My Best of 2019

As the final few hours of the last year, and the second decade of the 2000s winds down, I'm here drinking tea, and writing a blog post of reflection. 😁 I'm linking up with Cheryl's Meadow Mist Designs, Best of 2019 Linky Party. I wrote 126 posts this year, counting this one! This year instead of most views, most comments type of criteria, I simply picked some favourites from the year. It was hard, and

1. My favourite mini quilt this year is Moody Blues.

It's my own design. I thoroughly loved every bit of the process of making it. It is one of the quilts that will be hanging at the Kingsville Library in January. I was asked to be the featured artist once again!

Fidget Quilt - Island Batik 3D Challenge Project 2

I'm back with another project I made for the December 3D Challenge for Island Batik! I had an unplanned two-week hiatus from sewing my Island Batik projects, (I made the lap quilt 'Grace' and looked after my granddog, Penny), so I'm squeaking this one in, and hopefully one more before the 31.

This is a fidget quilt. It's an extra-large placemat sized quilt that can easily sit on a person's lap. As you can see, there are several items sewn onto the quilt. What is their purpose? Read on to find out.

DrEAMi! #35

OMG this is the BEST squirrel image EVER! Many thanks to my dear friend John, who knows me so well, reads my blog, every post, and sent this to me.

via GIPHY

It's the last Drop Everything And Make it! party of the year, so massage those last few gotta-makes into a 'all done!' and link up at the end of this post. Like the squirrel on the table, I think we all could use a massage after spending a lot of hours hunched over our sewing machines during the past month!

Imaginary Friends - A little bit different of an I Like/Love #36 Post

I've been writing this post in my head since I was in England. You know, I still want to pinch myself that that is a true statement. I was in England. Only a little over a month ago. It seems surreal. And I need to write a post or ten about the entire incredible trip. But not now. The title of this post comes from the husband of my good friend Sue with whom I met up and shared lunch whilst in England this summer.

I just noticed something interesting: we both love our dogs, and look at the card above us on the mantle!

This is also an I like/love post because it is filled with people and things and events for which I am most grateful. I am linking up with LeeAnna at Not Afriaid of Color, where you will find other like-minded grateful peeps. I haven't mused much in recent posts, so this is one of those posts. For newer readers, my blog was originally just called Musings of a Menopausal Melon because I started it when I was in the full throes of menopause and wanted to write down my thoughts at this new stage of my life along with my quilting adventures. Then, when I wanted the blog to be known as mainly a quilting blog, I came up with a more à propos name, but with a nod to the original with the acronym and double entendre (love them) of 'mmm', having the extra meaning of, 'yum!' or 'so good!'

So...friends, both imaginary and real....

2020 Planning Post

I am a list-maker, a planner, and always set goals, be they minuscule or lofty. So even though I didn't manage to do this formal post last year, I had goals for the year. Today I'm taking some time to formally write down some thoughts for 2020, and I'm joining in with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for the party that she hosts each December.

First of all, let's see how I did in 2019.

Grace

This has been another year for new experiences, and, as I approach a rather sobering milestone in 2020, I am quietly pleased that I am still learning, still trying new things, still up for challenges. More on this in my 2019 Review and Planning for 2020 post. This quilt was a commissioned one. I do believe the only previous commissioned quilt was my mum's request in 2016 for one for her brother, which I called con fuoco. This quilt is also a squirrel, a 'Drop Everything And Make it!' project, which I will link up with my party on the last Saturday of the month where we celebrate all those DrEAMi projects.

When Dayna's good friend in Alberta lost her baby in her second trimester, in November, she talked at length to me about it, and one of the first things she asked was if I could make her a quilt. We both knew it needed hearts on it. I sent her a couple of images I found on Pinterest, we chatted several times, and somewhere in the conversation I said what if I design one with hearts floating all over it... And, as designs are wont to do, this design became much more than I'd originally thought.

HRT Tutorial - No rulers! Not paper-pieced!

The quilt top I've just finished requires a few HRTs, also known as Half Rectangle Triangles. These differ from HSTs (Half Square Triangles) in that they are not square. Duh, I know, but think about it: both have a right angle formed by their perpendicular two sides, let's say the base and the left side, but then the diagonal line on an HST is more of a gentle slope, a 45° one to be exact, whereas the HRT has a much sharper slope. This can give you some lovely icicle-like pointy points!

