Gratitude & Glimmers #109

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

Peace is the strongest power, yet unrecognised.

--Sri Chimmoy

1. You know my lifelong love of trees. You may recall me talking about that time in 1994 driving through and stopping (for not long enough!) in Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island. How I wish I could fly out to Vancouver to see this current exhibit about the magic of BC’s ancient forests.

Lifesize model of an 1800-year-old Mother Tree.

Ten Days

Interesting title, no? This is thanks to a friend, who inquired as to my well-being (so did Pat), and I thank you sweet friends who notice a gap in posting from time to time.  This one was 10 days, as she let me know.  A lot can happen in 10 days.  To be honest, and not totally transparent (yet) a lot happened in the first 12 days of February.

On the left you see 2" finished 4-patches destined for two projects and on the right trimmings from a big project that I can't talk about just yet.

Pets On Quilts - Bella

Bella is making another appearance in the Pets On Quilts party at Lilypad Quilting.  She is in the Cats on Quilts category.  If you like what you see/read about in this post, click the link to 'like' Bella (she is #30).  There are lots of fabulous prizes to be won, four more days to enter your own fur kid, at which time voting will begin!  This is, as I said in yesterday's post, probably my absolute favourite linky party going.  My three fur kids are a major part of my life. Period. Of the three, Bella has probably the biggest influence in my quilting/sewing life.

This is not photo-shopped; her eyes are that blue; she's sporting a bandana made just for her by a sweet friend

She is a part of every quilt, from birth to final finish.  This year the two of us have been pretty busy creating quilts.

Planning

She often tries to steer my pencil as I sketch out a possible design, be it block, layout or FMQ.

Choosing Fabric

 Cutting

Measuring

When I question whether I have block sections sewn to the correct size, she willingly lies her furry body down to help measure.  On the left, she is measuring the hypotenuse of one of the Triangle Transparency by Quilting Jet Girl blocks for Radiance, and on the right, making sure the flying geese unit will fit the centre square from a Henry Glass 'Better at the Lake' fabric.  We were chosen as the June designer of the month.

Appliquéing

She parks her butt on freshly appliquéd blocks, helping to secure the layers.

Much to her exasperation, she was removed (more than once) from said appliquéd block

Piecing

Bird's eye (or cat's eye?!) view

Checking that 1/4" seam

Chain-piecing

Even FaceTiming!

Tish on the iPad

Looking after you:

Stretching

Balancing

Back in May, the early days after Rocco's knee surgery

We both firmly believe in the importance of exercising and stretching to ease those stiff joints and aching muscles, and to work out knots from long hours sewing, or sitting too long at the computer writing up a post!  Check out the Sunday Stretch for Sewists tab up top for lots more moves to keep your body limber!

Bananasana....it's a real Yin Yoga pose!

Make sure you bend to both left and right!

Labelling

Writing is blurred out for privacy

Basting and Quilting

and let us not forget...

Cleaning

Machine Maintenance with Bella

And finally, 

Enjoying

On her very own cat quilt

This past year saw her work with wool, both knitting and appliqué

She quite liked it!  Thanks to Sue's comment below, here is the link to the kit I bought, on sale right now for $11CA.  The pattern only is available here.  And, if you prefer to crochet, Kalurah has the same cowl kit for crochet, also on sale.

And of course she helps out with...

Writing posts 

this very one, as a matter of fact!

She knows how to get my attention, tapping me if I'm spending too much time on the iPhone or on the laptop

Pattern Writing!

We did it this year!  And she helped...

This is Sunny Days; you also get the pattern for Blue Skies, both on sale for $5 right now in my Craftsy store. Both quilts are for sale in my Etsy shop.

Calling me

to leave my sewing when it's time to eat

And it's time to go now!  Tea and treats time!

Treats?!

Be sure to take advantage of Craftsy's Early Black Friday (like seriously...I know...eye-roll)...but there really are some terrific deals again, and if you're like me, you wait for your faves to go on sale.  Did you know they carry quilt batting and it's 30-40% off right now?  Um, can you believe there are some quilt kits for CA$27 or US$21??  Check out several from Timeless Treasures like this Tonga Treats "Next Move" one I particularly love. Apologies for poor quality images (snagged them off Craftsy) but you get the idea.

and I believe I just have to give one of the Blueberry Park fat quarter stacks a home.  At CA$57,  US$44, (50% off), that is a pretty sweet treat.  There are many many more, but don't be like me, and put them in your cart and 'think about it' (aka forget)....only to find they disappear because they are no longer available, waaah, or you remember about them on Monday and the sale is over...waaaah again. Might have personal experience there.

