Much progress and a scholarship!

 OMG!!!!!!! When I read the first line of Daphne's comment, I was going to say - I used to work at the Main Office of BMO in Old Montreal. The number of days I had lunch in the park across the street, right in front of Notre-Dame Basilica. But seriously? There is a plaque in the BMO Museum about the Pauline Vanier Scholarship! I did not know that, and I hope Daphne got a picture. That was ME!!!!!! I should tell you that story someday. I have photos at home -- it was a really big to-do. And it was a very generous scholarship! That scholarship was one of those major life-changing events for me!

What a blast from the past that is!!!! WOW --- I'll have to digest that one today!!!

And even more bizarre, I had the front page of the Montreal Gazette framed in my house for the longest time. It was the date of my birth, even though I was not born in Montreal. And the Vaniers were mentioned on that front page!!!!! Coincidence? 

Well, yesterday was quite the busy day, and I'm plowing through everything I brought with me. No one will be able to yell at me for overpacking for the retreat. Overpacking in the past was bags and bags of stuff that never got touched. Not so now! I've learned!

I have been forgetting to post this picture for the last couple of days, but when one of the ladies and I were out, we snapped this picture of a barn quilt block. Technically, it could be called a church quilt block since it's on a local church. There were several quilt blocks that I spotted, but didn't get pictures of. I love seeing them on the buildings, and I have several books at home about the barn quilt trails in Ontario. 

Barn quilt block on the local church

Two of us went for a walk in the morning, and to avoid bugs, we didn't go all the way to the other concession, since there is a creek near there, and it was pretty buggy. That meant we headed towards the highway, and on our way back to the house, we spotted the activity shown in the photo below. First, the road past the house is typically quiet. A few cars and trucks in the morning, but on Friday? It was like being on a super highway! Many farm vehicles passed us. 

Anyway, a farmer was out in the field, and well, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl, so we stopped to watch. 

Planting - but what?

Hmmm—that is a pretty unique pattern in the field, and we were curious about the swath that didn't get planted. And then we spotted this massive piece of equipment coming down the road. It wasn't so much massive as it was wide, taking up the entire road. 

That's a big piece of equipment.

Thankfully, the tractor pulled into the driveway just in front of us. But see what I mean? It was huge. 

Wide load coming through.

Turns out this is a spud planter! Potatoes!!!!! So we stood there and watched it plant a couple of rows. Pretty fascinating, and it brought back memories of planting and hilling potatoes by hand!!!! I'm sure the farmer was laughing at us!

Then we were off to a quilt show in the afternoon. We only found out about it because we had been to Threads That Bind the day before, or was that two days ago? I'm not going to share photos because I want to share them with my Monday group, but if you have time today, you have to check it out. It's in Feversham, hosted by the Grey County Charmers Quilt Club. 

The theme of the quilt show

Now here is the interesting thing. This group has hosted a quilt show for each of the last four years. And each year, the theme has been very specific. Last year, it was all about log cabin quilts (I vaguely remember someone telling me about that show), and I wish I could have seen it. This year was quilting through the decades. Three ladies organize the show (I think it's three). Anyway, their theme idea is BRILLIANT. I thought the show was so amazing, and it was fun to see how the quilters interpreted the decade they chose. Sometimes it was the pattern, the fabric, the style, and some even modernized their quilts. 

It was truly fascinating, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We got stuck behind a combine (at this time of year?), and it took a bit longer to get home than planned. But what fun and what fun to see the quilts and discuss them with the group of five that went!!!

OK -- now let's check out what I've managed to get done in the last 24 hours. 

As I was digging through my project bag, I discovered another bag of HSTs that need to be sewn. Seriously?? This bag has been hanging around for quite some time because of the fabric it contains. These cutoffs were from a series of pineapple quilt blocks that I made eons ago. I made three quilts from this fabric collection, and they are all quilted, and I think one of them was donated at some point. 

And another bag of HSTs 

I pulled out my knitting and was prepared to get to work, only to discover that I didn't remember how to bind off and join the blocks. I searched online and found the technique—Three-needle bind-off—, but somehow that didn't seem right, since I only had one needle with live stitches, which wasn't going to work. I tried a few suggestions from the master knitters in the room, but nothing worked. 

HMMM - now what?

I had a small book that includes 54 different ways to cast on and cast off, but was the book in the knitting bag? Of course it was not, and it wasn't in my bookcase when I went through the books. It had better be in the cupboard where the knitting bag was, or I'll be buying a new one! Or maybe the library has it. I must check first when I get home. Since I couldn't work on that project, I took the bag to the car. Mind you, there were three other knitting projects in the bag that I could have worked on, but I really wanted to finish my afghan. Next time!!! Or that could be a great job for the gazebo. 

The knitting bag was moved to the car.

Speaking of knitting, I spotted this little knitting instruction book for making World Cup players here at the house!!!! The players on the front of the book are generic, but all the team jerseys' instructions were in the book. Also, a pattern for a soccer ball! The figures were attached to a knitted glove, so you can make them move! Super cute, but it's still on the table for someone else to pick up!

