Quilt Canada is coming,

and I am going. Hooray !

When I read on Quilter Kathy's blog post, back in March, that Quilt Canada was coming to Brock University I knew I had to go. Talk about close, that is right in my city barely 25 min. away. (No St. Catharines is not a big city but I am on the completely opposite side as the university ). There was no way all that quiltyness was coming here and I was missing out. As to how I missed hearing about it until March, I don’t  hang out with local quilters. Really. I’ve thought about going to the guild meeting and joining but somehow never get there.

Since I was so late registering, I figured I’d be best looking at the classes in mid-week, reasoning the most people would be coming on the weekend. And I wanted to find a class to learn something I’ve never tried before. So I’ve signed up for Gail Garber’s two day class  Goose is Loose. Flying geese in round, free form curves and freezer paper piecing. Sounds like a lot of fun.

There was some agonizing over which portable machine to take, since I have a selection now. The Featherweight would be the first choice but with the free form piecing, maybe the Singer 301 would be better. The slant needle giving more visibility. But the Kenmore 158.1450 in the rose covered case is so darn cute I wanted to show it off. Alas, turns out it is a moot point. Got an e-mail today with class details and right in 10 point arial the final word:

Sewing machines  – Sewing machines for Quilt Canada 2014 are very generously sponsored by Janome.  All classrooms will be set up by Janome and personal sewing machines will NOT be allowed.

Ah well, I guess I’ll suffer with the inconvenience of sewing on a brand new Janome 4120 QDC. 

Now to assemble the class supplies.  A shopping trip might be in the works for these items.

‘ 4” square ruler
‘ 1” by 6” or 1” by 12” transparent ruler
‘ 24” transparent ruler
‘ 24” or larger flexible curve
‘ 6” or 12” Add-a-Quarter ruler

‘ I do have a long ruler but not sure how long and can’t seem to find it right this minute  to check. And my square rulers are 6.5, 10.5, 12.5.  Okay, shopping trip to the Local Quilt Stores.

Belated Mother’s Day Greetings

I know you all had a good one because I read all the posts saying so. A wonderful time was had here also. Dear Hubby and Dear Son barbequed some delicious steaks and we sat in the backyard with his Mom and Dad ( and brother + wife). Very low key as I was working in the morning and pretty tired out. But a great time together and phone calls from the ones not able to attend.
For presents, pretty low key also. DH got me a new ink cartridge for the ink jet printer so I can print more fabric for the kaleidoscope stars. Plus he picked up a jelly roll of batiks that I wanted for the kissing fish quilt pattern. DS put up a new design wall for me.
Here are the first of the fish on the new wall.
The biggest quilting news this week was getting Jared Takes A Wife assembled. I was really happy to have the Accuquilt cutting all those sashings – 72 of them, 24 strips of WOF. 




I'm undecided about the borders right now so picking away on UFO’s. Like the borders for Easy Street. But while I was cutting all those strips, I thought “why not start that solids  bargello “.
One finish and two more started, that’s no way to get caught up.

Mary Poppins was right.

At least the part where she sang “in every job that must be done there is an element of fun”.  Piecing the string blocks on the treadle and hand crank was so much fun, I soon had all the blocks I needed. Now on to cutting and piecing the hourglass block. In this case, putting this project on hold allowed me to re-read the directions for the hourglass pieces and get it right. Turns out last time I tried cutting them I was using the wrong ruler. The Easy Angle HST ruler is not the same as the Companion Angle Ruler which cuts a quarter square triangle. Thus my under sized units last time. And a finished block to get an idea of the end product:

This is the Pfefferneuse block from Bonnie’s String Fling book. Bonnie did a 6 X 6 layout, which needs 36 blocks. However I’ve decided to do only 5 X 5. I’ve had enough of big quilts lately, after Easy Street; Celtic Solstice and now Jarad.
Still plugging away on the Jarad Takes A Wife. A new shipment of shirts revitalized me and gave some much need variety to the chevron units. I would almost call a halt and make do with what is already done, except I have all the first units completed.  Did a count last night and there are still 28 of those which must be a miscount. I have 22 blocks finished. There are too many to layout anywhere so here is a shot of 12 of them.



they look much better with the sashing.







And I don’t think I mentioned another hand sewing project I started. It was the fabric’s fault. It was so beautiful. And I wanted something to hand sew this summer while sailing. So I started cutting and sewing another Kaleidoscope Star. Over the past weekend we had a road trip into Toronto so I was able to get a few done. Which ended up using all I had printed so far. Time to print some more and try to save them until summer, if it ever comes.