As always I thank you SO MUCH if you click through to Craftsy on my links in this post or on the sidebar.  I do get a small commission on sales and on classes; if you are interested in how to become an affiliate yourself, shoot me an email.  And always remember, if you don't buy through me, that is fine, but please choose a favourite blogger to buy through since we are the ones who help spread the word.  I would not endorse anything I haven't used or bought and I have been very very pleased with every single thing I have got, supplies and fabric and classes-wise from them.  They also have excellent customer service.  :-)

Remember you have 4 more days to enter into Pets On Quilts. Voting begins August 25!

Linking up with
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Lilypad Quilting

Lasagne

Which we had last night for supper, and will again tonight in the form of leftovers.  Vegetarian (not as good as the one Liz made for us in May) and a meat one for MacGyver to keep up his strength for all the macgyvering that he's been doing these past few weeks.  This post is a bit like that lasagne:  a variety of ingredients that end up creating goodness.

Incredible sunset behind the silhouetted massive trees

Kingsville 3rd annual Folk Fest:  a variety of 'ingredients' as in bands and genres of music, all-over wonderful goodness.  I spent the entire weekend either volunteering at or attending the folk fest.  IMHO it was not as good as far as bands go as the two previous years, but still worthwhile attending.  I love live music. Period.  Buffy Ste-Marie was the headliner, and I wish she'd brought her band, and I wish she'd played 'Power in the Blood' from her latest album.  She's not everyone's cup of tea, not exactly mine, but at 75 years old, she impressed the hell out of me with her physique, her memory (all those lyrics to all the songs she played!), and her musical abilities (plays guitar, the mouth bow, the keyboards and sings).

I am so proud to be a Canadian: the multi-cultural aspect of our country evident at this festival, from Canadian-born to Canadian immigrant music.  Hearing musicians belt their hearts out, openly of Mexican heritage, or Iranian, Irish, even Tanzanian, gay, young or old, brown, white or black-skinned, and be genuinely appreciated and applauded for their songs made me know deep in my heart there IS tolerance for all peoples, as there should be.

Another sky, this one to the east, setting sun behind me, coming home from teaching yoga in Windsor.  Can you spot the moon rising, partially hidden by thready clouds?

Spotted this incredible flowering tree (look how tall she is!) in Windsor

Just WHAT is this tree please?  It looks so tropical; in fact I am sure I've seen these in Florida.  Rose flowers adorn the fernish fronds.  I zoomed in to try to show the flowers better.

Isn't it just gorgeous? Here you can see pea pods...is it a Locust or Honey Locust (we have lots of those here) of some sort?

A tree of a different kind being built:

Bella getting right in there again, had to be summarily dumped onto the floor and off the block more than once! She felt it would make a great cat cushion (obvi, Sandra, she says, eyes rolling)

I'm pattern testing an appliqué block for Cindy of Stitchin at Home, a block that has tried my patience I'll admit...but I persevered.  Those of you on Instagram have seen Cindy's blocks coming together, a block of the month she is doing for her guild.

Port Dover Lighthouse built around 1850

I'll admit to not being totally pleased with the final result (it is destined to be sewn into sashing which is why I have got the beach and tree in 3/8" from the sides).  Port Dover Lighthouse, on Lake Erie, is close to Cindy's home.  She lives about 2 hours north and east of me, half way to Toronto.  Yes, Lake Erie is that big...actually twice that big.  If you drove 100kph (60mph), it would take you about 4 hours to drive (it's just shy of 400 km, 241 miles, in length) from my end by the Detroit River, to the eastern end, at Buffalo up by Lara of Buzzin' Bumble.  Thus, this block brings we three 'ingredients' together:  Cindy's design, my efforts, and Lara's Crafted Appliqué technique.  The fabric I used for the water is a Nancy Crow I've had forever (found a couple more Nancy Crow gems in my stash thanks to pattern-testing this past couple of weeks) and the sky is a Maywood Studio.

