Sneak peak

I've loaded on my Road to Brenham quilt and have just finished the third pass. I've been having some thread shredding issues which took some frustrating time and problem solving to fix. The last pass finished with no more shredding so I'm hoping it is fixed now. I want to get at least two more passes done today. It's a really detailed pantograph so each pass takes about twenty to thirty minutes, when there are no problems, which hasn't happened yet, and only covers six inches. Considering this quilt is 94 inches square 5 passes will take me to 30 percent finished. 

Gwen's Quilt

Last month I was brought a quilt that made me very nervous. Gail, Christine and Carol
made a group quilt for Gwen Marsden, who is a very widely known and famous quilter. The three of these ladies have gone to Gwen's quilt retreats for quite a while now, although I'm not sure of the exact number of years. Gwen turned 80 this year, and decided that this would be the last of the retreats that she would host. So, in honour of Gwen, and to thank her for all she has done over the years, these 3 lovely ladies made Gwen a quilt, and brought it to me to quilt. Did I say already that this made me nervous? Not only would it be seen by Gwen, but by all the other ladies there. However, I knew about this while they were putting the finishing touches on the top, and had seen some pictures of it while they were working on it, so I was able to try and come up with ideas for it.
Here's a picture of the whole quilt. It is fun and bright
and happy and whimsical. The first thing that came to  
me when I looked at the quilt was all the fun daisies in the fabrics. So I decided to take daisies as a theme in the quilting and run with it.

I started out with half daisies in the flying geese, with a kind of vine like tendril coming off the side of the daisy to extend into the white background. There are also daisies quilted into the border, although they are hard to see in this picture.  There are smaller daisies in the half square triangle border, as well.
 And keeping again with the daisy theme, they show up again in the maple leaves. One of the biggest challenges in doing custom work like this, is coming up with a way for the quilting to be as continuous as possible, with the least amount of starts and stops as can be managed.  In order to do that with the maple leaves, I connected them with the loops in the sashes between the blocks. And once the loops were there in the sashes, it was a natural extension to put loops into the borders.



In the center of the quilt, the birds are stitched in the ditch, as are the orange borders and the basket. There is loopy meandering in the background of the birds as well as the daisy fabric around the basket. I put wavy lines in the basket, going in the opposite direction from the piecing, to give a hint of the idea that the basket was woven.



The backing was a lovely soft and cuddly flannel, with leftover flying geese pieced down the middle. The quilting shows up really well on the back. The borders are easy to see on this picture.And this next one shows the center quilting.

                                               


 Once I got over my nerves, and sat down and listened to the quilt, followed by quite a lot of graph paper doodling, this quilt come together easily, and was an awful lot of fun to do, as well. Thanks, so much, ladies, for trusting me with this.

Design Wall Monday, Oct. 21, 2013

 Today was another long day spent in the kitchen. But I had some time to sew up a few more seams on the square in square in square blocks. I think I'm up to 50 of them, and I need 70. I just ran up to the studio, taking the short cut up through the house, and Matt and Becca's hall and through the garage. It's too wet and too dark to go the outside way I normally do. But I wanted to get a picture of Great Granny with some of her border units up with her. There is going to be some of the charcoal grey fabric between the quilt and the border to bring it to a size that the pieced border will fit. And if I have enough of the grey, there will be an outer border of it as well. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some more of the body of the quilt sewn together.
These jars here are the reason I was in the kitchen all day. The last batch of salsa I made, back

in early September went over so well, that half of the jars are gone already, plus I sent a couple of the back with Noel when he went home to Sudbury after Thanksgiving weekend. So I bought some more makings, and ended up with 11 pint sized jars. Three of them are already upstairs with Matt and Becca. One thing about doing canning and cooking all day.... we certainly don't need the heat on down here. And that thing about heat rising... it definitely does. When I opened the basement door to come back down here from being up in the studio, there had to be a 10 degree difference. It was like walking into a wall. I've actually got the door open beside me, so that it can cool down a bit. Hot flashes and hot steamy kitchens, not a good combination. Ain't this time of life grand? Actually, I must say, other than the hot flashes, it is. I mentioned to Scott - who was a wonderful help with the salsa, by the way, he did all the chopping while I blanched the tomatoes - that this retirement, and being able to choose what to do and when is the most marvelous thing ever. And, on that note, I think I will choose to link up with Judy's Design Wall Monday and then go sew on some more border units.

Stash Report, week 42, 2013

I'm slowly, but steadily, working on the borders for Great Granny. I think I have 30 out of 70 square in square in square units done. I also finished the quilting on Orca Bay..... I should get a picture of it..... hang on a minute while I grab it and my camera and head outside where it is currently dry, and get a picture  of it.....

Well, that took a bit more than just a minute, but here they are. I used a very simple quilting design on it, Square Spiral by Keryn Emmerson. I liked the way the diagonal motion of the design picked up a lot of the diagonal lines in the quilt. All it needs now is the binding, which is cut and ready to be pieced,  put on.

