And yet another WISP............

About 7 years ago I was in a group at our guild called Tinners. We each past around a large cookie tin containing one fabric and a theme. (Mine was red fabric and a floral theme)

Each person made a block of there size and choosing representing your theme. I got the blocks back and resized them make them all the same and put it away again. Hopefully, Thanks to the challenge this will get finished this year.

I was thinking that this might make a nice quilt to donate to our new Simcoe County Hospice. 

I Need some Help, Please....................

A few years ago I won a set of blocks at a quilting retreat. On the way home I stopped and bought some fabric I thought might go with it. Not all of the Blocks are the same size and some are lighter and some are darker.

Anyway, no matter how many times I look at these blocks and I can not figure out what to do them. Any Suggestions would be really helpful. Thanks.... I'll await some suggests and barring that some devine inspiration.

2009 A Project a Month Challenge

Over at May Britts there is a challenge going on.  I have signed up and my first completed quilt will my Hubby's, nautical theme Quilt.  I gave it him as a to unfinished Christmas present. I have since added the borders and machine quilted it.

Photo Quilt from the Past

As I have nothing new to share with you right now. I would like to show you one of the quilts that I made for my parents 50th anniversary. My Inspiration was a book by Ami Sims on Photo Transfer Quilts.

Once you get started you will be come hooked on sorting through old pictures. So if you want to organize your photo collection, now is a great time to make this quilt. It can have as many or as few pictures as you want on it. First I sorted through all of the photos that I was going to use and transferred them onto fabric. I decided my colour scheme would be Golds to go with the 50th and Black to make it pop. I collected all sorts of buttons and did some cross stitch to represent the things that my parents loved to do. I put their wedding picture in the middle of the quilt with Satin Ribbon Roses above and below there picture. I then put pictures of Mom and Dad's families above there picture and all of the family and friends below the picture. The black border was covered with a vine, leaves and gold yo-yo flowers. (the edge was not scalloped but  I used scalloped scissors on the photo I took before putting it in my Quilt Journal Album - Prior to Digital Camera) Next time I am home to visit, I will get better pictures.

    

PS Hubby's Toe is on the mend.

His Left Foot

Hubby has been suffering with a painful ingrown toenail for months, actually it has been almost a year. It took me at least 2 months to convince him to see our doctor, 6 months for him to get into see a specialist and another 2 months for them to schedule the procedure.
Well today was the day and I will be playing nursemaid for for the next few, I suspect.

  Good thing I have lots of hand work to work while I sit with my patient.

.......and yet More Snow

It has been snowing here non stop for 2 days. Fortunately we have a snowblower for the driveway. This is the view out of my kitchen door, very early this morning. Looks like there is another couple of inches for me to shovel.

I am preparing binding for Darling Hubby's quilt so that I can have hand work ready for the inauguration tomorrow. I want to see history in the making.  

Ahhhhhhh for Summer!

New Kindred Group Project

Yesterday I got together with my kindred group " Friends In Stitches". We try to meet at least once a month  and we work on a charity project. We always have at least one charity quilt on the go as well as our own projects. We have a lot of fabric donated to us, we usually come up with a plan. on how to use it.

Some time ago we had a box of things donated for our use. It included what I will call some preprinted Penny Squares. These squares are a pattern owned by Eatons  (A large Canadian retailer, very popular before they went out of business in about 2000)

 Here is a picture of one of the squares.

Our plan is to embroider 12 squares to make another Quilt for Charity. These are preprinted fine linen panels .

My Dear Friend Kelly and What a View

My friend Kelly and I spent a Saturday together this past weekend. I so look forward to the time we get to spend together.

We usually start at the kitchen table each with an extra large freshly brewed cup of Tim's (brought by Kelly) and chat while we peruse the latest issues of our Quilt magazine. Once we've finished our coffee and catch-up we get down to sewing. At least that is our plan. In reality we sew a little, talk a little, share websites we have found, talk about our future quilts and how we want to finish our UFO's.

Then Kelly keeps me company while I prepare lunch for us. After lunch, we sew a little more and finally put in a DVD, this time it was Judith Baker Montano's latest on Crazy Quilting. We have a cup of tea while we watch and then in no time the day is over.

Kelly and I share a lot of the same "Quilty" interests, we both love hand work, the "A" word, we both love embroidery, beading etc. We make great travelling companions because I like to drive and she is a great navigator. Kelly is a great listener and I am very lucky to have her as a friend.

As  I don't have a picture of our day together, I'll leave you with a picture taken from the window of my Mom's Kitchen. Wow!

New Experience

I had the opportunity to spend sometime using a longarm machine owned by a lovely lady; Colleen at our local Quilt shop. It was a real eye opener. It sure gave me a new respect for their work and the length of time it takes for them to perfect the craft and the quality of there work .

The smaller quilt is one that I made almost three years ago and had not gotten around to finishing it.
It will be donated to RVH hospital. Our guild has a program where we make quilts for the premature babies at the hospital. They use the Quilts to cover the isolettes and then the mothers get to take the quilt home with them when baby goes home. I am just finshing the binding.

This second one is a lap quilt that I made my husband for Christmas. It still needs binding too.

It was made from a kit I bought in Newfoundland, from Cathy Pittman at The Piecemaker, in South Conception Bay, a fabulous little shop right by water. The kit was only the small inner panel inside the red piping. The pattern was called Stir Crazy and used about 20 different fabrics relating to the sea.

I wanted to make a nice lap size quilt for hubby, so I asked my Kindred Group for some suggestions to add to it. They suggested the red piping. Boy did it make Quilt have the pop I was looking for. I also had these panels which included a lighthouse and beach sceen, so Brenda (a member of our group) suggested  using the lighthouse portion of the panels as cornerstones. The rest of the panels and extra fabric I bought, plus my stash was used to make the bricks in the second border.

I am really please at how it turned out. I used the bamboo and cotton blend batting. It has a lovely hand and I think could be used for hand quilting. I would be anxious for your comments. 

Happy New Year

Good Morning everyone, I am a little late getting all of my Resolution type plans in order, but here goes.

1. Get into a more Healthy Eating Regime, (not the "D" word), get more active, etc. More on this later.

2. Make a Memory Box - I have decided that I have lot of little things, notes of love and encouragement, cards and pictures that mean a lot to me and I would like to keep them in a place that I can revisit them and keep them without worrying about losing them. I have a lovely tin box that I am going gather up my things and keep them in.

3. Make a list of each room in my home, and further break down the list of what I want to do in each room E.G. clean out closet, clean out dresser drawers, Declutter shelf in the closet etc. My plan is to prioritize each one and as I have time work on each task for a short time. I think that I will be more satisfied if I can do one small task and see it through to completion instead of just saying clean this room, which can be a daunting task at time.

Right now I have several Doctor's appointments this week and a couple of small hand sewing projects I need to finish for my Kindred Group. So I best get cracking!

 Here are some pictures I took over Christmas. Hubby in the midst of the aftermath. My fur baby before we started opening, and Lovely bouquet my husband brought me home on Christmas Eve.