Donation quilts

How lovely to be handing off these quilts for the Women's Shelter in a nearby town.

A baby quilt.

A lap size.  There are more nine patch blocks sitting in a bin that can easily be made into more like this quilt.

My friend Darlene had these in her closet and she gave them to me for the shelter.  Both are lap size.

This quilt has flannel patches on one side and denim on the other, no batting.  Perfect for a boy.

So good to give to others coming from an abusive situation.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Binding Challenge and a Bit of This and That

October was a good month for me and no-blog Mary.

Mary finished her quilt as well as adding some big stitch quilting to it.  I'm so glad the heat of the summer is over and Mary was able to resume her binding challenge with me.

Mary reached into a bag and viola .... this is her quilt to bind for November.

My October binding challenge quilt will be shown in a later post ..... so stay tuned for that reveal.

But, for November, these are the quilts that I will be doing.  For sure, the first two (they are for donation) and then possibly my log cabin.  Hubby really likes that quilt, so it just may get done and hung up on the wall this month.  All these quilts went to the LAer and were all back a week later.  I love that.  Instant gratification!

October saw me quite busy finishing up a few more tops.  I don't know where I found the time to do these, but they got done and off to the LAer they went.  In fact, this top is now one of the above quilts that will get done this month.

Remember this pile of blocks that was shown in a post last month?

Well, here they are in a top!  This is the second top that I have made using this pattern by Villa Rosa called "Berry Smoothie" and I will be making more of them.

Now, onto the topic of our cottage.  It is now closed for the season.  During our driving in and out of the cottage road all summer long, my sister and I always stopped at this bridge to look at the be.a.ve.r dam.  This last trip, we stopped and just had to take these photos.  It was overflowing big time all along the rim and we actually think that it has broken naturally because of the amount of rainfall we have had recently.

The stream on the other side of the bridge was flowing quite a lot!  All summer, it has just been a slow fall of water, but with the breakdown of the dam, it is flowing wildly now.

Back in the city, below are a couple of deer spotted just a few days ago on our neighbours lawn.  They were munching on all the fallen crab apples and they had a feast.

Halloween night .... it snowed big time.  Still, 32 brave kids came and picked up their treats from us.  The next morning, this is what we woke up to.  Four inches of snow had fallen.  Most of it is gone now, but there is still snow on the ground.  This snow fall is quite early for us.  So glad that my winter tires are already installed on the car.

So, that is me all caught up now.  Whew ..... October was quite a busy month!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Binding Challenge and another UFO

The binding is done on this quilt.  It has been washed and is drying on this rack.  More on this quilt beginning of next month.  This was a monster quilt to bind; but so glad it is done!

In order to keep the momentum going for dealing with old UFO's, this little baby top was pulled.  It is not very big, so borders will be added to make it slightly bigger.  I was going to gift it to one of my great nephews, but they were gifted with two baby quilts each.  Now, it will be gifted to a women's shelter in a nearby town.

Borders have been added.  Glad to tick another project off the list!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Log Cabins are rolling .....

..... along!  Time to get this project to the assembly mode .... which is exactly what happened!  This is now a top.  Backing has been selected.  Another top to go to the LAer.  Whew .... I'm so glad this is now off my UFO list and I'm so loving this top now!  Have to confess, but I hated this project and was so ready to dump it way back when.  Good thing I didn't listen to that voice!

A close-up of some of the blocks with the applique.  Do you like my decision to switch the centre chevron?  It makes the design look interesting.

On to the next UFO!  Just love it when I can tick off a UFO .... tick, tick, tick!  Still have 26 projects to deal with.  Finish a UFO .... start a new project!  No wonder my list never seems to drop to the single digits.  LOL

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Oh, how rude of Mother Nature and a squirrel!

Rain, rain ..... lots of rain .... and then SNOW!  That was our Thanksgiving weekend here in Northern Ontario, Canada.  Our wood stove was constantly burning wood to heat our tiny cottage.  If you would like to know what our life is like at our cottage, then read on.

The rain didn't hold back the ATVers.  Out they went, all bundled up against the cold and the rain.  They came back drenched and cold, but quickly warmed up in our warm cottage.  There were a few times the sun came out but it didn't stay for long.  This is hunting season for partridge right now and everyone had to wear orange when out and about.  There were 2 side x side ATV's (holds up to four people in each) and 3 regular ATV's.  Good thing our cottage lot has lots of room for parking 4 vehicles, 3 trucks plus 2 trailers holding the ATV's plus all the ATV's once off the trailers.  It was quite chaotic in the back lot.  As long as there was a clear path to get to the outhouses ... no problem.

A couple of the guys ventured onto a be.a.v.er dam.  Walking carefully, it held them up, no problem.

There were lots of quilts on hand to keep everyone warm at night.  The temperature dipped to around 1C (33.8F) at night to around 4C (39.2) during the day.  So, it was a cool weekend.   