Instructions for knitting World Cup players

I managed to get my eight poinsettia blocks done and sewn together!!! 

Poinsettia blocks - DONE

And I got all the appliques cut for the sledding block. WAIT -- I'm still missing the trees and a dog. I'll get those done when I'm home. 

Applique shapes - DONE

Then it was on to another small handwork project that had been sitting at home for months. Actually, this was started years ago, and I'm almost done. I have this pile of paper pieced Christmas ornaments. I needed to sew three bells on three of the Santa ornaments. And I had to use a Pigma pen to draw the eyes and mouth. Seriously?? Why has that sat for so long? 

Santa face - DONE

So now the six Santa mittens are complete!!!

The six Santa ornaments - DONE

I had four snowman mittens, and they needed a face. The pattern said to use seed beads. Seriously?? How much work is that? So I used the Pigma pen and drew eyes and a mouth. Those smiles are very wide, but that's OK - those snowmen are happy!

Happy snowman ornaments - DONE

And the last one to finish is the birdhouse, where I'm supposed to sew a bird button on its roof. However, I did not bring a bird button with me. Good grief!! 

The last one to finish

There is a whole bag of ornaments that are completely done. Now that I have one small thing to do to complete the entire pile, what the heck am I going to do with them? I need to find a Christmas bizarre!!

The other completed ornaments.

This coming week will be busy, but I'm going to leave all these almost finished projects out, and I WILL get them done. I need to get them out of Studio B. They just add clutter and are so close to being finished!!!!

I managed to get five more raindrops removed from the Cherrywood Challenge. Two of them were small, and with the narrower stitching, they are a challenge, but they are gone!!!

Progress on applique removal

This morning, I pulled out some new things to work on. It's mostly the stuff that I panic-packed, and I'm glad I brought them. There is one quilt top and three bags of scraps in the retreat bag that I likely will not touch this time, but that's OK. I should be able to make progress on everything else! 

I had some sewing and cutting to do this morning, and decided to leave that one bag of HSTs on the cutting table. These units are sewn and pressed, but need to be trimmed. So every time I went into the cutting room, I trimmed four. 

Trimming HSTs

I trimmed quite a few, but didn't take a picture of the total pile. I have no idea where these came from - some project that doesn't ring a bell. Perhaps someone gave them to me. But look at them -- there is a seam in the light. And these are trimmed to 1 1/4". I need my head examined! This is the LAST pile that I will ever work on that is smaller than 1 1/2"  

There are two seams in these!!!

Then it was onto the next project. I go to a few trade shows and events a year and have never made myself a name tag. So I'm using the By Annie Call Me pattern. It's actually a place to put cards, phone, name tag, etc. I had the supplies sitting out for a long time, and it's on my Visual To-do list. This seemed like a good time to make it with Quilt Canada coming up next month. 

Some parts were cut, and others were not. So I got it all cut and quilted, and then cut the quilted section into the proper sizes.  

Supplies for the Call Me pattern 

By Annie.com Shepatterns use all sorts of material types, and there is a vinyl pocket so you can see the name badge through it. When I put the binding on that pocket, I had to sew it onto tissue paper to prevent the vinyl from sticking to the sewing machine bed. 

The binding on the vinyl pocket

And a word of caution -- when cutting, make sure your instructions are not under the fabric. I nipped the corner off the written instructions. 

Oops -- the corner got nicked off.

However, when I went to put the zipper in, I realized that I had an invisible zipper. Seriously??? Why? And I didn't bring any fold-over elastic with me. So I have only the bias binding to finish right after this, and then I have to put it away until I get home. Good grief!!!! That's what happens when you don't check the list of supplies before you pack up a project to bring to a retreat. But I had the right thread colors! 

But I have several other bag projects with me, and I'll work on them until I run out of some critical component, and then I'll finish them at home this coming week. I also have a couple of things to complete for the June wedding, and I hope to work on that today as well. There are three new things to make and one to fix. All are small, but we know that no project is completed in the allotted time frame!!!

Remember the person who was making HSTs with the paper? She had to rip the paper from all of them, but it's done, and the HSTs got turned into a table runner.

Removing paper from the HSTs

And on that happy note, it's time to get back to work. We are going out for breakfast this morning, but there is NOTHING else on the agenda. Thank goodness. We seem to have done a lot of traveling around to various things, and we've had a couple of visitors. Someone came to pick up a couple of books yesterday! 

And then tomorrow is the last day. But I still have time to work on projects, and I'm going to get as much done as I can. 

We all know that what happens at retreat, stays at retreat. I can't thank my friends enough for making each of us feel comfortable sharing almost everything! That says so much about who your friends are and who you spend time with. We are a small group (6), but boy, oh boy—we work well together. No drama and a high level of security—that makes me feel very happy!!!! And I'm thrilled to know I'm not alone in so many areas!!! Thanks, everyone!!!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!