Scrappy Days

I have dived into my scrap bucket again. It seems that that bucket or rather large bag is unending!! I got the pieces all cut and then sewn together. I put the blocks on point which meant set in triangles. There is lies the problem I encountered...what colour do I use??? Scrap quilt with many colours and white as a constant. I was at a loss as to what colour to use for the set in triangles. So to the internet I went and posted on two sites. I received varying results and ideas as to what I should do. There was a lot of blue, red, black,white and a few ladies even went outside the box and said I should just do more blocks and trim them to the edge of the quilt.
Ultimately I chose the safe colour , I went with blue. I had other reasons too. I was first going to chose grey but I didn't have enough to do triangles and an outside border, so blue was my second choice and I had enough!! There goes one more chunk of fabric from my stash.

With the heat today, we are heading to the lake for some evening fishing. I take along my hexies or knitting with me. So that is what I will be doing for slow stitching Sunday with. Kathy Check out her blog and see what everyone else is up to too!!

So fishing came sooner rather than later and I didn't get the borders all on. Check back with me tomorrow to see the finished product.

Sewing day

swoon block quilt

After gardening and mowing the lawn in very warm temperatures yesterday, today I am running around the house closing up windows and putting on a sweatshirt. So with cooler temps it is a good day to sew. I really do believe that Mother Nature is in menopause!!!
I finished my swoon block quilt that will be a sample for a demo I am doing later this year at guild. The binding is on and I will be doing some relaxing slow stitching later this evening with Kathy and the gang, to get that project off my table. I did bias binding with that red plaid...just love how it looks!

these haven't even dented my box of scraps

I also got to sew on some very tiny blocks four inch unfinished. Thanks to my buddy Kathy, I got hooked on this  quilt along at Temecula Quilt Company. I have a small shoe box of batik scraps, I got from a friend and I am using them for these little blocks. It really amazes me how time flies when I am working at my sewing machine.

I have had two meetings this past week. At one I am on program and we are creating an agenda for the coming year. Then at the other meeting, I am the president...and that is a whole new ballgame for me. Needless to say I think the coming guild year, that starts in September is going to be a fun and busy one! You will definitely hear more about all that in the coming months. So I will also have lots of new projects to start and things to get ready to show. Stay tuned!!!

Little Something!

While do some tidying up of my camera, I found these! Yes I had two years of pics on my camera. On a recommendation from my daughter, I decided to download the pics to my computer with the hopes that it would speed up my camera.
It is amazing what you find when you look back. Memories  of places, people and things. Some of which are no longer with us. But I did find these that I forgot I had taken only a few weeks ago. At the time I thought they would make a good blog post by themselves then I forgot about.


While I was away on my girl weekend in mid June. I took pics of barn quilts. There is a lot of them being put up in the south western area of Ontario. These are just a few of the ones I saw on our journeys.

 These were east and south of Goderich, Ontario. There are more but we didn't have time to go and see them all.

Best Laid Plans

dessert for the band

You know what happens to those plans....yup never go as planned!My weekend was to be a sewing one.  After feeding DH band on saturday and getting them off to their next gig...I was going to sew.Well that didn't happen. I lally gagged around the house and at dusk went and watched fireworks. All the time saying to myself...tomorrow, tomorrow!

Swoon block sashing

Well it came and went and this is all I have to show for my efforts. My swoon blocks are altogether but as I was trying to decide on a layout I discovered one hst was in the wrong place...enter unsewing tool!!! With that corrected, I asked DH what colour he thought I should use for the sashing. His answer was blue or green. Not bad...blue it is and I found the perfect one in my stash, 1 meter of it. Will it be enough, can it be enough. I will make it be enough but there will be some piecing happening and that is okay!
So today my intention is to get this put together and get it to flimsy stage and maybe even pin basted. Maybe I shouldn't say that too loud!! haha

tumblers coming together

In between all that sewing I am STILL working on my tumblers from Bonnie's leader and enders from a couple years ago. It really is amazing how many you can sew while putting just one block together. One box is "twosies" and the other box is"foursies" I am soon going to have to decide on a size of the quilt and get sewing rows together. But for now this is what they look like. Bonnie's new leader and ender challenge will be starting this week....hmmm to do another one or NOT!!!!

