Giving quilts

Yesterday was a glorious day - well almost. I took the girls for their walk and had already decided that it was the perfect day to go for a bike ride. After the walk, I got changed and headed out. The big question is always how far to go? I have a route that I can cut short at any time and work my way back, but I decided to go for it and go for a longer distance.

There was just one slight problem. There appeared to be a headwind. Not strong, but still a headwind. And I knew that when I turned north that it was going to get stronger. BUT when I made my next turn and started to head home, that the wind would be behind me and all would be good.

However, when I turned that corner and headed home, I found that I was faced with strong crosswinds. Stronger than the headwinds that I had experienced on my way out. Oh, good grief! I'm slow enough, I don't need a crosswind to contend with. You know it's strong when you have to fight to keep your bike upright. But I persevered and made it home without incident.

There were a TON of cyclists on the road and the drivers were all pretty courteous and I thank them for that. I also saw a lot of muscle cars - do we even use that term anymore? At one point, I saw 7 cars, Corvettes mostly, in bright yellow, red, and blue. And they must have coordinated their little parade because no two colors were behind each other.

I ended up doing 60 K which is a decent bike ride. Not as long as some of my rides, but for a leisurely ride, it was good. No sore spots (thanks to my leather Brooks saddle) and today I feel fine.

Stopping for a quick snack

Even with all my walking and I think my legs are strong, you use different muscles for the bike and my legs actually felt wobbly on a couple of hills. I hate hills, so I really should get out and practice!

For some reason, I had started to look through the catalogs for The Quilt Project. Oh yes - I was looking for clues as to what happened with the blue/white quilts that we had made with the blocks we sold. I didn't find the blue and white quilts but look at what I found. I guess I like to organize things!!!

The Quilt catalogs

I think The Quilt Project started in 1999? or perhaps in 1998. The first catalog I have is from 2000. I got inspired and so in 2001, I donated a quilt. No story - just a quilt! I remember making this one and I remember being so excited to see it hanging in the Armoury in Stratford during the show.

My donation quilt in 2001

 Then it was time to get my groups involved. In 2002, I got my online quilting group (The Canadian Quilt Swappers) involved in making a quilt to donate. I quilted this one on a domestic machine. Do you see how huge it is??   Yep - 97" by 126". HUGE!!!!

Group quilt donated in 2002

Then it looks like in 2003, I had a moment of insanity. Read the story - and see how many little rail fence blocks there are in this quilt and see how big it is???  Totally insanity. And why I donated it on behalf of my guild at the time is beyond me. No one else did any work on it.

Quilt donated in 2003

That same year, I, along with another member of the Canadian Quilt Swappers organized this quilt. This quilt is stunning and HUGE. I ended up buying the quilt even though I had enough blocks to make my own. Oh boy......

Group quilt donated in 2003

Then in 2004, our online group donated another quilt. This was a much easier one consisting of snowball blocks and nine-patches. I noticed there was another one very similar to this one that had been made by another group. Must have been a thing at that time.

Group quilt donated in 2004 

I do like that quilt though - scrappy which is my favorite kind of quilt.


The next year, we coordinated another quilt - this time we used the Snail's Trail block. And that border as HAND appliqued in place. I can't remember who did that, but it was a LOT of work.

Group quilt donated in 2005

I flipped through all the catalogs from front to back, which brought back a lot of memories. Not only of hours coordinating and making quilts, but volunteering behind the scenes.

I also found this quilt which I coordinated and assembled. I had completely forgotten about this one. We made two of them - one for Gail and one the auction.

Group quilt that I coordinated

All those blocks were hand-embroidered by the staff as that is one of Gail's favorite things to do.

I must have been totally crazy and no wonder I wasn't getting my own stuff done. I had a look at the 2006 catalog which is the last one I have.

I found this group quilt that I coordinated with my small sewing group.

Group quilt donated in 2006

I had coordinated another quilt from our online group with the leftovers from the previous year's quilt.

Another group quilt donated in 2006

But WAIT - there's another one. I coordinated one more quilt that year from our Monday Motivator sewing group. Good grief - what was I thinking to do all this work??? I look at that list of names and at least four of the group are no longer with us.

The THIRD group quilt for 2006

I know that I made three special quilts as well. I'm not sure what year - 2006??? They were in a small catalog by themselves and for the life of me, I cannot find that catalog. I don't even remember if 2006 was the last year. But it was all for a good cause, brings back some good memories and now it's all documented in one spot. Almost.

I had also purchased TWO quilts from the auction - well actually three quilts. I still have them all, but I wasn't able to find two of them in the catalogs. I think because my mind was tuned in to finding quilts that I had coordinated or made. I need to go through the catalogs one more time.

Does anyone have any other catalogs???  Before 2000 or after 2006 or perhaps that special catalog?


