This and That

Oh, my goodness, another month has slipped by in the blink of an eye.  The speed with which time passes really disturbs me.


Thought I'd climb out from underneath my rock and get a quick post up before September was over.
Nothing like last minute!

I finally finished working with that bag of scraps my friend dropped off during the summer.  It’s difficult to juggle taking advantage of being outdoors to enjoy the beautiful weather, with accomplishing much in the sewing room, but 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there eventually adds up.  My leaders-enders became the leaders-enders to my leaders-enders in order to finish up this personal challenge so I could move on.  I was able to piece two quilts and 2 pillow tops out of it.  Here's the second quilt flimsy, just completed today.

Pattern by Stephanie Dunphy
Uncommonly Corduroy

I don’t make the time to go out on 'photo shoots', even though I spend my summers in an amazing location, so I was very excited when, during a visit with The Scrapmaster, she agreed to indulge me. I had her bag up one of her quilts, and off we went to Point Pleasant Park on the Halifax waterfront. This is one of my favorite quilts of hers, which I personally think is pattern worthy.  Although the sun was blazing, I managed to get a few good pictures before the heat of the day drove us away.  You can read more about this quilt here.

(This ship's anchor is from the aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure.  

It serves as a monument to the men and women who died

while serving the Canadian Navy during peacetime.)

While visiting Linda, she gifted me with a darling quilt that she made while testing a new pattern

for the up and coming local pattern designer, John of Art East Quilting Co.

Quilting is for the Birds

It is the perfect quilt for this bird brain!  She has a better picture on her most recent blog post.

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

(Libellula pulchella)

Lasting Impressions

Well, hello September!  

I tried to slip this post in yesterday,
but it interfered with my nap.

Do you ever wonder what people remember about you?  Twenty-odd years ago, before Joann Fabrics went the impersonal superstore route and instead, had intimate little stores throughout the local communities, when customers counted, when staff were knowledgeable, I worked there part time for about three years for fun.  And it was fun.  We were a little family.

Last spring, while I was spending time in Massachusetts, I ran into one of the women I worked with. She was one of the few who continued to work for the company after they closed down all their stores and opened the one big one that was too far away for most of us to commute to (or shop at).  When I asked her if she remembered me, she said, “Oh, yes!  When I was getting ready to make my first quilt, a log cabin, everyone said I had to use red for the centers of my block, but I didn’t want to.  You said it was my quilt, and I could use any color I wanted to!”

Hearing that memory made my day!  I like that I made that lasting impression!

I don’t think I’ve ever made a log cabin quilt.  But JulieKQuilts has started Log Cabin Loonies, and since I had a little pile of 1” strips left over from making arrows, I decided to join in.

My goal is to make 16 of these 4” log cabin blocks to make into another pillow for the annual nursing home initiative sponsored by one of the members of the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild in Halifax.  This isn't necessarily the final layout.  I added one more block after I took this picture this morning.

As well, I’ve been using up more flying geese triangles to make another pillow similar to the one I showed in my last post, only opposite placement of colors.

It takes 64 2.5" squares to make a 16" pillow top.

The first pillow top came out great!  

I have less than 20 arrows to make before I can wrap up this challenge.

I'm growing quite weary of these fabrics,

and I am more than ready to move on!

My scrappy churn dash blocks by Crazy Mom Quilts
continue to grow in number.

Someday they'll make a beautiful quilt.

I say someday because I will be linking up with 

Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

to celebrate the almost completion of an 11 year old UFO.

Don't judge me!  There are extenuating circumstances.  

Maybe not exactly extenuating.

Eleven years ago, I started a signature quilt 

to commemorate my sister's 25th wedding anniversary.  

I thought it might be nice if she rec'd it one day.

I constructed each block from randomly placed scraps 

to measure 18.5" unfinished and hand quilted them.  

Fat quarters only measure 18" wide, just saying!

And I've just finished QAYGing them together.  

The binding will go on today.

I kept the quilting pretty simple.

Lots of hugs and kisses.

My sister and her husband are naturalists like me,

so I tried to reflect that in the fabrics I chose for each block back.

For example, bugs and butterflies...

Point?  Eventually, I finish everything!  

Some projects take a little lot longer than others.

I'm certain, in this case, Little Sister will be pleased.

And on that note, I leave you with some hummingbird tidbits.

They are getting ready to head south

and are frequenting the feeders more often.

With this heat, I've been changing their hummingbird juice almost daily.

Here is a picture of the rare Northern Black Hummingbird.

Not my picture.  Someone tweeted it a while back.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Stay safe!

~Karen