Canadian National Juried Quilt Show

I have just found out that they have posted the winners and photos of the winners in the CQA  National Juried Quilt Show (NJS) .

My quilt Bounce Ball is in the collection. Some of the other winners I have known for year so it is great to see what their quilts look like too.

I am waiting for my quilt to come home still. I got word that it is in the mail. Please come home safely.

Now to come up with a new quilt for the NJS 2013. It will be 25 years. The show will be in Penticton, BC May 16 to 18 2013. I think I might have to go to the show that year as it is in driving distance.

WIP Wednesday

Before I quilted the Pray Flag

Tonight is the Edmonton Guild year end dinner and raffle of the endowment fund Button and Bead goodys. I have donated a glass bead bracelet. I will be buying tickets for some of the other great donation. I hope to get some photos tonight of the Button and Bead creations.

I have finished this Pray Flag for a quilt friend. I hope that one of the members can take it to her. I have been working on my purple scraps this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012, and I know that the purple scraps will be well received by the quilter. At our last meeting we were asked to sign a flag for her but I wanted to make something better. I hope that it will let her know I am thinking of her. I like to call this scrap work Poverty Piecing. I have used some of the smallest possible pieces.

Machine quilting add to the Pray Flag

I have added this to Canadian Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday and Fresh Lemons WIP Wedensday.  There are many other sites to look at. I know I will have to look at more later today.

Customer's Flower Quilt

This is a hand appliquéd quilt by one on my customers. I think she got the pattern from a scrap book but I do not know which book. She tells me that she did not buy anything for this quilt. It was made from her stash only. I makes me think of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge I have been working on. This would make a great quilt for the challenge. I have added this post to Linky Party #18 over at Quilting by the River.

I have done leaves and loops by free hand in the background and the two boarders and then I have done echo quilting on the flower petals.

The yellow flower showed the thread lines some of the best. I changed thread colour to match the flower colour the best I could. Now back to work so more of my customers get their quilts back finished.

Hope you like my Bee Group Tuesday post. I try to post a quilt related project on Tuesday because my Bee Group has always met on Tuesdays every couple weeks. I think it has been more then 15 years now.

Design Wall Monday June 11

Sunday the weather was cold and rainy so, I sewed a good part of the day. I worked on my RRCB quilt. I now have six main blocks completely done and some of the string blocks sewn together.  I have added this post to Patchwork Times and Sew Happy Geek linky page. 

I also worked on more purple triangles. When will they end. I still have more of these to do. 

Friday last week I got to go the Central Alberta Quilt Guild Show. Also known as the Red Deer Quilt Show. I did more shopping. There is a very large market mall at this show. Shops from BC and Manitoba and all over Alberta come to sell us goods. I had to buy more fabric. Some of the fabrics I got were only $1.50 to $3.39 for a FQ and in Canada. How can one not buy fabric then.

The book guy was there, so I picked out two books this time. Whitework Quilting by Karen McTavish. This book is out of print now. I was planning on buying it last Dec when I took the class but she sold out too quickly. Sorry the photo is side ways.

I also bought the Modern Patch Work book. I like a few of the quilts and will have to make some of them.

At the Red Deer show they sold Raffle quilt tickets on this quilt. It is made by some of the members.

Here is a small part of the quilt show. I did not get permission to post photos of some of the quilts. I should be asking each quilts maker and that is impossible. This is just one row. There are more then four rows of large quilts with at least three rows of small quilts and then all the market is around the outside and down another hall way. I am sure it is the largest floor area any quilt show in Alberta has.

Purple Scrap Blocks

The last few days have been crazy busy, so I did not get my purple scrap posted on Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012 but here they are Sunday. I love this little 6" block. It is part of my Forester's Wife blocks.

I found these blocks on Randy's Blog last month. I am way behind and I am not doing them in any order.  I work on the blocks I want to do or what fits with the scraps I have.

I had I nice sized piece of the pinkish purple and used all one purple but now I do not like it. The blocks with more variation are better looking.

Here is the fourth one for the week. I love this funny strip fabric and this is getting to be some of the last of it.  The background fabric is a long sleeved shirt I got at the Good Will store. It is the lightest pink colour.

I did a big thread order this past week. I just love this thread. I have no troubles in any of my machines with it. The long arm loves it and at least three of my domestics machines love the thread too. It is Wonderfil cotton thread. Now to just machine quilt lots this month so I can pay for the thread order.

Yesterday was another Dog Agility Trial. Lex and I had some good runs but did not pass any of our runs. One class the course was very tough and no one passed it. |We had the best time and only 10 faults. Another run we had a rail and were 10 sec under the time, so we are speedy enough.

Lina's Quilt Machine Quilted

 I just love the mixture of fabrics in this quilt. They are not fabrics I would have put together but I really like it. It is always a surprise what my customers are going to bring me. I am very amazed at all the different quilts I get in to machine quilt.

She was looking for some very simple quilting and liked my leaves and loops. This quilt is going to Lina's dad. I am sure he will love it.

Here is a better look at the block. Four patches and triangles with a little boarder sashing treatment around each block.

Old Machine

Scarlet a hand crank with wooden case

This is part two of the Wetaskiwin Quilt Show I saw on Friday last week. One of the members, Marlene Olson, had two old singer machines on display. With the help of her Husband they had redone these old machines. One of the machines was in very bad shape and she was saving it from the dump. Her husband has been in the auto body industry and has also redone old Coke memorabilia.

Part of what was so nice was the book and photos of what they had done. Both machines were not in good shape when they got them, so why not fix them. It was good to see how bad they were.

Cinderella with a motor and table

They had to reproduce all the decals. This white one had blue decals. I really liked it. I have dug out one of my old machines to sew on this week. I have a little slip in the belt sometimes and may have to look into what I need to do to fix that. May need a new belt.

Thank you Marlene for letting me show and share these little beauties. I want my uncle Dave to see these.

Design Wall Monday June 4th

One design wall has the lady bug mystery on it. I have decided to use this red dot fabric for the outer boarder. I had a red with large Black dots picked out and cut but my Mom said "Yuck". I then dug out many fabrics, Black with blue dots, red with smaller dots, Black with white dots but it was random dots and did not work. I had to get more of the red and white dot and it is being washed now. Them I can sew on the final boarder and add this quilt to the pile of tops I have.

Orca Bay Mystery is off to the side still. I have added this to Patchwork Times. You can see more design walls with work under way.

I have all the string units done for RRCB. This is a big milestone on this quilt. I have the 60 string units cut and ready to sew in to a block or triangle unit. If you want to know more about what RRCB is check out the label on my side bar.

This is just a start. I have sewn the first block together. But I do not have quit all the units done and have lots of sewing to get these blocks done. You know what I will be working on this week.

I got my flowers planned yesterday and my husband has the riding ring in good shape. I thought I would show it today. Now to ride the ponies some more. We have a few trail rides planned this year.

I also let the fish outside in the pond. I have trouble wintering my fish outside, my pond is not deep enough to keep it from freezing solid. So for the winter I bring them in to the basement in a horse water trough. I let them get use-to  the cooler outside water temperature. They sat in the tub for about four hours and them we let them lose. They swim around like crazy checking out the new place.

Here is the pond. I have a few more plants to go in the pond and plans to buy some floating plants. It will look better in a few days. So glad to have a green yard again.

Purple Scraps

I got some purple scrap sewing done on Saturday. These are only part of the 600 purple triangles I need for Roll Roll Cotton Boll. This step is going to take for every. They are so very cute. Many little piles of many little triangles. I got to use some very old and special fabric, and some not so old. One of the fabrics was in a maturity dress I made some 15 years ago.

I have added this to SoScrappy Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012. I am just loving this challenge. I have big news today. My quilt Bouncy Ball got a 2nd place at Quilt Canada in the National Juried Show. I just found out about it and had to tell you. It is the Greek Square blocks I started to make at the beginning of this challenge. I loved it so much I kept sewing till it was done.

My box of purple scraps. I have many lovely purple batiks in here still to use up. Next I will work on a block or two for my Farmer's Wife sew-a-long. I must call it Forester's Wife.

Wild Tree Blossoms

We have a bush trail that we making for trail riding though. It is really a wildlife trail that we are opening up enough to ride though. My husband found this great blossoming tree just off the path. We are not sure if it a wild crab apple or what. I did not think it was cherry or it would have some pinks.

 Close up of the blossoms

This is the bush trail. We have many dead trees that keep falling on the path, so my husband the forester gets out the chainsaw. It is taking more work then I think he thought it would, to keep the trail open.

Lex running in the hay field. We need more rain this week. I was surprised how dry the grass was feeling.