Gratitude & Glimmers #107

The significance is hiding in the insignificant.

Appreciate everything.

—Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of March. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. My apologies that this was not out on Thursday, but where did May go?

1. For the third year in a row, we attended a couple of Jane's Walks in Windsor. Jane’s Walks celebrate our local communities: "neighbourhoods, and the people who live there.” This year Windsor’s festival, the last weekend in April and the first one in May, was the fourth largest in Canada, pretty good for a smaller region. One of the two we did was in Butterfly Lane, a nondescript back lane in Walkerville, which is a neighbourhood in the east end of Windsor.

Homeowners gave permission for artists to paint on their fences or garages.

Local artists did the beautiful butterfly artwork in the lane to raise awareness of brain injury in their community. There were many beautiful pieces.

The Making of a Lion Quilt

Brady turns 18 this summer (how is that remotely possible?) and so I’m making him a lion quilt as he is a Leo.

This is Lion, a paper-pieced pattern by Tartan Kiwi Designs. I bought it ten(!) years ago, knowing I’d make it one day for Brady. Well, that ‘one day’ has arrived. It is a huge block, the biggest one I’ve ever paper-pieced, at 24” finished. The cows quilt blocks were 12”.

Lyra Quilt Along - Sashing Units and Quilt Assembly

Aaand… just like that - we are done until the final parade opens on June 15! A few of you have gone ahead and got your quilt top together, so I do hope you'll have a completely finished quilt by then. Know that both tops and finished quilts can go into the parade, though I truly do hope that you finish your quilt. I'd hate to be the reason more WIPs show up in your quilt rooms!

The sashing pieces will go together in a jiffy. Then it's basically a 9-patch layout with borders. But I'm a bit ahead of myself.

Artemis

Artemis, a quilt I designed (inspired by an email convo with my friend Rose) in honour of the Artemis II expedition in April, is finished and ready to be hung on a wall in my home. You can read the story behind it in this post about the flimsy.

We went for a little drive on Sunday, trying to find an appropriate quilt for this full moon quilt. I had thought of the Windsor Astronomical Society observatory, but though MacGyver had mapped it, we were unable to find it. We also knew there wasn’t much chance of getting near it as it was closed and locked on a Sunday. I thought of the giant grey rocks at the Leamington Marina, so that is where the last photos were taken. We did stumble upon another pretty cool backdrop for a glamour shot.

Lyra Quilt Along - Make the Blocks

Well, we’ve got all the units made, so let’s put them together and make some blocks.

There are four blocks to make this week. Next week we’ll make the sashing units and assemble the quilt top!

Diamond Baby in Make Modern

I am so pleased to be finally able to present my latest publication in Make Modern issue 70!

Because there was (eerily) another HRT diamonds quilt submitted just ahead of mine, scheduled for the January 2026 issue, Lara asked if I'd mind waiting a couple of cycles before they released mine, hence four months longer of a wait but that’s okay; it’s finally here.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Update and a Free Quilt Pattern

This was not the plan, but I have a Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt finish with the first three months’ colours!

I’m actually quite pleased with it. January was dark blue, and I did a couple of medium and medium/dark blue 9-patch blocks. February was dark green, and I added in some muddy ones. March was red, which was when I realized my original thinking of a rainbow of 9-patches that finish at 7.5” wasn’t going to work the way I had envisioned; it would be a humongous quilt.