International Quilting Day

If you need a better excuse to spend the day in your sewing room ...here it is!!Today is a day of everything quilty!! I have many small projects that need to be tended to today. I have two guild meetings this coming week and need to have supplies ready to build blocks on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we have a charity workshop. Also at this guild we took January and February off so this is our first month back since before Christmas. So there will be lots to catch up on and with myself being 1/4 of the program committee.....I have some things to get ready for that evening including a sample for a class I am teaching in May.So today I will be searching through my stash and trying to find just he right fabric for that sample.

almost to the halfway point

These are two blocks I worked on yesterday. Hearts is BOM for February and the umbrella is for April's block(need to applique it yet).
The house is quiet with DH and dog gone to the huntcamp for get ready for maple syrup season. So I have the whole day to pet fabric, select what I want to work with and get busy. There is always that quilt in the frame that needs more stitches too. I am getting closer to the middle. You can check out here when I started a month ago,compared to what it looks like now.

katnap quilt by Quiltmaker Magazine.

Last weekend I gifted this quilt(on the left) to a little cutie pie named Wynter. She was almost a month old and I even got to hold her. This quilt was made when it first appeared in Quiltmaker magazine in 2003. I just had to wait for the perfect little one to come along that it was meant for. I loved this pattern so much I made it years later with Pooh characters.

Trunk Show

Ruthanne's quilt

brighter one

Last evening Ruthanne Drenth and myself were asked to do a showing of our work over the years, our favorite quilts and what has made us the quilters we are. Although we both have been quilting for well over 25 years...our work I felt was somewhat different. Ruthanne talked about the courses and classes she has taken over the years while I was (in the early years) self taught. I was young and no way could afford the classes or the good cotton fabric. In more recent years I have participated in classes offered at the guilds I belong to. Ruthanne has many award winning quilts and has participated in juried shows. I keep pretty much to my local guild shows and my ribbons include 1st place hand quilting award from  the Sudbury Quilts on the Rocks and a 2nd place ribbon in North Bay Quilts by the Bay show for machine quilting.
It is always a fun night to see other quilters and their stash of quilts. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Ruthanne herself.
I was going to do an all UFO show but decided to add in a few earlier quilts that were actually finished.

10+year old UFO of mine

Simon Says I taught at guild

My version of Bonnie Hunter's En Provence

my most recent finish

SURPRISE! They thought they were done!

 Never be afraid to show your work, be proud of it. I love doing trunk shows and show and tell!!!

Winning ways

It has been a busy week in my life. I have been helping around my mom's house. We put down new flooring and cleaned out years of things that have been stored for too long. It was a purging and cleaning week.  My only solace after all that is coming home to my quilting frame and finding some time to stitch away and relax. Almost ready to roll it once more. Most don't understand but with each roll, you are that much closer to the finish line.
Yesterday was a great day. We had a class going at guild and if you wanted to come and work on your UFOs you were welcome to. So I spent the day getting caught up on some sewing and enjoying the company of other guild members. I came home to supper ready by DH with the only downfall being I had to do dishes...which wasn't that bad. Then I settled into facebook to see what had been happening. WOW to my surprise I had a message waiting for me from Flare Fabrics(an Ontario fabric store) I had won a weekly contest they have. I will be receiving one meter of plaid fabric from their February TFIF contest. So I guess you can win at these online contests...but it rarely happens to me!!!
Also today I have to get some quilts together for a trunk show I am giving tomorrow night at a guild in North Bay that I was a member of until this year. I have decided to step back for  a bit and concentrate on the two other guilds I belong too along with trying to finish all those projects I have. So my trunk so might be a bit different than  the usually one. I will post more about it later this week as I have readers who belong to the guild and I don't want to spoil the surprise!!! wink wink!

outside our back door

So with pictures of quilting to show(I like to include pics in my blog) I decided to take some outdoors today.

looking down and out toward the street

Our little creek in the backyard is open and flowing and with the -28 degree Celcius days we have had the ice is building and making the water level rise....it has covered our bridge out back which is normally 5-7 feet above the water. We are expecting some warmer days to come so that should help...just hoping for no flooding of our yard or street.  Our little creek can be dangerous but it can also be very pretty and soothing to watch. The trees all around it are frosted up this morning and glistening in the sunlight(which is very hard to capture on the camera) so you will have to take my word on that.
I will also be checking in with Kathy and seeing what everyone is slow stitching on this Sunday. I will be sitting at the frame soon and taking breaks to do some housework and give my back a break!

Have a great week everyone!