Jane has her Ruffle

I completed attaching the bias binding by hand, this morning. Now I can spend leisure? time finishing the binding around the scallops for this quilt.It took me a few minutes to work out how to neatly finish that inner corner, but we're good to go now.

Weekend Past with Maggie Vanderweit

What with all that's happening in our house lately, it's taken me a while to process all the information I gleaned from my Natural Dyeing course from Maggie Vanderweit of Stone Threads Studio in Fergus Ontario

www.stonethreads.ca


The new background of this post is one of the jaw dropping pieces I created on Saturday past. While I've dabbled in this for a while, (I like cheap and dirty), there were a few nagging "hows and whys" that I couldn't find the answers to. I have those answers now and can move forward with this 'new' medium to play with colours, my garden and the surrounding countryside.

I had lots of fun with 10 other like-minded ladies. It's a little late in the season and right now my plate is so full, but I will get back to this.

In the meantime here are a couple of my "keepers". I have lots of time to decide how to use this new source of interesting fabric.

Snow Days Flimsy Assembled

I've had to make a list.
I was juggling so much in my head that I wasn't being very efficient ( Oh my mother would shake her finger.)

So first on the list was to assemble this quilt top.
I placed a safety pin in every location that needs some additional embroidery, either into the quilt blocks or to link two scenes together.
Now, this is evening hand work, so it will be a few weeks before I consider the quilting.
I was toying with hand quilting this one as I did enjoy working on the "Stickle" quilt, but there are some rather daunting corners with a lot of material so I'll have to think about it for a while.

In the meantime here is the layout.

There were times I was a little leery of my fabric choices but I think the balance worked out. This is sideways so my shadow didn't fall on the top. The rest are shots moving around the quilt CCW.

A Knitting Gem in Perth Ontario

I slipped over to Eastern Ontario this week to give my Niece, Alison Manning, a hardy congratulations on the purchase and reopening of Unravelled, her yarn shop, in Perth Ontario.

http://unraveled.ca/


She left an IT job in Ottawa to follow her dream (and reclaim her life and family). Thanks to an awesomely supportive husband and wonderful teen age son, her commute to "work" now takes......15 minutes??!! .......instead of 2 hours.
I had to inspect and touch all the wonderful products on display. I ended up bringing home a luscious box of Merino wool roving samples.

These will end up in my future felted offerings.
Here's a quick look at the rainbow of awesome wool. Check out her website and plan a trip!

proud mother Judy Manning

Now the pressure is on for me to FINISH my current knitting project and hurry back. New stock is coming in all the time and a lot of it is from local sources.

Visit when you can. Perth, Ontario is charming and so representative of an early Canadian town.

Snow Days - Centre Block

This went together rather slick. I did change out some single 3 inch blocks ( lighter or darker ) but I left the rest as they happened.
Random and scrappy is always interesting.

First Prize Surprise

I received a call last night from a member of our Quilt guild. We had collaborated on a piece. This was over a year ago, so I was surprised when she told me she'd entered it in a local fair.. and WON. This was the Tandem class, HER quilt and my quilting and leaf embellishment.

The photo is not the best, but I remember it was a lot of fun.

Snow Days - All the Blocks Complete

Lots of cutting and lots of breaks. The instructions were very clear as long as you remembered they were for one block. It was easy to overlook just how many of each piece or each size you needed, so I organized a system and only messed up once.

The three sizes made for a nice break and encouraged some thoughtful use of the limited materials I had selected. I found it was most efficient and relaxing to cut and assemble each size separately.
The only solid fabric I used was my walnut stained material. I used 3 different shades.

I only have a few small pieces left to embroider. The centre of the quilt is surrounded by the embroidered pieces so I can start assembling that tomorrow.

😉

Snow Days Quilt - Starting the Blocks

The embroidery is almost complete so I started on the blocks yesterday. Unlike most quilt patterns this one is composed of many different blocks in 3 different sizes. You really can't assembly line either the cutting or sewing.
The choice of fabrics was also left open, fat quarters and some yardage in lights, mediums and darks.
I had my choices made, but hubby nixed the blue I had included with the browns and other neutrals. So this is turning out to be a rather subtle quilt.

That's attractive too!

So here's what I have finished as of today.

BEARS ...... For BC....( well my sister, really,,,)

I've had an urgent request for " bears ".
Well .......okay.....

For what ever reasons (summer craziness?) my files seem to be in a mess. It took me awhile to find a usable picture.  Even my computer files are a bit spread out or redundant. ( I think I need a good purge here. )
I decided to go with these two today.

Trying a different method this time ( all my appropriate hoops are busy ), I layered a traced copy on washable stabilizer over a brown, over a piece of medium stabilizer. Once an outline stitch was in place. I removed the light, traced picture.

Here is the initial choice of threads, I may add more....

And away we go.
There is some drawup but not enough to worry about.

The thread colours don't really look their best until the fellow is cut out and placed on a green background.

5:30 PM

Bear #2

Labour Day 2017

Woke up a few days ago and knew that it was time to quilt the four donation quilts my friends had dropped off. I HAD been thinking about them. Yes I could just quickly meander over them but I like to put a little of myself into them, particularly this time as I had no part of assembling them at the retreat.
So each one did receive some serious though, some more than others of course...the ones I REALLY liked.

Summer is over. I guess I'm back to work.
Making Art.
Someone's got to do it!