Back to the mini-quilt. The top is done!!! Hallelujah! It's a miracle and only took how many years? I'm not sure when I started it, but the top is done. That's all I care about. Did you notice how the dark half star blocks are sitting on the cornerstones in the border?  Yep - I think that was meant to be!!!

The mini quilt top is DONE

The binding is done and so is the back. It'll be moved downstairs later today and added to the "to be quilted" pile. 

Backing, binding and quilt top - ready for quilting

And there's that pack of Thangles - ½" and 3/4". There are still quite a few papers in the package and if anyone would like them - they are YOURS. You just have to ask and I'd be happy to wing them your way.

Pack of Thangles up for grabs

The Pony Express is a great thing, but I have something even better. I have the Ronda Express and so the other day, I had a porch drop off. This is a metal sunflower that I had purchased in the US on one of my travels. It was on sale and one of the petals (or was that two?) were not attached properly. I asked Shelly (who has all the tools) if she could solder it back together and now I have my sunflower back.

My sunflower is ready for the garden

I need to fashion a hanger with some wire and it'll go in the garden. Maybe even today since I need to get it off the kitchen table. I'm going to owe Shelly some quilting I think for all the small fix-it jobs that she's done for me. Thanks, Shelly!!!! (and The Ronda Express).

In case you're wondering what I did yesterday afternoon? The gazebo and a book. ALL afternoon. I even had a treat delivered by DH. A McFlurry. A friend of mine had posted a picture of one on IG a week or so ago. I don't usually eat that kind of thing, but I couldn't get that image out of my mind. Yesterday was an ice-cream kind of day. It was good. I've had my fix.

On that note, I'm out of here. Loads that I want to get done today.

Have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!!

Fireside Retreat - Day Two

Wow -- I'm shocked at how much I can get done when I'm at a retreat. I'm focused and there are ZERO distractions. I'm thinking this is going to be the new norm at my house. Have everything super prepped and then isolate yourself with no distractions. It's great!!!

Just so that no one thinks I've snuck off into the dark and am at the retreat house, I'm NOT. I should be there - I want to be there, but I can't. We have a Messenger group chat going so we can always chat with someone during the day. We can send photos and we can have a video chat. It's not the same, but HEY - we have to make the best of a bad situation.

I'm still walking as I would be doing while at the retreat house. I saw two things that warmed my heart when I was out yesterday. The first is a Canadian flag that a neighbor hung outside their house. You know what? That made me feel extremely PROUD to be a Canadian and so for everyone else - if you have a Canadian flag in your house - get it out and hang it up! We are all in this situation together - let's show our support for each other. I must dig mine out - I meant to yesterday and then forgot.

Hang your Canadian flag

The second thing that warmed my heart is I saw BUDS on some of the trees around here. That's exciting. Spring is on the way!

Buds on the trees

Here's the thing. We are NOT restricted to staying in our houses (not yet anyway). Get outside, go for a walk, ride a bike, get out your rollerblades. Get out your lawn chairs and sit in the backyard or in your driveway. So what if you need a jacket and a quilt. That's OK. Get out and get some fresh air. Change up your scenery. I try to be out at least a couple of hours every day. And YES, everyone in my neighborhood is practicing physical distancing. It feels a bit like you haven't showered for days as people pass by without wanting to be close to you! Most people do that anyway when they see the two girls, but it's even more pronounced now.

Speaking of showers, we're going to all need underwear with the days of the week on them so we know what day of the week it is. It was bad before this all happened, but now I'm totally lost. But I do know that it's day three of the retreat. Let me share with you what happened yesterday.

I see my retreat mates are NOT taking this retreat very seriously. I don't have a lot to show you of their accomplishments. Ronda (who has been working during the day) got the binding on this table runner that she quilted a couple of months ago. Way to go!!! I know she has the next quilt basted and hooped and ready to go this morning. She likes to quilt using her embroidery machine.

Ronda's table runner - DONE

Katheleen finished her jigsaw puzzle. An extra border piece and missing two pieces in the puzzle. Hey - I see she has the same friend as myself. Hello Alexa!!!  This is one of those mystery puzzles. I wonder if she solved the mystery???

Jigsaw puzzle - DONE

Lynn got two Retreat Bags by Emmaline Bags made. They look awesome. It's a free pattern on that web site but you do need the wires for the top.

Retreat Bags

Susan completed this quilt top that she was using as an ender/leader project. This is similar to the one I'm supposed to be making with my batik squares. I'm glad I chose white as the background. It looks awesome Susan!!!

Susan's quilt top

She's also sewing Vintage Christmas blocks. She's not part of our sew-along group, but that's OK. She's doing one block a day and here's the block from yesterday.

