Oh Wonderful ...

The full name of this quilt is 'Oh Wonderful, Summer's Here'.  How lovely it turned out to be.

Below is a behind-the-scene photo of my friend Debra (from Toronto) and I getting ready to move the quilt up the hill so that my hubby could get a photo of the quilt.  Little did we know that he snapped photos of us telling each other what to do to get ready.  It was early morning and the photo had to be taken before we got ready to go back to Toronto.  Everyone was still in their pj's.  LOL

A little bit of peek-a-boo before the serious photo taking could take place!  We did this session quickly because the air quality (forest fire smoke) was pretty bad that morning.

Quilt details:

The centre is all English Paper Piecing.  It took a long time but my scrap bins sure got a good cleaning out during the process.  Every kind of fabric was used.  Civil War, Asian, Repro, modern .... whatever looked good was used.

Pattern source:  BlockBase software and No. D046 is the block name.  It is also known as Puzzle Tile.  I kept talking about my quilt as D046 again and again and mentioned on a post that a better name was needed.    Help from my followers came and the name was changed to 'Oh Wonderful, Summer's Here'.  How delightful that name is!  🐱🐱

Size:  97" x 97-1/2" (99-1/2" x 99-1/2" before being quilted and washed/dried).

Batting:  80/20 cotton/poly

Started:  Apr. 7, 2011
Top Finished:  Sept. 3, 2014
Quilt Finished:  July 19, 2018

This was machine quilted by my LAer friend, Tella in Scarborough.

My friend, Debra drove up from Toronto on Thursday to drop off a trundle bed for our cottage and to pick me up and drive us back to Toronto for a weekend visit.  We shopped and shopped and shopped and went to our favourite quilt show at Black Creek Village.  While I loved the show, it was a tad disappointing.  There were a lot of miniature quilts that was done for a challenge and a  long,low fence had lots of portrait quilts hanging on it.  I'm not really into either and that is why the show wasn't as interesting to me. 

Back home, the air quality is quite bad here again today.  We can't open our windows or doors again.  The little rain we had is helping, but fires are still burning and the smoke is drifting to our city.  Oh no, that means I HAVE to stay indoors!  Let's see what can be worked on ...... 😉

Have a great day!

Linking to: http://estheraliu.blogspot.com/ and http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com/

Old ufo

I've been busy getting a top and backing ready for the LAer whom I will be visiting soon when I'm down in Toronto.  I'll be going to Toronto this coming weekend for my favourite quilt show at Black Creek Village.  My friend Debra is coming up with a trundle bed that she doesn't want anymore.  It is for our cottage.  In exchange, she got a lazy-boy chair from me last year.  A win-win for everyone.

This is the top!  I'm so much happier with this border now.

It has been a busy few weeks for me.  The fire situation at our cottage is over.  We've had a bit of rain and that is helping.  There are still fires out-of-control but they are not close to our cottage.   There was even an air quality advisory in effect for one day and we couldn't open our windows or patio doors to let in cooler air.  The smell was awful.

Where else have I done?  My sister and I did a weekend trip to Ottawa to visit an elderly aunt and elderly cousin.  While there, my aunt gave me a ring and my niece also received a ring.  She is passing on her jewellery now while she is still alive to tell us who owned the items.

Decades before, my aunt had given this ring to my Mom (her sister) which she wore (it was her birthstone) and when she died my aunt wanted it back.  So, now it has come full circle back to me.  This ring has to be over 100 yrs. old and it belonged to a great aunt and the ring fits my finger perfectly.  No resizing needed here.  It is so old-fashioned and it suits my personality to a T.  On the outside of the ring are tiny seed pearls.  One is missing.  Should I try to get a new one added or leave it as is?

While in Ottawa/Gatineau we visited this park:  https://www.quebecoriginal.com/en/listing/events/festivals-and-special-events/mosaiculture-gatineau-2018-377066123 for an interesting walk along sculptures.  We went early before it got too hot.

This is one of my favourite sculptures.  It was hard to choose from as there were so many.  Can you see the boat ... the whale ... the waves?

Now .... back to those ufo's.  This one got pulled off the shelf.  This project was last touched in 2012.  Time to work on this one again.  I used leftover hexagons from another quilt long ago finished.  It was my intention to make up my own embroidery design, but I came across something else that made my life easier.

This book by Deborah Kemball has a huge sheet of a gorgeous design already done for me, so I used that instead.  My top was placed on top of the design and a whole lot of tracing took place.  An old-fashioned blue was found for the embroidery.  Five skeins of DMC thread was purchased, but more will be needed .... for sure.  I'm just curious to see how much can get done using just one skein.

What else got worked on?  This top.  Just need outer borders.  This piece is stunning .... IMO!  It could also be a tad busy depending how you look at it.  This has been an absolute joy to work on.  More about this top later as there is some explaining to do about how this design came to be.

What else?  This quilt is now finished.  Photos will come soonish.

What else?  Oh, another root canal yesterday.  Normal for me. ☹️

So that is my update on happenings here.

Have a great day!

Linking to: http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com/ and http://estheraliu.blogspot.com/

Different things

Lately, I've been busy tidying up my studio and that means tidying up projects that were so-so.