The downside is that that require a little more work in the prep stage to make them. I know there are lots of rulers out there to make the 'little more work', much less, but here is a tutorial I wrote for the size I needed in my current quilt, which is 2X4" finished.

I would first like to credit Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts whose HRT tutorial popped up when I searched for a handy-dandy chart, and she has just such a handy-dandy chart for both HRTs and HSTs, so pop over and check it out, download it and then come back. I will wait, as they say...

Holiday House

This is my first project for the December challenge with Island Batik. We were to incorporate 3D elements into our project. As you know, I love depth perception, shadows and layers in quilting, so to say I was excited about this challenge is a bit of an understatement! Truth tea: I have exactly six project ideas for the challenge... Here is the first:

It's my House Block pattern (see sidebar link to it) with a 6" presents block on the side! All of the fabrics were supplied by Island Batik.  Hobbs Batting supplied the 100% wool batting (which I originally used in my suitcases quilt Oh! The Places You'll Go!) and Aurifil supplied most of the thread I used in the project. Some of the threads and the embellishments are my own.

I Like/Love #35

I'm popping in with an extra gratitude post this month because I forgot a few items from my end of the month post in November.

1. The first one I forgot to include was a lovely conversation I had with a fellow ambassador, Gene. I like him! We were speaking of our mums/moms, and I had said how my mum would have loved seeing all the quilts in the 3D Challenge for December. She especially loved the trompe-l'ceil effect used by artists where the eye is fooled. Bargello effects where a quilt looks rippled or folded is one example. Somehow we got to talking and discovered our mutual love of figures of speech, and our mutual cringing at writers' faux pas in writing, such as spelling the French expression, 'voilà!' used in the sense of 'ta-da!' and meaning 'here (or there) it is!' as 'viola' which is a flower, or 'wa-la' which is not even the correct pronunciation. A 'v' is a 'v' in French.

Anyhow... to get to my like! Regarding the trompe-l'ceil effect paired with a pun, Gene sent me the photo below from an art book he has.

Isn't that terrific? The artist is Jim Brower who passed away in 2016 at the age of 101. I especially love how well he painted the oil! *Le dictionnaire Larousse let me know that trompe-l'ceil is the correct spelling, with the hyphen and the joined oe. That linked oe comes from Latin in this case.

December OMG

I remembered...forgot...remembered...forgot and have actually remembered before the 7th is over. I am so glad I get friends' blogs via email as it is that that kept reminding me...

This is not on my Q4FAL List, so it's a fair OMG; I try not to 'double-dip'! And yeah, yeah, I have a ton of want to and need to-do's from which to choose! For December I want to use my House Block pattern (see sidebar for the link to my Etsy shop) or click here to get your copy for just $4, to make a Christmassy cushion cover with 3D effects.

The Kelpie's Star - November Island Batik Challenge

I would not make a good boy scout... That bit about being prepared eludes me. I knew I would have Brianne and Brady visiting us over the last weekend of November, so I should have budgeted my time better, but somehow November felt like ten days instead of 30. And then, with one side and a bit to go, I was furiously binding the quilt today, watching the elusive sun play with my 'good quilt photographs' mind, and?

The power suddenly went out. In the daytime??? I quick went on the Hydro One website for power outages and read that a crew was on it, and estimated outage time was ....

THREE HOURS.

I may have said one (or more) very bad words. I gave it one hour, went and had a bite of lunch, did a little browsing on Instagram, paced around a bit, and then suddenly, half an hour later, poof! It was back on. So this was able to happen at the Leamington Marina this afternoon!

Isn't that the most divine spot for a quilt?! And it wasn't very windy today, yay! The vessel in the background, well, there are two, but the large one is one of the Pelee Island ferries that run from either Leamington or Kingsville from April through the first week of December. I was pretty happy to get them in the photo shoot!

All of the fabrics in the quilt were supplied by Island Batik, the batting by Hobbs Batting, and the threads for quilting by Aurifil. This month we were to use tools in our sewing rooms to make a lap size or larger quilt. I used several tools, but the main ones were the Sidekick ruler by Jaybird Quilts, along with her Hex N More ruler.

Throwback Thursday #24 - Jackets

This is the last TBT for 2019 and most likely the last one as an official linky party. I still plan to write up and document my pre-blogging quilts, so you may see these posts still in 2020. Thank you to those of you who have pulled out and photographed and written up the story on your older quilts, and thank you to Andrée of Quilting & Learning - What a Combo! who has hosted every other month this year, and who is hosting December's party.

