Monday, December 29, 2008

Alight at Night

Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, ON is a wonderful place full of living history and during the summer months you can visit to see the cabinetmaker, baker, and sawmill all at work, but after they close for the season, they spend the next 6 weeks stringing Christmas lights over the entire village. Then for the month of December (up to January 6th) they open their doors at 4:30 pm to let visitors enjoy the Alight at Night display. We had never been before, so this year we decided to make the trek. Even though is was drizzling a little, we had a wonderful time on the horse drawn buggy tour, drinking hot chocolate at Cook's tavern and listening to Christmas carols in the church. The newest addition in the enchanted forest with wonderful lit up animals.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

A Country Home Christmas Studio Tour

Here are some more pictures from the studio tour. It was a very successful tour for me, so Nellie and I are seroiusly thinking about doing it together next year!

Friday, December 26, 2008

A Country Home Christmas Studio Tour

I have been so busy getting ready for Christmas, that I forgot to put up pictures of the studio tour that I participated in at the beginning of December. It ran over two weekends and I was a "guest artist" along with two woodcarvers, Dave Francis and Ray Tourangeau, and we were all set up in the Heritage Place Museaum in Lyn. It was a great spot with lost of character.
Here is Dave setting up his display.
Here are some of Ray's wonderful wood carvings.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Thanks Jean!!

Jean made my quilt this year (last year I had her name). The fabrics I gave her were all very rich looking in deep colours of burgundy, black, gold and green. She scanned the floral fabric into her computer then used her kaleidoscope program to make a different kaleidoscope for the centre of each quilt block - it is quite beautiful and I need to find the perfect spot to hang it in my house!
Here we are - all the Fibre Friends snuggled under their quilts - Merry Christmas everyone! I'm looking forward to another wonderful year of good friends, good food and beautiful quilts.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The last of the quilts

Dyane is the proud owner of a wonderful embroidery machine, and she used it to help create the quilt that she made for Linda. Linda is a wonderfully creative seamstress that seams to be able to make just about anything! Dyane used her embroidery machine to embroider a variety of shoes, handbags and hats onto the middle of each block. It was very beautiful!
Here is a closeup of one of the blocks.
Jean's quilt was made by Marilee - and there was a story behind it. When she went to buy some fabrics to match Jean's fabrics, the quilt shop owner (who is a friend of Jean's) convinced her to get a whole different set of fabric so that it would match Jean's newly decorated house - that was a first for Fibre Friends - many of us have been unable to use every fabric that we were given but this was the first quilt to have NONE of the original fabrics! But it is stunning anyway!!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

More quilts!

With every bag that was opened, another wonderful quilt was discovered. Each one was so different - we were all amazed by what had been created!


Colleen made Dyane's country themed quilt - it will look just lovely in her family room.


Linda made Cheryl's pink and brown quilt and was happy to see that Cheryl was carrying a tote bag that she had made using many of the same fabrics. The splash of yellow is an unexpected surprise in the quilt.

Everyone loves batiks and Nellie loved making Trudy's quilt using a selection of beutiful earthy coloured batik fabrics.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Bring on the quilts!!!

After lunch on Friday we FINALLY got to unwrapping the quilts. Everyone was very excited to give the quilt they made AND get the quilt that was made for her.

Nellie loved the quilt that I had made for her with her reproduction fabrics - I even got to use some of the leftover fabrics from the quilt I had made for Cheryl two years age.



Cheryl made Colleen's beautiful quilt - and made her a matching tote bag too!


Trudy made this gorgeous batik quilt for Marilee - she just loved it.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Fibre Friends Christmas Quilts

Last Friday, my Fibre Friends quilt group assembled at Nellie's house for our annual Christmas lunch and quilt exchange. In February we did a mystery exchange of fabric and made a quilt for one of our Fibre Friends. I was lucky to finally get Nellie's name - I couldn't wait to give her the quilt. But before the quilts came lunch. Nellie's new dining room looked festive and beautiful.
We ate lasagna, salad and rolls (with some wine for making Christmas toasts).

Monday, December 8, 2008

You Can Machine Quilt! - Class #6

Our last machine quilting class is today and although I'm happy that my students have made such progress, I'll be sad to see the end of our classes together. Today we will work on the students' own unfinished projects - I can't wait to see how they are all doing.

Monday, November 24, 2008

You Can Machine Quilt! - Class #5

We have finished learning all of the quilting motifs for this set of classes and now the students are going to apply what they have learned to one of their unfinished projects. Today we are going to discuss how to mark, layer and baste a quilt and then as a group we will discuss how each of the students should quilt their individual projects - I can't wait to see what they bring to work on!

Friday, November 14, 2008

A bat, an eskimo and Batman

After much deliberation, hard work (on my behalf) and tears (both Carson and me) we finally accomplished the hard task of deciding on and making halloween cotumes for the boys. This year Carson was a bat (although at first he said he wanted to be a cat - hence the tears) and Aidan was an eskimo (costume rescued from the cat costume fiasco). Pugsley even got in the act and dressed up as Batman. They got way too much candy - but Mike and I helped to eat it!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Getting ready for Halloween

Here are some pictures of the boys getting our pumpkin ready for Halloween. Aidan surpised me - usually he hates getting his hands dirty! Pugsley sat uder the table and waited for pumpkin seeds to be dropped on the floor - he seemed to just love them, but really, he'd eat anything (that wasn't dog food).