Take this top, for example.  I was never happy with the outer border.  This finished top has been sitting on the shelf since 2009.  Why?  The fabric has a definitive large pattern in it and when it was cut, I didn't pay attention to that issue and my borders turned out yucky.  Some may be happy with it, but not me.

Finding a replacement fabric took time.  Over the years, fabric was purchased BUT not the right one.  That time has come and now the ripping out borders has begun.  A beautiful teal fabric that doesn't have a noticeable pattern and brown borders were found.  Perfect now.  I can see my lovely brown striped fabric that I recently bought more of for the binding.  How happy am I now?  Very happy!  

This quilt is getting that lovely striped brown fabric for binding.   Can you see my hands clapping in glee?

While I'm at it, this shelving unit has not had any of the ufo's worked on in years.  Time to remedy that.  It has been a while, my friends.  There are so many lovely projects there!

Have a great day!

Triangles top

It was a busy weekend for me and my sister.  Babysitting two young nieces/grandchildren.  They were good, but busy.  By the end of Monday evening, we were all tired.  Everyone was very happy to see the parents back home.  Everyone.  You know what I mean!  LOL

Anyway, the final applique triangles were sewn onto this top.  This top is done and I must get busy marking for machine quilting.  Just simple straight lines.  Nothing fancy.  A little girl will be moving to a big girl bed this summer and it would be nice for her to have her quilt.

Do you remember me lamenting about not buying more of that fabulous stripe fabric?  Well, on a trip to Sudbury (1-1/2 hr. drive away from me) last week, a very quick stop into the quilt store and 2 metres more were bought.  The store owner was just in the process of closing her shop to go for an appointment, but I was able to convince her to just cut my fabric and away I would go.  She kindly did and we both left happy. 

This summer will be very busy for me and I will be here, there and everywhere.  Posts will be sporadic.  Hand projects will be coming with me on my trips and there will be some progress to report on.  Cleaning up some ufo's time.

There are a LOT of forest fires north of us here in North Bay.  BUT at our cottage, the access roads just north of our road have been closed.  We are keeping a close eye on events and if the fire situation looks to be worsening, we will drive to the cottage and take out anything of sentimental value.  The rest will be covered by fire insurance.  Scary times!
 
Have a great day!

Linking to: https://estheraliu.blogspot.com/ and http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com/

Early morning quilting

It always amazes me how natural lights affects or highlights the quilting on my wall quilts.  This morning, the light showed off my hand quilting on this quilt hanging in our dining room.

This quilt was finished in 2006 (I looked at the label).  Twelve years ago!  Oh my, that seems like a lifetime ago and that was when I did a lot of hand quilting.

My summer quilts are slowly coming out of the cabinets and onto our walls, etc.   How lovely to have a nice selection to choose from now.  Getting tops to the LAer has made a huge difference and one that we are so enjoying the benefits.

I was away at our cottage for a few days.  Very HOT.  Any breeze off the lake was most welcome.   We did have two tornado warnings for our area and I woke up to hail hitting our roof and sides of the cottage.  Not pings, but thuds.  That meant the hail was large in size.  No, I did not venture outside to pick up the hail to see how big they were as my husband thought I should have done.  He is a meteorologist and he would have been outside if he had been there.  He stayed at home in the a/c instead. 🐱🐱

While at the cottage, not much stitching got done.  Reading and babysitting two young great nieces kept my sister and I busy.  Once home, a couple hexie snowflakes got appliqued onto the borders of my EPP project.  More hexie snowflakes will be added to the other two white borders.  Fabric for the outer borders are still being auditioned, but I'm liking this choice so far.   The corners have been figured out and there is just enough fabric to do what I want.  Whew!  That was way too close for comfort.  Mind you, the plain corners don't look bad either.

One major job that needs to be done ..... cleaning up my studio AGAIN.  This will get sorted out and my space will be nice and tidy until the next mess comes around.  What a vicious cycle!  Mess, clean-up, mess, clean-up and so it goes on and on.  LOL

My niece took this photo on our cottage road.  A moose!  We don't see these very often on the road, but the deer flies have been very bad lately and the open areas give the wildlife some relief.

It is going to be very hot again today and then a cold front moves in tomorrow which will trigger storms and possibly some more tornado watches/warnings.  Summertime.

Have a great day!

Linking to:  https://estheraliu.blogspot.com/ and http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com/

Canada Day

July 1 ..... Canada's birthday.   Happy birthday Canada!

A few years ago, I did a photo layout of my red/white/beige tops and once they were all quilted, I wanted to repeat that photo. 

Here they are.  All machine quilted and all finished!  It was hard to decide which photo to use, so these three photos got posted.  Three photos for .... three quilts ..... 🐱🐱

There are more red/white/beige projects in the works.  Those will have to be found and gathered together for another photo.  Maybe for next year.  My goal is not to only get those projects to finished tops, but also to reduce my red bins into one bin.  One can only hope!

My elderly neighbour saw me setting up for this photo and wondered what I was up to.  She clapped her hands and gave me a thumbs up when I told her it was for my blog.  The things we do for our blogs!  LOL

Have a great day, eh!