FNSI Report

It is Saturday here now and since I live on the east coast of Canada I get to stitch with friends on Thursday and Friday night as those on the other side of the world are happily stitching on what for me is Thursday,  does that make sense . Anyway on Thursday evening I was stitching on my wool project from last year , a BOM with Darlene from  Needle Pulling Thread quilt shop.

 

I have all but the fence done so I think i made great progress . It was so hot that evening I really must have had a screw loose to be working with wool .

 Now last night I didn't start until later in the evening as we were experiencing a thunder storm but once that passed I decided I would add a border to this runner I sewed together on Thursday or maybe it was Wednesday . 

 Two of these blocks were in a bag I purchased from the  estate of a fellow guild member . Carol was a wonderfully creative person and it was such a difficult job to sell off her lovely fabrics and works in progress . I was able to find enough fabric in the bag to make an extra block and had to use her blocks as reference to make a pattern as I went along . I think they are suppose to be apples , anyway I love the colours and really like the green for a border.  I will machine quilt this I think . 

During the time that I wasn't able to use the machine I also cut strips to make more pillows , oh I know what am I thinking . I just wanted to use up that denim and get rid of the rest of it.  Here are the two pillows I created , having just finished the surf one a few minutes ago .

 This was the first one , can't have a beach without sand 😉

And let's face it when we go to the beach we like to watch the surf of the waves 😊

 So thanks for stopping by and thanks to Wendy for hosting us for FNSI , to see what others were up to head on over here http://www.sugarlane-designs.com/2017/07/dry-july-fnsi-sign-ups-open-now.html

Hugs Sheila 

A few finishes

We are having some extremely hot weather right now , at least for us . I have gotten some sewing done though , some fun pillows , this one being inspired by this pillow I found on Pinterest here http://www.remodelandolacasa.com/2015/05/kswksu.html

I just guessed at the  measurements and instead of using a stencil which I didn't have anyway I used some free lettering from Pat Sloan and applique them on . For the back I used a shirt which included the buttons which worked perfectly for a closure.  I was so happy I thought that one up. This is constructed from old jeans,  some strips are the denim turned inside out to give contrast,  a fun pillow to make .

 This pillow came from my love of doing curved piecing and also my love for the shore birds .

With the exception of a couple of pieces this is Hand-Dyed fabrics . 

The sandpiper I added some embroidery , isn't he cute ☺
I couldn't stop there so back to the denim,  I came across a few squares of denim  in a few different shades of blue so this hexie pillow was born,  also found on that Pinterest site.

Again I just guessed at the size of the hexies although I think there is a template available.  I was more concerned about them fitting on my squares of denim which actually provided me with two larger hexies and one smaller hexie from each square.  I figured since I was cutting I might as well cut it all at the same time and throw the rest away . Yes I do throw some things away occasionally.  On the original pillow there is no star fish I just added that for interest .

So this is what became of the smaller hexies , of course I had to cut more to make this happen and then I had to come up with a plan for applique so I added a sail boat on the wavy sea , now that's what you see isn't it lol . I have to show you the back of this one.  I hadn't taken a picture of the beach pillow back but did remember to do it for this one. Yes this is a shirt,  the darker colour is the shirt turned inside out , I just loved how it looked so went with it.  Bet you won't look at a shirt or jeans the same again 😉

 Did I stop at that , nope , there is one more

This one actually was made before the smaller hexie pillow , I had these strips of denim left over from taking the jeans apart so I thought why not try a curved piecing pillow using denim , hmm not such a great plan , much more difficult to deal with this heavier fabric when trying to cut nice curves but I did manage to do it.  The lower sandy area is a linen type fabric,  likely a decorator fabric from long ago , worked well for sand . I added the sail boat then I felt the sand needed some help so I drew out a beach chair , not so easy either to make it look right and I added a sun hat beside it . The owner of the hat and chair are swimming just incase you are wondering haha . Or maybe they are out on the sailboat.  We needed some beach grass so I FM quilted some on each side and called it done 🤐
 So that was my adventure into summer pillows , am I done yet,  maybe not , I do have some ideas floating around so stay tuned .
 If you recall I took part in Darlene's star challenge a week from  Needle Pulling Thread Quilt Shop last year and I just recently had it quilted by Lynda Campbell in Mabou at Fiddle Stitches.  She did a great job of enhancing the quilt so once I got it back home I got busy and added a binding and here it is all finished up.

