Flying Geese Space To Home

   As the saying goes, it's always great to get away but even better to get home. These past months, we've traveled through space, the final frontier, but even better the finality is here. Thank you to all of you who made the trek .

   How many of you have problems with flying geese like I do? Jacquelynne Steves from The Art of Home has created another technique to make flying geese.

   Yeah, we are at the halfway point of Splendid Sampler II's free blocks. Block 10, Around Four Corners, by RachaelDaisy of Blue Mountain Daisy. Rachael has a very clever way to make the four circles. I'm in awe at how easy it is.

The decorative stitches were stitched using two 50wt threads, yellow variegated  and orange, through one 90 needle. If the thread keeps breaking then use a 100 needle and or adjust your tension. I threaded one thread on each side of the first loop (very left side where the thread goes to that then runs along the top of the machine) then threaded machine as usual.

Remember to change the sewing feet before stitching.

The decorative stitching all continuous. I started where two circles meet and went around each, then regular stitched to the next circle along the edge and decorative stitched around the two circles in a figure 8 path.

   Training is coming along. It's so smoky here that we can't go outside and there aren't any birds to amuse me. Yawn.

Nahahi Ridge Space 12 Kitty

  Ah, a fabulous long weekend. Saturday a shop hop to Claresholm and Pincher Creek and lunch at Waterton in Waterton National Park.

Top: Prince of Wales hotel and cruising ship to Glacier National Park, Montana, USA.
Bottom: Glacier National Park, Montana, USA in the distance.

Autographed bilingual black bear and elk footprints in the walkway.

And another gorgeous day today eating lunch on top of Nahahi Ridge. Sun shining and breeze blowing.

The red circle is where we parked. 500m/1640 ft lower.

  Are you keeping up in the Splendid Sampler II program. This is the 8th free block, My Flock, by Brenda Ratliff. I love how the sides are uneven. You can even see my points because I took my time. 

  Last week I introduced you to Kitty. Well Kitty has a few things to say now. Mom says the medicine is finished. Hooray! My voice came back and we have had a few discussions. Mom reads to me every night while she scratches my head and massages me. I get half of the bed. 

She opens the patio door so I can snooze and stretch in the sun and the cool morning air. 

The best of all, I have claimed my own chair and quilt. Had to tell her to move the pillow and other blankets.

Ah the life of me.

  Space 12 on our way to Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Planet Nine. Pluto, the on again off again planet, now has been replaced by Planet Nine. So sad that Pluto is banished to the stars.

Two Sundays Mercury to Jupiter

Did anyone else notice that there were two Sundays and no Saturday last weekend? The first Sunday comes, I get up and do all my Sunday morning chores, ie change the sheets, do laundry, check the tv schedule to see if my two shows are repeats. What, they aren't on! Oh yeah, it's summer and they are on holidays. So downstairs to the sewing room I go. Tired of looking at the mess of fabric scraps piled up on the table,

I decide to make some Slab blocks, a block I learned from Cheryl Arkison,

20 blue slab blocks shown. From Cheryl Arkison  blog

Then there is the bin in the sewing room, on the shelf full of scraps that need to be sorted

by color into the smaller bins.

But, alas, it's time to go to High Tea at Reader Rock Garden with my sister. She answers the door in go out to work in the garden clothes. So I'm 20 minutes early. She shows me a quilt she just made using doilies made by grandma, mom and her. Gorgeous.

'So, are you going to get ready. ' I ask.

'What for?' she asks. 

'It's time to go for High Tea. '

'That's tomorrow on Sunday.'

'Today is Sunday.'

'Oh brother. See ya tomorrow.'

So back at home, feeling dumb and like it is still Sunday, shaking my head and still disbelieving it's Saturday, the sorting begins. 

Overflowing, before pic of inside small bins.

Now the small bin is all organized and only fat quarters and larger smaller pieces are neatly folded. The strips and odd squares, rectangles and whatever stuffed into a 13"x15" zip bag for a charity scrap quilt making person because, let's get real, I'm never going to make that slab block quilt. The yardage that was in the bins got wrapped around the Original Mini Bolt Centers. Even had room to pull small pieces from the yardage shelves to fill the small bin. 