Although I am a day late, I will be checking in with my friend Kathy and her followers to see what everyone was slow stitching yesterday.
Enjoy your week and we are hoping for a little less rain and more sunshine!

Breathing Space

swoon blocks

I have had a couple of days to take it easy and recoup! I had my friend Susan here for two days. We visited and attended our guild meeting. She lives about 1.5 hours away but enjoyed visiting this guild and decided to join for this year. Guess she will be there next year too as she has signed on with two others and myself to do the program for next year.
DH was away overnight, so yesterday was a day of sewing and figuring out what I wanted to work on next. These swoon blocks we worked on awhile ago, so I dug them out to see how much further I could get with them. I am working with a pack of 10 fat quarters and some background yardage. I think I can get 9 large blocks, which should be enough for a lap quilt.

July 1st Wallhanging

I can finally show my red and white challenge piece. It turned out pretty nice even though it didn't win any of the challenges.I did the paper pieced curved flying geese and it wasn't so hard...there will be more of those in the future.

We have been having lots of rain and I am sure others have. It is a good excuse to stay indoors and sew.
Today is knitting with the girls and getting ready for the weekend. A BBQ for my DH band who are playing in two locations for Canada's 150th birthday weekend and more sewing for me. Enjoy your weekend!!

Slowing life down a bit....

A lot has happened in the last week and a bit. My holiday with the girls was great and very busy. We were in the van almost every day.

my basket with ALL my purchases

I arrived on Thursday and got to join in on their Thursday night sewing group. I know Judy was feeling bad because she was working on the same thing as the last time I was there (a year ago) but I made her feel better as I was working on the same hexie project too!!
Friday we  gathered everyone and six of us headed to Toronto for the Canadian Quilt Association juried show with vendors. We spent the morning looking at quilts and the afternoon was for shopping and visiting with the vendors. I was pretty well behaved with my big purchase being this basket.
Saturday we headed to two local quilt stores, one that was having an anniversary sale(that is when all that good behavior went out the window).40% off makes a quilters see future projects even if there isn't enough time to do them!!
Sunday was baby shower day. I got to finally see and hold baby Lauren (my friend's first grandbaby).
Then before I knew it, it was Monday and time for me to head home but not before one more stop to buy flooring for my kitchen.

Before

after

While I was away and not in the vicinity of my DH, he did more work on my kitchen. It started three years ago as my 50th birthday present. Then life happened and things were put on hold.Now we are almost done. Yes I came home, didn't even unpack and was painting the same night, flooring the next day and then the rest of the week was cleaning and putting things back together. We have just a bit of trim work to do and the counter top. It looks clean and new and I am getting use to it.

more binding required

We finished this past week off with a wedding. My cousin's daughter was married and it was a happy and a bit teary day. The bride's mom passed away six months ago. Her presence was very much felt and missed that day but they honored her very nicely without the day being sad. It was nice to visit with old friends, our family members and just catch up with each other. My face hurt from smiling and laughing!!

charity quilt needs binding

So needless to say not much quilting was done this past week. So today is for catch up. I have some blocks that need making for Wednesday's guild meeting, a presentation on sashing and borders and some binding for a couple of charity quilts that my friend  has quilted for me.


I checked in with my buddy Kathy a little late but it is always fun to see what everyone is up to!! Missed you Kathy at CQA and belated Happy Birthday too!!!

Heading South

Today I leave for my girl's weekend. We are loading up the van tomorrow and heading to Toronto for the Canadian Quilter's Association show. It will be a day filled with vendors, quilts and I am sure lots of chatting and giggles. I will post more about the show once I return. I don't travel with a computer so I will take lots of pictures and fill you all in next week.

Also this weekend I get to meet a new little friend. Her name is Lauren and she is the first granddaughter of my quilting buddy Louise. We will be attending her baby shower on Sunday.

It is going to be a busy weekend and I have a five hour drive ahead of me today. So off I should go.
Have a great weekend everyone and come back and see all the things I saw and did while I was away!!!