Sorry for the poor photo , I should have taken it outside . The border on this quilt was very challenging to me , trying to figure out just how to get that to fit the star blocks was just not clicking at first . I had some help from my friend Janice and together we finally got it worked out and I do love the look it has created , gives the stars a nice addition plus made a small quilt larger ☺

So that's all for now,  I think I have kept you long enough . Thanks so much for stopping by , sure do love your visits .

 Hugs Sheila 

NSQBQ RR Reveal for 2017

On Saturday the NSQBQ (Nova Scotia Quilt Bloggers Quartet ) got together to exchange our RR's at my home. Just Five years ago this little group emerged from meeting up through our blogs , Linda of Scrapmaster , Karen of Kaholly and Lesley of The Cuddle Quilter and I feel very blessed to have each of them in my life , our friendships have blossomed over these years and we have a kindred spirit relationship . The past three years we have done an exchange and last fall we decided on a RR , each of us making our own 12" block which was passed along to each of us with plenty of time to work on the next 6" round , so thankful for those long schedules ;-) Well we finally were able to arrange to meet up and since I am at the half way point we felt it best to meet at my house . I appreciated their efforts to travel the distance so I provided lunch of a variety of salads and strawberry shortcake for dessert. But you don't want to hear about all of that , you want to see these amazing quilts right ! Here we go ......
 You can't imagine the excitement we all had for the big reveal but this photo of Linda will give you a good idea :-)

She just couldn't stand the anticipation of what she would fine when she unfolded the quilt , well it was worth the wait , just look at this ..;.

Linda created the colorful middle block and Lesley was the first to add to it with a wonky star with plenty of negative space for Linda to work her magic with her quilting . Next I added the arrows after much searching for inspiration of modern quilts and trying to think how Linda would think , well I did a really good job of how she thinks as just a short time after I finished and passed this along to Karen , Linda revealed her newest pattern , an arrow runner , that just made me smile . Then Karen added the amazing pick up sticks in which she so creatively added the names of each of us as well as the year and the fact we are known as the Nova Scotia Quilt Bloggers Quartet , now wasn't that smart . I can't wait to see how Linda will quilt this , I know she will do an amazing job.
  I was next to open my quilt top but I will save that for last . Lesley was more than excited when she opened her quilt , I thought she might have a heart attack lol .

Lesley's block is a hand embroidered block which Karen then added the row of perfect little spools , my heart gave a little extra beat when that arrived at my house , I love the spools . She also added the little red and white border along with the navy then Linda added the lovely ribbon border in blue and deep red and then it arrived at my house . I will be totally honest here , I looked at this top for a very long time before I could come up with a plan to do my round , to me it was already finished . So after much thinking and planning I decided to use Lesley's own blog as an inspiration and if you follow her blog you will notice she always signs off with " Its always a good day for Quilting" . That was it , I knew that had to go on this top so I hand wrote out the letters to this along with other quilty quotes and hand embroidered them added lots of applique to fill in the space . I knew Lesley liked house quilts so I added a three dimensional little house quilt hanging from a clothesline, something else you often see on Lesley's blog . Sorry the writing doesn't show up well here , if you open the photo that may help. Note the four friendship star blocks I added to the corners to represent each of us .

 Karen did a lovely modern block for her center and I had the first round on her block. I had a little brain fog here too but I used the block that was Karen's inspiration to add my border . I hand appliqued some hexie flowers , a vine with leaves picking up the colours in Karen's block . I then passed it along to Lesley who added the wonderful colourful nine patch border , just perfect , again picking up those colours used previously . Finally the top traveled to Linda and she added a  raspberry kisses border  which really sets off the block bringing us back to the center .

