Gratitude and Glimmers #100

Holy moly! One hundred gratitude posts (brain emoji). My first one is here, written on May 8, 2014. This was before it was a 'thing', and it was an idea I'd had all on my own. I like, no I love that I have done this for so long. I keep thinking that each year I should print the twelve posts I write and put them into a booklet... There, I've put it in writing, so I will investigate!

A grateful heart

is a magnet for miracles.

--Unkown

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of October. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

1a. I've been often in the "I hate humans" mode because of Gaza, of world leaders' NOT doing their job, of the rampant destruction of our planet, because of greed, and of the pervasive negativity... However, our recent Maritimes trip had me several times thinking how much I love humans, and how no matter what province we are from, we have common ground on many levels.

Cavendish Beach PE

At one charging station in Quebec, we couldn't get our Chargepoint user card to work in the Circuit Éléctrique charger. These Quebec chargers do not accept credit cards either, something that we think needs to change, as other networks do this as well. A gentleman came up to us and asked, "Y a-ti-il un problème?" to which I responded, "Notre carte ne marche pas; la machine ne l'accepte pas." and then he continued in English and when he couldn't get it to accept our card, he said, "I can do something else..." He did something on his phone, held it to the card reader, and voilà! Charging started. When we realized he had prepaid for a charge, I said I had cash and turned to the car to get it but he stopped me, saying no it's just fine, not to worry, and off he went! It got us to 75%. MacGyver figured out that the balance on the Chargepoint card, which is a prepaid system, had gone below $5 and he hadn't realized it to reload it. All went well after that learning moment. But what a kind human.

Groovy Ghosties

I’ve got a cute wallhanging finish today. 

This is from Michelle Lander Cain’s new book Not Your Typical Jellyroll Quilts. She has been hosting a quilt along on her blog From Bolt to Beauty using the Five Little Ghosts table runner from her book. You can make the runner or an entire quilt (she has a free PDF for how to extend the pattern). I thought the little ghosts in the quilt on pastels was so cute that I couldn’t resist making just one block. 

Cheerio!

I have a finish on a Friday! Here is Cheerio!, a collaborative effort between my friend Cathy and me. 

Hot off the ... sewing machine last night!

Isn’t it just so bright and cheery? Cheerio! was the original name of this design which I did for Island Batik quite a few years ago. When I released the pattern, I renamed it Sunset Strip, because the batiks I used evoked colours of the sunset. This quilt now, it’s definitely got a Cheerio! vibe: a common salutation in England, an ‘o’ shaped cereal, and of course, this cheery quilt. The pattern is available in my Etsy Shop. It has two sizes, this baby quilt size and a throw.

Sewcial Bee Sampler Blocks

Like an itch you just have to scratch, I continued making the rest of the 25 blocks for the 2017 Sewcial Bee Sampler. I knew that if I started focusing on the next pattern I plan to release, the stack of blocks might get put back in the cupboard and I really didn’t want that. Here are the last nine blocks I made since I pulled this UFO project out last week. The first two were in a previous post, and all been shown on Instagram.

Top row: Block 17 Spools and Block 18 Square Peg; Bottom: Block 19 Circle of Friends and Block 20 Irish Chain Variation

This quilt along was hosted by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell, both designers for Art Gallery Fabrics. It was the first one they did. 

Tropical Twist

May I present my first finish of October. Tropical Twist is done and ready to be listed in my Etsy shop.

A bit of a tropical setting sets off the vibrant colours of the batik fabrics in this quilt. It feels so good to get a pretty stack of batik fat quarters off the shelf and into a quilt. 

Back in my Sewing Room

Do you find that after you've been away for a week or two, it's hard to get back into the swing of sewing unless you've left mid-project? I had everything tied up before we left other than quilting the Tropical Puzzle quilt. That entailed sewing the backing yardage, so that is the first thing I did. I have the perfect backing, a Wilmington Fabrics piece I'd picked up in the clearance section of Sew Sisters about... eight years ago, knowing it would be a great back somewhere.

This quilt is it. Here is the first little bit. I saw a cool pantograph in an older quilting magazine on a Christmas quilt that I quite liked and thought I could probably free-motion. It doesn't look too much like the panto, other than big swirls, in continuous S shapes, but I'm liking it and I think it's perfect with the tropical theme: swirling winds through palm trees. I'm using Hobbs 100% wool with Connecting Threads 50 wt cotton in Sky, love.

A Maritimes AdvEVenture Part 5

The last leg of our trip was spending two days in Halifax. 

Fishermen's Cove Dartmouth

Fishermen’s Cove is an adorable little spot near the mouth of the Halifax Harbour, a beautifully restored fishing village. Unfortunately MacGyver and I did not communicate properly and he took us there first thing on Sunday morning when they weren’t open until noon (autumn hours). He is Mr. Efficient when it comes to planning a route, which I totally appreciate, because I am the same. However, checking business hours for shopping is not high up on his list of priorities. Still, there was a silver lining to my disappointment at not finding something unique and handmade to take home: the lack of people meant that I got a couple of pretty sweet photos of a quilt that’s going into Make Modern next spring!

A Maritimes AdvEVenture Part 4

From Ingonish we headed on to Chéticamp on the Cabot Trail, hoping to do the world famous Skyline Trail that day, but if not, then the following morning. The parking lot fills up fast, and when it does, they close the trail, and the fines are very substantial if you park on the road and walk in. Once 30 or so vehicles depart, then they will reopen the lot. However, this first window for us happened to be a pretty cool day (high of 13-15) within a cluster of gorgeous warm (low 20s) days, so when we arrived at around 11:30, there was plenty of parking to be had! Before we arrived we made a few stops.

Green Cove

Colour and texture, bracing wind and powerful pulsing surf, a mesmerizing cocktail.

A Maritimes AdvEVenture Part 3

When planning the Cape Breton section of our Maritimes trip, MacGyver confessed he was a little anxious about the charging infrastructure as it's pretty remote. Never did we think we'd be more concerned with the charging of the human body infrastructure!

Now if a human could live on the non-stop feast that was before our eyes over the past two and a half days, then we'd each have been stuffed to the gills. My heart was aching almost 24/7 with the utter splendour.

Ocean view at the top of the 23-storey high Freshwater Lake Look-off Hike

A Maritimes AdvEVenture Part 2

We love to go a bit off the beaten track, so to speak, when we travel, opting for secondary highways as opposed to major ones. This gets us more in touch with the real landscape as opposed to the manicured, everything-looks-the-same landscape of highways/motorways/interstates. These lower speed limits are where EVs really shine. Because we are going at speeds around 80-90 kph as opposed to 110 on the major highway, the car goes through less energy. It’s also in the automatic mode where it’s learning the driving habits so it maximizes energy use in that way too. Remember in one of my W-EVnesday posts where I wrote that my husband said it’s basically a smart phone on wheels? A great analogy. 

The colours of fall continue to mesmerize me

This is Highway 6 in Nova Scotia, a little bit west of Pictou.