Back to Bella, one of my three fur-kid ingredients in creating a balanced happy life, you've probably heard that it's that time of the summer!  Pets on Quilts is happening right now at Lilypad Quilting!  This has to be one of, if not my favourite linky party of the year.  Six more days to enter, and there are already 26 entries!  Bella will for sure be one, so come back tomorrow and read all about her contributions to my quilting life.  Okay, okay, she's nudging me, as she is wont to do when I spend too much time with a phone in my hand or wiggling my fingers to make clickety-clack sounds on the laptop, make that her contributions to my life.  Period.

Lots of terrific prizes to be won, did I mention that?!

Also I will let you know that (shh! don't tell) tomorrow you can grab some lasagne Craftsy style: many of their 'ingredients' to equal a pretty sweet sale.  Come back for deets on that and Bella tomorrow!

Two other heads-up, that you will see create a lovely 2-layer lasagne :-)
First up is Bernie at Needle and Foot.  She wrote a great article on something I had never heard of: Flipboard.  Even the intrepid Internet traveller, MacGyver, had not.  This reminds me of Pinterest, but it is a place to make personalized 'magazines' of articles on any topic that interests you, not just photos you like.  Sounds cool, right?  But Bernie takes it one step further by showing you how you can 'publish' your own articles into your own magazines, and make those magazines public.  This way, others on Flipboard who also like yoga or quilting for example, may find an 'article' (aka post) you wrote on a subject that also interests them.  This can help to bring traffic in the form of new readers to your blog!  More deets on this by clicking the link.  I've created a few magazines and added two posts to my Yin Yoga magazine, spending a grand total of maybe 30 minutes all told from downloading the app to setting it up to creating and finally adding two posts.  That's not bad.

Second is my friend Karen of Tu-Na Quilts.  She wanted to start a blog over a year ago, and would visit mine and comment from time to time. Some personal events brought us closer together, and I was able to finally encourage her to just DO IT!  She wrote her first post here, and she has just finished a terrific, informational, humorous series on her Minnesota shop hop adventure.  It is well worth a read, and hey, I just realized I could flip those articles into a Quilt Shops magazine I could set up!  Ha, didn't plan this, but there's my over-arching (cannot kill the English teacher in me) lasagne theme again: two 'ingredients' (Bernie's post on Flipboard and Karen's shop hop posts) creating goodness, as in a great idea for a personalized magazine.

Here's my infant-stage Flipboard link (need to add the social media button for this--going to see Tish about making these look prettier on my sidebar).

And remember to tell me the name of that tree if you know it!

Linking up with
Sew Fresh Quilts

Rainbow Rose & A MiniMini

For Week 3 of the Rainbow Rose QAL, we made the four corners to the quilt.  I hadn't cut any more of my 5" squares, so I laid out what fabrics I had thought I'd use in the places where I anticipated placing them:

That helped me with the flow from say red to red-purple.  From there I was able to complete the corners.

Three fabric in here are from the Benartex bundle I received a couple of months ago for recommending their emagazine

The bottom is not as dark as it appears here; I tried to get natural light on it with limited success.  I really am liking it so far; it's a great blend of older fabrics with modern ones IMHO.

In other news, Bella has accepted that we now sew upstairs on the dining table.  It's only taken her 6 weeks...  That's a cat for you!

I've made several scraps and trimmings piles that resemble this:

Trimmings from the first Henry Glass Fabrics Challenge project

which has yielded two completed projects so far with more to come!  That is why I haven't posted in a week, and haven't been that active in QBL.  I have to say that I am enjoying how much I am getting done!

Bella is supervising in all things Henry Glass as well.

Sneak peek of second project which got completed this morning

I've finished my round on Cindy's block for our Mini Round Robin.  Watch for that reveal next week as we send them on their flight to the next in line.  Speaking of flight, I made a minimini for #mmminimini for Make Modern Magazine Challenge on Instagram.

Flimsy on the left; quilted top on the right

It's paper-pieced, a pattern from Carol Doak's Easy Machine Paper-Piecing.  The ghost geese are 1" wide at the base, and 1/2" high.

Birds of a feather....

and here's the photo I posted to Instagram for the challenge.

