A Quilt for Kincardine

This quilt is Woven Ribbons from Quilters Cache. I am donating it to the Kincardine Sunset Guild for their outreach project this year. It was very easy to put together. I virtually never work with pastels so that was different for me. I have finished a baby quilt and two doll quilts for the next Scrap Bag meeting. I feel as though I am back at it. That being said my workhorse Bernina needs repair and it will be almost two weeks before we can get it to the machine repair person and then he will have it for a couple of weeks at least. The foot pedal is not connecting. We tried to take it apart ourselves and were not successful, so we figured a professional repair was in order.

I had a great trip to Helen's for her annual April Fool's Day sale. Everything in the store is half price. I took my own bag and it was completely full when I walked out. I was primarily stash enhancing, no specific projects in mind. Joanne

Reading instead of quilting

Well I have been reading instead of finishing up some quilts. I have 6 of them sitting in the house ready for quilting. I might have to rename the blog, Tops by Joanne. I finished The Union Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini. This is a story of the Civil War in the US and the impact the war has on families from the Elm Creek Valley. Since I do not have a wealth of Civil War background I cannot say how accurate the information was in the story but it seemed very realistic to me. Today I finished A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. He is a Canadian author and his lead character Flavia De Luce is a charming and precocious 11 year old. She loves chemistry and fancies herself as a bit of a sleuth. The time period for the stories (this is the third in a series) is early 50's in England. I love Flavia and am now waiting for the next book to come out. Another book I finished recently was The Water Rat of Wanchai by Ian Hamilton. Another Canadian author, this was his first book. The lead character in this novel is a smart, female, Chinese, forensic accountant. I have my name in for the next book in this series which is expect out in July. I am hoping to get back in the sewing groove soon. Joanne

Kincardine Sunset Quilt Guild-Project Linus

This little quilt is called Steppin' to the Nine's . The directions were provided on-line at one of my Yahoo groups. I am donating it to the Kincardine Sunset Quilt Guild's Project Linus drive for this year. Yesterday was the day I handed it in. Several others have made lovely baby quilts and some for older children too. The Kincardine Sunset Quilt guild is a very friendly group and I enjoy their hands on approach to quilting. Our drive to Kincardine was fine but the return trip featured ice pellets, snow and rain. That is the nasty part of living in this part of the world. Two of the quilters have made quilts following directions I gave verbally in January. That was a real boost.
I have been continuing to work away at my quilts but have no recent finishes to picture. I have four that have the blocks finished and are waiting in line to be made into rows and then a top. I did aquire the tail end of a quilt batt so will have no excuses for not finishing them. Joanne

No pictures today. It has been a busy week with some quilty events. Wednesday was Scrap Bag Quilters. Elaine made the kits for this month and what a treat to just sew for the day and not be "responsible" for anything. I finished my top by lunch time and started a second one which I brought home to finish. Jeanette was out for the first time since October and is happy to have her cancer treatments behind her. I am making good progress on my red rainbow scrap challenge but know that it won't be finished before the end of the month. Tonight we went out to celebrate my husband's not really a birthday event. He is one of those special people born on February 29th so young forever. Our favourite restaurant is on winter hours so it was tonight or later next week. There are a few Mysteries coming up in the next little while so I have been looking through the stash for material suitable for them. I have reached 16 on my 50 quilts from stash challenge so that is coming along also. Hope to have some finishes in the next little while. Joanne

The quilt pictured today is my version of Coin Collection by Rachel Griffith found in the July/August 2010 Quiltmaker magazine. In the original quilt new yardage was used. I made the coins as Chinese Coins on a foundation. Then followed the directions for the assembly. It is a great stash buster. Each coin set is 5" by 15 1/2". The finished quilt is 53" by 68". Joanne

Family Day Holiday in Ontario

Tomorrow is Family Day in Ontario. It is a mid-winter holiday where families are encouraged to spend time together. Our family lives about two hours away from us so today while the weather looked OK we made a run for it. I delivered the blue and yellow quilt to my sister and the little hot mat pictured to the left. The plates set on the placemats give you some sense of scale. I still have more of these tiny HST to make into something.

We got our hug bank replenished by the grandsons. And had a lovely birthday lunch to celebrate all the February birthdays. Grandson number 2, his Dad, his other Grandma and my Husband all have February birthdays. It meant the other three at the table had to sing Happy Birthday extra loud.

I have my Scrap Bag group this week, something I always look forward to. I am wondering who was able to finish the project from last month. Joanne

Finally a finish for February

The first part of this month very little was accomplished in the sewing room. We babysat the grandson's for a week and then needed another week to "recover" and catch up on what had not been done the previous week.

This quilt is the same quilt design that I made for my sister (the blue and yellow quilt) but for this one I used the last of some pink scraps and cut the bricks 1 1/2" by 2 1/2". The setting is 8 blocks by 11 blocks. I will be donating it to my Scrap Bag group.

I took another quilt to a baby shower yesterday and was a little overwhelmed when the new Mom started to cry when she saw it. She did not have any quilts for her very sweet little guy. The quilt was a Mystery one that I made very scrappy and it turned out to the the Jewel Box pattern.

I have finished the quilting and the binding for the red Heartstrings quilt from late Janaury. And two more quilts are being quilted or need binding. It feels good to have a finish or two. Joanne