Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Yard work

This should have been the week to clean up the yard, but up to now the weather did not cooperate. Last year we put up a building with a diesel generator for back-up power to the buildings and at the same time dug in hyro and water lines. During the winter the ground settled and now the time has come to clean and level everything before we can put new grass seed down. One hour of working outside today made me realize, that I need more excercise! Back to quilting.Before Jeanette made her paper pieced quilts she took one workshop. She came with me to Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph and there she saw the work of Loreen Roy. She loved it and I was told, that if ever there was a possibility to take a workshop from her, she would go with me. So when the opportunity arose, we both took her workshop. This small blue wallhanging with a tree is Jeanette's result. I wanted to try and make something with flowers coming out of some rocky outcrops. This was a completely new way of doing things for me, but it was a lot of fun. I must have been too enthousiastic, because it ended up too thick to quilt. I forget how many needles of all kind I broke during the quilting. But it did get done, finally. Since I could not work outside I had time to finish the borders on Jeanette's quilt. Only the back has to be sewn and it can be taken to the machine quilter. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif Add Image

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Busy,busy, busy

It has been a very busy week. On Friday Jeanette and her husband Tony, with cat and dog in tow, came for the week-end.Saturday morning we spend putting her second quilt together. Last year Jeanette was asked to be a bridesmaid for her friend Cindy's wedding. She decided to make a small quilt. This was her first try at paper piecing and she ended up with a queen size quilt. I helped her with putting the blocks together and it was machine quilted.I forgot to take a good picture before it left, but here Shawn and Jeanette are showing it to their grandmother. She decided that she wanted a quilt for herself and so she made 168 paper pieced blocks. Saturday was the day to put it all together. While she pinned, I sewed and Tony ripped the paper pieces,the quilt took shape. Early afternoon the center was finished. Now a 2 inch wide dark blue batik border and a 10 inch wide multi colored border and it will be ready for quilting. On Monday I gave a trunkshow at the Dufferin Quilter's guild and a lively group it was! We had a lot of fun and I will be back in the fall for some workshops. Yesterday was guild meeting and as usual there was a fabulous show-and-tell and a good speaker. Now I'm getting ready for a 31/2 hour drive to Windsor, where I will give 2 workshops on Friday and Saturday. Next week....it will be clean-up outside and other yard work.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

More cranes

Another crane finished. That is 9 done, 3 more to go. The next one is halve finished.One is a lot bigger. It is standing in water and I will have to come up with some reeds or other greenery to make it less "dull" I want to incorporate more sashiko, but I have not decided yet if that will be done before the quilting or will be part of the quilting itself. Last month Canada Post came out with a series of 4 stamps, commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the Ontario Horticultural Society. I'm a member of the local society. I thought it might be fun to make postcards of each stamp. The trillium was the first one. This flower is very familiar to me, as we have lots of them growing in our tree lot at the back of the farm.In another month they should be out in bloom. After I made the card, all done on the machine, I glued the stamp on and had it hand cancelled at the local post office