Full Yet Also Aching Heart

I thought I'd do a little update on WIPs in my sewing studio and life. We had a quiet Thanksgiving, a nice dinner, and a nice fourth win for the Lions. It makes my heart swell to hear from Dayna how packed Ford Field is, with everyone in their seats at kickoff, and the noise level is incredible. Even the announcers keep commenting on it. Fans want this very badly, and I'm especially glad for Dayna and Tyler who bought season tickets again last year (they had them pre-Covid but let them go) and then got transferred to Tennessee, so are now flying or driving up here eight or more times this season! I'm also grateful and my heart is full (as well as my belly lol) for good food over the weekend.

Not only have I been busy in my sewing studio; I've also been a busy bee in the kitchen, making homemade beet hummus from my homegrown beets (yass!), chocolate chip and chunk cookies, pumpkin raisin muffins, and then the main dishes we had (nope I did not make the pumpkin pie, bought it from the in-store bakery). I've been working away at my #wipsbgone list for October; the hearts is all I can show for now of the Grace (#3) quilt top that got finished yesterday.

Yes, sadly, I'm making a third broken heart Grace quilt. I do know that this quilt is such a healing comfort quilt, and as I've sewed the top, my love and compassion have flowed from my heart and soul through my fingertips into this quilt. More when she's done and gifted.

In keeping with purple, look at these glorious mums that were in the beautiful beds along the Leamington Marina walkway. 

We just love this beautiful place, only 8 km away from our house, where we can stroll, lake-gaze, plants-admire, birds and snakes and turtles-appreciate, aka nature-soaking up, and dogs-walk! Ha. We got in a lovely walk and nature-soaking up at Point Pelee too, and Rufus had a very happy swim/romp in the lake.

Back to quilting life:

I am halfway through quilting Scrappy Stripping Stars, and very pleased with it so far. I have to say what a newfound love I have for Coats and Clark cotton thread. I used their red variegated over much of 150 Canadian Women, and am using their white over the white and tans with great results.

That's a slight variation on a Judi Madsen design in the four squares, and a pretty standard dot-to-dot design in the squares on point above it. Meandering is going into the scrappy stars which are first SITD.

This morning I made our bed as per usual but stepped back with a glow in my heart as I gazed upon this beautiful mesmerizing texture. 

I feel a few more quilt designs bubbling in my cauldron of a brain. No wonder with 156 blocks waving at me every time I walk into our room. We've been sleeping under the quilt for the past several nights; did I mention (I know I did) how much I love 100% wool batting? Lightweight, warm if you need it, and lovely texture! I'll be taking it off in a couple more days, first lint brushing the heck out of it for Bella fur. It's one of the quilts in my Quilt Tales for the Heart and Mind presentation that I'm doing...next week!!

It seemed so very far away, and meh, will it really come to pass? And yes! It most certainly is, and I have this bubble of excitement in my heart and gut about it.

If you are in the Port Perry, Whitby, or Brighton area (a bit east of Toronto), then be sure to check out the times and places for these three guilds who are hosting me next week! This post has all the links.

Another one of the quilts I’ll be talking about is Rainbow Neighbourhood. This quilt has quite the story, and it just added another chapter!

This is Betsy’s quilt. She is the sweet soul who contacted me many months ago telling me that her quilt group wanted to use this pattern for an ongoing block exchange that they do throughout the year. Well, Betsy finished her quilt in time to enter it into her County Fair and as you can see, she won a blue ribbon for it! She changed up the pattern a little bit as it is very adaptable to do so, and made it her own. I just love it. The addition of the flying geese and sailboats would be just perfect for my town of Kingsville too! She lives near the ocean so she wanted to add those elements. I love this detail (and there are many such personal details in her quilt).

She gave me credit as the pattern designer whose pattern her quilt is based upon. So classy and so very much appreciated, from first approaching me to use my pattern to now a blue ribbon! We need more Betsy’s in this world.

Finally, but not of least importance, today is World Mental Health Day. My heart is aching for the people in Palestine and in Israel. War and killing is never the answer, but cutting off water, fuel, food to 2 million people, 40% of whom are children is genocide. It's always the people who suffer in war while the 'heads' plan and sit back in their offices and towers. It hurts my heart and soul deeply that yet another war is happening right now, and what about the horrific earthquake in Afghanistan and (last I heard) 2400 dead? Very little has been reported here in Canada, especially with the new war. So much misery in this world, and I feel so helpless much of the time. I confess I turn off the hourly news on CBC, read only a couple of articles a week, as it is overwhelming and not good for my, well for anyone's, mental health. A very good, educational, unbiased, account about many issues on Instagram whose number one mandate is human rights, is @OnCanadaProject.

Tomorrow I have my first EV post for you, on what I'm dubbing W-EVdnesday.