Happy Thanksgiving and Lots of Sewing

Greetings on this Thanksgiving Day in Canada. It is a very cool day here. Fall has certainly arrived. We had our dinner yesterday for those of the family that could be here. We really did miss having Kendra who is currently in South Africa.

It seems impossible that it is already 5 years ago that we moved into this house. Time certainly does not stand still.

We have an old pear tree on the farm. It has been a real challenge to get the pears off of it this year. Usually Kendra and I would help my husband to pick them, sometimes in some rather unsafe ways. That is the way it is when you have only one or two fruit trees that were planted years ago. Now people often plant trees that are easy to pick the fruit from. Ladders are often not needed.I think we have about two bushels of fruit and there is probably another 6-quart basket there on the top branches. It will take a couple weeks for the fruit to ripen. Then I will be busy canning them or making a couple desserts or maybe some jam.

During the last few weeks I have been taking an on-line applique course. I am finding it is not as impossible as I thought for so many years. I have finished the first block but am behind in getting the 2nd and 3rd ones done. I will have to get working on that this week. I think there is only one more lesson left.

Early in September the quilting group I belong to in a nearby town displayed some of our quilts at their local fall fair. I took my blue and white Sylvia's Bridal Sampler block swap Quilt plus some small wall hangings . It was nice to let people see what we work on. The blocks in the centre of my quilt were made by quilters around the world. The blocks in the border I made plus I also included the ones I made in the centre. We also received signature blocks from some people which I supplemented with some I made and then pieced into the Disappearing Nine Patch Pattern for the back of the quilt.

It has been a while since I last blogged because I am not confident about loading photos. Today I have some help with that so hopefully that will work when I get to that.

I finished Gail Pan's Christmas Greetings stitcheries for a wall hanging. Hopefully I will soon get working on sashing it so it can be ready for Christmas.

Last week I sent the 30's repros spool blocks to our hostess to swap. I had never worked with 30's fabrics before and it was quite a challenge to find fabrics without going on line. It was fun to work with them and I really look forward to receiving blocks in return. The 10 on the left are ones I sent for the swap and the 3 on the right are ones made of vintage fabrics.

I received Cracker Blocks a couple weeks ago. They were so lovely and I look forward to putting them together. They will make a lovely quilt and I thank all the participants for their beautiful blocks.

This week I am working on finishing red, green , and tan Sarah's Choice blocks for a swap. I wasn't really going to do this swap but the red and green was calling me and I had all the fabric I needed for this so why not go for it. It has been a challenge getting the blocks perfect enough for swapping.

Soon I will be spending some time raking leaves outside as we have 5 maple trees on our lot and they produce a lot of leaves -usually about 40 leaf bags. That is a lot of raking but they have to come off the lawn before the snow comes.

I hope I can blog sooner next time so the blog won't become so long. Congratulations if you made it reading this far.

Happy Stitching!

Karen

Round Robins and Cracker Blocks

This week continued to be busy - more to do than time to get it done. I guess that is better than to be bored. Honestly I cannot remember ever being bored. I truly believe if if you enjoy needle work you never get bored because there is always something to work on or want to do.

This week I finished the Round Robin for Carol and mailed it. I can't show you a picture of it until she gets it. I do think it turned out very nice. Because I mailed Carol's RR, I now opened my RR which came from Cindy and OH my, the borders that Carol and Cindy added are wonderful and really are in tune with the spirit of the centre block. Many thanks to you, girls. I had made the centre block for a competition 3 years ago.

I have been working on the Friendship Cracker blocks for a swap. They are all sewn but need to be labeled and pressed. I hope the girls will like flowers because that is what they are getting from me.

Because of the time of the year there are vegetables available to put away for the winter. One day I blanched corn and did up 29 little bags for the freezer and the next day I did up 17 bags of beans. I really should try to get some more beans. In the next week or two I will get some peaches to can. I don't do near the amount of canning and freezing that I did when the children were young and I often had a few extras at the table that were there to help with the farm work.

I have a few stitching projects that need to be finished this week. That is what I will work on first then my choices of stitching will be what ever my heart desires to do for a little while.

Happy stitching!

Karen

Busy Week

Greetings everyone,

Well, summer has finally stayed for a few days. It has been hot this week but good to have some heat otherwise it just won't feel right when the fall weather starts. We are very much in tune with four distinct seasons in this part of the world and if something interupts that pattern it just doesn't sit right. We may complain about the heat but we also complain when we don't have it .

This week I have spent only a little time in my sewing room -did a little organizing of projects on the go, making some lists of things I will need, and working on a Round Robin. Yes ,Carol, I am working on it. I hope it will go together smoothly. I also finished the second block of Veranda Views from Willowberry Designs. Embroidery I can do when I don't have to use my brain a whole lot. Even the thread colours are already chosen. There is always something to work on.

I also spent some time in my kitchen this week putting away vegetables. I got some beans and cucumbers from a Old Order Mennonite woman who lives a few miles from here. So I canned the beans to use in soup or bean salad or just as a hot vegetable. I also made a big jar of garlic dill beans for the fridge to use now. The cukes got made into bread and butter pickles, you guessed it, for sandwiches and the smaller ones I made into dill pickles. Everything looks good. I got it done but it took longer than usual.

My mother broke her wrist a week ago so I have had to go visit her some this week too. It is a 45 minute drive to see her. Along the highway are many pails of flowers, mostly glads, and some little stands of vegetables for sale. I stopped for some glads for her and some for me. They were just beginning to open when I bought them (3 stems for $1). Now they are just gorgeous.And the colours - so rich. Sometimes I look at colours in nature to get my inspiration for colour combinations in patchwork.

My daughter arrived in Johannesburg, SA this morning. She was very tired but happy to finally be there. I will try to get a link to her blog on here so you can follow what she is up to in SA if you wish. While she was flying over the Atlantic Ocean, I was busy baking a Blueberry cake that had rind of an orange from South Africa. Wow, does it ever have a orange taste to it. So good.

Now I will see if I can get some photos loaded in here. My oldest daughter is here yet for a couple hours and plans to help me. So, until next time, happy stitching.

Welcome to my Blog!

Hi, This is my first post to blogger. I will try to share my quilting journey with you. My daughter who is my source of technical information is leaving for South Africa tomorrow via USA. So I hope I can manage to do this. I am posting a couple photos of recent finishes. This is a wall hanging for my best friend for her 60th birthday. It is made of blocks from Sylvia's Bridal Sampler by Jennifer Chiaverini. The blocks I chose for this quilt were ones I did for a red and white SBS swap ( only in teal and beige ), blocks with 4-patches and 9-patches as my friend likes those blocks so much and a few others that I like.
The second photo is my version of Noah's Ark designed by Lynette Anderson. My borders are a little wider than the pattern so I had to add a few extra strips to make everything fit.
Besides patchwork which I have been doing for a number of years, I have been doing a fair bit of hand embroidery this past year.
I usually have a number of projects on the go at a time. I don't get bored but on the other hand it takes longer to get a project finished.

Happy stitching!!