Cacti BQ Quilt Flimsy

I have had my BQ Cacti quilt finished to the flimsy stage for some time now--I just forgot to post it here.

I went with a border from the same fabric as the background.  Once quilted, I will be binding with the stripe.

I love this pattern and I can see myself making more of these quilts in the future.

Colour Catcher String Quilt

First, these are some pictures of our backyard.  My plant pots are visible from my kitchen window.

I think of this area as my little sanctuary.

We have been enjoying the feathered visitors to our yard as well.

This weekend was a long weekend for me (I was off from work Friday to Monday).  While North and South played on the laptop, I sewed.  It seamed appropriate that I was watching North and South--a made-for-TV miniseries about the Civil War during the July 4th (American Independence Day) long weekend. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_and_South_(TV_miniseries)

The center of these blocks are colour catcher string blocks.  I pieced my string blocks on used colour catcher foundations.  http://www.shoutitout.com/preserve-colors.aspx 

My friend, started to call this quilt a "conversation quilt".  The strings are from many of the scraps and bits leftover from previous quilt projects.  Since each piece has a story to tell, the name conversation quilt was born.

I used all I had of the two black/white fabrics that I purchased last weekend to make this quilt.  The quilt is plenty long enough, but it should be a little wider to better fit our bed.  A couple of my friends and I were discussing border options on-line.  Since this is a conversation quilt, we decided that the quilt would tell us what it needed for borders.  We listened, and with the assistance of a friend, I have secured more of the two black and white fabrics.  Once the fabrics are received in the mail, I will be making this quilt top two blocks wider.  Even though I almost always add at least one border to my quilts, this quilt definitely was not in need of a border. 

I used quite a few of the colour catcher string blocks that I had on hand and I still have more left.  I will be on the lookout for more quilting ideas to use up the remainder of the blocks so stay tuned for more colour catcher string quilts!

Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!

We live in a very small town in  Canada.  Our Canada Day celebrations are proportionate to our population.  This is the parade that marched on our small town's Main Street.

My husband and I walked uptown on Canada Day to participate in the celebrations.  We enjoyed a piece of this patriotic flag cake that was cut and served by the Mayor and Council members to all who attended the celebrations. 

We are not fans of the heavy traffic that seems to be on the roads on long weekends--everyone seems to be headed out of the valley.  Because of this, we tend to stay close to home on long weekends.  Low key, small town celebrations are just our speed it seems.

Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop

June 22 to 26, 2011 was the Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop.  I have seen this "hop" advertised in previous years, but I never made the trek before now.  This year, with my husband and daughter both working on Saturday, I decided I would venture out and use the "hop" as an opportunity to seek out and visit some new quilt shops south of the border.

There were over 50 shops on the list this year.  I only visited the 5 shops in the Lynden/Bellingham area:  Fourth Corner Quilts and Calico Country in Bellingham and The Needle & I, Folktales, Fabric-Etc, and Tangled Threads in Lynden.  I remembered to take along my camera, however, as I went to use it the first time I realized I forgot the memory card at home.  :( 

I also stopped at Joann's where I purchased the following black/white fabrics.  I have a plan in mind for these so they shouldn't sit in the stash for long.

These are some of my other purchases.  I am saving animal skin fabrics to make a quilt someday for my daughter.  The blue fabric is for a Hawaiian themed quilt I have in the planning stages.  The Warm Tater batting is to make a few microwave baked potato cookers.  The Shape Cut ruler is something I have wanted for some time and I decided to use my 40% off coupon from Joann's to purchase one. 

I also purchased a couple of patterns:



April FAB Birthday Challenge

Cher's birthday was April 27.  Life got in the way and we had to delay birthday party celebrations until June 16.  We had one two hour window in the evening on that day where all 5 FABs were available.

Cher opened each present and described the contents in detail until the pictures could be distributed through the e-mail system.

I made Cher place mats.  (pattern:  Take Four Place Mats by Something Sew Fine / Cary Flanagan).  I downloaded the pattern from Quiltwoman.com. 

I love the patterns that you can download from Quiltwoman.com--no shipping costs and no waiting for mail delivery to bring the pattern to your house.  You place your order on line and shortly thereafter, the pattern is available for printing from your e-mail Inbox. 

I made the place mats reversible.  Two place mats had Valentine's Day fabric on the back and two place mats had Easter fabric on the back.

 

To match the fabric on the front and back of each place mat, I made the binding reversible.

 For fun and because Cher's birthday is near Easter, I included one Easter place mat / table topper.  This Easter Egg pattern was designed by one of our Quilt Guild members during our Guild's Place mat of the Month program this year.

The egg is reversible as well.

My friend started to call these, Cadbury eggs.  I think the name is great!

A Short Trip

DH and I just arrived back home from a quick trip to the Prairies. On our way home we passed through Dog River (Rouleau, Sask)--home of the TV series, Corner Gas.

Town of Rouleau: http://www.townofrouleau.com/

I was glad to hear that the site is being preserved for future filming of new episodes of Corner Gas--not just because I enjoyed watching the show, but because there may be less incentive to tear down this wonderful icon of the Prairie--the old-style wooden grain elevator.

This was DH's first visit to Rouleau since the filming of Corner Gas started so we had to get his picture in front of the "station".

We stopped overnight at Canmore, Alberta. While in Canmore, we looked up the local quilt shop: The Sugar Pine Company. http://www.thesugarpine.com/

The Sugar Pine Company was a featured quilt shop in Quilt Sampler Magazine in 2005.

This quilt shop is located in the Rocky Mountains where there is no shortage of inspirational scenery.

The shop is huge with every nook and cranny full of quilty goodness. I could have stayed for hours, but I promised DH that my visit would be brief. :)

This was a beautiful quilt that showcases everything Alberta - from the wild rose to the oil rig.

I bought a copy of the pattern to make this cute little grain elevator wall hanging. This pattern is called, Golden Harvest and is by Joan's Own Creations (Joan Statz) of Alix, Alberta.

I picked up a kit to make the bear wall hanging in the lower right corner of this photo (wall hanging with two bears in the shadows of the mountains). The pattern is called, Three Sisters and Bears and is by Diane McGregor of Castilleja Cotton in Calgary, Alberta.

I loved this cat wall hanging.

The next morning, we were back on the road - headed through the mountains to home.

Halloween Contemporized Country Squares

This quilt has been finished since March 22, 2011, but I have neglected to post pictures.

This quilt is made from some of my Halloween fabrics and is called Contemporized Country Squares. I purchased the pattern from The Stitchery while visiting in Alberta last year. http://silverthimblequilting.blogspot.com/2010/08/alberta-holiday-i.html