Quilting and other Things

I dropped my poor Kobo getting ready to go out one Sunday morning in May. It was in its case so I just put it in my purse and went off to met Dad for lunch in Gravenhurst. On the way home, I stopped for a break at a rest area and pulled out the Kobo to read. It wouldn't turn on and there was a pale grey smudge behind the logo shaped like a book. I thought it had turned on accidentally and burned out the battery. Also thought it was weird I hadn't noticed the book shape in the past. Charged it when I got home and it still wouldn't turn on. By the end of the evening it looked like this -- that middle bit should be all white like the top right corner. I called Kobo to find out if there was somewhere I could take it to get a repair estimate or was I better to just buy a new one. Kobo actually sent me a new (refurbished) reader since mine was under a year old. Given that the damage was my own fault I'm really impressed they replaced it. It was nice to get the new...

10 years ago, we made baskets in a swap. Elaine blogged about hers recently and had photos of some of the others. Mine are still individual blocks.  One block is significantly larger than the others and 3 are very heavy.   I pulled them out of the stack and put them up over the guild BOM Need to figure out how to put this together and finish it off. The Guild BOM needs a rest -- the dove in the window block is not going together well. I'm not sure if ripping, pressing and hand-stitching is the answer or if it needs to be re-cut before I sew it again.

After finishing the first month's work weeks in advance, this month's work got done today (Sunday).   Class is next Saturday.  Fortunately it was 5 very easy blocks.  The piecing was all done still listening to A History of the World in 100 Objects.  Object 77 is the Benin Masks from Nigeria that were in the Lost Countries of Africa program that we watched on TVO last week end. 

Back to elements 9 classes at LVS   This class is about selections.  I used these two photos from the Butterfly conservatory near Guelph.  They are both of Owl  Blue Morpho Butterflies which have the most beautiful blue on the inside of their wings but its very difficult to see when they land as they immediately fold their wings together.  The nursery at this conservatory didn't have glass so I was able to get a reasonably clear photo of a newly hatched Blue Morpho Butterfly on the nursery floor with its wings open. First was to select the butterfly resting using the Magic Extractor. It took a little to clean up the edges Next was to make a snapshot composite  I decided the first selection should be added to this exercise using the copy and paste instructions and then redoing the steps to add a second snapshot In doing the initial selection in the lesson with the brush and the rose photo I ended up with a number of pink lines showing throug...

I went into the museum today to see the items on display from the ROM episode of Museum Secrets. There were two curators available for Q&A sessions this afternoon. One for the head dress and one for the baby mummies. ROM Museum Secrets Originally uploaded by imhalca This is a sandstone formation. Its in the ROM's mineral collection. I think I'll be going back to see it again soon. ROM: Gogotte Originally uploaded by imhalca

This year for the Mississauga Quilters Guild Block of the Month (BOM) program they've given us a choice of two patterns. I'm working on the Quilting with Laura pattern by Linda Halpin. The patterns in the quilt are all inspired from the "Little House on the Prairie" series. The first few months we got copies of the pattern. Then we received copies of the book and can now work at our own speed. I briefly considered hand piecing as that's how the instructions are written but that thought didn't last long. So I've been machine piecing. I took the book to work one day and spent my lunch time coming up with a list of all the pieces I needed to cut for the blocks. A colleague saw me in the lunch room with my paper and pencil and came over to scold me for working at lunch.  Once she saw it was quilting, all was well.  So far this is my quilt. The extra bits on the side are either the missing half square triangles (missed counting six of them) or an e...

The first assignment was the background squares.  Some are just 8.5 inch squares of fabric and others have pinwheels in the block -- either one or two.  Here are the stacks of completed blocks.  The class isn't until the 4th Saturday of February.  Its only the first Saturday and I'm ready. I listened to the BBC's podcasts of A History of the World in 100 objects while working on this. It worked out well. Each podcast is 15 minutes. It was surprising how much could be accomplished in those 15 minutes. At the end of the cast, I'd look at the next object and then start the audio and continue work. Made me change my position regularily.

The sign and two images are from the ROMs Egypt collection. This is the photo the tools came from.  The photo the head comes from is rather shaky I haven't added it here.

Not having done much quilting last year I'm ready to get back to it.  I signed up for one of the block of the months at guild and actually did get some of the blocks made for that quilt over Christmas.  I haven't taken any photos of it yet.  Tonight I made the first two pinwheel blocks for the $10 quilt class at Hobby Horse.  I'm signed up for Christmas Heart LIghts designed by Susie M. Robbins Both pinwheels hare made of the same fabrics but the left side has a snowflake sheer fabric overlaid on top.  I think I'm going to make a mixture of the two blocks.  Need to use a pressing clothe with the sheer as its a polyester and wants to stick a bit to the iron.

This little hedgehog container is from the Royal Ontario Museum. It is one of a pair and is from 800-700 BC. I used Colour and the picker to choose a colour for one of the vignette backgrounds instead of black. This butterfly was on a brightly coloured wall in a butterfly garden at the Museum of Natural History. Butterfly gardens are so fun although my sister's camera didn't like the humidity in this one.

Rose with carved effect. One of the squirrels that lives in the complex was playing on my bbq, hose and in the garden near the end of Christmas. This picture is snapped very quickly through the window. I was trying not to move very much as the squirrels are jumpy. The correction is the Auto Smartfix. I tried a number of corrections and the smartfix seemed to do a reasonably good job. The cage and life ring were floating at the edge of the Thames. I wanted to get remove the people in the bottom right but keep the pier as well as remove the little thing under the pier in the top right. The cage and ring were protected so that they didn't get smaller. I did go back and play with the OOB edit. WOW. That is so much easier. This is my sister during our walk at Hadrians Wall last fall.

This is the provided photo with the Sepia action applied. This photo is from a conservation area display. They had a long house setup. I used the Lighten and Darken guided edit to retrieve a bit of the details -- mostly in the log in the background.