Quilt Retreat Fun

Our local quilt store hosts two big quilt retreats a year in the Village of Haines Junction, about three hours from my town.  Last weekend was the fall one and, yes, I attended. 😃 The retreat runs Thursday through Sunday, so there is lots of sewing time.  As well there is tons of good food.  Jonathan, our cook, comes 1,400 km just to cater for us.  And a group of us put on a pre-dinner cocktail hour with good cheeses and other delicacies, that he loves to attend as well. 

But I guess I should tell you about the sewing... I made my September swap hexies for Jacqui and got them into the mail on Friday. 

When I was gathering up my pin cushions for the parade a few weeks ago I found yellow pieces that I had cut to make a block.  So I put them together.  

 I had made the orange block last year sometime.  Eventually I want to make more of these blocks and put them into a quilt.  But they are pretty complex - one block takes about four or five hours to make, what with finding the scraps and cutting the pieces etc.  So this is a project for later.  This block was designed by Elizabeth Hartman and can be found by clicking on the link.

I have been wanting to make myself a new tote bag and really love the shape of a bag I made last year.  My blue scrap bin is overflowing, so I decided to make this a blue scrappy bag and I made a larger size.  I still have to find grommets that will match with it to put the handles through.  So right now it just looks like a lump.

And the pièce de résistance - I now have twelve En Provence blocks done!  Only four more to go.

There were tons of beautiful quilts being worked on, but I only took a picture of one.  Of course I want to make this quilt pattern!  Isn`t it fantastic!  

You might think I would want a little break from sewing - but it is Friday Night With Friends coming up this Friday and I have my name on the roster.  Why don`t you come along too!!

Janet 

Friday Night with Friends Report and Some Lovely Mail

I did not get anything done on Friday for Friday Night with Friends.  Friday nights after a week of work are hard, but I can usually rally myself to at least make a hexie flower.  But not last Friday.  I was tiiiirerd and I made dinner and went to bed.  But I did get a few things done earlier in the week.

A couple of hexie flowers for my July swap partner - Jane in the UK.  These were off to her in the mail on July 31st - squeaking under the wire!

And another hexie flower for my Grandmother's Flower Garden.  I was really obsessed with using the six pieces that make up the inner petals of the flower.  It turned out a bit odd looking but at least I have that obsession out of my brain now!

This weekend DD # 3 came out so I could help her sew.  She signed up to make a block for a baby quilt for a friend who is having a baby.  She has a sewing machine and says she wants to learn to sew, but pinning her down to actually do some sewing is often difficult.  And this block was to be made using fusible applique to make a picture - definitely not my favourite type of quilting.  But she got it done with her own design and a lot of instruction from me.  And it turned out quite cute!

We have had what for us is really hot weather for about a week now.  We have had lots of company with my granddaughter and her friend staying here for three nights of the week while they take their Bronze Medallion course, our friends from Nelson, B.C. visiting and of course DD # 3.  We have been enjoying getting out in the boat, splashing in the water and soaking up the sun!

And today I had a lovely surprise at the post office.  Quite a while ago I won a book from Raewyn at Stitching Farm Girl.  But it took her a while to get it in the mail and I had temporarily forgotten that it was coming.  But there in the mail today was a parcel pour moi!!

Along with the book Raewyn sent a lovely hand towel with an appliqued strip of Kowhai - a New Zealand flower.  The bird on the card is a fantail and the same bird appears on the pen.  Chocolate with plum and almond in it - yum!  And of course a quilting themed book for me to read. This was such a fantastic parcel to receive.  Thank-you so much Raewyn!

That's all for today.  I will be sure to check on at Cheryl's blog to see what everyone else got up to for Friday Night with Friends.

Janet 

Friday Night Sew In for June

Since I got back from Saskatchewan I have had no time for sewing... until this weekend.  I did sign up for and sew on Friday.  I had high hopes that I would have lots of ambition, especially as I was home alone, so would have time and attention for sewing.  But alas, I was too tired to tackle anything major.  I did finish another hexie flower.