Wow, it seems just a couple of months ago we were still recovering and reminiscing about Dayna and Tyler's wedding, making plans for me to go for Christmas to Brianne and Brady's, and getting excited to go to Mérida, Mexico in January. How can twelve months have flown by so fast?

I've wanted to write up these jackets for some time, but I either forget about them or I spy another older quilt I write about. So at last, here is the quilted jackets post. These go back to the early 2000s.

DrEAMi! #34

I have a confession: I didn't catch my squirrel this month. I got bitten by a big fat one, but try as I might, I couldn't quite catch it. It's my Pumpkin Patch quilt and it had to get set aside because ... commitments. Here is where I left it:

Two rows sashed but not sewn together yet, the other two rows joined into columns, no sashing. I have no idea why I just HAD to make this quilt, but make it I did, riffle through scraps I did, and even use up some older beige stash yardage, I DID! The commitments to which I refer peeks out from beneath the pumpkins.
Welcome, regardless, to Drop Everything And Make it! where we usually do catch our squirrels; I mean that really IS a true DrEAMi where you do not stop until you have a completed project in front of you! Once in awhile, however, squirrels disappear for a little bit. Evasive tactics.

I Like/Love #34

This will probably be my longest gratitude post, but it's rather fitting, falling on the American Thanksgiving. I collect these likes and loves all month long and link up with other like-minded grateful peeps at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. You can join in anytime. Writing down my own moments/incidents of gratitude and then reading others' likes is a massage for the soul. I need it now more than ever. One of my yoga students told me about this e-book available on the Hoopla app (I like that app!) Gratitude Daily 21 Days to More Joy and Less Stress by Nataly Kogan. It's a great read/activity book, and I highly recommend it. It reaffirms what we do here, express gratitude.

Isn't that just perfect? It not only starts off the month, but also this post, in the right frame of mind. And it is so very true.

Musings from My Melon and Mermaid Cove Update

If you follow me on Instagram (mmmquilts), you'll have seen the recent progress of the November challenge for Island Batik. We were to dig around in our sewing rooms to find any sewing tools, and make a lap size or larger quilt. I chose to work with the Mermaid Cove line which is beautiful. I chose to work with my Sidekick ruler, but ended up also using the Hex N More ruler a bit as well. These are both from Jaybird Quilts and came with the pattern book and kit that I snagged on a Massdrop which I now see is just Drop, deal. Because I was limited to 2.5" strips and four yards in two coordinating colours, two of each, I wasn't able to make all the block variations in the Gravity pattern for a few different reasons, large central hexagon for one, 2.5" wide strips for another. Yes, I could piece strips together to make a 4" piece of fabric, but then some of the shape was lost. I ended up making some of Julie's triangles and created some of my own. Here is the flimsy thus far:

WIP Update

I am stitching away on my November challenge for Island Batik where we are to make a lap size or larger quilt using tools of some kind within our sewing rooms. I chose to work with the Sidekick ruler that I've had for a couple of years now. I also used the Hex N More ruler, which was an unplanned bonus. Both of these are by Jaybird Quilts.

I must say I suddenly had a flashback to when I was a kid, playing with my wooden mosaics! These fabrics, however, are so much more beautiful than my primary coloured mosaics.

Fall Pillow Cases OMG

Yay for an OMG that is finished in plenty of time before month's end. And yay for a WIP  that is also finally done. I should have had this on my Q4FAL List, but didn't think of it until after I'd posted, and well, that would be 'double-dipping' in the enter-to-win linky parties, so I didn't, not that I've ever won an OMG... I did win once in the FAL, and hm! I still have to go visit Mad About Patchwork and spend my moola. But I digress. Here is my finish:

When I spied a bit of snow still left on these junipers, I thought the red would look good against it... and it does! Actually kind of Christmassy, right? Good thing I got that shot when I did, because there's very little snow left only a few hours later, just a bit on the north-facing side of places. I'm good with that because this snow came way too early.

La Vie En Rose

I am pleased to have yet another item finished, a large one, and checked off the Q4FAL List, which is here. I've had it done for a couple of days, but the sun did not cooperate for photos until today. This quilt is for my daughter, Brianne, the one who doesn't like quilts, same daughter who got me started in quilting when she, at the age of 8, basically forced me to make a quilt block to enter in a draw for all the blocks turned in, and yeah, I won. So I had to learn how to make a quilt. That first quilt went to her. Since then I've made her one other, again in pinks with oranges, and now a third, again pinks. Yes, she's a pink-loving girl, always has been.