Monday, November 10, 2008

You Can Machine Quilt! - Class #4

Our machine quilting class at Taylor Sewing Centre is going very well! We have the final two sets of new motifs to practice today, flowers, stars and suns, and also the nested designs. Next class the students will bring a small unfinished quilt top to class to get suggestions from their classmates on how to machine quilt it. Hopefully they are all starting to feel more confident of their machine quilting abilities. I know I can see the improvement!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Countdown to the Country Home Christmas Studio Tour

Only three weeks to go until I set up shop on the Country Home Christmas Studio Tour. I have got lots of wallhangings that I am going to sell, and a selection of punchneedle pieces that I have sewn into quilts or mounted in frames. I'm quite surprised by the number of pieces that I have accumulated in my studio - and this is only a fraction of the total number of wallhangings etc. that I have made! I have been busy working on some smaller pieces to sell as well, some Christmas ornaments and table runners - I hope I'll have enough! Here is one of the pieces that will be for sale "Country Kitchen".

Friday, November 7, 2008

Another Quilt Finished

Last week I finished quilting a beautiful quilt made by our guild president Jane Guthrie. This quilt is to be a wedding present for one of Jane's nieces and I'm sure that she is going to LOVE it. For the quilting design, I copied a flower motif from the border fabric and used it as an all-over design. Funny thing that I noticed while doing this quilt - I don't own even one piece of oriental/Japanese fabric and this is now the third quilt that I have done for other people that were made using this type of fabric - maybe I'm missing the boat!!!

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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

More Wool pictures

Here are the rest of the samples we made at Loretta's last week. These ones were made with spot dying techniques and they turned out just YUMMY!!! We each bought lengths of the undyed wool to experiment with - now we just need to order in the dyes and buy some measuring spoons.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Dying Wool - SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

Last Tuesday, Nellie and I took a road trip to Loretta Moore's house to have a wool dying workshop. It was WONDERFUL!!! We learned so much from Loretta and had so much fun! We are definitely hooked and can't wait to experiment on our own. Loretta's house is set on a beautiful lot overlooking a lake, and is so beautiful. She and her husband had the house built and are just finishing the painting and finishing touches. With Loretta's hooked rugs as focal points this house is absolutely TO DIE FOR!!! But the road in is a bit scary - not a good idea to read directions while going up an down and around - my tummy didn't like it at all. Here are some of our finished products.

Monday, November 3, 2008

You Can Machine Quilt! - Class #3 (again)

My class is moving along so quickly, that I decided to give them the motifs for class #4 in the third class instead. next class they will do motifs #5 and #6. This way for the 5th and 6th classes we will be able to work on quilting some of their own projects!.

Monday, October 27, 2008

You Can Machine Quilt! - Class #3

The students in my machine quilting class at Taylor Sewing Centre are moving right along and learning lots! The more practice they have the better they are getting at the quilting motifs that we are learning. Today is day 3 and we will be doing some snowflakes, swirls and water ripples. Maybe we'll try some echo quilting today too.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008

My box of threads has finally arrived!!

Only a quilter or fibre artist would get this excited over a box of thread!! I went online to the Valdani website to place my order of embroidery floss to make up kits for the CreativFestival when I found that they were having a SUPER GREAT sale on their large cones (3000m) of hand overdyed variegated machine quilting thread. I was never that excited about thread, but now that I have my new machine, I have become addicted to threads (to go along with all of my other fibre addictions - fabric, wool, yarn, embroidery floss - oh boy). So when I saw this great sale I decided to order one of every colour. And today the (very heavy) box arrived!!! I'll never have to buy thread again for the rest of my life. Now I just have to figure out how to store them!

All the little balls of embroidery floss for my kits - the ones in the centre are the NEW colours that I didn't have yet in my stash.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Donna's Chernobyl Quilts

Each year our little town of Brockville sends a delegation to Belarus to take donations of food, clothing, toys, medical supplies and whatever else is needed (even a fire truck one year) to the area of Chernobyl that was so horribly affected by the nuclear accident that happened there. Our Quilt Guild has been very active in helping Canadian Aid for Chernobyl by sending hundreds of quilts to be given to the children of the orphanages there. Donna Taylor made these two quilts to send with the next shipment and asked if I would like to practice by quilting them. They weren't very big, so they didn't take too long to quilt. On one I did a star/vine design and on the second I decided to hook up the laser pointer that came with my machine, so that I could try using one of the pantograph designs I got off the Internet. It worked well, once I got the hang of it. Next time I will know that I need to tape or pin down the paper BEFORE I use it as the design - the sewing machine vibrates a bit and causes the paper to SHIFT. Oh well, live and learn.