Vintage Chrismtas block

OK - so that's what the others did. What did I do? Like I said - it was a very focused day. The other thing is that darn audiobook. If you get a good audiobook going, I focus on listening to the story and NOT on what I'm doing. I'm listening to W is for Wasted by Sue Grafton. ACK -- I'm almost done the series and there will be no more books!! I need to find another book. I only have a non-fiction book waiting for me when this one is finished.

I had packed the bag of blue scraps from our community projects group. It took up a LOT of room in the laundry basket. While I had loads of strips already organized, there was also this huge pile of scraps that needed to be sorted. I stood at the ironing board every so often and picked out the strips, pressed smaller pieces for the corners of my blocks and by the end of the day, the pile was gone.

Pile of scraps to sort

I can't tell you how therapeutic that was. It was totally mindless. Just sort and press. Sort and press. I'll come back to this in a minute.

I started the day off with my friends on my iPad and my project by the sewing machine. 

Ready to start the day with friends and a sewing project

I had wound five bobbins to get me started and I had part of one in the sewing machine. I've now gone through 3 of those bobbins. It's so nice to have bobbins ready to put in when you run out!!

Another empty bobbin

I have a portable design wall in the bathroom attached to Studio U. So as I assembled the blocks, I was able to put them on the wall. 

Portable design wall

I realized as I got most of the blocks on the wall that it would look better if I started with a full diamond and not a half diamond. That was easy to fix. I moved the first column to the last column and everything was perfect. I didn't even rearrange the blocks. It's a scrap quilt - changing the blocks wouldn't have changed much.

Almost done all the blocks

It pays to put things up on the design wall. My goal was to get the quilt top together by the end of the day. Who knew that it was going to take TWO days to get this quilt done? I was hoping to get it done in one day. That's why I end up taking so much to the retreat. I think a project will take no time and it ends up taking forever. I was very focused all day as well. This is going to be a good lesson for the next retreat. ONE laundry basket and ZERO panic packing!

Here's the final quilt top. I LOVE it, but then I love scrap quilts!!

The completed quilt top

That top will be added to the pile of community project quilts that need backing and binding. At this rate, it's going to take a long time before we can get back to that. But that's OK because I still have a lot of quilts to quilt so it's not like I need more added to the pile at this moment in time. 

AS I said, that bag of scraps took up a LOT of room in my laundry basket. However, I was able to NEATLY pack all the strips and the few small pieces that are left for the corners into this much smaller bag. There's probably enough strips to make two more string quilts. I only have 10 foundations left and I need 48 for each quilt. So I'm putting this aside for now. I've got a sheet that I can cut up to make more foundations. Once the new foundations are cut, I'm putting this back into the laundry basket for the next sewing retreat. It's a perfect thing to work on. And it'll take TWO days to make another quilt.

The blue scrap bag

Let's see - if I could get the rest of the scraps this organized - well. I think I might do that. Thre's a bag for reds, greens, browns, miscellaneous and two smaller ones for blacks and purples. The blue one was the largest. I felt so good after this exercise. Like I said - it was extremely therapeutic and I'm going to keep right at it! But after the retreat is over! It's now time to sew something for me. The best part? Slow and steady is the ONLY way to get things accomplished.

Here's my ender/leader project. I didn't need that when I was sewing the blocks, but I needed it once I started to sew the quilt together. I was working on this a while back. It's a MINI block of the month that I started YEARS ago. I haven't worked on it since July of 2019.

Mini block of the month

So you can appreciate how small those little pieces are - I'm trimming one of the half-square triangles in the block. Yikes - those pieces are TINY. I had to sew them very carefully to get the block to turn out the correct size.

Trimming a MINI half square triangle

 Yes - the entire block is 3 ½". That's just insane!! I now have 10 blocks completed. I checked to see what November and December are like. They are just as bad. Oh boy!!! Well, it would be nice to get those two blocks completed so I'm going to try and focus on getting them done. It's a Thangles project and once I'm done, I'm going to have some 3/4" and ½" Thangles up for grabs if anyone wants to work this small.

Mini block for the Block of the Month - DONE

Before I went to bed, I tidied up the sewing room. As I was sorting through the scraps, I found colors that weren't blue. They got pressed and this morning, I snuck everything down to Studio B and put it all away. I got the next project ready to sew this morning once everyone gets up and it's OK to turn on the sewing machines and make noise. This one is my UFO for this month so I'd better get myself organized and get it done. Everything is cut and ready to sew. The sewing machine has been threaded with dark thread.

Project for today

I know that everyone is coping with our self-isolation in different ways. I'm just trying to have fun and keep myself entertained. I'm also getting some admin work done. I had tried to clear everything up before I "left", but I didn't quite have time so I'm spending a bit of time first thing in the morning to get things done. So far, I'm on track. I'll get back to e-mails as soon as I can, but my priority is to sew for the next couple of days. I'll get the urgent ones responded to.

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!