Fly High!

I am so pleased to have this long-awaited UFO done and checked off the FAL List. It's been on that list for over two years!

The block is one by Deb Tucker, called Migrating Geese. I followed this tutorial, making it as one of my RSC 2017 projects, but doing my own layout. Each month I made one row of the geese.

Stars Aligned New Pattern Release!

Today is Canada Day, but this year I am having mixed feelings about celebrating the year white people made part of what some Indigenous peoples call Turtle Island into Canada, sticking the land's Indigenous peoples on reservations, and harming them in many horrifying ways, the effects of that treatment still lived and felt today. (See an update at the end of this post - great minds, or greater minds than mine...)

So. Today I am thinking of the 150 Canadian women represented below, many European, but lots of Indigenous ones and some Black as well, whose accomplishments I am forever in awe of, and whose quilt I still haven't finished (but it's going to go on Q3FAL list).

I do not profess to be in this league, but I think it is a good day, first day of the month, first day of the second half of the year, to release my newest pattern. I am super-excited about this one. Stars are my favourite block, and I created this design last year in the #30quiltdesignschallenge. It truly is remarkable how many of the designs in our group over the three years I hosted it have been published. They've appeared in ezines, fabric company catalogues, print magazines, and have been self-published. Mine was in Benartex's Modern by the Yard ezine and now I am able to release it!

DrEAMi! #41

This DrEAMi! is out a bit later than usual because I had a DrEAMi! yesterday, and I didn't write up my post until this morning, then had to stop to go practise yoga on Zoom... Did you have a squirrel moment or a Drop Everything And Make it moment this month?

Helen of Word Weaver Art sent me the link to this photo. Tom writes a blog called Piks of the Day, and Stuff. As she said to me, he must be the most patient man to capture some of the photos he does. Check out that link for photos before and after this one. Mesmerizing.

Image by: Piks of the Day and Stuff: Squirrel!

Isn't that really quite beautiful? Squirrels are, both of the furry and of the fabric kind!

I Like/Love #42

It seems surreal (how often have we all thought/said that this year) that in five days half of 2020 will be gone. It's been a decade in six months in a lot of ways. However, we plod on. So here is my list of things for which I am grateful this month. I link up with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color where you can find several other grateful peeps' posts. It can be such a lift reading each others' likes.

1. I like the programme 'After Dark' that starts at 8 pm on CBC Radio 2 hosted by Odario Williams; I love Odario's smooth voice. He plays an eclectic mix of music for the evening. I like that CBC hosts are all accomplished and talented musicians in their own rights. For example, Odario is the lead vocalist for the hip-hop band Grand Analog. Julie Nesrallah, who hosts another favourite programme, Tempo, on weekday mornings, is an acclaimed mezzo-soprano, who sang for Prince William and Kate when they were here in Canada a few years ago.

2. I love this photo of my little cat, Bella.

She's a lovebug, but only with me. She absolutely loves when I sit in padmasana, cross-legged, especially for meditation, snuggling right in. Often she sort of pads my leg, or will kiss my fingers, before getting herself arranged and settledin my lap. Those of you who join me for yin yoga on Instagram on Tuesday and Thursday mornings have seen her do this!

Cat Mats Installment 2 of 3, Centred Winners and a Coupon Code!

Another item on my Q2FAL list is to make a (ahem) rather long overdue cat mat for Harper, my grand-cat. I am happy to report it is now done.

This fabric was given to me a few years ago, so it's high time to get it off the shelf and into use. It was a panel, Cat-I-Tude by Ann Lauer for Benartex. I debated on putting two of the cats on the front but it would have been rather large then, so I decided to have a reversible mat, and use one cat on the front and one on the back. Harper is a girl, and Dayna likes pink, so pink is the 'right' side. I simply added some pink strips to the sides and purple strips, left over from Dayna's graduation from university quilt, Shoot for the Moon, to the top and bottom to make a rectangle approximately 13" x 19".

June OMG: Pink Scraps Sorting Box

After spending hours upon hours on the computer yesterday putting the finishing touches on my upcoming pattern release, which Yvonne will have a look at this coming week, (yep, another, and it's a stars quilt!) I had to work on something mindless, fun, and pink. So I started quilting the panels for my next scraps sorting box, and finished it up today.

I love it. I guess I have loved pink forever, since I used to have a pink wall-papered living room in the 90s, and the lining, which you may recall is also featured in my Bear Paw Baby quilt, was what I used to make cushions that sat on my oak chairs in my dining room... So pink is right up there next to blue. Making this box gave me a lot of joy, on a day that is special: June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day here in Canada and it coincides with the Summer Solistce, though that actually did happen here yesterday about 5:20 pm. Rather fitting for the announcement that is forthcoming in this post, a post that is also my OMG fulfillment post.

Bear Paw Baby

Wow, two finishes in one week! This one was still in the blocks stage, with only four of the five bear paw blocks finished, and no sure plan as to how it would become a flimsy. Well, clearly things need to percolate on the back burner of my brain, and this is a great example of how letting them do just that, works!

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for the month of June is pink, so it is fitting that this little quilt get finished in a pink month. It started as a test block for using the Bear Paw Block on Board die I got last year from AccuQuilt. I liked the colour combination so much that I decided I needed to make a baby quilt to sell in my Etsy shop. I used every last piece but for a 2.5" by a few inches piece of the Anna Maria Horner burgundy. The pink is a vintage piece of cotton, used to make quilted chair cushions for my oak chairs I had in Alberta, and Kona bone is the background.