Just Another Manic Monday - NOT!

A very peaceful one instead.............

Our Picnic spot......

Holiday Reading......

Blue skies and sunshine............

DInner at our favourite Chinese restaurant............

Then home for a nice G & T, Canadian Gin of course! 

What's New?

It's been a good week here, catching up with friends, visiting a few of our favourite places and enjoying the slower pace of life in general.  As we sat at the side of Ghost Lake yesterday we enjoyed the scenery, and watched the water sport activities taking place on the lake.  Folks were out and about enjoying the sunny Saturday afternoon.  Life in the fast lane with jet skis and motorboats but also some taking it much slower paddling along in their kayaks and canoes.  Fun to watch but I am one who prefers to have my feet on solid ground.  The storm clouds were brewing as you can see and by the time we returned home the raining was pouring down and the thunder and lightning was rumbling in the mountains.

I've had my first quilt shop visit - Addies in Cochrane, a lovely shop selling lots of beautiful fabrics.........yes I did buy some.  Black background, rainbow fabrics, downloaded pattern, ready to go!  

I set up my sewing machine on Wednesday night and decided to use up some scraps which have been accumulating here. Not quite sure how they will end up though, I have managed to produce 6 x 10.5 in blocks, then another 4 slab blocks with the red, yellow, blue and green scrappy strips so far.

All in all a very good week here I hope you have had a good one too.

That Way........

I missed a post at the weekend and there was good reason.  We were travelling all day Sunday and have now arrived on the other side.  It's holiday time!  A long awaited and needed few weeks of rest and relaxation in our favourite place in the Rockies.  Yesterday was spent stocking up on the groceries and unpacking and dozing on and off throughout the afternoon.  It was a grey and drizzly day just like home, but we are hoping for some improvement during the week.  We are both awake early this morning par for the course and looking forward to a lazy day, hopefully with a little sunshine to allow us to sit on the deck.

This Way quit top is complete, although I might just put another border on, and yes - it's artistic license  its not the same as the pattern - for those who don't know me I never do things the way I'm told!

   

The HSTs from the leftovers have been pieced together and will become a small lap quilt called 'That way'. 

And I still have scraps and strips left for perhaps a little linus quilt.  

  

A great value quilt kit indeed.

I've just finished my early morning coffee so ready for a new day.  No plans, no deadlines, take it as it comes kind of day.  Reading, sewing, chatting, cooking, dozing, and repeat.  I might even unpack my sewing stuff and take a look in the boxes to see what I left behind last time.

So you may get fewer posts over the next few weeks, you may get more, you may get none!  You might get just a photograph of somewhere we've been or what I've been doing.  The posts may look funny as I am doing everything from my iPad so apologies if the font or formatting looks weird. Whatever you are up to this week enjoy!

Which Way?

I am pleased to say I have had a more productive week.  Sewing wise at least and I suppose I have managed to keep up to date with my washing and ironing and all the other chores that need done occasionally around the house.

I am delighted to report that K has been successful in having one of her beautiful quilts accepted for the Quilt Championships at Ingliston this year.  We are all hoping she does well but to just have a quilt accepted is a huge achievement and we are all looking forward to seeing it being exhibited and hung up beside all the other quilts at the show with  K’s name beside it.  We can all now say we know someone personally who is exhibiting at the show.  Good Luck K.  We all know your work is stunning, lets hope the judges do too.

Baby Arthur’s quilt has been finished and has its label on, if it had not been so blustery today I might have managed a photo.  Tomorrow is another day!  after which all I need to do is parcel it up and ship it off to him - I hope over the years he will have hours of pleasure using it.

My Challenge quilt is finished too.  I am really pleased with it.  It has been a journey of different techniques and challenges which I have thoroughly enjoyed.  It is sometimes good to sit at your machine and put the pedal to the metal as they say but sometimes its good to take things slowly and carefully and take time to savour the moment when all the pieces come together and what your vision was on paper finally comes to fruition.  This is only a small piece as a wallhanging which in the end comes out at 17 x 24 inches, and I am happy with it!  Look out for it in my Gallery after Tuesday 6th September (This being the date we have to Show and Tell our ‘Illusions” quilts at class).  I will post it there - or I may even do a separate post about the journey.

Im sorry I'm being a bit of a tease - not able to show you pictures of my finishes just yet.  So here are a few pictures of whats been going on in my sewing space in the last few days.

This is another of the Connecting Threads Kits which was on sale and I bought for $27.  

The Pattern

A bargain I thought at the time, however it was even more of a bargain than I thought.  As I may have mentioned before these kits I have found have a generous amount of fabrics.  

Large Flying Geese

Having cut out the required pieces I realised I could make HSTs with the trimmings, 

5 inch HST's

so instead of just one quilt I am heading to make a second and maybe another with these scraps I still have 

7 x 2.5” strips and 7 5 x 6” pieces to play with and that doesn't include the sashing pieces

The progress so far

I hope your progress has been good this week and you have some time this coming week to do some stitching.

An Unexpected Surprise

A very blustery day here although it's not been too cold.  Techie arrived home from his holidays and has spent the day in bed catching up on the jet lag.  I had nothing planned for this weekend, the washing and ironing was all up to date so the washing machine was left free for all the holiday washing!  

We had a nice surprise when we had a text to say we were having a little visitor with his Daddy.  Mummy was having a girly cake and craft afternoon out with some of her friends.  Our little grandson is growing, the vocabulary he has acquired already I think is quite extraordinary.  The bird in the garden wasn't just a bird it was a pigeon.  He loves been outdoors and we had fun exploring in the garden, we picked some lavender for his Mummy and we tied it up with a ribbon not just any ribbon but it had to be a purple one!.  Then of course we had great fun playing with all the other ribbons in the bag, waving them around and making snakes on the floor lots of giggles and good fun...........the simple things are always the best.  So that's enough to Grannie talk, what about quilting.

Not so much done this week, I managed to complete another new hexagon at class on Tuesday we've still a long way to go though.

Another blue one

My 'illusion' challenge is sandwiched and quilted and is hanging on the design wall - my maths teacher son was well impressed!  Obviously he saw what it was meant to portray. So I guess that's a bonus.

Baby boy quilt is cut out, HST done and pieced together I now just need to put the borders on.  This one is similar to the pink and grey one I did for Freya, using a different colour way.

My fabrics I bought at kaleidoscope last week have all been, scanned and documented and folded on to the magazine boards and stacked in the bookcase, ready for the next project.

I hope to continue with my challenge quilt tonight, doing a little hand stitching.  Then I might manage to sew on the borders of the baby quilt.  I hope you have all had a good weekend and are looking forward to a new week.