Friday finishes

I have two finishes, finally. I put the speed on to get them done for the first guild meeting of the year. Sometimes it take some sort of incentive in order to get the gears moving. These are both English Paper Pieced, and the result of my recent fascination with the kits shape, which is what forms the points of the stars.

The first one is called Castor and Pollux. It  is actually a design developed by Nancy Cabot and originally published in the Chicago Tribune back in the 1930’s. Here’s a link to more information about her, if you happen to be interested. Nancy Cabot. She did some fascinating patterns. There are more of them that I would love to do. There is a pattern for this quilt, along with the papers and acrylic templates available in our store here

The second one is called Orion’s Belt. There will eventually be a pattern and papers and acrylics available for this one as well. You can click on the pictures for more detail to make them bigger. I’m Linking up to Finish it Friday

Our Canadian English Paper Piecing Website is launched!!

Eagles Wings Quilts is now in business, selling English Paper Piecing supplies to the Canadian market. We can also sell and ship to the American market. And the bonus for all the Americans is the difference in our dollars. All our prices are in Canadian dollars, and since our dollar is only worth about .75 cents US, it’s a big saving for them. This is so exciting!!! We launched this morning. There is a link to the website at the top of the right hand side bar.

Castor and Pollux is now a finished pattern. The supplies for it are available on the website.



In the meantime, I have been working on my other English Paper Piecing projects. I’m putting a rush on to get Leo’s Mane finished. It is all sewn together, and at the stage of putting the half diamonds around the outer edge to finish it.



A few more hours sitting in the glorious summer weather outside should finish it.  There will be a pattern to go with this, and the supplies for it will be available on the website. What an exciting thing to be able to say!! It make me want to run in circles and do a happy dance all at the same time. (giggle)
I’m linking up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social, the Canadian Needle and Thread Network and Esther’s Works in Progress Wednesday and Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday.

What I’m working on....

I have gotten two small hand piecing projects to the finished top stage. On Sunday, I posted that I’d gotten Orion’s Belt finished, except for should I add borders. The verdict was unanimous for yes, so today I added on the narrow black border. Once it’s quilted, I’ll probably trim it back a bit.
And since I was on an add borders roll, I decided to add them to Castor and Pollux as well. Both of these are English Paper Piecing small wall hangings. But they could certainly be enlarged to any size. If anyone is interested in the papers or the acrylic templates for these projects, they will be available in our online store, once it is launched in the next month, or so. If you want them sooner, email me at caleeshepherd@gmail.com and we can make arrangements from there.
I’m going to link up to The Needle and Thread Network and also to Sew Fresh Quilts and finally to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I’ve managed to finish Castor and Pollux. By doing no other hand stitching, other than this project, it’s been finished in record time, for me at least. According to the blog, I started this somewhere around the first week of March, which means this was finished in under a month. I have enough left over kites to start something else, too.  So, with no further delay, I’m going to dig out those leftovers, find other stuff to go with them, and start the next project. I’m having so much fun!!!
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. Stay tuned for what comes next!

Castor and Pollux

My newest English Paper Piecing project, called Castor and Pollux, is slowly growing. I am hoping to have a large amount of time today to dedicate towards getting it to a finish. I’ve been taking photos along the way, since I have plans for this to become a pattern in the not too distant future. there will be a kit of papers and acrylic templates for it too, also hopefully in the not too distant future. In the meantime, we keep plugging away. We are hoping that also in the not too distant future the maintenance notice found at http://eagleswingsquilts.ca will turn into the actual web site where this pattern, and others, will be available. In the meantime, I’m having fun sewing.
I’m linking up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social and also to the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday, even though it’s a day late and it’s Thursday. Then it’s back to stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching, March 26, 2017

My poor neglected blog. It is feeling very lonely and left out of things these last few months. I’ve at least been trying to maintain a weekly Sunday stitching post, but last weekend I was hit with something nasty, although I have no idea what it was. A fever of 101 aka 39 for those who think in celsius, and all the attendant aches and pains that come with fever. But nothing else..... no obvious source of what caused the fever. And by Sunday it was gone, leaving me feeling like I’d been hit by a truck with all the attendant aches and pains that would cause. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Thankfully, by mid week, I was more or less functioning normally again.

But still, carving out time to sit and give my blog some loving is getting very difficult to do. For those of you who don’t know, I have fibromyalgia. I don’t talk about it often, because my preferred method of dealing with it is to live with what I can and ignore the rest. However, one of the challenges I’ve learned to live with is the sleep disorder that goes with it. I take medication for it, which means my morning start ups are late and very slow, like an engine trying to turn over with a dying battery. You know the sound.... My very kind husband brings me a coffee at around 10 am. After that, I get up, and make myself another cup of coffee, and sit and read on my computer for the time it takes for the second cup to have its desired effect, and for my mind to be thinking at least semi clearly. All this means that my usable days start at about noon. Something to eat, and up to the studio to work on customer quilts, or my own, or guild projects on the long arm. Then it’s supper time. My husband leaves at 4 to go pick up our daughter from work, and grand daughter from daycare. They get home at 5, just in time for all of us to have supper. Her husband Matt gets home from work a little later than that. We spend time with them, usually until Abbie is ready for bed, somewhere around 6:30 or 7.

Then there’s the business expansion stuff to be done, files drawn into Corel for using on the laser. Once those are done, my husband Scott does the actual running of the laser. Learning Corel was a challenge, but a fun one. I love learning new stuff. I think it keeps me feeling young, mentally at least. It’s exciting learning new things, and the feeling when something is mastered, or something falls into place with that “aha” moment is actually quite a thrill. I’ve learned a lot, and am getting much faster at what needs to be done. I usually give myself until 9pm for that, and then I reward myself with some stitching. This whole business expansion is actually a family thing. Our daughter Becca is doing up the computer files for the labels. Our son Noel is doing the photography for the products. Here’s a photo of a couple of the hexagon acrylic templates he took. I love the quirkiness of the background he used.These will be up on the website when it’s finished.

Scott is doing the book keeping and the actual running of the laser. It’s been a wonderful bonding experience in our family, which was already very close.

Weekends lately, have been labeled as “mine”. Yesterday there was a guild sewing day for working on various projects for our community outreach. It was a wonderful day of socializing, talking, having fun, and getting stuff done, all at the same time. Joining the guild a few years ago has to be one of the best things I have ever done. It’s taken this shy, quiet, very non-social person, and turned her into someone completely different. Or maybe, not someone different, but maybe released the person who was there all along, just buried? I don’t know, but I love it!

So, all this to say, I’m crazy busy, and mostly loving every minute of it. But it makes what Kathy was talking about in her Slow Sunday Stitching post all that much more important. I need to intentionally carve out time to do the things that bring me rest and peace. Spending time daily with my Lord, in His word and in prayer is a huge part of that rest and peace, the biggest and most important part, actually. But He gave me this desire to create, and Sundays are the day that I love to take and indulge that creativity. I love reading on Kathy’s blog what everyone else has been up to in their hand stitching journeys, and I love this hand stitching journey of mine.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a picture of a new project I’d started, which the Electric Quilt software calls Castor and Pollux. I’ve made significant progress on it. This section is finished, and I’m working on the bottom half. It will be 20”x20” when finished, and will likely end up as a pillow. It will have half diamonds around the outside in order to square it off. I’m hoping to get lots more done on it today. So, with that in mind, I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching, maybe get some lunch, and do some slow and restful stitching.