I think I am up to 21 or 22 of the 27 I need.  I have to get back on a roll with this quilt!

What have I been doing instead of sewing?  Well after 10 days at the Saskatchewan Stitches Conference, I had a three day drive home.  Our route was a bit different than we had planned.  We left on Saturday afternoon and drove to Lloydminster where we planned to overnight, but there was "no room at the inn".  So we went on to Vegreville, Alberta, home of the world's largest Pysanka.

We checked into one hotel but it was so filthy that we promptly checked back out.  A few blocks up the road we found a lovely place to stay.  The next day we continued on to Ft. St. John, B.C.  Our hotel that night was connected to a casino.  This is irrelevant to me as I look at all the flashing lights and wonder what the attraction is, but my travel partner had fun there.  I went for a swim in the pool and a soak in the hot tub.

The next day was another Walt Disney day with many animals frolicking along the road - black bears galore, sheep with babies, grizzly bears with babies, bison with babies, moose, etc..  We stayed that night in Watson Lake, B.C. in an old air force barracks with bathrooms down the hall.  It was very clean and pleasnat though and other than getting a mosquito bite on my nose in the night, it was a great stay.  From there it was a short (5 hour) drive home the next day.  Then promptly back to work for me, and out to Fox Lake at night where my hubby was doing some work on my sister's cabin.  She was also there visiting from New Brunswick.

Last weekend was a family get together at the cabin.

I came home on Tuesday night with a list of things to do, including unpacking, but found my husband's cousin and her friend had stopped by to visit from Powell River, B.C.  So that took priority!

When I finally got home this past Friday after work it was all I could do to lie on the couch and sew one hexie!

Yesterday the bike relay race that takes place between Haines Junction and Haines, Alaska was cancelled due to snow.  But today it is sunny and beautiful and I hear they ran the race today.  Hubby is cutting our hay field and I am going to go and plant a few plants in the garden.

I hope you had a productive FNSI.  You can check out what everyone got up to on Wendy's blog.

I will be back in the near future to tell you more about Saskatchewan.  What a trip that was!

Janet 

Travelling

Two days and 1784 kilometres down.  The next two days will be a piece of cake.  Day one we travelled from Carcross to Fort Nelson, British Columbia. This highway is two lane, it has some rough and windy sections, but traffic is light so it was fairly easy driving.  It took us eleven hours to travel through this wooded area with beautiful lakes and several provincial parks.  There was ice on the river in Tagish...

and on Muncho Lake...

The outside temperature was 14 to 17 C and the day was grey as you can see.

We saw a little black bear and a porcupine within a kilometre of my house and then no animals for the next 400 kilometres.  But after we passed Watson Lake it became a Disneyland of animal viewing. Ten or more black bears, a small grizzly, a deer, four or five moose, including a beautiful new calf, about five porcupines and about thirty bison, with babies (so cute), sheep and two birds that I think were juvenile Sandhill cranes.

 

 

 

 

 

Today we travelled from Fort Nelson to Whitecourt, crossing into Alberta and into a new time zone. It took us 9 1/2 hours but we lost an hour because of the time change.  We only saw one wild animal - we're in ranch country now, with lots of horses, cattle, llamas, donkeys, sheep etc.  But the one wild animal we saw was this gorgeous boy...

 

 

Or is it a girl?? 

 

The temperature today hovered around 25 C.  This would be a very hot summer day at home and it felt pretty warm here too.  I feel like I'm on holiday!

 

And even though I said the hexies were on hold, I managed to complete one between yesterday evening and this evening.

 

 

Tomorrow we only have to travel about 650 kilometres so it will be a more relaxed day.  See you soon.

 

Janet

 

Happy Mother's Day

I know it isn't mother's day everywhere in the world but it is here in North America.  So happy mother's day to anyone who has been a mother, stepmother, adoptive mother, pseudo mother, or any other kind of mother.  It is a tough but rewarding occupation in life!

