African quilt

Just over a week ago I took this small quilt to our guild. My idea was to show it and see if there would be any interest in making another quilt for the Mennonite Relief Sale.
It always helps to have something to show.
I think there will be another quilt.
About 50 hands went up. We will not start this project till the fall, but at least I know, that I better get my act together and come up with a more concrete plan.
This small quilt will be, once cut back 16 by 20 inches, The final quilt will consist of small quilts, sewn together with the quilt as you go method.At least that's the idea for now.
The small batik pieces I found in a craft boutique in Nairobi. They were stuck to a  piece of paper and sold as cards.

This necklace I received from one of the Massaai ladies, when we were up in the hills. When I went through my pictures I even have a picture of one of the ladies holding it in her hand.
 The 2 border pieces come from a large piece of fabric I was given. Since the border should be around 3 inches, it was the perfect size and color.







The necklace on the left I bought at the same place, where I got the other one. Wherever we went, the woman would put a cloth on the ground and on that display their ware. Some of the beadwork was incredible.
And their hands were never idle. While talking and listening they would be working on their beadwork.
The buttons at the bottom are bone buttons I had bought a few years ago.
They were just what was needed to finish this project.




Now it is back to making things for the grandkids. Evelyn's birthday is coming up and she can use a small fabric book, Jonas was in need of more bibs. I had made one of these touchy-feely quilts for Evelyn and now there was a request from Jeanette. It took me longer to find the blocks I had cut out already than to make it. It has been put in the washer and gone through the dryer, so I know it will be able to stand the use/misuse it will get.
We finally have a sunny day. Here it is almost May and none of the crops have been planted yet. It looked like the coming week might be different, but the forecast now shows showers/rain for the forseeable future.
I did get some of the flowerbeds cleaned up. Most of the plants seem to have made it through the winter and it looks like I will not have to get too many new plants.

Weather woes

We have had a different week behind us.
Last Wednesday I left for Toronto early in the afternoon. I do not like driving in the city, but I was invited to give a trunkshow at the Yorkshire Rose Quilters Guild.
The ladies were very accomodating and told me to come early, so I would miss rush hour. I arrived in the city during a downpour, but did manage to find the right address. Margaret, born in Friesland, and I got along great. She even drove my car to the church, where there was a parking space right in front of the Danfort Mennonite Church. Moving my things inside was easy. Afterwards I followed Anne through a large part of Toronto.
After a good night I left with only a dusting of snow. That got worse as soon as I was on the road.
I did make it home through snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice pellets and yes even some sun.
Was I ever glad to be home!
At bed time the weather did not seem to be too bad. When we woke up at 4 in the morning the power was of. That means a quick trip to the barn to check on the generator. And ....everything was covered with ice. Yes, that is an orchid in front of the window. Not much to see.
Laurence did make it back.When we got up at 7 the power was still out and there was still more ice. Time to put the generator at home on. For years the barns would have power during an outing, but never the house. When we moved here I was sure to get it set up for a generator. After we had one, it promptly got stolen ,when Laurence took it to start the combine.

But the one we have here now needs a tractor with loader to move.
And that was our live for the next few days. Laurence was kept busy moving fuel. By Friday afternoon the ice was gone, but it took till Monday afternoon to get power again. It had hit a very large arrea and a lot of hydro poles had broken.
We managed just fine. The generator cannot handle the heating system so even with the fireplace and a small heater it was a tad on the cold side. But you can always add an extra jacket.




But it did run the sewing machine.
Tomorrow at our guild meeting I want to introduce a new project I have in mind. For this I wanted a make a small quilt out of my African fabrics.
The 3 small batiks I found on our last day in Nairobi. They were pasted on a piece of paper and were sold as postcards. The buttons are made out of bone, the necklace out of beads and bone.
 Although the weather has improved, it still does not feel spring like.

Cherry blossoms

 I have been trying to get this done, but Blogger has changed again and I'm unable to do it the way I want to.
So this time it will be short and sweet.
The top of this wall hanging is finished. It started with a panel . Since the kimono had small cherry blossoms I decided to bring these out in the border.
I used a creamy sashiko thread. The high lights are a overdyed pearl cotton .When I started I had no idea how much it would take, but I did have enough, but just barely
There was about 4 inches left!
One of these years I will learn to figure things out before starting a project.