Now the second Sunday is here. Chores were done yesterday. Relax and watch the Sunday morning show, do some piecing then off to High Tea with my sister at Reader Rock Garden near downtown Calgary. 

Reader Rock Garden is a hidden gem in Calgary. You park at the bottom and walk up to the restored home of William Reader for High Tea. You must go more than once a year as different flowers are in bloom at different times.

High Tea was excellent. Even had a snapdragon in my lemonade.

Sister and lemonade

Did anyone see '60 Minutes' Hubble Telescope Space segment? It was exciting as to what upgrades they have done to Hubble so that more galaxys and stars trillions of light years away are seen. And what was even more exciting, was that when they were talking about some of the stars and galaxys in space I actually understood them because of the space info learned. How cool is that? 

This week we are travelling from Mercury to Jupiter.

Happy travels!

Calgary Stampede Space 10

Howdy and Yahoo! It's that time of year in Calgary. It's Stampede time, where everyone dresses western and parties for 10 days.

This is my fourth year serving a free breakfast of pancakes and sausages and juice for 8 mornings at various malls around the city. I'm over in the kids area where you can make your own rope, rope wooden steers, ride real ponies and pet the barn animals in the petting zoo. If you are in the Calgary area be sure to come for breakfast. Family day was on Sunday at the Stampede grounds. We served about 20,000 people from 8-11 am. Always very interesting.

Afterwards, I love walking through the barns, especially where the heavy horses, draft horses are. I had a chance to see some of the competition. This video is the Unicorn competition. One horse is in front and then two wheel horses behind the lead horse. The lead horse is usually the showboat and pays attention to what is happening ahead of them, ears a almost always forward. The wheel horses, because they are directly in front of the wagon, listen to the driver, ears are back, and do most of the pulling. All three hitches are pulled by Clydesdales. I love the hair, what they call feathers, around their feet. Also on Youtube here. Stampede is streaming live as well.

During Space Block 10 we are travelling to the Moon to see if there is a man in the moon and if it is really made of cheese.

Have a great week and see y'all Thursday for Splendid Sampler's 5th free block.

Spring Flowers Space 8

Rain rain please stay another day. Even though we had at least 6 feet of snow this winter, it is so dry. You can hear the crispy field and mountain grasses under foot. This year, our snow was what you call light and fluffy, not the heavy wet. A foot of the light snow is only 1" rain. This was all great but when it disappeared it either evaporated with the wind or went into the rivers instead of soaking into the ground because one day it was winter the next day was summer. So Spring is now happening in the garden. 

Spring is also happening in the sewing room. Way back we mentioned that I have a block in the Splendid Sampler II. Only 3 more sleeps before the program begins June 14, 2018. As with the Splendid Sampler I the blocks run the whole gamut: piecing, applique, paper piecing, embroidery. This week I've been working on the upcoming blocks. Most of them have been applique, a nemesis of mine. But like the 150 Canadian Women quilt perseverance and determination and small surprises are moving me along. I have been experimenting with the stitches on my machine. Got tired of doing the blanket stitch and found out that the daisy stitch was excellent for the small piece. Plus, all the stitching could be done in one round. Woohoo!

Another piece was to be hand embroidered. Instead it was done freehand, just like quilting it, using Wonderfil's Frutti, variegated, in a 90/14 needle and voila, hand embroidery on the machine. Woohoo again! The stems and leaves are satin stitched with Konfetti. 

This week our Space program travels around the Comets. It was hairy a few times when trying to miss the comet tails. Whew, we made it.

Winning can sometimes be as simple as completing one seam.

Enjoy!

Space 7 Last minute quilting

Nothing like leaving the making of a quilt until the last minute! As most of you know I am a White Hatter at YYC. If you have flown through Calgary you may have seen us there. 

