Saturday, March 27, 2021

DrEAMi! #50

Wow! Fifty posts about the squirrels we love to chase. Here's a terrific video of an industrious little gal chasing who knows what, or simply having a blast (sound familiar?!) Just click on the photo to watch it. It's only 11 seconds, so I'll wait here...


The very first DrEAMi linky was January 28, 2017. This cushion cover, my own design, was my Drop Everything And Make it project. If you want to go back and read that post just click the photo. Wow! I had 18 linkups!

Friday, March 26, 2021

Rainbow VIP

It's the end of the month and time for an update on my PHD (Projects Half Done) programme. I'm happy to report that it's the end of the first quarter and I am still right on track to complete this. This is a UFO from last year, one of my two RSC projects, which I've called Rainbow VIP. It's also my OMG for March!
I love how it turned out! Each month last year, I made ten blocks, a 6-patch with a white bar on one side in the colour of the month. This is a pattern in American Patchwork & Quilting April 2006 by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. They did theirs in just six light colours. It's a bit of an improv way of assembling the quilt top, chopping off parts of blocks so the white bars purposely do not align and the side edges are random.

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Gratitude #50

Once again the end of the month is nigh and it's time to gather my 'likes' for the past month and link up at LeeAnna's blog Not Afraid of Color.

"When I'm grateful, I live in Three Pines."
-Louise Penny, from an interview at the end of Bury Your Dead

1. I am so grateful for these books. I'm grateful for authors, period. Living in another's world, be it fictional or real, is nourishment for me, on all levels, mental, emotional, spiritual and physical. You may think huh? Do you walk/run while reading, Sandra? Well, tbh, if the book is an audiobook, occasionally I will listen as I walk, one earbud in so I can still hear my surroundings. However, I prefer to listen to my surroundings when I do walk, so listening to books while walking is the exception, not the rule. But if reading sustains, no, nourishes, enhances, my mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, then it is a given that physical health follows, for me.

Sidenote: This was the second time reading Bury Your Dead. The first time I read it was over a decade ago. It was recommended to me by my good friend, Marianne, a prolific reader. She introduced me to the Gamache books, and said how good this one was, and that it had won more than one award. However, it's book #6, and at the time I had no clue about the first five, so although I enjoyed it, especially because of all the places in La Belle Ville (Quebec City) with which I'm familiar from many school trips there with my students, much of it had been entirely lost on me. I got out of order by mistake, reading #7 before #5, and then once I'd finished #5, I knew from having read #7, how important it was that I reread #6 now I knew.... you with me still?! So I reread it on audio book, loving every word (though I'm still irritated at the mispronunciation of some of the French by the narrator, but I digress). 

I've mentioned before that I write my gratitude posts off and on throughout the month, adding things or taking photos along the way. So the above two paragraphs were written a couple of weeks ago. As I was adding to this post on Thursday, what came up in my YouTube suggestions when I went to do another meditation? This! I've only started it (it actually starts about a minute, slightly more, in) but I am in LOVE! I want a mask like Danny's that says, " I'm F.I.N.E." (snort!) Think I may have to make myself one! 

Update: I've finished watching the interview, worth every minute of the hour. Knowlton is a truly beautiful town, like so many in eastern Canada, such history, the houses, the buildings, ahh, so be sure to pay attention to the video and don't just listen while you sew. 😉 
'


Saturday, March 20, 2021

Santosha Project Quilting 12.6

As with many ongoing activities, it seems like it's been quite a while ago that the first Project Quilting challenge went out, and yet it seems hard to believe that 12 weeks have gone by and this is the last one.
This last challenge was Ab Intra, in other words, from within. Peel off the layers and who is the real you?


I had a long think about this over the week. By Wednesday afternoon I had decided to do a pouch, either for toiletries or sewing supplies; I wanted something useful. I hit upon the idea to make it using 2.5" squares where every other square would have a personal meaning, a pretty profound one. Alternating ones would be a low volume, and I'd chosen the leftover fabric of Free Motion Fantasy by Amanda Murphy.

Wait. That doesn't look like a toiletries pouch! 
It isn't. Let me explain...

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Heading North in Make Modern Issue 39 and TGIFF

The hardest part of having designs published in magazines is the waiting. The quilt has to be done months ahead of the issue's publication date, and it is so hard not to show the quilt when you've finished it. However, the day is now here, and, because the editors couldn't decide which quilt should be on the cover, they asked for readers' help, and so you've seen a little glimpse of it. Well, allow me to give you a much larger look!

Apparently it was down to the final day for voting when the winning cover quilt (and I quote), 'just squeezed by yours'. Sigh. Ah well, the one that squeezed by is beautiful, and 'in the wild' too! Knowing that my quilt came so close makes me happy, and having heard from so many of you that you'd voted for it warms my heart. I worked my heart out on the quilting of this baby.


And, a warm welcome to TGIFF, where we celebrate fully finally finished quilts! This isn't for UFOs or in-process quilts; it's a finish party, so let's par-tay and I'll show you mine if you show me yours. 😉

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Fond Memories - Project Quilting 12.5

The Project Quilting 12.5 challenge was 'You're Crazy!' We were to make a quilt using crazy quilting techniques. I stewed for a bit, of course.This time it wasn't because of a plethora of ideas; it was a dirth. I just wasn't feeling it.

Then I got Wendy's Pieceful Thoughts blog post in my inbox and read it...and ping! A little lightbulb went on when I read, "That light blue piece is from an old shirt of BigJ's."

I knew I had some scraps from clothing I made my daughters when they were little. I'd had to do some serious culling of sewing stuff when we moved from Alberta in 2012, but I knew I'd cut off some little squares/hunks of various fabrics before I donated it all, and there was a TON, to a very happy girl who makes comfort quilts. The problem was, and is, that my sewing studio, though new and huge and lovely, has not got any new cabinets other than the two Kallax I ordered for MacGyver to hack into my cutting/pressing table. Because of Covid there's no stock at IKEA. So lots of my stuff remains in Rubbermaid tubs.

But I found the scraps! I have one tub dedicated to dressmaking fabrics and they were in it! So I was able to create this mini:

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Be Mine

I finished this mini quilt a few days ago. It started off as a DrEAMi, for those that are regular readers. The fabric is month 2 of a 3-month fabric stash enhancer subscription that Dayna got me for Christmas. The fabric line this month was 'Be Mine' by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda Fabrics. In December I'd bought the pattern, 'Strippy Improv' from Lisa at Love to Color My World which is actually for Christmas blocks. I recently had the idea to do a heart with this improv reverse appliqué technique. Lisa has done one too!

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Delia

Delia, the strings Card Trick quilt you've seen a few times, is done.
This is actually a very true photo as far as the colours go; the sun had just set.  This was an unplanned RSC project, from the book Classic to Contemporary String Quilts by Mary M. Hogan. It's a great book: my trees quilt, The Final Season was adapted from it, and my main RSC project is also from the book. I am focusing on strings this year because they are exploding.

They are still exploding. I loved the movement in her quilt, loved the black, grey and white with the pink she had used. I planned to switch out the white for another RSC colour.