Yet Another Retreat...

 It's true.  My friend, Christine and I have attended two quilting retreats in March, two weeks apart.  (We won't mention that we were away for a week at the end of February at QuiltCon in Raleigh, NC...).  This is the end of our quilting retreats for until November, when we have two more. We are both very productive on the retreats and manage to get lots of sewing done.  It's amazing what you can accomplish over the course of 2 1/2 or 3 days of concentrated time with no cooking, dishes and other distractions!  I spent most of my weekend making quilt backs, pin basting and quilting a wall hanging and two baby quilts. 

This is the rabbit wall hanging I made for my MIL in the process of being quilted.  I used my Hera marker and a quilting ruler to mark one of each of the pairs of lines.  The second line was 1/2" from the first one. The up and down quilting was done with light green thread and the horizontal lines with the blue thread you see on the machine. I finished it off with the binding made from the same fabric as the narrow border.  This has been gifted already and is hanging up in my MIL's room.  She likes to show it to people when they come into her room. 

I bought a panel to make a quilted baby book recently and sewed it together at the retreat.  It has been gifted to a baby that is due in April. 

The walk between the building where we sewed and the building where meals were served was beautiful!

I sewed this quilt top at the previous retreat and quilted it at this retreat.  The binding was added at home this week. There is a baby in mind for this quilt.  She is due in May. The backing is the same as the background fabric in the crumby stars quilt I showed on my blog last week. I had to add a pink stripe on the back to make it wide enough. The turquoise binding fabric was in my stash.  

The scrappy nine patch quilt was quilted with a simple cross hatch through the white and gray squares. Again, the backing fabric was not quite wide enough so there is a strip of light orange added to make it work. I added the green binding at home this week and I'm in the process of hand stitching it to the back of the quilt. 

Our knitting friend, Mary, and I went down to the beach to see the sunset. 

I received some money for my birthday in February and purchased a kit to make a "Sew Together" bag at QuiltCon featuring fabrics with a New York City theme.  I started sewing it at the retreat and hope to finish it this coming week.  

Spring is being a bit fickle this week and so, in anticipation of a snowy forecast for Friday, I cut some daffodils and brought them inside for my table.  

Finn was not happy about the snow.  He likes to lay outside in the sunshine and it has been too cold to do this for the last couple of days.  Thankfully, most of the snow melted today and it is supposed to be warmer this coming week. 

Someone added some Easter decorations to a tree at the park where I walk each morning. 

Finn loves this little squeaky chicken ball.  It is not round and bounces erratically which makes the game even more fun. 

I bought a freshly baked pretzel at the farmer's market this morning...doesn't it look like it is ready to kiss me???

I will link up with Kathy and the Slow Sunday Stitchers in the morning and with Frederique at her blog. 

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.

Weekly check in

I had some time this afternoon to make this cloth book for my cousin's new grand-daughter. I keep a few cloth book panels in my stash so I can quickly make a baby gift. This panel was purchased at one of the quilt stores we visited while on our way to the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat in September.  I will also be making the baby a pillowcase, as I have done for all the children (up to age 25) in that family. I include a bit of fabric from my grandmother's stash in each pillowcase.

This pillowcase is a Christmas gift. I am fairly certain that the recipient does not read my blog!  She likes horses.

The members of the Elgin Piecemakers were challenged by one of our members to each make a pillowcase for the local homeless shelter for our November meeting. Here is my pillowcase. I am hoping to find a bit of time to make another one before our meeting next week.

 

The London Friendship Quilter's guild met this past week. I have signed up for a Quilt 'til you Wilt day that has been planned for this coming Saturday. It runs 9am to 9pm and I hope to be very close to finishing off some Christmas gifts by the end of the day. Cathy, Christine and Carol and I will be sewing up a storm!  Tonight, I have some hand-stitching to do on some binding. No pictures yet--sorry.

 

My stash report for this week is not too bad...

 

 

Fabric used in the last week: 6.15 yards   

Total fabric used this year: 193.06  yards
Fabric added to the stash in the last week: 5.25yards (mostly already used up!)
Total fabric added this year: 151.66 yards

Net fabric used this year: 41.4 yards

 

 

My husband just made supper and it smells delicious!  Time to go and eat!

It Snowed Anyway!

I thought putting the sign away would make the snow stop...but I was wrong. This is a tree in our neighbourhood yesterday morning.

The snow was very heavy on the branches of this tree. Today, it snowed a bit this morning before changing to rain so everything is melting once again.

Today, I made a cloth book for a friend who recently had a baby.

The family speaks more than one language so this book is perfect to read in both languages!

I am working on my last 20 arcs for my Indian Orange Peel...Stay tuned this week for pictures of these last 20 arcs.

A Little of This and a Little of That

Last week and this week, Christine and I still got together for our weekly sewing date, even though both of us are finished our Carolina Christmas tops. Christine is working on the pieced background for an applique quilt. The background is all blues and neutrals with some gold cornerstones. It is set on point and here is a peak at some of the blocks laid out on my design floor. She is working on the setting triangles now.

Last week, I made a baby gift--a quilted cloth book from a panel.  It is a counting book.

This week, I worked on a table topper as a gift for my husband's office Christmas party. Each couple puts in a gift and then numbers are drawn for the order of picking the gifts. You can choose a new gift, or you can take a gift from some who has already opened their gift. This is usually lots of fun as some gifts are more desirable than others!

Today, I had an hour to sew this afternoon, so I decided to make a few more Blue Ridge Beauty blocks. The pattern is starting to emerge more now that I have more blocks made.

I am really going to put this BRB project away for a while now so that I can work on Christmas gifts!  I don't have much will-power to stay away from it when I can see it staring me in the face, calling my name!

Sewing Room Clean-up

I had another snow day last Friday. My quilting friend came over and we spent most of the day cleaning up my sewing room. It had not been tidied for a very long time and had reached the stage where I could not do any sewing in there. I also could not find things very easily--it was such a mess. It had also become a dumping ground for stuff that did not have another home. These before pictures tell the sorry tale... they were actually taken part way into the clean-up.



I am happy to say that now the room is looking much better. My sewing machine has been moved out of the family room and back into the sewing room where it belongs. I even did some sewing in there tonight for the first time in over a year. My family is very happy. They were beginning to think that my "sewing room" had taken over the rest of the house... Here are some pictures of the very neat version of my sewing room. All of the containers and drawers now have labels to tell me where things are...It looks so much better!!! I have a much better idea how much I have in my "stash" and where all my tools are as well. It will be a lot more fun to spend time in here now!!!
Tonight, I made a cloth book from a panel for my cousin's new baby boy. They live on a farm so I thought this cloth book panel was perfect for baby "Cameron".