I am still having a very busy time at work and don't seem to get much done all week besides working.  But the weekends are a different matter.  Yesterday was my great nephew's third birthday so I whipped him up a place mat.

It is just a panel that I added borders too.  I think it is pretty cute.  I had made my grandson a place mat using this same fabric a few years ago, so now the little guy can be just like his older cousin.

I did a minimal amount of quilting on this and you can't see it really from this side.  It shows up a bit on the back.

I also managed to get another hexie flower finished this weekend.  I have seventeen made - just ten more to go before I can start putting the whole thing together again.

Spring is progressing here.  The ice is almost gone from the lake and the water is starting to rise.

We have a few more wildflowers in bloom and the barest beginning of buds on the trees.  The shrubby cinqe foil  is the only flower I could get a photo of.  The others are tiny and delicate and the wind was blowing them all about.  

That has been my weekend.  I hope yours was lovely.

Janet 

Friday Night Sew In Report

You may be wondering why I haven't posted for Friday Night Sew In.  Well.... I mentioned that I was going to a quilt retreat this weekend and I did do a lot of sewing.  But my tablet computer malfunctioned and I couldn't use the keyboard.  I could still use the touch screen, but it is way beyond my capabilities to type anything on the pop up keyboard.  So no responding to emails and no writing blog posts for me this weekend.

But I am back in action now and I have a few things to show.  I have no memory of what I actually did on Friday night though!

One of my two main projects for the weekend was straight line quilting this quilt.  Some of you may remember seeing this quilt before.  I'm not sure how long I have been working on this quilt but I see that I posted about it when I first started blogging, circa July 2010, so it is at least seven years.  I decided this year that it is time to get her done and I am close enough to taste it!

 
The blocks are 2 inches finished with a half inch sashing between them.  I am straight line quilting on each side of the cross ways red sashing.  I have seventeen more rows of quilting to do, then trim and bind and it will be done, done, done!!!

I also worked on En Provence this weekend.  I had hoped to get one block put together, but I am still cutting pieces.  I only have the light and dark purple four patches to finish cutting - 168 blocks needed and I have 55 done.  But I think once the various components of the quilt are all ready the blocks will go together quickly.  I am hoping to be ready to start building blocks at my next retreat which happens the weekend after next!

I only finished one hexie flower all weekend - but it's a wild one!!

And I made a set of second round hexies for my April swap partner.  She asked for bright, happy colours and these fit the bill.

There were lots of wonderful quilts being worked on at the retreat.  I took pictures but most didn't turn out too well because the lighting was poor.  But I'll show you a few of my favourites.

Exquisite hand stitched applique.

Pinning the border on a colourful star filled quilt.

Another star quilt.  I love this funky fabric.

And here was someone as crazy as me.  These pieces are tiny!  I think the blocks are 1.5 or 2 inches square.  She is making a wedding quilt for her son.  The idea is that the guests will sign the white strips.  

That's all I have to show.  I hope you had a great sew-in.  Check out Wendy's blog to see what others got up to, if you haven't already!

Janet 

Easter sewing

It was so lovely to have a four day weekend for Easter.  I am sad to say that I don't go to church, but I think about the meaning of Easter.  We had a family get together at my nephew's house - lots of good food and all the local family plus a couple of friends.  Of course everyone else was under 45 but they accept us old fogeys hanging around anyway.  And along with the fourteen humans there were eight dogs in attendance.  Here is DD # 3 giving them all a treat. :)

I did manage to sew some more hexie flowers over the weekend - four in fact!

As you can see I have been having fun picking some bright and colourful second round fabrics for the flowers.  Don't you love the candy swirl one?!

Spring is definitely almost here.  I washed my car outside in my yard yesterday!!  There was so much mud on it that you couldn't tell what colour it was.  There are a couple of rabbits who come every morning to graze on the grass in my yard and day by day they are changing colour.  

