Mistake

It has been very hot here on the farm. Everything is still growing, but we are in need of rain and it does not look like that will happen in the near future. In March we had a very warm period and the roses started to wake up. Then when a severe frost came, the tender buds all froze of. I was sure my roses were goners, but to my purprise and delight, they all came back and have bloomed like never before. These roses were here, when we moved, so I have no idea what the names are, but I enjoy them and they do well, despite my lack of care. The flowerbeds also are looking good. On Wednesday I went with a friend to a few plant nurseries ( just as if I needed more plants). After a short visit to Evelyn we had our baby fix and the next stop was Wild Things near Mount Forest. As the name suggest, there are a lot of native plants there and it was very hard to choose. I was after some short perenials for the front of the flowerbed, but came home with larger ones. The next stop was Riverbend Nurseries. I have known Shirley and Allen for almost 40 years. I knew they had started a garden center, but had never made it there. And it was fantastic. Shirley took us on a tour through there gardens. They specialize in hosta's and have a very large variety around the property. And yes, I came home with more plants, still not the very small ones I was looking for. Most are still in the garage. I think that it is a little on the wamt side to plant them . They are fine, where they are for now. Next up is a load of 10 yards of mulch. I should be able to do that with my trusty tractor and new loader, but we will wait till things cool of a little I'm working on a new quilt. I have most of the designs done and I'm planning to applique one block a month. That way it should not take more than 11/2 year for the top. One of the blocks has apple blossoms and I have not been able to find the right fabrics. I did find an article in one of the Fabric Arts magazines, where it shows how you can dye fabric with ice cubes and a small amount of dye. This is my first try. Next week I will show the results. The first trial is on the line, drying, and I noticed, that I used too much dye, so tomorrow we will have another go at it. My applique block for June was finished 2 weeks ago and that gave me just enough time to work on the baby quilt I was asked to make for Jenny and Tony. The fabric and pattern she bought in Hawaii and now it was up to me to make it. And yes, can you find the mistake? It was all going so well, till I noticed that something did not look right and then it became very obvious. By tomorrow I should be finished with the blocks, right in time for me to applique again. I'm able to things again, but I realize, that things will go slower and as soon as there is some pain, I will have to take a break.

Another try

My friend Tamara was here on Wednesday and she helped me with all the new things on Blogger. Now I hope that it will work. At least the pictures showed up. Meet our first grandchild, Evelyn Mae Helmuth, born May 15th and doing great. She is our first grandchild and we enjoy being with her. I went over this morning to see if I could be of some help and took this picture of her. It seems that every time I see her, she has changed. Jenny made the blanket for her out of odds and ends of Koigu yarn. Emily liked it so much, that she is in the process of learning how to crochet. Below you see the quilt I made for Evelyn. Now I have to be honest, I started it, but a friend finished it for me. The multi colored fabric has small elephants on it and comes from Africa. The other fabrics I found at Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph. The time I was working on this quilt, my shoulders were still bad and I was scared, that it would not get done in time. Carol to the rescue. First of all she did the piecing. Than she phoned and wondered if I would mind if she did the (HAND) quilting. And she does a wonderful job. All that was left for me to do was the binding. It is not a fancy quilt, but it will be used and that is the main thing. Right now I'm working on another baby quilt, since Jenny is expecting in October. Next time pictures of that one.

A lot has happened since I blogged on a regular basis and over time I will tell about it. I think that this has already been one of the most eventful years of my life, both good and not so good.

After months of physio therapy I'm on my own. I still have some pain and will have to keep on doing excercises, but up to now I can manage.But it all takes more time.

One more update. At the end of May Jeanette, a good friend from our guild and I went to

Halifax, Nova Scotia. And there was a reason. This years Quilt Canada was there. I had decided not to go and had not put in proposals to teach. But finally I did end up going. Why you might wonder.

I received the 2012 Canadian Quilt Teacher of the Year Award!

It was an honor to receive this award.

I received a beautiful silver, engraved seam ripper and a certificate. Now I hope, that I'm worthy of the honor.

I have not done much teaching since the beginning of the year, but that will change after the summer. I even have some ideas for new workshops.