Last fall I met a very wonderful young man, who is a Curbside Ambassador at YYC. Well we got to chatting about going to school here and then becoming a Canadian. He studied engineering and then was laid off during the downturn in Alberta and had applied to become a policeman. Before going away on business I learned they are having a baby in August. So, I figure there is plenty of time to make a baby quilt for them, right? Not. Last Friday he tells me he was accepted to police school and his last day is June 2. What! 

What kind of quilt design does one make in a hurry? A disappearing 9-patch of course. I managed to get the top done yesterday and drop off the quilt this morning, Monday, with Deb from Loopy D's. Deb graciously accepted to quilt the quilt. I have such awesome quilters in my area.

This is the quilt top. The binding will be a stripe of primary colours.

The background was going to be white with tiny primary coloured squares but I thought this gray with hearts would be an unexpected interesting background. It turned out wonderfully.

For those of you travelling around in space, block 7, Meteor, is now available.

Enjoy and happy quilting! 

Asteroids space 6 may 15

Spent a few days in paradise, sewing room, working on some secret blocks for the sunny side up (yellow) quilt.

Elaine, from the Crazy Quilter on a Bike, found this article on convenience by Tim Wu, Columbia law professor. For me when it comes to convenience sometimes I think of it as being 'I want it done now'. Many times I've said 'if only I could twitch my nose and have it done, not now but right now'. Tim writes that we need to embrace inconvenience, such as hobbies. Hobbies define us and give us character. They give us time back, expose us to frustration and failure and teach us about us. "We must never forget the joy of doing something slow and something difficult, the satisfaction of not doing what is easiest." On that point I say go piece that one block that you've been dreading and looks extremely hard. You may find it easier that you think. (When in doubt have a glass of wine.)

Space block 6 is up. Did you know that what I thought was a meteor might actually be a comet or asteroid? Who da thought!

Spring Happy Space 5

Hooray, Spring is finally here! It was surprising and wonderful to come home from a green grass and trees in leaf place to no snow, lake ice melted and seeing green grass under the last year's grass. I keep saying that I'm going to green turf the front yard so it's green all year round. Just think I'll have the greenest yard in the hood and no mowing.

This week we are in the throngs of getting ready for the Fibre Arts and Quilt Show in Claresholm this Saturday. If you're in the area come on down and see me. They are asking if at all possible to make this block to enter into the quilt raffle. Click here for info then scroll down to March 29.

Has anyone read this book, Solve For Happy, by Mo Gawdat, engineer and Chief Business Officer for Google X. I was intrigued, how can engineering be applied to happiness? I've only read 100 pages so far and it is very thought provoking. It's very interesting to see how a logical mind, as in engineering, mathematical, computer, relates to happiness. Page 50, The Voice is Not You, is ... Really? Hummmm?

Space 5, the final frontier and right through the Black Hole is up and ready.

The little voice in your head is not you. Mo Gawdat

Fabric Organization - Space 4

Like me do you spend a lot of time searching for a fabric that you know you have. I also spend a lot of time searching for a certain length of fabric. Frustration. Then when pulling fabric from the shelf sometimes others come out as well because I didn't use a long ruler to separate the fabric on top and bottom of the wanted piece. So now it's in a pile on the floor. And does it get put back properly? Maybe.

This will be the umpteenth organization. Many years ago the fabric was on cardboards, but, there was no consistency in cardboard width. Some are thick; some are thin. And I the fabric reproduced somehow. 😇Then, it went to being folded and put into bins, but, the bins were not square and there was wasted property between the bins. And on, and on until lastly, it was refolded using a 9 1/2" ruler and laid flat, but, hard to see the fabric and if at the bottom of the pile then too hard to pull out. 😣 The plan is to have the fabric go from this 

This is only one shelf unit

to this

It seems like it will take forever to redo, but, it will definitely be better in the long run. I'm using the Original Mini Bolts for the centers. They are 7 1/2" x 11 3/4" white plastic. Since the fabric has to be laid out before rolling onto the Mini Bolt, I'm measuring the yardage at the same time, then rolling the fabric on the mini bolt and putting a label on the top with the yardage written on it.  

For all you Space junkies, block 4 is up. We are travelling through the Milky Way. 
Enjoy!