White fur....

And brown...  So well camouflaged!

It's time to sign up for Friday Night Sew In hosted by the lovely Wendy at Sugarlane Designs.  I am going to a quilting retreat Thursday through Sunday so I will be doing lots of sewing myself, and hope to be able to share some of it with you.  Hope to see you there!

Janet 

Friday Night with Friends for April

I forgot to sign up for Friday Night with Friends on Friday, but only because I was so busy sewing!  What did I sew?  I bet you'll never guess!  Yup.  Two more hexie flowers.

But then today (Saturday) I had a sewing day with some ladies from the quilt guild I belong to and I worked on the En Provence quilt,  This is a mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter that I started before Christmas.  She does a free mystery quilt every December - I have no idea why she picks right before Christmas of all times!  And she only leaves it up for a short while after all the clues are revealed.  I made one of her mystery quilts before - Easy Street (this seems to be the only picture I posted of it. I did get finished and gave to my nephew and his wife as a wedding present!)

But about En Provence.  It is made up of smaller pieces than Easy Street and I have been cutting and cutting and cutting. I decided to try and make it all out of the mountains of small scraps that I have, which increased the cutting required a lot! But today I got to start sewing!!

64 quarter square triangle blocks.  They aren't trimmed yet but will be 3 1/2 inches when they are.  This whole quilt is made up of 3 1/2 inch squares!  I am not sure why I get myself into these things but I do, over and over again!

Here are what some the others were working on today.

My friend Dahn put together a lot of scrappy blocks from bits and pieces of her hand dyes mixed with some old fabrics.  She is going to cut 24 inch blocks out of these.

Wendy was working on an art quilt piece from our workshop with Elaine Quehl last spring.

And another women, whose name I never did learn, was working on a bunch of scrappy quilts, all made from a fat quarter bundle of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  Some of them were to go to a Canada 150 project to make 1000 quilts for Ronald MacDonald House, others were going to our local cancer ward.  Here is one that I liked a lot.

So, all in all, it has been a good sewing weekend thus far, and there is still Sunday to come! 

I hope you had a great sewing time on Friday night or sometime over the weekend too.  Please check out  what everyone else accomplished too.  

Janet 

A sewing day with friends

Yesterday a group of my friends and I got together for a sewing day.  We don't have a group name - we are just people who have known each other for years and who all like to quilt.  It was a beautiful sunny day and I should have got a photo of our extended lunch break in the sun room.  Oh well, I did get a few photos...

Jo was really excited to show us the quilt she made for her grandson.  She had quilted it on her daughter's mother-in-law's long arm machine.  Her first time doing the quilting on a quilt.

Jo's project for the day was cutting pieces for a quilt for her granddaughter.

Linda sewed the binding on a quilt.  This beauty is made with Kaffe Fassett's except for the solid in the centre of the blocks.  Linda loves Kaffe Fassett fabrics and uses them in most of her quilts.

Caroline brought this quilt for show and tell.  About two years ago I gave her a bag of scraps - a big bag - garbage bag sized.  I have millions of scraps because the woman who runs the local quilt shop keeps a basket for people to throw their scraps into, and she gives a lot of them to me.  Well Caroline has made about four quilts out of the bag of scraps.  This is her latest one.

Caroline was working on a couple of tote bags.  Donna, whose house we were at, was working on a quilt that she started at a class we went to last year.  And I forgot to take a picture.

As for me - well after someone asked me how big the hexie quilt was, I measured it and decided that is needs to be bigger...  So I spent time cutting out second round hexies!  I will need another sixteen flowers.  Here are ten of them ready to sew.

And the two hexie flowers for my swap partner for March.  The end of March is coming up - I guess I better get these sewn!

And that was our day.  Today my daughters and grandkids are coming for a visit.  I am looking forward to the chaos!  :) 

Janet