Sammy. Sammy is still a pup and never sits still.
It was great having the dogs with us. They made sure we got out for walks and kept us company.
We spent most of our time working on projects for the community outreach committee of our local guild but for today I'll just share the main one. These were blocks we received for our block lotto last fall. In a typical block lotto someone wins all the blocks but in this lotto we divided the blocks three ways. Two individuals won 1/3 of the blocks and the community outreach committee kept 1/3. We made a couple of blocks each to expand our flock and put them up on the design wall to figure out how to put the project together.
We originally thought we would use a white with black fabric for the sashing but we decided to use this vintage robins egg blue fabric which Wendy had brought along. Her parents recently downsized to a retirement complex and she needed to downsize her stash.
We put together the quilt top in vertical rows. We staggered the blocks in the vertical rows by putting a 2 1/2" sashing strip on opposite sides of each block. We then put a 2 12" strip between each block going down the row. Sorry I didn't think to take pictures of the process. We then spread out the rows a bit by putting a 1 1/2" strip between each row and on each of the vertical sides.
Of course we couldn't spend the weekend at a retreat without a visit to Quilt Junction in Waterford. We were half way there after all. Here is what I picked up there.
It's been a while since I visited my friend Beth at Cooking Up Quilts so I'm going to head over there right now and join the Main Crush Monday link up.
Two Saturdays ago Dwight and I spent a wonderful day at my son's place, baby sitting our grandsons. This time it was just normal baby sitting, no crisis. We took the kids to the nearby park and had so much fun. Gabriel is always so excited to see us (especially his Grandad ) and Eli at three months gives us big smiles, and coos when we talk to him.
This past weekend I was supposed to go to the Canadian Health Food Association Trade Show in Toronto but I came down with a virus. I decided to listen to my body and stay home to rest. Dwight caught the virus on Saturday. We had been going to visit my aunt, but she had to make do with a phone call instead. She sounds like she is doing o.k. I'm going to look for some wood to touch after I type this but I think things are settling down somewhat in the family.
Apart from the first day, the virus was pretty mild so I managed to finally spend some quality time on Eli's quilt and get the top finished. It's fun isn't it? Its the POD quilt by Elizabeth Hartman. I made the lap size but added an extra row of the smallest whales to the bottom to give it a bit more length. I'm linking with the OMG link up at Elm Street Quilts.
It feels really good to have this quilt top finished and I'm excited to start quilting it. I will be ordering some backing fabric from Fabric Spot along with my fabric for the Wayward Transparency Quilt Along and my friend Cyndy's fabric as well. This will make the order big enough to avoid shipping charges which is always a bonus!
I'm trying not to take on too much in terms of new projects but I'm excited to quilt along with Yvonne on this one. We will learn a lot about fabric choices for transparencies and will get an awesome quilt out of the process.
My co worker and her husband have finally settled on a name for their baby and I'll be using this next little grouping for Rory's quilt.
Tessa wanted a lot of colour to brighten up his room. I'm thinking of Sawtooth Stars with the animals in the centre of the stars. What do you think?
This is a short post to let you know that no I did not manage to finish my August goal and yes I am rolling that goal over to September.
This is the latest block I've made for this quilt. I finished it this evening. I like the red block and look forward to making a few more...maybe tomorrow morning. Here's hoping I'll have a complete quilt top by the end of the month. I'm heading over to the OMG link up to see what others have planned for the month. Then on Wednesday I'll link check out the Let's Bee Social link up and see what's going on there.
A couple of days ago my daughter in law posted Eli's 3 month photo on instagram and remarked that these three months had been the craziest they had ever experienced. I agree. It seems that my new normal has been responding to crisis on an almost weekly basis as three different members of my family have been in and out of the hospital. In the midst of all that came an oasis of calm when I took a weekend for myself to attend Quilting with your Walking Foot with Jacquie Gehring.
