Five Placemats, One Baby Book, Sunflowers and Gros Morne National Park in Nfld.

I have now finished my five placemats for Meals on Wheels.  The yellow and gray one was an orphan block which I made wider by adding strips to the sides of the block.  I also took a picture of the backs of the placemats--you can see that I used up some of the fabrics used on the fronts on 4/5. These will be collected by the Oxford Guild for distribution at Christmas. 

At the guild sewing day on Monday, I finished off the placemats and made a cloth baby book from a panel.   This will be a gift for a friend's new grandson.

I finished off this large sunflower this week as well as adding more stitches to the two smaller sunflowers and the leaves.  It would be nice to finish off this quadrant of the project this week.  I will be working on this for Slow Sunday Stitching tomorrow. 

Have you seen the videos on Facebook of dogs collecting the "Cheese Tax"?  Finn is an expert cheese tax collector!  

He always stares at our daughter with love in his eyes...

I promised a few more pictures from our trip to Newfoundland.  We did a lot of hiking on the trip and found the trails to be spectacular, if not a bit challenging at times.  We spent several days exploring Gros Morne National Park.  We did a guided hike at the Tablelands in the rain.  We wore our rain gear and stayed mostly dry. The Tablelands feature the earth's mantle layer showing for all to see--only one of two places in the world that this occurs. 

This is a picture of the tablelands on a sunny day.  We hiked up to just below where the snow is. 

We took a boat tour on Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne--it was foggy going out but the fog cleared as we headed back to the dock, revealing phenomenal views of the rocks surrounding this "pond".  In Newfoundland, a pond is what we would call a lake. 

The Green Garden Trail had some very steep sections.  I rented hiking poles to do this hike due to the uneven ground and steep hills.  All of the hills were worth the effort for the views at the end of the trail.  The red muskoka chairs are often seen at the end of a trail in Canada's National Parks. 

I took lots more pictures on our trip but I think this is the end of sharing them on my blog.  Thanks for your interest in our trip!  We highly recommend Newfoundland as an adventurous destination. 

I will link up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning.

UFO Progress, Yellow Blocks, Sunflowers and Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve, Nfld.

 Christine and I got together this week for a few hours to sew and chat.  Christine cut out squares for a disappearing nine patch baby quilt and I finished sewing my Overlapping Tiles quilt top.   I have not trimmed it yet--I may even do that after it is quilted to avoid all those bias edges as I quilt. The backing fabric is ready--it is the turquoise with the pink flowers that is the constant in the quilt top.  My husband held the top for me to take a picture --it was a bit breezy!

I bought myself a Half Rectangle Triangle ruler at Quilt Con in Atlanta and tried it out to make these blocks in March.  I finally got around to sewing them together this week.  I am pleased that my points are all pointy!  I have to decide if I will add a border or not.  I am leaning towards an asymmetrical border, varying the width of the border on each side.  I will have to get some coordinating fabric out this week and see how that might look before I cut anything. 

Yellow is the colour of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge so I got my yellow scrap bin out and made four 6.5" square slabs and a yellow pineapple block.  I am up to nine pineapple blocks now. 

I am listening to an audiobook, Talking to Canadians, by Rick Mercer, read by Rick himself.  I listen as I walk each day as well as when I am cross stitching.  My husband and I watched "The Mercer Report" on TV for years and even attended a taping of the show at the CBC in Toronto years ago.  

On our recent vacation in Newfoundland, my husband and I took a private guided tour of Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve near Raleigh, Nfld.  Our guide was Ted, a local businessman who has a particular interest in the plants and geology of Burnt Cape.  After telling us the history of Raleigh as we drove around this small community, he drove us out to the cape.  The conditions are very harsh there, with little or no soil for plants to grow so at first glance, it appears that it is just a barren rocky area. Ted had us looking closer to see a great variety of very small plants that we had to be careful not to step on!  He also showed us a sea cave, carved out by the relentless waves of the ocean.  

That is a Canadian dime to show the scale of these tiny flowers.  The next picture shows the entire plant. 

The orange on this rock was caused by seagull poop!

Ted called these red growths British Soldiers...

Some of the trees and shrubs, all very small and close to the ground, were over 100 years old. 

The sea cave entrance.  

It was quite cold and windy on the cape so we all wore our hats and warm clothes. 

Ted recommended this book so I bought a copy at the next store that we were in.  We used it several times on our trip to identify plants that we saw on our hikes. 

These are frost polygons, caused by the frost heaving the rocks out of the ground into these patterns. Each depression in the ground creates a microclimate where small plants can grow. 

This small purple flower is a type of primula. 

These yellow flowers, the Burnt Cape Cinquefoil, are only found at two places in Nfld., one of them being Burnt Cape. 

The Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve is across the bay from Raleigh. 

Sunset over the Burnt Cape, taken from in front of our accommodations in Raleigh. 

I hope you are not getting bored with my vacation pictures.  I still have a few more places I would like to share with you over the next few weeks. 

Finn likes to keep at least one paw touching my daughter at all times.  The second picture was taken while I was talking to Finn on FaceTime this week. 

I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday morning and with The Slow Sunday Stitchers on Sunday morning.  Take care. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge, Sunflowers and Battle Harbour, Labrador

This week, for the first time in a long time, I spent some time sewing every day!  In the sewing room, I worked on my light blue (June) and red (July) blocks for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  I now have 8 pineapple log cabin blocks completed.  I am aiming for 12 blocks for a wall hanging. I really like working on these scrappy blocks...the fabrics bring back all sorts of memories of other things I have made for us as well as gifts given to and received from friends and family alike. 

These 6.5" square slabs are made from my smallest scraps which I store in plastic shoe boxes by colour. 

I was making great strides on my counted cross stitch sunflowers until I discovered I had not counted correctly and had to take out a bunch of stitches...  I am back on track now and working on the top right quadrant of the picture.  (I will fill in the missing stitches on the top left sunflower when I get to that colour on the one on the right.)

My husband and I went blueberry picking this week and froze most of them, leaving enough out to eat fresh for the next few days.  

I went walking in my neighbourhood after it rained the other day and the sun came out, illuminating the water droplets on my neighbour's hosta flowers.  

Finn had a haircut this week...  Here is a picture from before the haircut--he was doing one of his chores--the prewash cycle of the dishwasher!!
 

And after the haircut...his ears always look very floofy after a haircut and blow dry!

While on our Newfoundland vacation in June, we took a ferry to Labrador where we spent a night at Battle Harbour.  It was an amazing place, where the people who hosted us told the stories of generations of their families who lived and worked in the cod fishery.  After the 1992 cod moratorium (due to dwindling cod stocks), several fishermen were trained to be historic restoration carpenters and the buildings and homes were restored to their former glory as a living museum which hosts guests like ourselves for an immersion experience like none other.  Here are some pictures from our visit to Battle Harbour:

Our guide, Janice, explained how cod nets worked. In the second picture, she showed us how the cod were processed for salting, storage and shipping.  Janice spent her summers as a child at Battle Harbour. 

An iceberg in the distance. 

We stayed in a room in the Merchant Building. 

Most of these buildings are private homes but some are accommodations for guests. 

This is the church where Janice was baptized. 

Delicious, made from scratch meals were served in the dining hall which used to be used to store fish waiting to be shipped. 

My husband and I took a couple of hikes around the island. 

It was chilly but we had the right clothes with us to keep warm. 

Can you find me in this picture?

At one time, the cod were bigger than a small child. 

Battle Harbour was certainly a highlight of our trip!  If you are ever going to Newfoundland on vacation, consider a side journey to this magical spot in Labrador. 

I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Slow Sunday Stitchers on the weekend.