The next step will be the  machine quilting, but that will have to wait till my shoulder feels better.
Last week I had a very good time at the guild in Dunnville. I was looking forward to it so much, that I managed to show up a day to early. I felt awfully stupid. This has never happened in all of my almost 20 years of teaching.
But ....I stayed at Jeanette's place and so I could enjoy our grandson one extra day. The trunk show went well and we had a lot of fun during the workshop.
Now it is tomorrow to the Yorkshire Rose Guild in Toronto for a trunk show.
 Just before Christmas this cactus was in full bloom. Once finished it ended upstairs in a window, where it was promtly forgotten. Once in a long while I would water it.
To my surprise buds appeared a few weeks ago and now it is in full bloom. I guess they thrive on neglect.
Almost all the snow has gone and now I can see how much work the flowerbeds need.
As soon as the weather will warm up, I will spend my time outside.
Waiting for that I have started another project, more about that the next time.

Some more sashiko

We have had a very busy week. Shawn and Emily took some  holidays  and we looked after Evelyn for a few days. She is almost 11 months and she is a very busy girl. Since this is our oldest grandchild it is a new experience for us. But by now she has us well trained.
Here she is wearing a pullover , that was knitted by my aunt Ietje in Holland. She made it for Jeanette, when she was a baby. I had kept it in the cedar chest and it came out as new. Now Evelyn is wearing something her great, great aunt knitted.
And yes, we were very tired once she left us.



I have been working on a few small sashiko projects. One workshop I have shows a sashiko border around a panel.
I wanted a few more samples and the first one was this small cloth, used to wrap a present. It shows a bridge with blooming cherry trees.






I added sashiko cherry blossoms to the top and bottom and finished this piece of with a simple pillow style back. It will not get any quilting.








This kimono panel I found in some fabric I received. On the kimono are branches with cherry blossoms.
I planned a border with similar branches with cherry blossoms.
 First I put freezer paper to the size I wanted the border to be.
Next I drew the branches and some of the leaves with pencil.
I was not sure where I wanted the flowers and the easiest for me was to draw a bunch of blooms, cut the out and start putting them on the freezer paper.




These flowers I drew with a heavy magic marker. Once the pattern is finished I will put it on my light table. By making the lines heavy I can see them through my dark blue border fabric and it is easy to draw them with a white pencil or pen. .
I'm almost done and so far my shoulder is o.k. I do take my time though

 

Sewing Day #2

Last week I showed you what we did on our first day. This time Tamara and her daughter Margareth joined us for the day.
The project this time was I Spy quilts. Over the years I have collected prints, from boats to lions to houses to bugs. Earlier in the year I conviced Laurence to help me cut up these fabrics in 5 inch squares and 21/2 inch strips.
Since he was at the cutting anyway we made enough squares for 8 quilts.
Jenny tackled the strips, the rest used squares.
Under the supervision of Jonas and Evelyn we did get a lot done.
Since I take a break from sewing, my job was to keep everybody fed and watered.


At the end of the day the quilt tops were taking shape.
Some will go to the Relief Sale we hope and some will be Smile Quilts to give to children in the hospital.




This is Jeanette's quilt, all ready to be quilted .Both this one and Emily's are being machine quilted as we speak.
The other 2 tops are also ready to go, but will be hand quilted. Margareth's will be hand quilted this coming week and if all works out, it will still make it for this year's Relief Sale.

This has been a fun project. I got to have family and friends here without having to do any sewing.
I'm finally working on some sashiko again. Once I have finished this project I might feel ready to tackle my botanical applique again.
This has been a busy week with our guild meeting on Wednesday and a visit to Toronto to Canada Blooms yesterday.
I love to see all the new plants for the coming year and as always the arrangements are gorgeous.
I did come home with a new helleboris and as soon as the snow is gone it will be planted in a special spot. I also came home with a few new bulbs. '
But looking outside I might be a while yet, before I can start digging. There is still a fair amount of snow on the ground.

Spring is coming

 Inside the flowers are in full bloom,but outside it is cold and snowy, so how do I know, that spring is near?
This morning I got THE call. Our jugs have been filled with fresh maple syrup and we can pick them up.
Laurence will be thrilled. We have been out for a few months. I dropped a large container. Not a good idea! It makes an awful mess to clean up.
Most of my ammarilis bulbs  have finished blooming, but my orchids are doing great.




This winter we had a new visitor at the bird feeder. It is a red bellied woodpecker, a bird I had never seen before. It took a while before she( I think that what it is) was comfortable enough to go to the suet ,but once she had a taste, she was back often.








I'm back to some applique, but this time I try to be smart and do a little at a time. Not being able to do as much as I wanted made for a long winter. Jenny had asked about rag quilts and we decided to
get to gether for a sewing day.
Jenny has done some sewing, even made a quilt, but Emily was new. For somebody to learn about sewing making a rag quilt is a good excercise. While they sewed I looked after the kids. Since at that time they were not mobile yet, it was easy.