Used this week:                                   1.9 yards
Used this year:                                 111.35 yards
Added this week:                                 0 yards
Added this year:                               165.55 yards
Balance:                                                54.2 more yards in than out.
I couldn't count the backing for Orca Bay here as fabric out, since it's off a large bolt of wide backing that I purchased for use for customers, if they wish to purchase it. I'm slowly starting to buy backings to have to offer, should a customer wish to have that option. I have a bolt of navy blue coming sometime this week, but I won't count that as in for my stash, either.
I'm linking up to Judy's Stash Report, and then I think I'll do some more work on Great Granny.

On the Needles, October 18, 2013

 I'm still in finishing mode. Woohoo!! When Scott and I went out for our drive on Monday, I couldn't just sit and do nothing while in the car, so I finished up Avery's Bunny Balaclava. I'm pretty sure it will look a lot cuter on him than it does on my spaghetti container. But that was the only thing I could find that was tall enough to hold it up so I could get a picture. The nose section folds down, away from the nose and mouth, if it isn't cold enough for it, or if it turns out he doesn't like the stuff over his face.

 Then, since I have lots of this yarn left, I decided to start some mittens for him. These will be my take with me in the car project for the next little while, until they are done.

And since I've gotten most of my knitted projects done, I started the Pinery sweater. It is knitted from the top down, and I'm loving the looks of the cables. It's worsted weight, so it's going fairly quickly. I'm not 100% happy with the way the neck is laying. There isn't any ribbing, or leading edge before the cables start, so  the cast on stitches are really pulling. I might end up doing some kind of edge finish once it is done, but I'll have to wait and see how it looks once done and blocked.
I spent a little time on Ravelry the other day... actually over an hour... ummmmmm, it might have been a little more than an hour....what a time gobbler that place is, but fun!. And I found a whole pile of fun little boy sweaters. I'm planning on going through my yarn stash, which actually isn't all that large, to see if I have yarn to do some of them. There's a Spiderman, and I know I have red yarn. There's one with a truck which would be perfect for Avery. He loves all things trucks. And then there's a dinosaur fair isle pattern. And I found the cutest owl sweater. There isn't enough time in one life to do all the quilts I want to do, let alone adding all the knitting I want to do. Somehow, I'm going to have to do some prioritizing........ any suggestions?? I'm linking up to Judy's On the Needles.

Design Wall Monday, Oct. 14, 2013

We had our Thanksgiving celebration and dinner yesterday. This was our first holiday get together since we moved into our apartment here. It was a wonderful success. I can say with absolute conviction that it is a really good thing to have 2 full kitchens going in the same house for something like this. Two full stoves for the cooking and 2 full fridges to store the leftovers, which are, after all, one of the best parts of the whole thing, after seeing the family, of course. We've been here 6 months now, and I can say that it has been a successful transition, and I love living here. This year, more than ever, I am thankful for loving family. Our son, Noel, lives in Sudbury, which is a six hour drive from here. He drove down yesterday, after a stop in Wasaga Beach to see his son, Avery. Then, he left this afternoon to drive back to Sudbury, with another stop at Wasaga Beach to again see Avery. That's a lot of hours in his truck, but I'm so grateful that he came down. Winter is coming, sooner to Sudbury than for us, and long driving trips will be a lot harder to do then.
Anyway.... on my design wall is Great Granny hanging around, waiting for some attention.

She got a little bit of attention this past week, when her sashing was finished, but she's been kinda neglected since. I was planning on starting her pieced border this afternoon. But, it was such a lovely day out that Scott and I decided to go for a drive instead. The drive started out with the intent to go for a walk. But when we got the the place where we wanted to hike, it was edge to edge cars and people, who obviously had the same idea we did. So we settled for a drive in the country, instead, and then came home to wonderful turkey dinner leftovers.
I'm thinking of going out this week sometime, and picking up some new speakers for my computer. Then I can put on netflicks up in my studio, and sew up there. I was used to having my own area for sewing, and I think that might be one of the 2 things I miss now that we are living here, the other being my lovely rose bush. I must confess to getting awfully tired of hockey and football, since I am not a fan of either. If I do that, there is a greater chance that Great Granny will get put together this week, or at least the main body of her will.
I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday where there is tons and tons of inspirational and just plain fun stuff to see.

Stash Report, week 41, 2013

First of all, happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends. We have a houseful today, so it is going to be a wonderful time with family. Scott and I did up the turkey and dressing yesterday, and got it all prepared and into containers. All we have to do now, is put it in the oven an hour or so before we are going to eat. It has made today much less chaotic, for us at least. The young folk are going to be doing up the side dishes and veggies today. Personally, I think that's a good deal.
I managed to get a lot of sewing done this past week. All the blocks for great Granny Square are now done, and the sashing is cut and almost all sewn together. And one of the rows is sewn together. That has made for a substantial stash reduction. However, I succumbed to the vendor at the guild meeting this past week, and bought some delicious lights. Since my stash is always short on those, I thought it a good addition. And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Used this week:                                       4.5 yards
Used this year:                                    109.45 yards
Added this week:                                    2 yards
Added this year:                                  165.55 yards
Balance:                                                56.1 more yards in than out.
I'm linking up to Judy's Stash Report, and then I think I'm going to knit for the afternoon.