Here you see Jeanette and me out at Peggy's Cove. It was a cool and blustery day, but that also meant, that there were not too many people around. We had a wonderful time at Jeanette's sister's Marjorie's place. She was a great hostess and tour guide. The time was too short there.

I'm back

Finally, I feel like I have something to show again. It has been a long road and a lot has happened. I noticed that Blogger has changed and I realized that I needed some help. So this will be an update without pictures. Once we've got this figured out, the pictures will follow. 

My shoulder is feeling much better thanks to a shot of cortisone and a lot of physiotherapy. I’m still not quite there, but I have been doing some appliqué again. I realize that I will have to take it easier than before.

But as I said, a lot has happened. The first few weeks of the year we were busy with looking after grandma’s things. Even in a small room in a retirement home, you can stash a lot!

At the end of January/beginning of February, we went on a learning tour to Kenya and Tanzania. We have been involved with the Canadian Food Grains Bank for quite a few years and when our feed mill and the local Mennonite Central Committee office organized this trip, I was ready to go. It took some work to get Laurence interested, but now he is the one who wants to go back. We saw a lot and experienced a lot. Anybody interested can find more about our trip at www.grainsofhopelearningtour.blogspot.com. I even met some quilters in Nairobi -- more about that later.

And now to the next big event! Any day now we hope to have our first grandchild: we have been anxiously waiting for over a week now for a call from Shawn and Emily. Of course, with a baby comes a baby quilt! My friend Carol helped me accomplish that. Since Emily’s sister had a little girl 3 weeks ago, I’m making a baby quilt for her as well, as we speak. But at least now I’m able to do it all myself. 

The weather has been good. Most of the planting is done. The flower beds look great. I filled up the holes here and there with new plants and now I hope that it all will look as nice as I have envisioned.

This will be it. We better try and get Blogger sorted out before I do more.

Taking a break.

The partly knitted sock has been put away, the sewing machine is back in the cabinet and all the fabric has been put on the shelves. Yes, I have done, what I set out to do. Has it helped my shoulder? Not really. I think ,that it might take longer then I thought and I might need to get somebody to look at it. In the meantime, this blog was supposed to be about quilting and since nothing new happens around here, I have trouble finding things to write about. Don't forget, writing does not come easy to me. So I have made the decission to stop for a while. I might come back once in a while,when I have something newsworthy to talk about. And with a lot of help from a very good friend I will update all the information on this blog. To finish I will show some pictures of the Album Quilt from last week. I took a 10 months class with Rosemary Mahkan and this quilt was the result. I loved every minute of it. We used the different books by Elly Sienkiewicz. Starting with an easy one, we slowly build up to the difficult ones I put in the center. These blocks all have a special meaning for me. I grew up on a dairy farm and yes, I learned how to milk by hand. I do realize, that the conformation of this cow is extremely poor, but that's as good as it gets in fabric. While growing up I spend as much time as possible with our horses. And our favorites were our Frisians, which we drove, rode and showed. This is my first horse, Marietha. It was really hard to leave her behind, but you can't have it all. I have always loved flowers and plants. My mother had gorgeous flowers in the house, not much outside and it must have rubbed of on me. When we moved to the farm, I had a large garden with lots of flowers. Now there are less outside, but it seems that each year there are more inside, especially orchids. On the farm we had a large vegetable garden. We used to pick peas, not by the basket, but by the bushel. We could take them to a peasheller,what helped. We also had a mulberry tree, sour cherries, apple and pear tree. And we had a bigger family. Do I miss all the canning and freezing? Not really. With just the 2 of us, we don't need as much. So I'm down ,but not out. I will be back with new quilt ideas. Some have been floating around in my head for a while now and after a rest I hope to be ready to tackle a new project.