At the end of the day they were ready to snip the seams. Both quilts turned out great and are in use all the time.
More next week about our second sewing day.

Let's start again!

 It has been a few months and still I'm not back to doing any applique. I'm still seeing my physiotherapist weekly and I'm faithfully doing my exercises. But the clean sewing room is getting to me.

I did have the orchids to spend some time with and this one was the first  to bloom.

I have never been good at sitting around and if I could not work on some applique, maybe there was something else I could do. The word rag quilt came up and that's all I needed. Next time pictures of our first sewing day.

Over the next few days I'm planning to add a few more workshops to my list and also add some more quilts to my web site. And I will update my itinerary for the coming months. And I will try and be blogging more regular, as I have something to share.

I love amaryllis and try and save my bulbs from year to year. Sometimes I'm success full, other years not. This one has 6 flowers on one stem and 4 on the other.

It is worth the time it takes to get them from year to year. Last year I kept some of the small bulblets and they are doing well, but will not be blooming for a few years. It is not exactly a fast project.

The orchid is one of my oldest and is a pretty yellow.

Here are Jonas and Evelyn with the ragquilts their moms made for them.

Taking a break.

This blog is supposed to be all about my journey into the quilt world. What I have done, where I have been ,and what my new ideas are.
But lately nothing has happened.
This spring I took a break when I had shoulder problems. After a few months of therapy I felt much better and was able to finish some projects and I even started blocks for a new quilt. I tried to be careful and even timed myself, but slowly the pain came back.
I have been back in therapy for a few weeks now, but the pain is still there. It is the same shoulder, but not the same problem. Anyway, I will take another, hopefully, short break.
My sewing room has never been so clean!
I know, that as I will feel better, new ideas will come and I will be able to continue this blog.
Till then I will take another break.

It's a boy!

Jonas Emanuel Ngo, our first grand son, was born October 19th .Both mother and son are doing well. I have been spending most of my time at their place for the last few weeks.
First I stayed with Jeanette, while Tony had to be away for work. I did make it home for our first guild meeting, but I was barely home 5 minutes from the meeting and the phone rang. She was on her way to the hospital. 2 days later Jonas, all of 8 lbs, 6 oz was born. Jeanette needed surgery and that's the reason I have been there.Next week Tony will be back to work and I will be staying with her. The not being able to lift thing is the hard part.

Today I had a visit from our grand daughter, who is by now almost 6 months old. It is amazing how much babies change in just a few months. I made a touchy-feely quilt for Evelyn with corduroy,velvet, terry cloth, fake leather and a few other things. My plan was to make it bigger, but than it would be hard to carry around for a small child. With some ribbons and lace it should keep her happy.

Now that she has 2 teeth it is time for bibs. This is the first try and seems to fit very well. Notice the cute John Deere fabric with pink flowers! the back is terry cloth. Next step will be to make as many as I can get out of 1 meter of fabric. She can share some of them with her cousin Grace, who is almost the same age.
Now some not so good news. My shoulder has been causing a lot of problems, again. This spring, after all the physio therapy things went very well. It was back to some applique and I thought, that I took it easy. But slowly it got worse again and now it is the same or maybe even worse than it was before. So it will be back for therapy.
I'm almost finished with a small landscape I want to use for my landscape workshops and that will be it for a while. no more block of the month.

Not crazy anymore

 

 I have been working on this block for a long time. I get all enthusiastic about a new block and then  there comes a point, where I'm out of ideas and I have to put it away. That's what happened here. Since this is the month to get things finished I picked it up again and continued the embroidery. The border will be a dark brown velvet, what I managed to find at a Fabricland. I also like to put a few more lace pieces on the border and maybe do some more bead work. But for now it will hang on my design wall. I like to have a good look and see if I can improve on it.

 By now I have used almost all of the lace corner pieces and cigarette silks I received from my English friend Janet. They added a lot to this block and the one on the Memories quilt.

The baby quilt for Jeanette and Tony has been bound and as of Sunday delivered. And it is nicely in time. The baby is due to arrive in the next few weeks. When I went to Greenwood Quiltery to look for a fabric to go with the blues I had a tough time. This lime green was one of the choices, but not my first choice. The more I looked at the combination though the better I liked it. And I'm glad I choose this piece. It makes for a bright combination . And it has Jeanette's stamp of approval.Our tastes are often not the same, but this one scored a home run.

The nice weather seems to be over for now. Today we had rain,even some hail. This is what it looked like outside the kitchen window at 6 o'clock tonight. I love the sun shining over the corn. I though we would be finished with the harvest for a few days, but at supper time it was announced, that the corn harvest will start tomorrow, weather permitting, so it will be back to cooking and baking!