I collected the fabrics over the course of about a year. That was oh, three years ago... thinking it would be for her then new home. Now she's in her new house (for over a year, oops) so this is like a happy new forever home quilt.
Yeah we got snow...set a record for amount, earliest, and coldest overnight temperature that fateful day. And it's been cold all week.

Tiny Tuesday and Pumpkin Patch Quilt

It's time for a quick update on my Tiny Tuesday blocks and my Pumpkin Patch squirrel I am chasing. I've completed all the Tiny Tuesday blocks as per Angela's instructions at soscrappy. I absolutely loved doing this scrappy tiny QAL this year. Here are the last three blocks.

This one is Bulleye, and it really is square. I couldn't get that dang top rectangle to lie flat for the photo. I'm making this last month's blocks in browns, blacks and greys, so it was brown's turn. Once again, I've mixed 'vintage' fabrics such as the Cranston cream background with new ones such as the Paintbrush Studio 'Windfall' chocolate brown centre.

TBT #23 Slip Into Autumn

Welcome to TBT for November! I have an absolutely favourite autumn quilt to write up today. From its name to its fabric (controlled scrappy, my fave) to its vibe and soft hand, I love it.

This is a Joanna Figueroa pattern from American Patchwork & Quilting in the naughts of 2000. Maybe 05 or 06? I finished it in September 2007 according to my label. I could comb through my collection to find the exact issue, but...renovations, sigh....magazines are packed up in some box somewhere.

Nancy's Quilt

This is Nancy's quilt, my first quilt customer. Nancy is yet another yoga student, former teacher, speaks French, sews, and is a newer quilter. She wanted to make a quilt for her new nephew who lives in England. She showed me the fabrics she'd collected, beautiful blues and greens, from several quilt shops. She said that was her favourite part, was gathering the fabrics! She's smitten for sure.

November OMG

I have not been so great at stating OMGs, and when I have, not so great at finishing them I feel, though I haven't backed that up with stats.

This month, I plan to finally get these pillow shams/cases done to go on our bed. I took off the seashell ones that go on in midsummer just yesterday and washed them, so it's high time. As per usual, there are a couple of other gotta-do's ahead of them.

Nana's Closet

I have another item checked off my Q4FAL list! This is now the last of four quilts I have made for each of my niece and three nephews. This last one came about after my mum passed away last year. Some time after the funeral, I was gathering up the quilts that I'd made her, and my nephew Dray wanted to keep some stuff I'd made. A conversation ensued and an idea was born: for his quilt he could choose some of Nana's clothes and I'd make his quilt with them. One of her favourite plush throws was draped over the back of the loveseat, and I said I could use it as the backing if he liked. He thought that was a good idea. So last summer, he and my sister Linda, his mum, went through Mum's stuff and chose several pieces. Here is what they became.

I Like #33

It's the end of the month again, and time for my post on gratitude, and the likes and loves I've collected all month long. See the link below the post where you will find several more people who post these gratitude posts. I'm listening to an audiobook on Hoopla about the importance of daily gratitude, so much of what she says I've experienced and learned through doing this practice.

1. I like cruise control, seat heat and a heated steering wheel. We had our first touch of frost on October 18, so I was happy to find the heated steering wheel option in the menu of the truck! Seated heats (lol, I can't even type it let alone say it) heated seats is what sold me when I bought my new-to-me VW Passat, ah I miss her still.

2. I love the little brave birds that flit around and chirp away in the willow outside the window in the room where I am currently sewing.

3. I like the number three. My birthday is April 3, which is probably the origin of this like. This post is #33! (I had to move this from #1 to #3. Obviously.

DrEAMI #33

Well big time oops here. This post should have been on Saturday, as in a few days ago. That was when I was participating for the first time in #missingmarket and it was fun! Sunday it continued, but another reason my head was not on my blog duties was that we had to dog-sit this sweetiepie.

It wasn't hard to spend several hours with her in their basement watching the Lions..... win! She is a snuggle bunny extraordinaire. So it didn't even dawn on me that the last Saturday of October was over until this morning, and well I was in the throes of finishing off the current quilt, taking a certain cat to the vet, and getting said quilt into the mail.