Lastly my gorgeous quilt , I was blown away by the talent of each of these ladies . Linda added the large sawtooth star block around my star block leaving lots of open space for hand quilting ,  she knows me well , this is perfect , then Karen added the flying geese border in various sizes which just shows the patience she has , wow and such perfection and I love the colours , oh plus she added the square in a square blocks to set off the corners . Next it went to Lesley who added all those pretty scrappy sawtooth star blocks with the four blue blocks to represent each of us , how appropriate . I am thrilled beyond words with the result and can't wait to get started on the quilting and yes I think this one will be hand quilted by Holy Name Quilters, are you ready girls, I will bring it along tomorrow so we can decide how to quilt it to perfection .

 Our plan is to have our quilts all quilted ready for display for the Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival   being held October 10-14th in Amherst , Nova Scotia .The NSQBQ Quilt Show and Sale will be held at the Amherst Curling Club on Prince Arthur St. on Friday, Oct. 13 from 10 am til 5 pm and also on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 10 am til 3 pm.  We hope that you will come visit and check out all our quilts . 
  To read more on this amazing experience be sure to hop on over to visit each of the girls who have already posted with pictures for you to see . Thanks as always for taking the time to stop by for a visit and have a great day .
Hugs Sheila 

It is officially finished

I sewed the last stitch on mom's quilt on Sunday of this week . That sure felt good , even have the label sewn on , how great is that !

You will be sick of seeing this lol .

 I also just finished another curved piecing art piece , this one is one of my favorite flowers , a poppy . Well in this case three poppies and a dragonfly. 

I just seem to want to do art work lately rather than quilting . 

Oh I also spent an entire afternoon decorating a tea towel, how silly is that . It took me more time than it was worth for sure,  but it is cute .  So for OPAM this month I had three finishes , the quilt, the framed art and a tea towel ☺

 We had company last week so most of my time was spent enjoying Alyssa as we strolled the beaches of our area.  It was so lovely to have her and I will share some pictures another time . 

 Well I thought I should make an appearance before the month was up, thanks for taking the time to stop by , I sure enjoyed your visit .

 Hugs Sheila 

Opam for May

Can you seriously believe that May is over,  holy smokes , how did that happen . I actually had a busy month and had a few finishes plus I finished another landscape just a couple of days ago . I seem to be into landscapes this month , this is my fourth .

This is a hand applique piece , so relaxing to sit and stitch in the evening , I hadn't done any like this in a very long time . My supplies of Hand-Dyed fabrics are way down now , so need to replenish soon . I did try my hand at some fabric dying this week . I gathered some lichen from trees and boiled those down then added my fabric to the strained water . I had first prepared my fabric a few days before that with alum . Now here is the interesting part,  just for fun when I put my fabric in the pot I threw in two small pieces that had not been treated in the alum , well the results were very surprising,  take a look .

This isn't the best picture as it was at night so the fabric on the right is a little darker than it appears here BUT the fabric on the left is the untreated fabric.  I had washed both at this point and the colour stayed the same . I was happy with my first try 😊   My second attempt was not so successful , I had also gathered a little green moss which didn't produce any colour at all 😥 

 So back to Opam,  I had a total of 8 finishes this month,  four landscapes , my Eh Canada runner plus the Westering Women BOM Quilt.  Oops forgot my curved pieced dragonfly art piece and a postcard I gave my Mom for Mothers Day . I made this in a hurry , she was so disappointed I didn't make one for her birthday I felt I better get busy and make one for her for Mothers Day , I think she was also happy for the hand delivery .

. 

 Oh I have to show you our little feathered visitors , I am thrilled we have a pheasant couple who frequent our feeders although his early arrival in the morning is not great,  I hear him make that curdling sound around 5am each day .

The males were fighting over possession of this lovely female.  The male on the right was injured and is now walking with a limp , sure hope he heals quickly . He is keeping his distance now . Aren't they gorgeous .

 I best get going , lots to do today and our granddaughter is coming into town with her school so we are meeting up with her for a brief visit too .

 Thanks for stopping by and have yourself a fabulous day .

 hugs Sheila