Just a few days before we were having such beautiful autumn weather and then it quickly dipped.  We are hoping that we will return to more weeks of nice weather to go back out to the cottage.  We didn't close it up for the winter, so there are still chores to be done.  We did get our screen porch wrapped in plastic and a post installed to support our roof against the snow load to come.

No quilting stuff came out with me to work on as there were just too many people in our small cottage.  Only embroidery on this pillowcase.  Not much got done as there were two babies to look after and they didn't nap at the same time.  As you can see by the date on this photo, I don't think it has been touched since.  Time to get the second pillowcase done and out of my cupboard.

Then, on Monday morning, we woke up to about 2" of snow on the ground.  Gosh, but it looked like Christmas morning.  So quiet and white.

There was enough wet snow to make a snowman.

My sister and my cottage with the screen porch all wrapped up in plastic.  

Just three of the littles that kept us busy.

I asked this one if she deliberately brought out an elf costume in the off chance of snow?

Board games came out and a bunch played or looked on.  There is no electricity at our cottage (only minor solar power) .... so we have to find our own amusement.

This was the road on my way home.  Snow on the edges and quite muddy in places.  There were some downed trees on the road; but, they were all cleared by the time I left.  So, that was our Thanksgiving weekend.  Very busy!

This is the be.a.v.er dam at the bridge that was shown in an earlier post.  The dam was built up again after the last breakage and here it is opened up again.  Probably, next time we go to the cottage, it will be built up again.  It appears that someone is managing the level of the pond so that if it does break naturally, the rush of water won't wash the bridge out.  This was the best photo that I could get as a truck pulled up behind me and I was blocking the way.

  

On the quilting side, I'm starting to play around with this new project.  It will be a quilt-as-you-go.  I just had to start something new.  Oh, that pesky squirrel.

Cherish your day, cherish your life! 

Update on September UFO's

Well, well, well ..... I had good progress working on these two UFO's last month.  They are not finished tops just yet, but they have been moved along from just a few blocks.

My log cabin turned out amazing!  I'm just in love with this project now.  All the blocks have their applique.  The chevrons have been trimmed on the sides.  Just need to figure out the length and then trim.  The fabric for the border and beside each chevron has been decided upon.  Yes, time to get this beauty sewn together now!  Amazing what happens when I concentrate on finishing something started many, many years ago ....

This red/neutral project hasn't been touched since doing the last block.  Once the log cabin is together, then this project can be worked on.

Time at the cottage is coming to an end, unless we get some really nice weather and then our visits can be prolonged a bit.

This was a recent visage one beautiful morning with the sun shining through the autumn leaves.  Delightful.

To my fellow Canadians, Happy Thanksgiving!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

September Binding Challenge

"Churn Dash-Dash".  A funny title, isn't it?

Still, this quilt is done and can be added to the pile of finished quilts and can be used now at any time .... and I'm so thrilled with it!  It will be going on my bed soon as the nights are chilling down.

My hubby helped me display the quilt over the railing.  As you can see .... leaves are on the ground.  Autumn is definitely here and trees have been displaying their colours for quite a few weeks now.  Some trees started to turn colour back in August.

A close-up of the quilting.  This quilting design (Baptist Fan Curl) has been used in quite a few of my quilts and I will continue to pick it

I just love the backing fabric.  It has been in my stash for many years.

Thanks to https://chookyblue.blogspot.com/and her challenge, this quilt was pulled off the shelf and worked on.  A number of us bloggers zoom with Chooky and we were admiring her Churn Dash quilt.  Chooky issued a challenge along with instructions for the block and quite a few of us took up her challenge.  Initially, my plan was to do her block ..... but what about my Churn Dash UFO that has been sitting on the shelf for years?  Out came that bin and that was worked on instead.  

The sashing was not my original plan, but this worked out much better than first thought.  Dots and dashes sort of reminds me of the Morse Code.  That is where the title of "Churn Dash-Dash" comes from.

If you want to read more about this quilt, see the label at the bottom of this post called "churn dash block" and "Treasured Memories".  Click onto those labels and you can see more of this quilt in the process of being worked on.

Quilt Details:

Source:  My original design

Block Size:  10" and 5" (cornerstones)

Started:  December 2008

Top Finished:  October 2022

Quilt Finished:  September 2023

Quilt Size:  100-1/2" x 101-3/4" (size before quilting, washing and drying:  102" x 102-1/2")

Batting:  Hobbs poly

Machine quilted by:  Kathy Wareham using Baptist Fan Curl (this came with her computerized quilting machine).

My October quilt for the binding challenge has been pulled .... and how happy I will be to start working on this beauty!  

No-blog Mary has pulled a quilt for October and I'm so happy that she is able to resume the binding challenge with me.  First, though, she has to add in some big stitch quilting and then do the binding.  She informed me that she has two of these quilts.  Will she finish just one or two this month?

Cherish your day, cherish your life!