2012

We have had a tough beginning of 2012. On December 28th my mother-in-law passed away. The last few months had been very hard for her. There were the different falls and trips to the emergency room and beside that some other problems. But up till the last few weeks she could not do without her paper. She never had a t.v., but she loved to read her paper from front to back. Since Laurence is her only child living in Ontario, it was up to us to make the arrangements By New Years Eve everybody had arrived from out west. Visitation was on Sunday and the funeral was on a very cold, windy and stormy Monday. It was through grandma that I learned about quilts. The first time I visited her home, there was that large blanket in a frame. I was told, that is was a quilt and she explained, what all was involved.Later, when we had bought the farm and she lived beside us in the corner of the farm, she continued to help me. A few years after grandpa and grandma build their new house, they put on a sunroom. It was there, that grandma would do her quilting. Grandpa would sit beside her, reading the paper. This is my first appliqued quilt and it is one of the quilts grandma quilted for me., all by herself.And what a job she did! Another time I will get back to this quilt. Over the years we helped each other. She loved to quilt, but gladly let me do the piecing for her. After I became a member of our guild, I persuaded Hilda to come with me and for years she would not miss a meeting. It was just in the last few years, that it was getting too much for her. After grandpa passed away 17 years ago, she was all by herself in the house. I would visit daily, but it was the quilting that kept her busy. This summer all her children and most of her grandchildren were here for her 90th birthday. She had looked forward to that for a long time. And she was still very interested in what her grandchildren were up to. She even learned to use an Ipad ( I think thats what it is). Jenny and Tony had been to Scotland and she wanted to see their pictures. It will be different for me. No more trips to the farmhouse in the corner or to town to visit grandma. We will miss her. I have had recurring shoulder problems and I think it is time to give my shoulder a rest. So no more knitting and appliqueing. These mittens were finished last month and they might have something to do with the sore shoulders. Hope some rest will help.

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Christmas cards 2011

Another month and another cold. I'm not sick, but I don't feel like doing as much as I would like. I did send my Christmas cards. And I'm very glad I made these in the summer. Laurence always tell me I'm nuts, but that seems the time to get it done. By late November I seem to have a lot of other things on the go.

 

The background of these cards are selvages, sewn to a piece of Timtex (you can really use anything that stiffens the fabric enough so that it is not too floppy). I wanted a different color combination and saved for a long time to get enough of the blue selvages. And there are none left! The silhouette comes from the book Applique Paper Greetings by Elly Sienkiewicz. 

 

For the silhouette I traced the pattern on the dull side of freezerpaper, cut the pattern out and ironed it to the right side of a piece of dark blue batik which had fusible web on the back.

 Next step, trace around the freezer paper pattern.

Cut the tree out, center it on the background and fuse it.

 

For the back I had to be somewhat creative. I did not have enough fabric for all the backs, so I used different scraps. One of my favorite fabrics is the one with the cranes. I had only bought a fat quarter and had used most of it by now. It was just the right color, so this was the time to use the rest.

With the cards I made before, I always had trouble finding a spot to write a short note. This time I came up with the idea of using a piece of silk ribbon, again fused to the fabric. It worked very well and the writing looked good. The final step was the zigzag stitch around the card. For that I used a variegated thread by King Tut.

 

The cards went out on Friday and I know of at least one that has arrived.

 

The weather is not really winterlike. Today it rained all day and it will be the same tomorrow. It would be nice to have a white Christmas, but we can do without a winter storm.  The tree has been decorated and some of the baking is done. I'm not much for anything sweet, but Laurence makes up for it. And my shopping is done, over with!!!!