Greta the Gobbler

And, just like that, I have a second project done for the October challenge for Island Batik! I need to thank Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts for this 'squir-key'. I saw her turkey, and, in keeping with a good squirrel project, had to go right out and find the Quilts 'n More magazine it was in, buy it, and then not rest (well I did because I had two other big quilts to make, and one runner) until it was a finished quilt!

Give Thanks

Welcome to TGIFF and welcome to the first of my two October challenge projects for Island Batik.

This is on my Q4FAL List which is here. I suddenly remembered I had signed up to host TGIFF on October 18, oh, a day ago, so I figured this had better get finished up and quick! Luckily it was already in flimsy form.

Q4 FAL My List

Well, here we go for the last time in 2019. First of all, as per usual, here is a collage of the projects I did finish in the third quarter. Twelve were on my list, rather ambitious, and of those I completed six, so only 50%, not so good. However, I was gone almost a month with our Europe and UK trip in July/August, and there were several other squirrels and a few unplanned requests in the mix.

I am supremely happy that I got Brady's football quilt finally done! All right, let's see what ambitions I have for this last quarter of 2019.

October is Browns and Blacks

Bella likes Fall because well, those are her colours. She has perched twice now on or near the brown arrow block so I thought it picture worthy.

Touchdown!

This is another quilt on my Q3FAL list which is here. I finished the flimsy over three weeks ago, but the quilt had to take a back seat to my day 'job' for Island Batik, which was finishing the September challenge, my Bear Paw Dance, which I think I will be renaming 'Waltzing With Bear' thanks to jbetty's comment! Anyhow, Brady's quilt got finished and both snuggled under and slept under while he was here for a visit.

One of my good friends who we ran into at the Windsor Spitfires hockey game on Saturday night said that Brady has such a beautiful smile, and she's right. His eyes! How they twinkle when he smiles. He was over the moon, ha, over the posts à la field goal, with his quilt, especially the Minky backing.

Bear Paw Dance Finish

I was a few days late for the finish of this quilt, as it was our Island Batik September challenge, and now it's taken a few more days to get a post together, because my daughter and darling grandson have been here visiting from Alberta. You may have seen the finish post on Instagram, where he not only was a most capable quilt holder, but also a pretty amazing quilt photographer to boot!

Here is my spin on the traditional Bear Paw block, which I've named Bear Paw Dance, because I've 'blown apart' the block and I have the paws waltzing around the centre four blocks! This is one of the quilts on my Q3FAL list which is here.

TBT #22 Coneflower Crazies

This is one of my Fall quilts I like to bring out around this time of year. It is such a fun quilt, and very modern when you start to look at it. Today's Throwback Thursday is hosted by Andrée at Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!

We had a gorgeous hot start to the week here, but I didn't do the photos until yesterday...in the rain. It is still raining today, and woke me up in the night with its pouring so hard. If you look closely, you can see drops hanging from the deck rails! The colours are a little washed out (pun not originally intended) because of the grey skies; they are much richer and more vibrant in person.

Bear Paw Dance

The flimsy is done, and I'm in love! This is an original design, and I cannot tell you how much of a rush it is to have a drawn or digital design of mine come to life in fabric.

This is the Child's Play September challenge given to us Island Batik ambassadors.

DrEAMi! #32

Welcome to the September edition of DrEAMi! for those of us squirrel chasers who sometimes (or often) have to just Drop Everything (we are supposed to be making or doing) And Make it! (Apologies for the delay this morning; I am having issues with inlinkz constantly freezing my laptop. Tried a different browser and I think we are good now.)

Love for what? Squirrels of course!!

The bags had it for last month!

More Placemats!

I have a finish for Friday, but it's not the Bear Paw quilt, though it should be a finished flimsy today. When I was procrastinating starting the Bear Paw quilt, I made several other items, two of which are the two placemats I 'owed' Dayna. These are on my Q3FAL List which is here.

Dayna requested a set of four the same as Brianne's for her outside table and four more for her inside one, in slightly different colours. Brady has also commissioned a placemat, similar to those I made for his mother, but with red substituted for one of the greys. So you'll be seeing placemats for a bit yet! Here are the other two I made for Dayna.

I Like/Love #32

Just this week I said to a friend that gratitude has been the saving grace for the past couple years of loss and pain. I said that when I'm upset or sad, I actually feel my nervous system switch gears, so to speak, when I consciously make the effort to notice something beautiful or think of something for which I am grateful. I enjoy collecting these likes all month long.

