Quilting can wait...right!?!

Well it had to wait this weekend.  Our neighbour came over and cut down a huge dead Elm tree in our yard. DH was feeling a bit under the weather so I felt sorry for him having to do all the clean up alone...so work boots, gloves and rake in hand, the clean up began. Who knew picking up sticks and small logs would create so many steps on my fitbit!!


Today we were back at it, trying to beat the rain that was forecast. We had a few snowflakes fall on us and some ice crystals...but we kept working and finished the mess after lunch just as the cloud let go and the rain fell.
So needless to say not much sewing or quilting was done today or yesterday. I am hoping for a couple hours this evening. That will be how I join Kathy with putting some slow stitching into my quilt. I also have some knitting to do once I curl up in my rocking chair. (boy that sounds old)!!!

 Here is the latest up date on "the quilt"! I have started working from the other side and soon the quilting will be meeting and the frame will be coming down. I figure I have at least a week of stitching to go then the finishing of the edge. There will be no binding as the top of the quilt has already been hemmed and finished...so I will be just turning the backing to the inside and hand stitching it in place. There will be more about that in another post.

Hope you are getting some stitching/sewing done whether or not it is slow or fast!!!

Workshop's over

listening to instructions

It is like the day after Christmas! You wait all year for that one day and then POOF!!! it is over. My fun started on Tuesday when Susan (my friend) arrived and then Carla (our workshop teacher)from Quilting by the River, We chatted all evening and before we knew it it was bedtime if we hoped to be wide awake enough for the workshop the next day.

busy at work

one block done

The workshop started and off we went! We were doing simple units made easier and more accurate with the Deb Tucker Studio 180 rulers. Fourteen of us enjoy the day with Carla. Our aim was to get one leaf block done and most of us accomplished that.

cool stars

After a busy day, we relaxed with dinner out and returned to the building for the guild's monthly meeting. Carla gave us a trunk show which didn't disappoint either. A full house enjoyed her stories and her quilts. But like the class, it was over way too soon and we said good bye and she was on her way home that night.I am sure this guild will be having Carla as a returning teacher in the near future!! There are so many ideas that I would like to try with the new rulers but that will have to wait a bit.

tumbling bits

colourful stars

On Thursday Susan and I did some sewing and some buddy time before she had to head for home too. It is so nice to get together. We have been doing this for 10 years, getting together and quilting each month as we can make time.
Now my mind must turn to completing the hand quilting on "that quilt"! The weather is warming up and I want to be outside planting flowerbeds and gardens. So the push will be on this week to complete the quilting. The weekend is almost here!!!

Let the fun begin!

It has been a busy weekend! We had a Maple Syrup Festival on Saturday,in our little community of 3200 people where the population increased by 15000 I am sure.  There was a small quilt display where half of the quilts were over 60 years old. One was even over 150 years old. It was nice to hear the history of some of these quilts.This left the rest of the weekend to get ready for this week.

So today I am preparing my house, cleaning and getting rooms ready cause tomorrow my friend Susan is coming for a few days to visit. She has been in Florida for most of the winter and this will be our first face to face visit.(we don't include our chats on facebook) I also have another friend Carla coming who will be teaching at our guild on Wednesday.

We are working on the pattern Northern Neighbours by Studio 180 Designs and Deb Tucker rulers.
Carla is a certified instructor with Studio 180 and a CQA teacher. We are going to have a lot of fun on Wednesday. Our guild meeting is that night too where Carla will be doing a trunk show for us. WOW

But all that fun will be for another post. Today I must get ready. I haven't even gotten my fabric ready. I have been procrastinating and now I am almost out of time. I also have to get some things ready for the guild meeting which will be that night too. I am hoping to put a few more stitches in this quilt I am hand quilting. I was hoping it would be done by now but I am getting closer. I have moved to the other side of the quilt as you can see. Only a couple more rolls and it will be finished.

The weather is warming up and soon it will be time to be outside raking and gardening. My Spring flowers are starting to bloom and all the snow is almost gone from the yard leaving behind the mess from the winter and all those sticks our dog has scattered.
 I am a little tardy in joining in on Kathy's blog for slow stitching but I was last night. I work on this, our block of the month for May. Some yoyos and some applique was happening to relax in the evening. Check out Kathy's blog and see what everyone else was slow stitching on too!

Okay can't put it off any longer enjoy your day and week. Come back later this week and see what fun we had at our workshop!

Where does the time go?

DH and his home-made stove

It has been almost a month since I blogged on here.How can that be? Well here are my excuses.First off March is the start of the sap run. We have started making maple syrup with my sister and her hubby.This is the second year and we have made some modifications to how we do things and we were very successful this year.We made  32 liters of syrup and it is so delicious.

liquid gold almost ready to bottle

But it didn't stop there, my DH decided to tap trees in our backyard and we made syrup here in the backyard over the last two weeks. That is a lot of watching wood burn and sap evaporate to make 6 1/2 more liters for us and our family. On a good note, I got some long hours of reading in as you can't do much else.

final product

This weekend is Easter. We took the weekend and traveled the 5 hours to visit our daughter and meet her boyfriend. Always a fun time. We also spent the day with family friends and quilting buddies of mine. Lively conversations and lots of laughs were had and more memories were made.We came home today and it was pouring rain most of the way. Our little creek is really flowing and howling outside today.It will eventually calm down but right now it is looking very fierce. My friend Kathy loves the sound of it flowing by so this video is for her.

getting there!

With all that going on I am still hand quilting too! That is about all the sewing I am getting done as I seem to have fallen a bit behind. I was wanting to have this finished by now. It should only be a couple more weeks and it will be done. It is very productive each time I get to roll the frame and start on the next section.
You can bet today I will be joining my friend Kathy and doing some "JUST BE". We had a very late night and early morning...so even slow stitching is beyond me today. I just want to sit and drink my tea and munch on chocolate!!!

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!