Wheat weaving

Years ago I went with a neighbour for a one evening course in what was called wheat weaving. We made a few small braids using wheat straw. I found it very interesting and wanted to know more. The instructor that evening had only one small book and could not tell me much. I did find the address for the Women's Institute of England in the back of the book. I wrote a letter explaining my interest and a few weeks later I received a reply from Janet, who has been my friend ever since. I have visited her in England and she has been to Ontario to see me. We even went to the North American Wheat Weaver's Convention in Illinois together.From her I learned more about the craft of making "Corn Dollies" as it is called in England. I also got to know Daniel, who made corn dollies for a living not far from us in St. Jacobs. You use mostly wheat, the straw as well as the heads. It is in the heads that we can see a difference. There is bearded wheat ( has long hairs) Black bearded wheat with ever longer hairs, white looking straw and red looking straw. And then there is barley and oatsLaurence used to have test plots with the varieties, that I would beg of the different companies. I loved to make a large variety of designs. I would sell them at the different craft sales and that was the part I did not like. You cannot use the straw till it has been in water from 1/2 to 11/2 hour. That makes it plyable and from there you can braid and twist it. At that time I still did most of the milking and my hands and arms used to give me trouble. Because the straw had to be wet, you could not stop too long. I found that with applique I could just do a little and stop. Slowly the applique became more important and finally I stopped with the wheat. I have only a few pieces left. I had forgotten all about these dolls. One year I planned to make a nativity scene, but after these 4 dolls I gave up. They are about 12 inches tall. The idea was to make the rest the following year. And promptly it was forgotten. When a friend asked me about them I took them out of the box and I will display them this year. In the back of the yard we have a fair sized gazebo. We don't use it, since we have a large deck at the back of the house and during the summer we do not take the time to sit out much. But I figured that it might be an excellent place to put my orchids for the summer.By the middle of June I took them all out there and they were told to either do well or they would end up in the compost pile. Almost all listened very well . By the time I took them in, after a few light frost, most of them had buds. This is the first one blooming and it looks like there will be more before Christmas.

Another quilt finished

Finally it all came together and I could finish this quilt.

I started with the dark blue blocks. I used Susan Briscoe's books as a guide to fill the dark blocks with hitomezaski sashiko patterns (one stich sashiko). In the 4 corners are designs I have made before. All the sashiko is done by hand. It takes a while, but I love sitting down and working by hand.

 

The 2 fabrics in the other blocks are doby cloth I bought from Michelle at Kallisti quilts.

 

A few years ago we went for dinner to the Mandarin Restaurant during Chinese New Year and each of us received a coin. I had saved them and they would give a nice touch to this quilt. But I had 2 problems. First of all I did not have quite enough coins. All it took was one phone call to the restaurant and I was told I could pick up as many coins as I needed.  The next problem was the large square hole in the center of the coin. I could not find the right button to either fill the hole go over the top.

 

When I found out that my friends Elizabeth and Elizabeth (or as I call them the dynamic duo) were going to the show in Houston I asked them to look for something suitable. And they delivered! They found beautiful round, Japanese buttons, large enough and the right color. For the back,they brought back small square pearl shell buttons.

 

By that time I had machine quilted the piece and was ready for the final step. It worked like a charm. I sewed the binding on and it hangs as it should, nice and straight.

This is one more project done.

 

I'm working on some new applique blocks, but it is going slow.

 

We still spend a fair amount of time with my mother-in-law in town. We also have a visitor again. Abner the basset is back for a few days and he is making himself at home. His favorite spot is Laurence 's chair.

One of these days I will have to start thinking about Christmas. Right now it is all white outside and that at least gets us in the mood.

More work in the future

It has been a while, but I have been under the weather for over a week now. At about this time of the year I will get problems with my throat. Some years it is very sore, but I can talk normally; other years I will get laryngitis. And this was a bad year. Needless to say that it has been a very quiet week around here. But we did have some company. Abner, the Basset, spend a few days at our place, He must be the easiest dog to have around. Here he takes a peak into my quilt room through the glass. I'm working on my crazy quilt block and as you can see,  there is stuff all over the place. I just did not want him to get a needle or pin in his paw. And he did not mind, although it is not quite as good as sitting on Laurence's lap, watching t.v.

 

The block is coming along. Right now I'm at the place, where it is not fun anymore. The easiest would be to put it all away, but I know from experience that it will change one of these days and the rest will come along just fine.

I do have some ideas of what to do next, but that will not happen till next year.

Last Sunday I found a small parcel in our mail box at church. In it was a short note , a pattern in Dutch and a few typical Dutch hankies. The pattern was of a small kimono, just up my alley. My friend had received it as a gift, but did not speak Dutch, so could not interpret the instructions, which were not all that good anyway. It will make a nice quick project at some point.

 

The same day Jenny and Tony were here and they came with a parcel from Japan. They had placed an order for me, since I don’t have PayPal, for a sashiko book and some wrapping cloths. I'm planning to make small quilts with these cloths, using selvages and sashiko. And this also will happen some time in the future.

