Dancing With Threads

Today, it was a "Mommy-and-Me" day. I took my Mom on a day trip to Grand Forks, BC!

We first stopped in to the Heart-and-Soul Quilt Shop, situated in a beautiful Victorian home, just off Main Street. Cathy had hundreds of bolts of fabric to browse through, it would have taken me all day if I had the chance! And we admired all the beautiful quilts adorning all the available wall space where the fabric bolts couldn't reach. And it appears that her husband is a gem, one whose touch on the place shows up everywhere! This shop is a destination for sure!

Then, we attended an Open House at Dancing with Threads, longarm quilting studio. Ma Tin is the owner/operator, and she has set up shop and is ready to help quilters finish their quilts! She has a unique style all her own and just loves to freehand, adapting special designs to suit your quilt top. I was very impressed with her lovely home and the yummy buffet luncheon she had prepared! By the way, she also teaches Asian cooking! She is a woman of many talents!

I met several women from both Grand Forks Guilds as well as the Christina Lake Guild. It was a great turnout!

And last, but not least, Mom and I visited with a few relatives of ours, which was a really nice way to end our day trip, as family is important and we don't take enough time out to spend with them.

It was a wonderful day!

Girlie-Girl Quilt

Here is a quilt made by Valerie S. We chose the Wandering Daisies pattern to go along with the daisies on the flannel backing, which I didn't take a photo of. With variegated thread, it makes the quilt very girlie and I'm sure will be loved by a very special youngster!

Paintstick Playday

Today our local "longarmers" group got together and had a Paintstick playday at Donna's house.

We mostly used Shiva brand Paintsticks, but we also had an opportunity to try out a couple of other brands.

There were a variety of rubbing plates to experiment with, plus some of us came up with found objects around home to add some texture. Some of those items included stucco wire, an old car mat, some garden netting, metal screening, the back of a floor tile, the grid from the bottom of a planter pot, the grid from the bottom of a tupperware vegetable keeper, a braided straw hot pad, and a ravioli-maker. Just looking around for textured objects was fun! Some worked better than others, some pieces turned out pretty ugly, but others looked amazing! It was all good fun to try out different techniques, which included rubbings, stencilling, and colouring with fabric markers.

Here are a few photos showing the girls hard at play, Debra with her pre-quilted fabric-come tablerunner, Audrey with her work of art, a few of Valerie's and Donna's samples and even a photo of me with my mountain ranges. The possibilities are endless! We have challenged one another to make something with these samples.

Our day also included a fabulous lunch with contributions from all (Larry's soup was wonderful!), and of course, discussion about our longarming issues.

Wrap-a-Smile

Our local guild donates quilts to the Wrap-a-Smile project, where a team of doctor's and others travel to under-developed countries to perform cleft palate surgery on those who have been living with the disability, mostly children.

I had promised to make 2, and of course, I left it to the last minute, so yesterday evening, I constructed 2 simple quilts on the longarm. This was my first attempt, and it went fairly well, considering the backing fabric was on the stretchy side. I will definitely try this again, with standard cotton backing and batting.

Note the nice label our guild president Donna J made for us to attach to the quilts.

These are not the finest examples of my quilt-making, but I am sure some child will be happy to receive one!

Nativity Quilt

Every Christmas, I get in the mood to make myself some Christmas-y quilts. Always too late for the Christmas at hand, but hopefully in time for next year.

Well, this year, I managed to do something with this urge, and so I finally made up this Nativity panel that a dear friend gifted me with. I bordered it with a simpler fabric, so you could actually see the quilting alittle. It gave me the opportunity to practice my feathers.

Hopefully, I will have the binding on it before next Christmas!!!

I'm Back!!!

No, I didn't go anywhere. After Christmas, I crashed and burned, sitting in front of the tv for 10 hours on Boxing Day! It took awhile to get moving again! Since then, I've been trying to clean and organize my sewing room, sew a few things for myself and do my usual household duties. Hubby has been off on holidays for 3 weeks before and 3 weeks after Christmas, so we did alot of dog-walking and snow-shoeing, it was very nice. He has helped with the cleaning and cooking, so I will miss that part when he goes back to work tomorrow! Now I need to get back into some sort of routine!

Here is the last quilt I did before Christmas. It belongs to Sue P and was a gift for her son. I just love the strong contrast between back and white! We chose Waterworld design to contrast the straight lines.