Winter Holiday

I headed out from home on my winter holiday on February 9. I am headed to what I hope is sunnier and warmer weather in the south--Texas and Louisiana.

The first stop on my vacation was my Aunt's house in Saskatchewan. I am travelling with my parents. The rest of the family are holding down the fort at home. We were two days in Saskatchewan before the tour bus picked us up on February 11.

Day 1: We headed south for the Saskatchewan / North Dakota border. Our destination for our first night was Minot, ND.
The first night of our tour we had an opportunity to meet other travellers on our bus during a social time. Here we are in the hotel in Minot having our "Town Hall Meeting".

Day 2: Our first stop on day two was Jamestown, North Dakota for coffee.

Coffee was at Burger King. As you can see, we didn't sit outside on the patio for coffee. LOL

There was a lot of snow in Jamestown--much more than we had experienced in Saskatchewan.

Afternoon coffee was in Watertown, South Dakota.

Although the sun came out, the temperatures remained cold!

The closer we got to our evening stop in Souix Falls, South Dakota, the denser the fog became. This is our tour bus in the parking lot of the hotel in Souix Falls.

Walking to the restaurant for supper was very slippery!

This little snowman was too cute to ignore--I just had to take his picture!

Day 3: The trees were covered with frost when we woke up in the morning on day 3.

Our evening stop on day 3 was Kansas City, Missouri. By the time we got to Kansas City we had very little snow--thankfully.

2010 Olympic Torch Relay

Today, the Olympic Torch made its way through our little community.

The torch only paused here, and then it was on its way again.

The relay has lasted over 100 days so far and will finish in Vancouver on February 12.

The torch has passed through over 1,000 communities and places of interest and has been carried by 12,000 different people as it has made its way across the country.

Approximately 90 per cent of Canada's population has been within a one-hour drive of seeing the Olympic Flame as it has been carried through each of our Provinces and Territories.

Redwork Hearts

The stitchery bug has bitten again. I am really enjoying working on Alex Anderson's red work hearts. There are 12 hearts in all.

I have finished 4 hearts to date by just putting in a few stitches here and there.

The designs are originally for a 6.5" block. I thought that size seemed a little small so I enlarged the designs to fit an 8.5" block.

I have plans to put these together into a wall hanging in time for Valentine's Day 2011.

In the meantime, it is fun to work on a Valentine themed project in the month of February.

...only 8 more hearts to go!

Freckles' Stitchery Collection Trunk Show

Dougal Walker was our guest speaker at our January quilt guild meeting. Dougal kept us entertained with her trunk show of all her patterns made into quilts and wonderfully humorous dialogue.The cats that were the inspiration for this piece were Dougal's own cats.

So the dogs were not outdone by the cats, there is a piece dedicated to our 4 pawed friends that bark, not purr.

A garden-themed piece that mixes stitchery and applique.

Snowmen! I love snowmen and almost brought this pattern home with me.

Another snowman quilt - a snowman for each month of the year. OK, I couldn't keep resisting, this pattern DID follow me home!

Adorable is the only way to describe this quilt! Notice the lace curtains on the window. The gal from our Monday night quilt group that came along with me to the guild meeting as a guest could not leave this pattern behind. ...............I think she has a soft spot in her heart for snowmen too!

I previously purchased this quilting mice pattern and enjoyed seeing it in "real life".

The same quilting mice done in all red thread. It is fun to see the same design done in two different ways.

This piece was inspired by what is inside our closets.

Angels are always a favorite. This piece was done in applique with some stitchery accents.

This is a perfect quilt for summer - ice cream flavours.

Australian animals were the theme of this appliqued piece. The pattern for this quilt appeared in one of the Australian quilt magazines.

A trip to Hawaii inspired this piece. Because Dougal worked on this piece while vacationing in Hawaii, she needed to work on the piece in smaller chunks. This was constructed via a quilt as you go technique so that each small quilted piece could be worked on as a portable project requiring a small amount of room on the plane while travelling. Once Dougal got home, she assembled the pieces together into one large quilt. you can see the blue leading in the finished quilt that joins the smaller quilted pieces together.

This was a guild challenge project. This piece provides incredible insight into Dougal's imagination!

Dougal hoped that her presentation and patterns would serve to inspire our own individual creativity. I know I went home inspired to re-visit my own stitchery projects.