Quilting and other Things

A few years ago I saw the pattern for Common Bride by Edita Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts at a shop in St Jacobs.  I didn't buy the pattern the first time because it looked so complicated and I wasn't sure I want to get involved in somthing that complicated.  A few weeks later, I ended up going back over to St Jacobs and buying it.  I sat down at some point that year with the pattern to go over it and analyze what was involved in it.  That's when I discovered I hadn't really analyzed a pattern in years -- lots of $10 quilts with Elaine telling us what to do.  But I did eventually work my way through it. Started collecting fabrics and looking for blogs of others working on the quilt.  Didn't find many although I did find Karen and Sue .  This fall at a local quilt show there were 6 completed Common Bride quilts by a group of friends. Last weekend Elaine had a sit and sew day so I took the snow flakes to stitch and 24 1.25 inch wide stripes to sew fo...

Hello to those who have come through Sew Sisters blogathon. I hope you are enjoying the blog hop. You can find other Ontario quilters listed here and here .  I've been quilting since the mid 1990s. I started out sewing and giving the cotton scraps for my Mom. Eventually I started a quilt of my own and Mom lost the scraps but we had fun quilting together. This quilt has been sitting in a box on the floor for two years. Its designed by two Canadian Quilters It's finally in progress. All the fusible pieces are cut and most are in place. There are a few stars and a snowman arm still to add but they overlap some seams so need to wait. Here are all the fused pieces waiting to be stitched One snow flake is done. Only (?) 23 left to go. This is an unstitched snow flake up close. The big snowman is stitched and the threads are ready to be buried. I started to do the scarf last night but the thread broke and got messy so I quit and went to sleep. Hopefully it wil...

I'm linking up with Esther's WOW .  I had a couple of days off work as the office is closed for Remembrance Day and I took Monday as well to have a long weekend. That gave me a chance to catch up on some errands and to dos.   The Remembrance Day service from Ottawa was really good.  I watch it on tv most years. I have two community outreach quilt tops for the guild almost complete.  The kit was short a piece of yellow for one border.  Unfortunately, I don't have anything in a similar shade so I've labelled it and set it aside for the guild meeting next month. At a quilt show last month I bought a nativity pattern -- its a laser cut black scene and I needed to pick a fabric for the background -- like a stain glass.  I went through the collection of "pretty" fabrics and found several that looked promising -- until I put the black cutout on them.  There was only one that I liked so its trimmed and the cut out is finger pressed in place.  I need...

On Saturday the museum was closed so they arranged for members to get free admission to two other local museums.  We decided to go to the Bata Shoe Museum for the first time. At first I didn't see the shoes in the display window, just lots of colours.  It was a really interesting visit.  There was information about making shoes and different types of shoes people have worn over the years. The earliest was a replica of the shoe worn by the Ice Man.  There were shoes for many cultures.  These four were some of my favorites.  Each has some very intricate designs which I liked. These are Nalins (Turkish bathhouse sandles) from Ottoman Turkey in the 19th century These are mojaris worn by a temple dancer in Rajasthan, India c 1840 These are children's booties from early 20th Century China These are from Jaipur, India and are Paduka from the 18th century.  They would have been for an important occasion like a wedding. There ...