Quilting and other Things

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.