1. I like Jackson Park in Windsor. It has changed a bit since we lived here in the 80s. The rose garden is no more, and that saddens me as it was glorious. However, the garden that replaced it is pretty beautiful.

Bear Paw Progress

With seven days left in the month, I thought I should give you an update on my Island Batik challenge quilt for September. We are to create a juvenile-inspired quilt, minimum 45X60" using the die we were sent in Box #2. I got the Bear Paw die, which, you may recall from my box opening video, was the very first quilt block I ever made, and which is responsible for the utter obsession with all things quilts!

So why have I been stalling on this month's project? Two reasons: one is that I couldn't come up with a design that grabbed me, and two is that I was nervous about the die. I know! I've used the AccuQuilt dies several times, and they are slick, but this one made me 'concerned' because I knew I wanted to do multi-coloured bear paw blocks and the die is such that you cut one block at a pass...or two... or three! Took me a bit but a little reading of instructions (I'm good at that, always have been) and then thinking about said instructions, and then putting them into practice, with my own spin on things, and we are off!

Parts cut for four blocks

Perpetually Playing in Purple

I know! I have a thing for alliteration, and, although it may come as a shocker, I have a thing for squirrels. So although I should be either quilting Brady's quilt, or working on my September Island Batik challenge, I chased that scrappy squirrel. I mean scrappy in both the fabric and the feisty sense, because he is hard to resist!

I showed you the start of this box in my previous post. Well, it kept enticing me, and so I caved. I had the sides done in no time, and then gave in to temptation. Before I get into the box, I want to give a reminder to everyone (including myself!! I've been rather offline of late) to check out Benita Skinner's Creative Space for the

which is on until the end of the month. Terrific tantalizing prizes are up for grabs! There is an entry at each blog post, so the more bloggers you visit, the more entries you will get. My own post is here.

Purple is Percolating

Purple is the RSC colour for September, one we all knew was coming. What two colours make purple? Why, red and blue of course. So the first project in my purple post is is mainly red and blue. I finished the flimsy for Brady's football quilt!

You may have seen it on Instagram last week. You know that feeling when you find the perfect quilt pattern for someone, and you gather some potential fabrics? It's a rush.

And then it sits for some time, because of other life and/or quilt requirements. And then! When you do pull it out and get it to the flimsy stage, and know that the finish is imminent? An even bigger rush. Yeah, it's a great feeling and I have it. However, I do not have enough of the backing I'd bought (a football Minky) so I will have to pop in to my favourite LQS in Leamington, which is the town just down the road from me. Haven't been in a while, so it's time. They have a terrific room, yes a small but entire room, of Minky.

Pattern Release

...or is it 'Pattern Releases' because there's more than one...

or 'Patterns Release' because I'm releasing two, and 'release' is just one event...

I'm feeling rather Lorelei here.  Do you recall that episode of 'Gilmore Girls'? It's in Season 4, the season of which I am in the second half at the moment.

Any-who.

I have been busy doing a bunch of not-sewing, but quilt-related stuff: that of pattern-writing. The first one that was released this week, on Tuesday, to be exact, is 'Oh, the Places You'll Go!' a quilt I designed for the January Island Batik blog hop.

There are two styles of suitcase blocks in the pattern, and each 'pocket' on the suitcase is a different 6" block.

TBT #21 Raffi's Quilt

Welcome to Throwback Thursday! On the first Thursday of each month either I or Andrée of Quilting & Learning - What a Combo! host this. It's for the quilts you made before you started blogging. Write up a post telling about them and link it up here. It's rather amazing the stories that these quilts have to tell.

Mine definitely has a story.

This is a quilt I made as a memento of my darling cat, Raffi, who lived to be 18 years and 2 months old. She was the most amazing cat.

Quilters' Meet & Greet

Greetings! I was asked (again this year, oops) to be a part of this hop, and this time I said yes! Last year I was, I dunno, busy? an idiot? but I didn't sign up... Anyhow, I am in this year and I am very pleased to welcome everyone, including any newcomers to my blog.

I hope you'll stay, poke around a bit using the tabs up top, or visit some of the links in my sidebar which will take you to to the magazines in which my designs have featured, or my pattern shop on Etsy. Some of the links in the sidebar can help you investigate some of the linky parties I host here both annually and monthly.

