Thursday, October 31, 2013

Blogathon Canada 2013 !

This is so exciting...and so much fun!! Blogathon Canada 2013 is coming soon!

SewSistersQuiltShop

Blogathon Canada, in its second year, is brought to you by Sew Sisters Quilt Shop. It is a week long celebration of Canadian Quilting Bloggers showcasing "tremendous craft, talent and passion of the online quilting community in Canada."

This is a great way to see what many Canadian bloggers are doing...and find lots of new blogs too!
It runs from November 18 - 23.

Each day there will be a "host"  blogger who will introduce themselves and their work and blog.  They will also have links to more blogs from their province so you can get to see lots of great quilting blogs!

And dont forget ....there are lots of giveaways too!!  Each host blogger will also have a giveaway of some of their favourite goodies from Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - a great Canadian source for quilting fabric.  This year Sew Sisters has teamed up with Aurifil, Northcott and Robert Kaufman to bring you even more fantastic giveaways! Check out their blog, Sew Sisters Quilt Shop, for more !
SewSistersQuiltShop

Sounds great!!!  A special  giveaway for each day, so check them all out and enter every day to win!

I am excited , and proud, to be one of the "hosts", so you will be hearing more from me later!  And also learning about lots of other Saskatchewan bloggers! We are a pretty talented bunch! :)

Below is the schedule for the Blogathon...so stay tuned....warm up your computers...and get ready for a fun week! 



Monday, November 18
BC
Holly
Monday, November 18
BC
Heather
Tuesday, November 19
Maritimes
Adrienne
Tuesday, November 19
Maritimes
Marjorie
Wednesday, November 20
AB
Katherine
Wednesday, November 20
AB
Andrea
Thursday, November 21
SK
Flo
Thursday, November 21
MB
Kathy
Friday, November 22
QC
Izzy
Friday, November 22
Territories
Danielle
Saturday, November 23
ON
Jackie 
Saturday, November 23
ON
Krista

Monday, October 28, 2013

Arizona bound..

"Winter is coming" ..as the Starks would say (for those Game of Thrones fans!!)
so....time to high-tail it down to the desert ! :)

We have a place in Fountain Hills ...part of Phoenix, and since we both retired in Dec, have more time to spend down there this winter. We will be back and forth a fair bit this year, but will hopefully escape the worst of the cold weather in the Canadian prairies!!

This year we decided to drive down. It was actually a very easy drive, and we took our time, stopping along the way to visit some friends in Boise, Idaho, that we had met when hiking the Inca Trail last year. It was great to see them again, and we had a good visit.  Then drove on through Salt Lake City and then through the Zion National Park, which is north of the Grand Canyon.

The scenery through the park is quite stunning..

We didn't stop to do any hiking on this trip,but it looked like there were be some pretty amazing places to try another time.

Then, we made a little detour into Jerome, Az.  Jerome is an old copper mining town, located up on Mingus Mountain. It was once the largest copper mine in Arizona, then a ghost town, and now an interesting blend of historic buildings, art galleries, studios and restaurants. Worth a visit! Some of you may remember me talking about Dora, the orphan Donkey from our last visit to Jerome. Well...you will be happy to hear that she is no longer an orphan!! She was still there, waiting for me....so I brought her home!!  (safely strapped in with her seat belt, of course)

She seems quite content in her new home!  And I love having her here! Isn't she cute !!

The artist is Janie Layers, and she works with hand moulded clay. She has lots of interesting pieces...I could have brought a few friends home  with Dora!! :)

So we are now in Fountain Hills...the weather here is still hot and sunny. ....which does make it more difficult to sit in my sewing room...but will see how motivated I get here!

In the meantime, have been enjoying lots of walking and golfing and sitting on the patio reading !! Tough life...I know!

Friday, October 18, 2013

"Cascade" finish!

I finished up another quilt from a Missouri Quilt Co video...I just love Jenny! She is so sweet and makes everything look soooo easy !! This one was  called Falling Charms.

It went together very quickly and I think it is really pretty!  I keep referring to it as "Cascade" as that is what it reminds me of...colour cascading down the quilt.

The fabric is Birds and Berries by Moda.


For the back I added some of the leftover squares...

I quilted it with my "go-to" FMQ design.... big loopy flowers...


And the binding is such a fun print...instant scrappy look..it is called Vintage Notions by Amy Barickman (Red Rooster Fabrics)

This one is a donation to the fundraiser for the Children's Cottage in Calgary.

Another finish...to link up to TGIFF..over at Quilt Matters !
                                   

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

going in circles

I am now quilting my "saved from disaster" quilt...if you remember the one that I totally picked apart and changed most of the pieces!! (note to self....not fun...don't try this again!!)

Anyway..it is basted and ready to quilt, so I thought I would try something different with this one.

 Circles!....well, spirals to be exact.

...well, one big spiral to more exact !!

I practised on a small quilt sandwich, and it seemed to work well.  I started by drawing around the bottom of a spool of thread to make the smallest inner circle, then stated spiralling out (out of control hehehe) from there!

Then I moved on to the real deal.
OK, it is not quite as easy to manoeuvre a larger quilt as it is to turn around a 12x12 practice piece!!

I used the guide to keep the lines sort of equidistant.. ..a few squiggles here and there, but actually not too bad. I started with about 1 1/2" separation, and as I moved farther out I kept increasing the distance, up to about 2 1/2 " for the outer rings.


I am pretty happy with how it is looking...pictures of the finished product once I get the binding on. :)

Linking up to TN&TN..

and WIP WED...

                                               WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced