Retreat is Over

I got back from retreat today. I have sent my afternoon unpacking and visiting with my family. I hope to share my photos on Monday. I got lots done. Must get to bed.

2nd Brown Scrap Saturday

I am at retreat this weekend with my Aunt Arley and Mom. I have this brown quilt to share with you. My mom, Betty and my aunt, Myrna made this quilt top and I did the machine quilting. It is a granny square quilt. It is big something like 86" square.  As this month Scrap Saturday is Brown, I thought it was a good time to show you this beauty. The quilt has been donated to be raffled off this year. The Little Red Deer School (now a community hall ) needs a new roof. Our hope is the ladies of the local WI sell enough tickets that it covers the cost of the new roof. They are selling 400 tickets for $20 each. Just so you know I can not mail out tickets outside of Alberta.

The three of us ladies made the quilt as a thank you for the years my Dad and his brothers went to the one room school. My dad rode a horse to the school, up hill both ways you know. His banana and peanut butter sandwiches were frozen still at lunch time.

Most of the fabrics are civil war reproduction fabrics.

I quilted it with feathers on all the squares.

You can go see what the other ladies are doing for Brown this month by checking out Soscrappy.

Scrap Sorting and Storage

I am away at retreat this weekend. I thought I would make a post ahead of time about What is a scrap to me, and How do I sort and store the scraps. I gave a talk in Sept to my quilt guild in Leduc and some members missed it.

I have two sizes of scraps. The top photo is the larger sized scraps. They tend to be smaller than a Fat Quarter but bigger than 8" square.  Sometimes they are the strip off a quilt backing, long and thin. I hate to cut these down too soon. If I need a group of strips and do not have enough then I go to this basket and cut these fabrics before I go to yardage.

I store these large scraps in a laundry basket. I like doing this because if I left these pieces with my yardage they get lost and very wrinkly. You can see I have them sorted by colour. It looks very tidy now.

This bin is not far from the cutting table. If I make a scrap I can place it here and sort it out later. If I am cutting and make lots of scrap of one colour it often goes in the colour box right a way, but if not here is sits for a few weeks. I have a few in here that do not have another home - novelty prints. I may need it's own box.

This shelf houses the boxes of colour sorted small scraps. There is a bag with plaids, but the rest is rainbow sorted. Red, pink, blue, purple, yellow, orange, and green ( lime and teals separated out) also Brown, Blacks,  and neutrals.

Here is the newly sorted brown box. I have packed it to take to retreat so it is in a box with a lid. When I go to use these scraps, I sometimes lay out the fabric.

Here are the little scraps laid out. On the far left is 1 1/2" strips, then 2" then the next four rows are different sizes that did not fit. Then on the right end are pieces that are large but smaller then 8" square. The top right is chunks that are pieced some. Great start to something. The small squares and rectangles, then on far right is the triangles. Many are the end of bindings from joining then.

I am thinking of doing a scrap sew a long hosted by Ellison Lane. The first step is to sort my scraps by colour families. I have done that. On Tuesday this week, she showed us what to do with our scraps. Improve Log cabin blocks. I have taken some with me to retreat. We will see how far I get.

Retreat Packed

Heading out to retreat. Got it packed, three times more stuff than what I will work on. Leaving husband and kids home to care for the dog and horses. I have made a good post tomorrow on my fabric storage and scraps. I hope you check in on it.
Cathy

WIP Wednesday

Works In Progress Wednesday. It is a prefect fit for today. I am packing for a retreat this weekend. I have added this post to The Needle and Thread Network Blog and Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.

First is Adam's plaid quilt. I started it last winter and thought Adam and I would do it together, but he want just me to work on it now that all the fabric and the pattern is picked. I worked on it just a little so far.

All the cutting is done and now I need to sew lots of strip sets. A very good job for retreat. I will bring it home to put together on the design wall. I am sure there will not be room for a design wall at retreat.

Next up is Orca Bay. It is the mystery quilt of Bonnie Hunter's last Nov 2011. I hope to get the last few rows together and get most of the top done. The pattern is in her new Book String Fling.  Just a note she is doing another mystery this Nov again. I may have to do it again.

I have to make at least one table runner maybe three or four. So I am taking Christmas fabric with me. We will see if I get started. My family thinks I need to make a runner and mats for the table in a Christmas theme.  They like the pumpkin mats I made last week.

I am also thinking of a new project using my hand dyed fabric. This is just the blue, purple and green, I still have to dig out Pinks and oranges. You will have to wait to see what I do with this fabric.

Tuesday Workday

Tuesday is a workday around here. I quilted this sweet baby quilt for a customer today.

Here is a detail of the owl and the quilting. I stitched around his eyes and wings so he would not get too puffy. Spirals  were used around the background area. It is a great baby quilt.

Today is also my husbands Birthday. I asked what he would like for supper and he said pie. So I made pumpkin pie. I also made another big batch of pasta sauce as the tomatoes are ripening quickly now that they are in the house. The news says we are to get snow tonight, but it will melt.

My Bee group was planning to meet today but many canceled. Now our next meeting will be close to Christmas.

Design Wall Monday Oct 8th

Happy Holiday Monday - Thanksgivings 

My wall has some bits a pieces to the left side but what I want to show you is my third block of Grandmother's Choice. I have hand pieced the center but now need to put it on a background. I am not sure which one I should use.

I am also behind in GC. This is block 3 and I still have to do blocks 4 and 5. Maybe I can get together soon.

This is the fabric I was planning to use, but the large dots take over and the background is too powerful. This is now my least favorite of the blues.

I have a FQ of the solid blue. not bad.

The flower print was not planned for this quilt but I dug it out of the stash. It is a bit busy too.

I think I like this print the best. What do you think? I will not get it done today. Maybe Tuesday.
Taking photos and looking at them differently helps.

I have added today's post to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

My husband has been repairing siding. We had hail in July and found many dozens of holes and cracks in our siding. The new pieces are different so we are using the old siding off the back side of the garage and putting the new pieces on the garage. They all look a little different. What a job. Next time it happens we may need to replace all the siding. The siding is getting brittle.

Lex the Chessy is tied up outside as his run is taken apart because of the siding.

Sunday Thanksgiving

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving. I did not get to quilt today, so much to do with family and food. I have made tomato sauce with fresh garden tomatoes. The family eat Turkey but I can't eat it. So I make something else for dinner for me.

I hope to get a little sewing in holiday Monday. Hope you have all had a good weekend.

Scrap Saturday - Brown

We are moving to the dark side now. Here in the north that means less sun and more snow - Winter. In Florida it means you can go outside and not be too hot. I got a little hint at the beginning of the week that brown was our colour this month.

I did not think I had much brown, but I found lots to work with. Some are plaids, some or little bits off of bindings. Some are Orange Brown and some are Green Brown. I was busy working on finishing last weeks pumpkins and I did not sew any brown yet.

I found this block in my brown scraps. I think is was a block I made for a class demo some 15 years ago. Before Children.

This Block, I made last November when I joined up The Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012. It was the start of lots of Rainbow creations. I will do a second brown block for this quilt.

I will have to link up late on Saturday with Soscrappy, I am out the door early today. Mr Lex and I are going to an Agility Trial again today. I am to wear crazy pants but I do not have any.
Late day Edit. Lex and I passed two of four classes today in Agility. Very pleased with my boy. One of our classes was a steeplechase that is a Master type class.  It was the first time we passed that type of class. Lex and I are resting now.

Jack-O-Lantern Runner and Mats Finished

I have finished my pumpkins but made them Jack-O-Lanterns. My kids thought they should have faces. I kind of thought they were cute before I put on the faces. They will be ready for using this weekend for Canadian Thanksgivings.

When I started this last Saturday, I made six pumpkins, thinking I would make 6 mats. Then I thought maybe a runner would be nice too. We are a family of four, so four mats and one runner. The runner is totally done.

This mat is totally done. The other three mats still need binding. I will finish the other three tonight. If you want to know more about the piecing and how I did it please check my post Wednesday Pumpkin Mats How To. And  big thanks you to Vicky Welsh at Field Trips in Fiber, She has put a link in her newsletter to the tutorial.

I sewed the binding on with a zigzag stitch. I was not going to hand stitch and I am really rotten at the normal machine stitch the binding back. I have trouble getting the back caught. I think my problem is my bindings are tight, even to hand stitch ( mom complains about mine when I get her to hand stitch the bindings).

I machine quilting in many many spider webs into the background. The black faces are stitched with a ruff edge applique.

I have added today's post to Crazy Mom's Finish it up Fridays and Felicity Quilt's Friday Felicities Thanksgiving Edition and Naptime Crafter's Friday Favs Party 83 and Magic Onion's Friday's Nature's Table and Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Can I get a Whoop Whoop
OK I am being a link up junky this week. But there is so much to see on Fridays. It takes me all weekend to check them all out.