It's bound with a Michael Miller Eiffel Tower print that I thought gave it a little pizzazz.  I named it Flashing Geese.  It's winging its way to the recipient (yep it's a surprise) as I type.  More on the name and the mini once it has arrived.

And great news, today was Rocco's first walk, 6 weeks after his surgery.  He got to walk to the end of the driveway, stand and sniff the breeze, then turn around and walk back.  He was a happy boy, but sad because it was over all too soon and he wanted to RUN! (and would have had we let him...)

Heading back (so not ready to go back in) and a little later, chill-axin' in the sunshine on the patio

I photographed this jaw-dropping majestic Catalpa tree last year about this time in full bloom.  The photo does not do it justice; not only is it covered in orchid-like blooms, but it also towers over the adjacent trees, dwarfing the 2-storey house and the streetlight.  It just takes my breath away.

Ahh happy summer!  Happy International Yoga Day!  Happy me.  Namaste everyone.

Linking up with Modern Quilters Ireland.

One little update, sorry: I forgot to mention that Craftsy is having a 2-day sale today and tomorrow, any one class for $19.99! That's pretty sweet.  Let me know if you buy one and what you think of it! I will have a review for you in early July; gotta concentrate on Henry Glass for the next several days. :-)

For The Love of A Pibble

or Why I Need Tons Of Quilts - a musings post

This past week has been rather tumultuous in my corner of the planet.  This deals with the most tumultuous of the events...

I'm a pretty simple girl.  It doesn't take a lot to make me deeply happy in my being.  Quilts make me deeply happy.  Some quilters give away most of their quilts.  I am not one of them.  Although I do give a lot away, I also keep a lot, and I make no apologies for doing so.  They make me content, and creating them feeds my soul, my passion, and although it may sound cliché, they are my therapy.

My other therapy is my prince, my beloved Rocco.  How do these two therapies come together?

This past week he had to undergo surgery.  Again.  Seventh time being under anesthetic.  He ruptured his ACL in his right back knee.

You CAN Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

The bougainvillea around us is spectacular this year, maybe because we had a fair bit of rain this winter.

That incredible pinky red and neutral sand are the main colours for this post's finish.
As you know, Naala turned 9 years old on March 4, and has had some shoulder issues this past month again, so earlier this week we took them for a shorter walk in a really pretty park our friend John showed us this year.  She still looks pretty amazing for a 9-year-old Rottie. She couldn't jump up on that wall that day, but Rocco, who is 6.5 years old this month, can, and did.  He learned this trick from Brandy, his red-nose pibble friend.  Rocco and Naala, in turn, have been teaching Brandy to enjoy the water:

a fun frolic at the beach a couple of days ago

Old and older dogs can learn new tricks. Pibble love is not a new trick for either Brandy or Rocco...or for their doubles. Check this out!  Just over a week ago, because Naala was on the DL, John and Brandy, Rocco and I went for a walk in our 'hood...

Four "vicious" pibbles -TWINS- meet on the street outside the one pair's house for the first time!

The only difference is that Lulu is a female blue-nose pit, and Danny Boy, their male red-nose pit.  Sweet sweet dogs, all four.  Oh, one other difference:  Rocco had to have his tail amputated from a condition known as "happy tail syndrome", where from wagging so hard and hitting hard objects like corners of walls, or coffee tables, it would bleed, and eventually cause an ulcer that wouldn't heal.

Anyhow I took a short video of them kissing each other and being the happy, lovin'-life type dogs that these sweeties are.  I have a feeling it will get hundreds of views when I put it on Instagram.


So this old dog (moi), learned some stuff this past few weeks too.  In actuality no, I am NOT old, I hate to even say but I guess I'm maybe middle-age, since I plan to live until around 100.  Anyhow, in February, I tried to do the Scrap-a-Palooza quilt, which was improv piecing with a red corner triangle.

The bottom row shows the playing around with layout ideas I had, with nothing grabbing me.  Until the third layout reminded me of the bottom of a heart.  Hmm, maybe a red square in the corner with two improv HSTs to round the edges might work?   You see what I got in the top picture.

So I decided to go with it.  After all, I did want to make a Valentine quilt this year.  See my Q1 FAL list.

Some of the hearts looked a tad gooby, so I pulled apart a few seams and inserted a small triangle to make them flow a little better.

Yep, that's better

Sewed two blocks together with sashing.

