Granny Smith in the wild!

Another quilt done!  Done, done, done!

Yee haw!

I'm always on the lookout for a place to take photos of my quilts and this spot has been on my list for a couple of years now.  This is on a bridge on our cottage road.  There will be more quilt photos taken here, so be prepared to see this spot often .... until the snow flies.  LOL

I so wanted to capture the beauty of this spot.  How about my quilt on the rocks?  Jeesh ... that sounds like a drink!

While I was busy snapping photos, my sister was snapping me in action.  Ha!

How about over the bridge railing?  The other side of the railing is even more beautiful and that will be the spot for another quilt soon.

How about at the cottage hanging on the old shed door?

What about laying in a field of daises and buttercups?  You are probably thinking that the quilt got dirty being laid out in all those different spots.  It will get washed soon.  Just not today.

All these photos were quickly taken as the MOSQUITOS were horrendous!

Even the wildlife can't stand them.  On our way home from the cottage, there was a moose standing in the middle of the highway.  Wouldn't move until it was ready.  What a sight to see and not a camera at hand to snap that photo.  Oh my, what a lost opportunity.

My quilt is a split apple core.  I just made the apple cores a bit bigger (3" x 4-1/4" finished).  Once the cores were all sewn together, they were then appliqued onto a strip of green fabric.  Apples + green peel = Granny Smith.  That is how my quilt name came to be.  LOL

A close up of the split apple cores.

Quilt details:
Quilt source:  saw a photo on Pinterest and went from there
Quilt started:  October 2014
Quilt top finished:  Sept. 2018
Quilt finished:  June 2019
Quilt size:  95" x 101-1/4" (it still has to be washed and dried and then the measurements will become smaller)
Batting:  Hobbs polyester
Machine quilted by:  Kat's Quilts

So, that is another top to be crossed off my list.

We will be celebrating Canada Day on July 1 and since I will be at the cottage, I'm wishing all my fellow Canadians to have a great day, eh!

Six months so far .....

For the past six months, I have been keeping tabs on my long list of tops and ufo's.  So how did I do?

At the beginning of January, this was my list of 22 tops.  I do better when an actual photo of each top is shown instead of just writing the top name on a sheet of paper.

As we are winding down to the end of June, here is where I'm at with my tops.  Six tops crossed off.  Finished quilts!  So, so lovely to see!

But look, here is a pile of five quilts that just need binding, sleeves and labels and then they can be crossed off one-by-one this summer.  They will be coming with me to the cottage to be worked on in the cool mornings.  So, I'm in a happy place with my tops to-be-quilted list.

Now, what about my ufo's?  Again, at the beginning of January, this photo was taken of my 35 ufo's (a few more were found during a studio clean-up and are not on this photo, sigh).  

So far this year ..... well, not so good.  Only two crossed off the list.  Five more projects need to be worked on and crossed off in the next six months.  So, I had better get cracking because this is part of my five-year plan.  Get seven ufo's crossed off each year .... at least!

I'm trying very hard not to start something new (except for two that are secret for now) .... we will see how that goes!  LOL  With all those ufo's, just picking one and working on it to completion will feel like starting something new.  Some of them are THAT old.  

Sometime this week, my sister and I are heading off to the cottage (while our hubbies stay home...yes, sob, sob!) and this quilt is coming with me.  The binding is on but needs hand sewing to finish it.  Sleeve and label will be made and those can be added while I'm at the cottage.

Have a great week!

Busy, busy, busy

Not much quilting has been going on.  Summer weather has finally arrived up here. 

A bit of progress has been made on this project.  My sister is excited to finally ..... soon .... to have this quilt done up for her.   Right now, she has a store bought bedspread and she doesn't like it and is looking forward to this quilt. 

I'm having a hard time trying to capture a good photo of this quilt.  They all turn out like this.  Could it be this block with the embroidery?  I use my ipad for photos and maybe it is getting old and not taking good photos anymore.  Anyone else have the same issue?

What about all the stuff that you see in front of my design wall?  Things are happening here.

All of that stuff was in this cabinet that we bought back in April of this year.

That cabinet is in the process of being transformed.  Getting a coat of white paint.  The cabinet top and base are back to back (that is why it looks odd sitting like that).  My husband made a spray tent for me on our back patio and it is working a charm.  There are still door fronts to be sanded and painted and that will happen over the next few days.

