October 31, 2018
Kathryn literally took her Hallowe’en card off my wall when she was here this summer; I was pleased to see that it was out as part of her decorations for the holiday. I’ve looked through my own photos as well as the photos I’ve taken for the Guild but I can’t find a picture of it anywhere.
I made other Hallowe’en-themed “cards” for Christy and Elizabeth.
September 30, 2018
It’s been three years since Roberta gifted me with some doilies and other hand-crafted pieces from perhaps three-generations of Hunters. I always knew I’d return them to her in some form but it took awhile to find the right idea and time.
My original idea for a doily came from a project the Guild worked on – door hangers for the care home here in Powell River. Someone had made a hanger that had a shelf with a doily hanging from it. But without a pattern I was stumped. But the more I thought about it I realized I had made a shelf-like project for Diane; I think it was the first quilting project I ever did. And I had the pattern book so there was no excuse for putting it off any longer. I didn’t want to cut into the doilies so I kept them intact but folded in half; the extra depth added to the 3-D effect.
The label is from the edge of one of the antique pillow cases that was in my package.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
I went up to the Fall Fair yesterday afternoon; next time I’ll have to take a bit more money. I checked that I had my $5 admission and I certainly didn’t expect to be spending any money. But the firemen had a Fill the Boot fundraiser for MS so in went some money. My first stop was the barns; not exactly up to PNE standards but there were some sheep, goats, chicken and a llama. On my way to see the garden produce and 4-H sewing displays I ran into a friend selling fresh-pressed apple juice. They were offering it by the glass or quart bottle but, since they had run out of glasses, I had to buy a quart. Next stop was at Carola’s booth – fortunately she offered the bee’s wax wrappers as a birthday present. I walked through the grounds, chatted with several folks and then was ready to go home. But then I remembered that I was out of the pine tar soap I like so I picked up a bar. Then I remembered that all summer I planned to get up to the market to get some of the salve the first-nation folks were selling – works good on sore hands after a long stitching session. By the time I left I had only a bit of silver left in my purse.
I finished binding the community quilt last night. Although I didn’t make any of the blocks in the quilt, I made a number of other blocks that went into other quilts. One of our on-going challenges at the Guild last year was to pick up a bag of scraps each month and make a 12″ square. When we got together to put the blocks into quilts some of the blocks really didn’t go with others ( I had one of the better ones with a blue theme). We’re going to do the same thing this year except each month will have a colour. This plan should mean the quilts will be more pleasing to the eye. I had practiced a quilting design on cards and it was nice to know before I started exactly what I was going to do.
Today was the Terry Fox Run but as soon as I woke up this morning I could hear the rain pouring down. I don’t mind walking in a bit of mist or drizzle but there was no way I’d walk in a downpour. The rain lasted until early afternoon when it rolled out but by then the walk was over. Although I didn’t walk, I have sent in my money.
I don’t have a project to work on this evening – what will I start?
My first inspiration for this probably came eight years ago when we moved to Powell River. From my kitchen window I can see a big tree across the street on the grounds of City Hall. I’ve seen it through many seasons, as well as some storms that have broken branches but never toppled the tree. I kept thinking I should take photos of the tree at each equinox; of course that hasn’t happened yet.
The Splendid Sampler 2 sew-along that I’m involved in had Flowering Tree block; someone in the Facebook community suggested that it would be nice done in colours to represent each of the four seasons. That sparked a memory I had of a Hands Across the Water block that was to be done in different colours based on your last name (the colours represented four different seasons).
About the same time we had a reminder that our miniature was due early in September. I knew that when the Hands Across the Water block came out I purchased fabric to make all four seasons. The fabric was in a bin, buried beneath several other bins, but when I opened it there was no pattern.
I checked online for the pattern but I didn’t remember what year the block was from (2015 as it turns out) or which Guild was sponsoring the event (Quadra Island). But I am in charge of our blog site and I hoped that at some point the block had been posted. As t turned out the pattern had been removed quite some time ago but I was able to find it in my saved files.
I don’t generally sew with batiks (they don’t have enough “give” to let me fudge on the sizing) but I bought the fabric so long ago I probably hadn’t yet realized I didn’t like batiks. The block was paper-pieced so it was quite precise and I didn’t need the fudging. The quilting pattern in the sashing is called Cascade.