 

Grandma is slowly getting used to her new place. We had to clean out her room in the retirement home as quickly as possible and all those things are in our garage, waiting for me or her to go through.

I hope to have her here for lunch on a regular basis and then she can decide what has to be done to her things.

 

Our harvest has been over for a few weeks now. All Laurence has to do is combine for one more neighbour.Then all the equipment can be washed and put away.

First frost

It has been a while, but a lot has happened here in the last days.

 

A week ago Monday I drove to Buckhorn, which was easier than I expected. On Tuesday, I taught a workshop in a recently remodelled hall with lots of room and great light. 20 ladies wanted to know more about making a crazy quilt block. With this workshop I ask everybody to make a block (I supply a pattern, but they can make whatever they like) beforehand. The first thing we do is look at all the different blocks. It is great to see the huge differences, from real wild colors to muted, very co-ordinated blocks. 

What made it also great was all the room we had. You know, that anything to do with crazy quilting means a lot of "things" to bring. The tables were full to overflowing with "stuff"!

 

On Wednesday morning I gave my trunkshow. This guild has it made with a restaurant right beside the church where they have their meeting. After lunch I drove home in the rain, where Laurence was waiting for me. He had 3 days with no combining, but things were starting to get better. By Thursday afternoon he was back combining and since then we had good weather. One more week should do it. We did have our first frost. Most of the flowers are gone, but I still can find the odd rose, including this pale yellow one.

 

As I wrote before my mother-in-law has been in the hospital for a month now. She fell in her room and ended up in the hospital with 2 broken ribs. After a week she fell again.

By that time we all decided, that she needed more care and she was put on a waiting list for a bed in a nursing home. The Powers That Be tried to find her extra help, so that in the meantime she could go back to her room in the retirement home to wait for a bed, but all the work was for nothing. I have to say, that she is getting excellent care at the hospital, but it is not a nice place to be, if you don't really need all that care.

 

Then we got a call yesterday, that a bed was available right in the same home, where she was on the retirement side. It was not exactly what she wanted and she had only one day to make up her mind. Her other option was to stay in the hospital till something more suitable came up.It was very hard on all of us to help grandma to make a decision. But by this afternoon she has decided to go ahead and move on Friday. I will help her with moving the few things she can take along and the rest will be stored here till she, hopefully soon, gets in a bigger room.

Rain, rain go away

Remember last week? I talked about the wonderful weather we were having -- how fast things can change! It has been nothing but rain since. The equipment has been repaired, greased, oiled and fueled up, but there is no place to go. Laurence is getting just a little antsy. We have been farming a long time and we have been here before, but the waiting never gets any easier. And the forecast is not looking much better.

 

Here at home, things are about the same. Laurence's mom is still in the hospital. She fell again, but she only had a few bruises. Right now she is doing well and some changes have to be made. We try and visit her each day and keep her spirits up.

 

Next week I will be in Buckhorn, where I will be giving a trunk show and a workshop.  We will be doing some crazy quilting. For that workshop I like to have a sample handy. A few weeks ago I showed you the beginning of a new block (see the top picture). Since then I have been adding some ribbons and laces. I guess if you wanted to be really "crazy" you would work at it more randomly, but I like to have some control. That's why I add the ribbons and laces later. I sew them on with some big stitches, since later on I will follow with embroidery or beads. For the lace ends I will open the seam allowance and tuck them under that or I will double the ends, whatever works.

 

Finally I have used all the lace pieces I got from my friend Janet in England. Thanks Janet, I loved to work with them. I was very stingy, but the box is empty. For the next round I will start with the beading and the embroidery. This I will do from the center out. That way it will get less wrinkly. The final round will have all the little extras like buttons, pins and whatever else I can find. Remember this was only a sample piece! Well while working on this you have lots of time to think and wouldn't it be nice to continue with a border with embroidered flowers, next a crazy quilted border and then a border to pull it all together. Have to give it some more thought!

What a week!

