DrEAMi! #45

Welcome to another edition of DrEAMi! Drop Everything And Make it!

There is truly something freeing about following a whim, chasing that shiny bauble, following a squirrel! I don't know about your yard, but around ours, the squirrels are super-busy hiding black walnuts and acorns everywhere. It's really quite amazing to watch them.

Thank you to Roseanne of Home Sewn by Us for this description of my life. Some days are more squirrelly than others, and Friday was certainly one of them. I'm surprised I even remembered I had a squirrel photo, and remembered where I'd saved it!

Pumpkin Season

My pumpkin quilt is done, slept under last night, and OMG completed over and above the original plan! This is also on my Q4FAL list and it is my submission for October's Inspiration Collaboration, which I will discuss towards the end of the post.

Oh I do love this quilt! It is completely made from scraps, both old and vintage. That photo has not even been 'enhanced'; I felt the colours were exactly as they are in real life. I am so happy that the sun came out in the afternoon on Thursday when I took these photos. It was supposed to rain most of the day but it only did up until about 9:30 am but it was cloudy until around 2:30 when I was finishing sewing on the binding.

I Like/Love #45

Welcome to my monthly installment of gratitude. I link up with LeeAnna of Not Afraid of Color, where you will find several of us who do this weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or whenever the mood strikes! Fell free to join in. As I quoted from Anonymous last month,

The more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract things to be grateful for.

1. Ten days after our visit to Point Pelee near the end of September, this article was on the CBC site,
about the Renaming of a Point Pelee area to Madbin Jina, which means 'come sit awhile' in Anishenaabemowin. Since this is Anishinabewaki territory, it is fitting they named it in the correct original language.

Avril Has a Jacket

Long overdue is a proper cover for Avril, my longarm, but she will wait no more.

This is my project for October's challenge, thread painting.

All of the fabrics except for the lining fabric were supplied by Island Batik. The gorgeous threads were supplied by Aurifil, except for the grey which is my own purchase, the batting by Hobbs Batting, and the machine needles by Schmetz Needles. Our challenge was to enhance our quilting or shade areas of quilt for effect, add shapes or dimension. Several months ago we had to pick six spools of thread to coordinate with the line we'd been given for this challenge. Mine was Nouveau Soul by Kathy Engle, some of which you saw last month in my Back at Ya backpack. We'd been given the same line to make our bag.

Q4FAL My List

 In many ways, it seems just a few months ago that we were on a plane, flying home from a trip to Florida to help our dear friend John celebrate his 80th birthday in the first quarter of the year, not eight months ago, and here we are in the final quarter of the year. A year of such upheaval, such anxiety, and such change, a lot that is positive.

So here is my list for the final quarter, which I will post on Instagram as per the new rules for this year.

1. The damn beanie - it's been on Q2 and Q3, but I actually did make some good progress on it in the past quarter, so it's an imminent finish finally.

2. Pumpkin quilt

3. Longarm cover

4. Medallion quilt

5. Nature-themed quilt

6. Christmas runner for Etsy

7. Another make-up mat

8. Arrows quilt

9. Ringle & Kerr RSC project 1

10. T-shirt quilt

11. Black scraps box

12. Secret sewing quilt for a magazine

13. Publish one more pattern

14. Quilt for Michele

Giving Thanks

This is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, a weekend where we gather with family and friends and have good food, give thanks for the harvest, and reflect on our blessings. It does not have anything to do with the Vikings' or Jacques Cartier's landings here, or Columbus's further south. Here is a great article I found from the Canadian Encyclopedia explaining the origins of our Canadian Thanksgiving and the differences from the American one. Indigenous peoples have celebrated the fall harvest and given thanks for the bounty of this land, Turtle Island, for centuries before the arrival of settlers. So settlers did not invent this holiday, though they did bring the idea of the cornucopia with them, which itself, interestingly, according to the article, "dates back to European peasant societies."

I started being more aware, or becoming 'woke' as the expression seems to be these days, of the importance of Indigenous peoples whenever I think of my country, thanks to doing the 150 Canadian Women QAL in 2017 with Kat of Next Step Quilting Designs. She included several Indigenous women in the quilt; one in particular who really grabbed me was Shanawdithit, the last living member of her tribe, the Beothuk in Newfoundland. White settlers killed them all, directly and indirectly. I made a quilt in her honour, Beothuk Star, (link to the pattern is here), and learned more about her and her people. I've continued to do small things to educate myself and to try to make a difference in helping others to get this same awareness.

So today, I am doing something that has come naturally to me for many years, expressing gratitude. However, this year, and now always a part of my gratitude is acknowledging that,

1. first and foremost I am grateful to be allowed to live here in this part of Turtle Island, a part of Treaty 2, signed in 1790, the land of the Anishinabewaki, Attiwonderonk, Myaamia and Mississauga First Nations. 

The large island is Pelee Island, and I live directly north of it, on the pinkish shore, to the west of the pointy piece of land, which is Point Pelee National Park.

Waltzing With Bears Pattern Release

It's a pretty special day today. Not only do I have a new pattern for you, but I am celebrating the seventh birthday of my blog. The actual birthdate is September 18, 2013 with my Ta Da! post. I didn't celebrate on that day because the originally planned pattern to release on that date did not happen because a sweet reader contacted me asking if I had a pattern for this quilt, and well, why wouldn't I oblige? I actually had the pattern almost written anyhow. Of course it had to go through proper testing, and of course there will be gifts since it's a birthday of sorts.

Strangely enough that photo, taken by my grandson, Brady, was October 6 last year. Little did we know what was about to happen to the entire planet...

A Sweet Little Diversion

It's not really a squirrel, because I've been sewing the HSTs left over from making the first Grace quilt back together as leader/enders, and then in pairs once I decided what design I'd make with them. I always knew I'd make a dolly quilt for the daughter of the recipient of the first Grace quilt. I'm happy to say it is done, and I didn't even have it on any finish or to-do list!

Can you believe there are 200 triangles in this little ~13" square quilt?!

Champs et Lacs

In other words, Fields (or Meadows) and Lakes. This quilt needs a French name because it is going to a dear friend who is French. It is the Meadow Mystery designed by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs. It was a QAL back in 2016/17 in which I participated, but I hadn't quilted it until now.

It was done on Friday, but I knew we were going into the city, Windsor, on Saturday, so I wanted to get a glamour shot of it on the Detroit River, downtown Detroit in the background. The day was beautiful for a photo shoot, but as per usual, there was a bit of a wind by the water. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and how well the Warm n Natural 100% cotton batting shows off the quilting. Can I say just how much I love these fabrics and these colours? No, they are not batiks but they sure have the hand-dyed painterly look to them don't they?