Quilting and other Things

Last Saturday was the fourth of the nature sketching classes and this time it was at Colonel Samuel Smith Park .  One of the fun things with this class has been to go to different places in Toronto.  Some I've been to before and some its the first time.  I walked through the edge of the park last summer when I walked part of the waterfront trail into Toronto and then again in December when I went out with some friends for a photography day. Saturday rained most of the morning but the Humber College student building was near where we were going to be so the class was scheduled to go ahead.  I arrived wearing my rain pants and jacket for hiking but should have had my hat and sunglasses.  Again, it was a lot of gesture sketches trying to capture birds in nature except the owl and the kestrel.  There was a bird festival in progress and one of the places had birds on exhibit.  The owl had been hit by a car and had a badly broken wing.  I'm not sur...

I completed a fair amount of sewing this month which feels really good.  I was able to join a group of ladies sewing on Mondays which also meant I was able to combine my stitching with some social time.  Its fun and I plan to take advantage of as many Mondays as I can. I finally got a set of red and cream blocks completed for QOV Canada.  I also have one of the pieced kit blocks on the design wall that I need to get to them.  I think I can deliver both to a couple of ladies at guild next week so I need to confirm something on the kit block and then contact the ladies to see if they will be there. The strip sets for the outer border of Common Bride got made and cut.  I've since sewn them in pairs and they are waiting to be pressed.  The stems also got made as well as the pieced leaves so the flower blocks are pieced and the triangles to go on either side are ready to be appliqued.  After looking things over carefully, there isn't a way of redoing...

Saturday was the third sketching class and this time we went to Riverdale Farm.  I've lived in the GTA for over 30 years and it was my first visit.  Rather fun.  Our guest this week was a Veterinarian and our subject was gesture sketching using the farm animals.  Rather like life drawing classes were the model changes poses quickly.  Some of the animals moved quickly.  Others held their pose for several minutes or would come back to a similar place as they ate. The vet had diagrams of how arm and leg bones in humans align with the similar limbs in dogs and horses.  I was surprised to learn that what I had thought was the knee in animals is really the equivalent of my ankle!  No wonder it bends in a strange direction. The horse's body stayed relatively still as he ate some hay.  His front end moved a lot but he kept coming back to a similar pose.  The cow was curled up for a while until the other one came over and butted in on he...

I didn't get a post done for the One Monthly Goal for April but I did make progress.  Grand Illusion (Bonnie Hunter's 2014 Mystery) is now a completed top.  It was stalled for several years as I used the wrong greens originally for the checkerboards that form the sashing so it was a very busy quilt.  The value was wrong.  This winter at the guild retreat, I finally remade the checkerboards in very pale greens and it works much better.  Scrappy pink binding is ready for this once it is quilted.  I need to pickup some backing and book a time to go quilt it. I also finally got the stars sewn together and added to the centre of Common Bride . (the link goes to the designer's pattern page, no relation just an easy way to look at the complete design)  I'm not sure whether my stars are too small or the centre is too big but the coping strip I originally added made the centre too big for the stars.  I did need a small strip but it really was very...