If you ever get a chance to take a workshop with Jacquie, please do. She is a superb teacher very clear and calm and with an easy manner that makes you feel like she is your friend.
We learned a lot of technical stuff in the workshop, and for me this was a lot easier to learn in real life than in a video or in a book. We learned how to mark our walking foot feet to help us in stopping and turning and yes going evenly along those curves in the spiral.
We practiced designs using minimal marking (two lines are marked in the sample above) and we learned to sew from point to point without a line. This skill which teaches you to look where you want to go not at your foot is one which will help me not only with my quilting but with my piecing. I've always had trouble sewing on a line. Sewing on the line is where we ended our sampling with this design which is made entirely of straight lines which are marked.
Jacquie brought along many sample of her work which was a great way to show us how the designs we were learning would look in a quilt. Jacquie's work is really inspirational and I left the workshop with a desire to look at where my quilting is going and where I would like it to go. My time is so limited now that I feel I need to be more selective with what I work on. I'd like to focus more on specific skills and creative design.
Jacquie was really good at helping us to recognize our skill level, to work within that skill level but also to break out bravely and learn new things.
I went to the workshop with Deb, who I met at the Toronto Modern Guild. I couldn't have chosen a better person to go with. She was a great room mate and it was fun getting to know her a little better on this trip. Maybe there will be future quilting adventures for us. I'm sharing this post with Beth at Main Crush Monday. Happy Labour Day everyone.
One Whale:
Two Whales:
Yellow Whales, Blue Whale:
This is the progress I've made so far on Eli's quilt. I have one more medium whale to make and I think eight or nine little ones.
In addition to this I have been preparing quilt sandwiches for a two day workshop with Jacquie Gering at Hyggeligt Fabrics in St Mary's this weekend. There are a lot of quilt sandwiches and I seem to be taking forever to get them done. I'm looking forward to the workshop. I am badly in need of some me time.
I'm also looking forward to spending some time with my friend Deborah from the Toronto Modern Guild. I met Deborah when she sat beside me at the January meeting and I ran into her at the airport when we were both going to Quilt Con in February. We kept running into each other throughout Quilt Con and it was there that we decided to take this class together.
We thought we would see each other lots of times at the Toronto Modern Guild meetings but that hasn't happened so we'll be seeing each other for the first time since February when she picks me up on the way. I think we will have a lot of fun. We are both stressing about those quilt sandwiches now and planning where to have dinner on Saturday night.
So I'm back to the quilt sandwiches now after I link up with Let's Bee Social.
I woke up this morning thinking about my grandson's and this made me very happy and wistful so I thought I would share the small amount of progress I have made on Eli's quilt. I am making him the Preppy Pod small quilt by Elizabeth Hartman although I will be adding one extra row of small whales to make the quilt a bit longer. This way it will be about the same size as Gabriel's quilt ( Dog Gone by Lorna McMahon) which you can see here.
I started with the one large whale and I am glad that I did because it gave me a great feeling of accomplishment getting a third of the quilt done so quickly. There is a lot more sewing in the rest of the quilt so it won't go as quickly.
I kept my feet in the photo so you get a sense of the size of the block. I also think my sandals go nicely with this block. I really love the two fabrics I used in this block. They are both designed by Rashida Coleman who is pretty much my favourite fabric designer. Here's a close up.
And here's a photo of the beautiful boy who will use this quilt one day.
I anticipate being quite busy this month, so I've chosen to making all the blocks for this quilt as my goal for August. They do make up rather quickly.
For those of you who have been following along with news on my aunt. She's doing a lot better and I'll be meeting her at the hospital on Friday and taking her home. So we will be pretty much back where we started which is o.k. I've enlisted the help of my kid's and my niece and nephews to each take a day of the week to phone her going into the future and we will once again try to initiate a discussion on long term care. Unfortunately she doesn't have insight into how vulnerable she is and she is the one who has to make the decision about entering the process to go on the lists.
I'm linking the post up to Let's Bee Social and to the OMG linkup for August.