Finally, I seem to have figured it out, maybe!

 When I went to Blogger last week, I noticed that everything had been changed again. I was told, that it was for my best interest and that it all would be much easier. Well, not for me. Whatever I tried, I could not get the pictures uploaded. Tonight  I gave it one more try and up to now it worked. Don't ask me what I did. I might not be able to do it again, but for now here I am.
I have decided , that October will be a month to finish some projects and to start a new pattern for my landscape workshop. First one up was to change the binding on this crazy quilt.

 I would like to enter it in a show, but the size was not right.All it needed was a little extra on 2 sides. I took the binding of and replaced it with a split binding with ruffled lace in between. I also rounded the corners. The binding was hard to sew on. With the lace and the 4 layers of the quilt it got to be very thick. But I did manage. The sleeve has also been replaced. I have to say, it looks better. and I'm glad I put the extra effort into it.

 It has been 2 weeks since I went up to teach in Buckhorn and Brighton. I had a very good time and I think that the workshops went well. I find ,that quite often, quilters are also gardeners. I know, we just planted an oak tree, but I always wanted to start my own tree. At my first stop I collected some acorns and after I came home ,planted them  and then covered them with chicken wire, just so the squirrels  cannot get at them. Bogey also gave me 3 small chestnut trees. One had been planted , one will stay in the pot and one I gave away. And the last evening at Carol I could dig up some Russian Sage, also planted and looking good.

 Sunday I finally made it to the orchid show in Cambridge. It was a wonderful show was an unbelievable display of flowering orchids. My questions were answered by some very friendly members of the society. I behaved well and came home with only 2 new plants , some pots and soil. Finally I was told, how to prevent creepy crawlies to come in with the orchids. Monday morning I lined all 25 up , gave them a bath in a soap solution , sprayed them  and once dry, took them inside. And yes, I have just enough room to put them all in front of a window. The first ones have new flower shoots coming up already, but it will be at least a few months before anything will be in bloom.

Outside it looks like fall and most of my plants do not look very good. But the roses are still hanging in there. I love the combination of yellow and pink. They brighten up a whole room.

Article

A few weeks ago I received the latest copy of the Canadian Quilter. And there I was ,looking right at my self. I knew that there would be an article and I had been asked to send in some pictures of quilts. I decided to send some of the ones I never have entered in shows It also has the speech I gave while accepting my "Canadian Teacher of the Year " award. I did not like that at all. I can talk, but I'm not a writer. Behind the magazine you see a small piece of applique I have been working on.This was last month's block, from my self imposed block of the month project. Yesterday we started with the soybean harvest. It was a beautiful day, better then today. We had lots of rain with more in the forecast. These flowers I only know by the name "naked Ladies" Thye are different. Early in the spring the leaves pop out of the ground. Then everything disappears and about mid September the flowers show up till frost. They give some welcome color to the fall garden. When we moved here not quite 4 years ago I planted a Mountain Ash. But that was not very successful . The tree did very poorly and in the summer we pulled the tree out. And the hole was still there. That is till last Saturday. It seems like I do my gardening early in the year, then do less during the hottest part of the year, but as soon as we have cooler days I'm back at it. We decided we wanted an oak tree. Last Friday I went to a plant sale in Moorefield and picked up some perenials and a small Catalpa tree. It is a fast grower and for me it was just right. But when I came home hubby was not a happy camper. He did help me digging the holes for my plants ( the 2 I wanted ended up in 4 times as many!) And I was back on my way to the tree farm near Yatton. It is a beautriful place with hundreds or more likely thousands of trees . I found my oak tree, but did not think I could take it home with the truck ( it is over 5 meters) We went back on Saturday and did manage to bring it back. The hole was ready and with lots of pulling and pushing we did get it in the hole. Just in time. Once the stakes were in, a heavy rain came down. And my pride and joy in the front of the house! This elephant ear started as a very small bulb this spring. It was one of the small bulblets from last year's plant. I potted it up in mid March and planted it in this spot at the end of May. The shrub that was there was not doing well and I put this plant there for this year, till I know what I want to replace it with. Next week will be busy for me. Monday morning at 9.30 I will give a trunk show at the Busy Hands Quilters Guild in CAmbridge. Then on Wednesday I will drive up to Buckhorn, where I will teach my landscape workshop for the Buckhorn Quilters Guild Then it is on to Trenton, where I will teach the same workshop for the Trent Valley Quilters Guild on Friday. Then it will be back home.