Saying goodbye after close to 68 years

This "selfie" was taken when my sister and I visited our brother last summer. Sadly Bill passed away early Sunday morning. So Linda and I will make one more trip south of the border to say good bye. Bill would have been 68 on Saturday. He had his struggles but also had a heart of gold. I will miss him. Piecefully, Joanne

Thoughts on Leaders and Enders and the 200th post

This little quilt started its life as a leader and ender project. It was a bag of blue and green and white triangles. So first leader/ender task was to make them into half square triangles. That took a while. Then those triangles were grouped into likes and made into pinwheels. Then I looked at them and thought they were too small to do anything with them so added "sides" to make them a little bigger. Each additional piece was added as a leader/ender. I did have the nerve to go back to the person who had given me the original baggie and ask if she had any more pieces that matched to get enough of the right colours and then added from my stash.The borders came from my stash. Sometimes you are saving a piece for some unknown reason. I thought the outer border this time was just right. this is ready to give to Project Linus at our next Kincardine Sunset Quilters Guild meeting.
And my thoughts on Leaders and Enders. I prefer not to leave home without them. I have several cut out and in small containers ready to take to workshops or group sewing events.
And if that is not enough excitement for the day according to Blogger this is my 200th post. I think I do repeat myself but my original intent was to record finishes. This year there have been fewer finishes than I would like but there are a ton of tops waiting for their finish. I have a list today for the Scrapbag Quilters to get batting cut. My Bernina has died and I am now learning to use my little Lotus by Elna for the machine quilting. It is not the same but I think we will come to terms with each other.
So thank you followers for taking the ride with me. Piecefully, Joanne
Linking up with cynthia at Quilting is More fun than Housework (here)

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Hop is on this week

This is one of my favourite blocks from the last round of testing. If I took better photos you would realize this flower looks much like a poppy. With this year being the 100th anniversary of the writing of In Flander's Field by John Macrae, and my sister having the roll of chair of the Guelph events to celebrate that occasion the block just resonated with me. I tested about 13 blocks for this issue. I have said many times it continues to amaze me how many talented designers are out there and the original designs they continue to come up with. Testing is well under way for Volume 13. So to date 1200 new blocks or variations on traditional blocks and new ones still arriving. To visit the blog hop drop around to Quiltmaker's blog (here) .
Piecefully, Joanne

Two workshops in less than a week

I had the good fortune to attend a workshop given by Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh Quilts (here) to the Kincardine Sunset Quilters Guild. I was recovering from a bad gut so did not have my usual pep and did leave mid afternoon to drive home but what a fun day. In the photo Lorna and I are holding up a sample of the quilt we worked on. Her original was done in blues and of course with my stash habits blue it was to be. I have all the pieces cut out and two rows stitched together. Lorna did a great job of circulating and making sure everyone was comfortable sewing all those triangles together.
Now with winter  approaching my workshop outings will be limited to my personal sewing room and getting some things finished over the winter. Piecefully, Joanne

A Modern Quilt Workshop

Cheryl Arkison, co author of Sunday Morning Quilts was presenting a couple of workshops in St. Mary's this past week. One of my friends lives about 15 minutes away from the workshop venue so I asked if she would put me up for a couple of nights and return email said "sure". So I signed up for the Values workshop. I don't think I will ever get to be an Improv quilter. We were to bring a stack of 6 1/2" squares to the workshop. Of course I dug into my blue scrap stash and went to town. And further of course I was the only participant who went monochromatic but that's OK. We sorted our squares and used one of those Smart phones to take a picture and then turn it into gray scale. people shared their phones which was nice. And others explained to phone owners how to do this on their phones. Then we paired things up made a whole lot of half square triangles. Cheryl demonstrated (very fluidly) how to make several different arrangements using the half square triangles we had made. My first tentative design is on my design wall behind us. I want to do an asymmetric design with this but the design wall was not big enough. I have a ton of half square triangles ready to use and hope to get to this over the winter one of those days when the wind is howling and we don't even want to look out the window.
The other thing to mention was the age of the workshop participants. About half of them were young enough I could have been their Mom and the other half was my vintage. This tells me that the quilting bug has bitten and the next generation is ready to take it on. I was very happy to see that. I thoroughly enjoyed my day. It is fun to spend time playing with like minded people and to NOT be in charge. I could just sew and play. It was a great day! I understand some plans are in the wind to get Cheryl back to southern Ontario in the future. I for one would be looking forward to that. Piecefully, Joanne