Kinda cute!

Bella, as always, supervised.

And once I took the photo, had to test it out.

Liking it, yep, yep, do the other two now.

Finished flimsy:

I'd mistakenly cut 3 extra 1.5" strips of Modern Background Essentials by Zen Chic for my Swoon Mini, because I couldn't find the safe place I'd put the first ones in.  I got to use some for the outside frame here. I like that!

That Kona Cotton patterned strip across the centre?  Um yeah, had it since 2001:

Beautiful fabric but it's got a kind of scotchguard feel to it; not much left now.

The flimsy sat on my design wall until earlier this week, when I posted about the Shadowed Star cushion.  Hello?!  This "Valentine quilt of some kind" is on my Q1 FAL list!!  I can quilt this up next, since I seem to be on a mini quilts roll this year.

Trying out a new design for me, one of Angela's fillers for negative space

I decided to do a different background fill behind each heart.  I have FMQ-ed for 20 years, but I am always game to learn a new motif, or try something new.  This fill turned out really well, and I just drew it once on a paper and then went for it.  Improv is a also a new technique I've been mucking around a bit with this past little while.

Two hearts quilted down; see how the other two poof up?  No worries; they did smoosh down just as nicely as the first two did.

Very pleased with the new-to-me 'Signature design' of Angela's.  I was also very pleased with how square this mini stayed.

Added Susie's Magic Binding.  This is another new trick for this girl, second quilt I've done it on, and I just love it.  I learned of it thanks to my friend Tish.  I used the rest of the inadvertently extra cut 1.5" Zen Chic strips and cut one more, and then used up almost all of my Dear Stella Chevrons pink and white fabric for the flange.

I call it Crazy Hearts

There was a bit of a ripple across the bottom, so I dampened the quilt and blocked it on my sewing room carpet overnight.  Do you see the pink dragonfly patch? I FMQ-ed over it in the same magenta thread I used for the hearts.  The dragonfly comes from labels fabric.  These flitted around between the labels, which have all been used up now.

The back - I like how the pink hearts show up

The label, which had its written information all but obliterated with the pebbling I did.  I went over it though.

I forgot to put two triangles in each of the top corners for a dowel to go through, so it is getting hung using Right Sides Together's Lazy Ass method.

Very close to the Swoon Mini in size

These two quilts both feature the Zen Chic Modern Background Essentials fabric, and that fabulous binding.  Both are heavily quilted.

Trying to get a bit of an angle to show the fabulous texture you get from all this quilting

I'm happy that I have another finish on my list.  I have not done very well this quarter in that regard.  I am most happy that I am wholeheartedly committed to lifelong learning, and that you definitely can teach this 'old dog' new tricks.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  original design, inspired by Scrap-a-Palooza
Size: 19" square
Fabric: stash scraps
Batting: Pellon Nature's Touch 100% cotton
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Gütermann; quilted with Essentials 50 wt 20869 white and 21241 Magenta

If you would like to learn some of these and many more fabulous FMQ techniques, then you might want to check out Craftsy's classes.   I learned so much in Angela Walters' Machine Quilting Negative Space, and her Small Changes, Big Variety classes.  Her Free-Motion Quilting with Feathers class is well worth snagging at this price too.  I reviewed the latter two of those in this post.

Why you might want to consider taking a class if you never have:  I have both of Angela Walters' Quilting books, and the designs you see in both these minis can be found in her books.  However!  I find that SEEING her execute the designs on either a longarm or a domestic really helps me to see how the design is executed.  I also love the fact that I can watch her do this over and over either using the 30-second repeat feature, or I can go back to a design maybe 6 months after I bought and watched the class to review it.  There are many more reasons why I love Craftsy classes, and I go into them in the review post if you are interested, or just email me if you have specific questions.

The newest class I am super-excited about that I just got is Christina Cameli's latest one, Wild Quilting.  It reminds me of Karlee Porter's Grafitti Quilting and the Graffiti quilt I did last summer.  I cannot WAIT to play around with Christina's designs and learn more new tricks which I will share on the blog.

Happy Easter everyone!

Dapper boy

Linking up with:
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Quilting is More Fun Than Housework
Fort Worth Fabric Studio
A Quilted Passion
Cooking Up Quilts 
and
She Can Quilt for the FAL party!