What a glorious week we just had. By last week Wednesday we could start with the harvest and the weather was good till today. By now the white beans and soybeans have all been combined, except for one farm a distance from here -- and all the winter wheat has been planted. The next job on Laurence's list is checking the combine. They ran into a few smaller problems yesterday, but with the coming days being rainy he has time to fix whatever is needed.

 

This last weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada. Jenny and Tony arrived early Saturday afternoon with their bikes. They went for a few long rides and enjoyed every minute of it. On Sunday we had our Thanksgiving meal and we missed grandma: she is still in the hospital. Though she is feeling much better, she decided that she was not up to coming to our place. Instead we visited her later on in the afternoon and brought her a few treats.

 

Shawn and Emily brought their bassett hound, Abner. The two of them left in the midafternoon for the tractor pull at the Simcoe Fair, and we were to watch Abner.

Bernie could not appreciate another dog and there were a few instances where it was hard to keep the peace between the two of them. Here is Jenny showing off my latest pair of socks, while keeping the peace between the dogs. The pattern is by Cookie A and I forget where the yarn came from.

It was a nice pattern to knit. By now I have enough socks for a while and I have started the knit a pair of Norwegian mittens. Yes, I know it is not winter yet, but I like to be prepared. Jenny just happened to have a book and some of the right yarn. With us being so busy with the harvest I just don't feel like starting another big quilting project. These mitts should not take long, but they are fussy.

 

 

Tomorrow I will get a few pictures printed for my next project. So once the fall work is behind us, there will be no more excuses. I did some clean-up work in the flower beds, but a lot of plants are still blooming. These roses I took to grandma yesterday and there are many more. I did take most of my orchids inside. And almost all have survived their stay outside. Most did very well and I can see flower stalks on a lot.

Canadian Food Grains Bank

What do you get ,when you have over 120 combines in a 160 acre soybean field? Besides a lot of noise and a lot of dust flying around, after 11 minutes and 43 59/100 seconds, you get a new world record! All the proceeds from the combined beans will go to the Canadian Food Grains Bank and the government will match this money 4 times.

 

The Canadian Food Grains Bank was formed by a group of churches and as the name implies, tries to help get food to people in need. The first we heard about this plan was in the winter: by then, everything had been donated, from land, to seed and fertilizer. Later came the call for combines. I was after Laurence to go, but he figured that our combine would not be big enough. The big day was last Friday, but it was rained out. The second try came on Monday, again a rainy day, but today was just perfect.  We had seen a few combines go past here and we are about 40 km from Moncton. Shawn was there with one of the dealership combines and so was his father -in-law with his combine. But Shawn did not get to drive and so watched it with us.

Once I looked at the pictures at home I noticed him on the right of the first picture. By 1:30 it was time to go and it was something to see. The combines started from both sides, one with 65 and the other with 55 and they met in the middle, where an area had been combined before.  A big worry would be any machines that quit for whatever reason, and there were some that could not keep up.

 

As the combines came closer, so came the dust. But after 11:43:59 minutes the horn went and it was all over.  Or really it just started, because all these beans had to be sold by auction!

 

We went home soon after, but Shawn phoned just now and we heard, that the first 10 bags of beans sold for $1000 each and were donated back and then resold for the same amount. We will have to wait for the final tally for a while. And you cannot have a farmer do without food. I do not know, how they did it. This all happened way back in a field with no hydro in sight. There was one tent, where you could buy beef or pork on a bun, all donated and ice cream, coffee and apples. All they asked for was a donation. And there were hundreds of people.

 

On the home front things are not going as well. Last Thursday night we got a call from the hospital. My mother-in-law had fallen and was taken to the hospital: she had 2 broken ribs and she is still in the hospital and she is in a lot of pain.

 

Today we had great weather and we hope to start with the harvest tomorrow. So we keep our fingers crossed and hope for a lot of sunshine in the coming weeks.

Sniffles and sneezes

By Friday afternoon last week, everything was packed and I was ready to go to the Heart and Hand Festival. It was a wet outside, not looking promising for the next day. I knew that a lot of the people would be outside. But by Saturday morning it looked totally different. I left around 7:30 with my camera, and it was very hard to keep on driving: it was one of the days with a ground mist, perfect for taking pictures!

