It's not all quilting

Yesterday I had 6 ladies here to quilt and a lot got done. Tomorrow another 6 are coming and my wishful thinking is, that by the end of the day we will be finished, or very close to it!

But it was not all quilting. Jeanette gave me a book with sock knitting projects called Sock Innovation by Cookie A. I can use it for a while, but she wants it back.The patterns are not easy, but very interesting. I am working on my second pair from the book, and during our chats around the quilting frame, I found out that a lot of quilters are also knitters! Florence would love to have a copy, and since I am using Jeanette's, I ordered two books.

Carol, Thelma, Shelagh and Florence closely examined the book and my one finished sock. Florence had made a few samples, and in the photo here, the discussion was about some of the knitting patterns.They are a little different, but once you catch on, they are very easy to follow. And yes, a lot of quilting got done, but there will not be a picture of that till the last stitch has been put in!

It’s almost December -- and I found this pansy in the garden! I bought a tray of plants in April, and some of them have bloomed for over 6 months now. And the harvest is finally over: Laurence finished Monday evening at 11 o'clock. Rain was expected, so there was a push on to get it finally over with. The days have since turned to cold and very rainy -- great weather for staying inside and getting some quilting done.

It has been a busy week

I know this is a day late, but we have been busy. Up until today, the weather was beautiful and the corn harvest was in full swing. Here, the guys are finishing one of the fields. The quality of the corn around here has been very poor this year, and that did not change. The moisture content dropped some with these past several nice days, but today is a different story: it was raining all day. Laurence used the day to fix all the things he did not have time for during combining. But he is ready and hopes for a few more sunny days. Don't forget, we are in an area where we can get snow anytime now! Last year we did have snow by now, and it really did not go away till the spring. 

I have been busy with the quilting. On Tuesday, we had a small group, but we got everything lined up for the bigger group today. I did not take a picture, but I hope that by getting 6 people out next week on both Tuesday and Thursday, we can get it almost finished. We all really like what we see.We complain a little at times, when we hit one of the more difficult blocks, but that never lasts long. And some of the centre blocks are very hard to quilt. There are lots of small areas, where you can only do one or two stitches at a time.

Yesterday was our guild meeting. As usual, it was a full day for me. The morning started with getting parts for Laurence, followed by some shopping for gifts. The guild meeting was a lot of fun. The tables were all covered by white table cloths with a cyclamen in the center. Since this was our Christmas meeting, members brought in finger-foods, which we enjoyed while being treated to a fashion show by members. It was a fun and relaxing meeting.

I had to leave early to go to the nose,throat and ear specialist in Stratford. He looked in my ears… and after almost 2 months I'm infection-free -- finally! That evening, I did my trunk show for the guild right in Stratford. They let me do my presentation first, so I could leave in time, and I was home just before 10. It was a fun, but very tiring day.

While getting ready for my trunk show I found this wall hanging I made years ago. My mother-in-law made a full size quilt with this pattern. I liked it and wanted to give it a try. It was fun, but one block was enough for me. I did machine quilt it and then it kind of disappeared under some other quilts. I seem to like it better now and I will put a sleeve on. Then I will find a place to hang it up for a while.

Still more quilting

Last Thursday, it started to snow in the afternoon and by the next morning it looked like this outside. Riley and I went for a walk and I tried to take some pictures for my photography course. The rest of the class had gone on a field trip Saturday, but since I had to teach I was unable to go.  I did manage to take a few pictures I liked, but this is my favourite. The snow did not stay around long, and by the afternoon it was gone. 

Then Sunday morning, we woke up to a very foggy dawn.I went outside with my camera before breakfast and took this picture of the sun coming up. An hour later the fog was gone and the sun came out. And we have had sunshine ever since. Laurence has done some more combining,but the crop is still very wet, even with all this sunny weather.

Today was another quilting day. Just like last week, we had another quilt to admire: Clara brought her beautiful Wedding Star, a variation of the Double Wedding Ring. This quilt will be a gift for one of her grand children. But is was not all talk (and eat). A lot of quilting got done, so now I have hopes that the quilting will be finished before Christmas.

Here are Judy, Jeanette, Shelagh, Emily and Clara, hard at work(I must mention that it was a very hard working group!!!) You can see my "throne" in the back. I still do my quilting with the stab method and I'm very slow at it, but every stitch is one that does not have to be done anymore. The two ends are almost completely quilted and we are just about ready to roll again on both sides. Next week, I’m hope to get groups in on Tuesday and Thursday.

Start of winter?

As you can see, there is still a lot of quilting to do. This was yesterday’s crew, with Judy, Arlene, Eileen, Lois, Emily, Shelagh and Jeanette. At the end of the day, both ends of the quilt could be turned at least once.

Then today there were 6 of us, and by this evening if looks a lot different. Now we will take a break till the middle of next week. When you have this many quilters around you can get in some tight spots. It helps in times like that if you are very flexible, like Judy and Arlene show us here!

Judy showed us her fabric portrait of a Haitian woman. She is taking an on line course with Quilt University and this is her project. She has done a marvellous job, as you can see in the close-up. She had not decided if she would frame this or if she would turn it into a small wall hanging.

Now on the farming front: we have been farming since 1974, and this is one of the worst years we have had for growing corn. First there was the late spring, followed by a non-summer; we had a decent fall, but with an early frost. All our corn is still in the field, really too wet to combine. But today was supposed be the day: Neighbours wanted high moisture corn to fill up their silo's for their dairy cows. So this morning at 6 we were up, but after breakfast it rained just enough to change our plans. For the rest of the day we had rain and sleet for a few minutes followed by sunshine. They did start for a while in the mid-afternoon, but around 5 o'clock it started to snow and right now we have a white world out there.

Needless to say that the supper I had almost ready to take to the field was eaten right here in the kitchen! But the forecast promises a few sunny days ahead. Let's hope they have it right this time!