I also hope once you are done here, you'll click the graphic above which will take you to the main page for this hop where you will find the list and links to all the other quilt bloggers in the hop. And, yes! There are some absolutely amazing prizes. Read on through to find out how to enter! The hop runs through the month of September, so you have lots of time to visit and enter from each blog.

DrEAMi! #31

Yikes! Here I go again, not realizing it's Saturday, the last one of the month, and that means it's time to celebrate those moments when we Dropped Everything And Made it! over the course of the past month. I should've scheduled this one as I have with the past several, so this slipping my mind thing doesn't happen!

Well, part of my excuse is that I had a DrEAMi! of a non-sewing, but quilting related kind over the past two days: putting my nose to the grindstone (for both entire days) and focussing solely on finishing my Oh, the Places You'll Go! pattern for the quilt I made in January for Island Batik.

It is ready to go. I'll pop back to this post with the listing deets once I give it one last 'fresh eyes this morning' perusal and list it on Etsy.

I Like/Love #31

I'm sharing my monthly list of things for which I'm grateful. You can see other posts written by like-minded peeps, or join in and write one of your own and link it up with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color.

1. I love books. I am on track to reading two books a month this year, which is actually peanuts when I consider how I often would read nearly 50 in a year... Retirement and part-time working is not as full of unplanned time as one would think. I've been reading my own library, having learned the hard way once never to take a library book with me when I fly away somewhere. Still, I did take Harry's Trees with me, but left it in the truck parked safely at Toronto airport while we flitted around Europe and the UK. Finished it on the drive home. It's excellent.

I read these two while we were gone:

I have one more to read in the Rhanna saga. Good to read about an imaginary Hebrides island when one is travelling to Scotland! 

If you haven't read any Derek Tangye, you must. He and his wife had very intense jobs, his was in MI6, hers in a top position at the London Savoy Hotel. They left it all and went to live on a little farm in a 17th c cottage in Cornwall, making their living by selling daffodils and potatoes, which they grew on their farm. He just has such a gentle way of describing their lives, musing about life in general, and telling us about the cats that adopted them over the years.

Scraps Boxes

I now have two more of these scraps boxes complete!

That photo right there makes me HAPPY! I cannot wait to have them all done, in a pretty rainbow, in my new sewing room one day in the not-too-distant future.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Projects

I've spent my first week back just having fun messing around in my scraps. Do you find sometimes after you've been away, getting started sewing again takes a bit of time? I meant to dive right back into Brady's football quilt, and only take a day or two to catch up with the Tiny Tuesday and arrow blocks, but there's something so satisfying to me to just delve into my scraps and make something pretty. So I did. I am officially 100% up to speed with Tiny Tuesday and my RSC arrow blocks project!

Here is the January (red) Tiny Tuesday block 3. I have very little left now of the Cranston red floral print I made the cat out of. It was from those infamous smocked dresses I made my girls in 1989.

I'm Mostly Back

In some ways it feels like I never left, and in others it feels like I was away a lot longer than 3.5 weeks. I'm in that in between time when I keep revisiting moments and places of the vacation, dreaming it, and then morphing, mirage-like, into my regular life with the what time do I have to do such-and-such, and we need some groceries, and what about banking, and oh, let's go see the tall ships in the Kingsville harbour!

Wonderful. Magical. Mystical. Inspiring. Mighty. You can read more about the festival, and see much better photos here.

I did manage a wee bit of sewing to get my Tiny Tuesday RSC quilt back on track.

Beat the Heat! Island Batik Blog Hop - Ripples

Welcome to my stop on the Island Batik Blog Hop where we are showcasing Spring 2019 collections. I got the fantabulous Electric Desert by Jackie Kunkel collection.

Isn't it divine? For the challenge we had to create a lap size or larger quilt, using as many of the fabrics in our line as possible. I used every single one of these 31 chops! I knew I wanted a modern style of quilt, but as per usual, I waffled on what design to do: invent a fresh one (started to sketch out some basic blocks to use my AccuQuilt Go! dies), then thought I could do my own design that was recently published in an ezine, and actually started cutting the 2.5" strips for it with that fabulous die, and then, I opened a recently purchased book that I just love, and want to make every quilt in it, The Quilter's Negative Space Handbook, by Sylvia Schaefer. You know when the universe aligns and you just feel it deep in your heart, your solar plexus your mind, your third eye and you hear the choir voices soar? Yeah, that all happened....it was heat all right, of the This is the one! kind.

A quilt in a tree, Lake Erie in the background...pretty much all you need to know about me in one photo.