Once this cabinet is done, two coats of Varethane will be applied on the inside.  Got to protect my quilts from any wood resin that may seep through the paint.  I will show an 'after' soon.  Oh, you should see me doing the happy dance!  LOL 

The cottage is calling to me and my quilting and sewing will slow down a lot and so will my blogging.

Have a great day!
Linking to:
http://www.esthersquiltblog.com/
https://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com/

Just a tad crazy!

I'm recently back from a trip to Costa Rica and just had to share what my sister, niece and I did.

But first, something quilty.

Sitting by the pool (Azura Resort, Samara), in the shade, a rum drink on hand and some EPP.   Got to have some hand work to do to keep me occupied and my hands limber.

Once back home, this is where this piece is at.  This project will be discussed more on a separate post.

Now, onto the crazy bit.  Do you see this?  Zip lining!  What the ..... My sister and I went with my niece on a day excursion so that she could zip line.  My sis and I had no intentions of doing anything like that.  So, how did it come to be?  We still don't know.  We were just going to do horse back riding, the water slide and the hot springs.  Zip lining was not on the cards at all.

We all did the zippy do da.  Eight runs in total.  For me, it was awesome and I would do it again.  On the last two runs, it started to rain and the wires were slippery and faster.  Here I am concentrating on braking on the last run.  What a day that was.  Something to cross of my bucket list, even though it was never on the list to do.  So, if a 68 yr. old lady can do it, you can too!

On our way back to the rendezvous place to switch buses, our bus broke down about 1/2 hr. away.  Our guide noticed there was a restaurant that we could easily walk to and wait there for our new bus.  So we walked with the temptation of a beer at the end of our walk.

A beer, some nachos and a view like this?  What more could we hope for?  We had just enough time to drink and eat and then our bus arrived.

On another excursion, we did a river boat trip.  We saw lots of birds, iguanas, a few monkeys and crocodiles.

Can you see this crocodile?  It is very well camouflaged.

 This one lunged at our boat.  We all screamed.  LOL

Back at our resort, we would see horses walking or galloping on the beach  They would be in packs or alone.  Just walking along making their way to a field beside our resort.  We did see a few on the road going to the town of Samara.

This time of year is the rainy season.  Where we were located, it would rain but late in the afternoon and on/off during the night.  The mornings were always sunny with some cloudy periods in the afternoon.  This photo is from our outside eating area and the rain was so intense that we couldn't see the beach.  It rained like this for about 15 mins. and then it cleared and so on.  After dinner, we would sit in the bar and watch the lightening and listen to the rain and enjoy our Bailey's.  A lovely way to wind down our day.

The sunsets were spectacular on the evenings when it was not raining.

That was my fun week in the sun.

Have a great day.

Lordie .... this is an oldie!

I'm going to be working on this old ufo once I'm home from my vacation.

Yesterday, my sister dropped off a top that she bought and needs adjustment to take on her trip with her youngest daughter and me.  She was coming over to drop off my plane tickets and pick up the other clothes that I altered.  She forgot to give me my tickets.  Silly woman!

Anyway on her way out my studio door, she saw this project on my design wall.  That's pretty, she said.

I told her it was going to be her quilt.  Remember, the one that was started ..... oh ..... 15 years ago?  It has been so long that she forgot all about it.  Wasn't that quilt for their 25th wedding anniversary, she asked?  Yep. 

This project was started Mar. 2004.  Over 15 years ago.  Time to get it done so that they can have it for their 40th wedding anniversary at the end of June.   Yes, I did notice one block that is pieced wrong and it has been taken out for fixing.  See if you can find it.

After getting the rest of the navy circles sewn onto the embroidery blocks, the blocks were all added to the design wall.  Now just the pieced blocks to cut out and complete.  Baby steps, baby steps!

A close-up of the embroidery and pieced block.  I'm so surprised that all the embroidery has been done.  That should have taken me forever to do and yet it is the pieced blocks (easy to do) dragged me down on this project.  Sadly, it got shelved for all these years ..... because ..... well, because I was on to more interesting work.  This is not a scrappy quilt and that is what I love to do more than anything else.

This hexie project will be my new summer take-along project.  Should it come with me on my trip to Costa Rica?  We may have some rainy days ahead and I might need more than a book to keep myself busy.  Showers are one thing, but a total rainy day ..... yes, this will keep me occupied.

This is what the whole layout will look like.  The diamonds will be made up as needed.  So, extra strips of the teal fabric will be coming along too.

This is what my roll looks like all tied up.

So, that is it for a couple of weeks.  Talk to you later.

Have a great day!