 

I was good though and arrived at the Schneider House nicely in time for the set-up. The day before, I was asked to bring a few larger quilts – dowels would be provided, along with screws and a tall girl with a drill. One minute tops, and a quilt was hung! 

 

I did manage to look around before it all started, but quite a few had not arrived yet. That's what I miss: I love to see what others are doing. By the time my things are back in the car, theirs will be too!

 

I had a good size area inside where I could show a nice variety. It was a long and tiring day. Before I made it home at 7pm, I took my crazy quilt to another guild member. Our guild show is coming up and that meant one less trip to Kitchener.

 

At left is a block I made for a quilt that will be put together for the Mennonite Relief Sale next year. I received the pale yellow and pale purple fabrics and was asked to make a 9 inch block, on point, with flowers. I had started it at home and worked on it, while at the Schneider House. It was a perfect take-along project.

 

Jenny and Tony came for Sunday dinner. They had to go for business up north and we were asked to look after Bernie, the Bernese. By early evening I started to get a sore throat and by Monday morning I had it all: sore throat, cough, runny nose and whatnot. Now my mother -in-law had the same early last week, so it was not that surprising. Needless to say the last few days have been very unproductive.

 

I did finish the block. The tulips and the inner heart have trapunto behind the applique and all the pieces are highlighted with a black stem stitch done with perl cotton. With my gucky eyes it was hard to see, but I think it turned out presentable.

 

Back to the guild show. The Waterloo County Quilters Guild has their bi-annual quilt show at the RIM Park in Waterloo on Friday September 30th and Saturday October 1st from 10am till 6pm. There will be lots of quilts, merchants and a tea room.

 

We are ready for the harvest to start, but we are still waiting for the beans to dry down some more. Most of the rain went past us, but there is lots of moisture in the air. And it does not look very promising for the next few days. Better keep our fingers crossed!

Heart and Hand Festival

A few days ago, I received a call from Susan Burke, the curator for the Joseph Schneider House. On September 24, there will be a craft festival at the museum and they wanted a quilter. She wondered if I would be interested. Since it is only one day I thought it might be nice to go and see all the other crafts. I would have to bring some quilts and have something to demonstrate. The house is from the mid 185o's and that made me think that a crazy quilt might just do it.

After finishing the last crazy quilt project I made myself a promise to stay away from it for a while, but what harm would it be to just make one block? So out came the stuff! I always like something in the center that stands out. I have done embroidery and pictures on fabric, but this time I wanted to use one of the transfers I bought a few years ago. I had tried a transfer once and it had not worked out. This time I was very careful and did everything according to the instruction sheet. And it worked great!

As you can see it will be another horsey block. I have enough odds and ends to make it work. I will not be able to take all my "junk" with me next Saturday, so I cut out already some ribbon. Later in October I will teach a workshop making a crazy quilt block at Buckhorn, and this same block will come handy for that. Now back to an oldie. This wall hanging was made about 10 years ago. I had ordered a lot of different colors of 1-1/2 inch shaded wired ribbon; some I had used for other projects, but there was still a lot left -- enough to make this quilt. The bushel basket and leaves are hand appliqued. The flowers are all made with the ribbon, but they are twisted and sewn different ways. The centers are either made with lots of small beads or French knots.

I made these centers with black fabric in a hoop. When done I would cut it out with a seam allowance, which would be folded around a few pieces of quilt batting and sewn down with big stitches. The last step would be to sew it in the center of the flowers. That gives it a somewhat puffy look.All the beading was a lot of work, but very relaxing. The border was done with reverse applique. I had another border first, but it just did not do it for me. Finally I ripped it out and did it this way. And it does look much better.

It might be a week and a half before you will hear from me again. Next week will be very busy: first my trip to the Trent Valley Quilters Guild, then our monthly guild meeting, then we have to get the barn ready for the chicks we are getting on Friday (yes I do have to do some work around here!), then Saturday to the museum. Sunday we can expect Jenny and Tony here for the day.

The harvest is about ready to start. Next week Laurence will start with the white beans and that will be followed by the soybeans and then the corn. All we need is some good weather!