Remembrance Day Banner & IKEA

This is a banner that will hang in the church over Remembrance Day.

The blocks were coloured with crayon.  If you want to try this, after colouring you heat set this with an iron.  Make sure you have paper towels both underneath and on top of the quilt block.

Quilted with S.I.D. around the blocks and sashing and border, and along the black contour lines inside the blocks. Oak leaves in the outer border and arcs in the sashing.

Dark thread on a light backing can be a frightening prospect for the quilter (that would be ME), but it sure makes a striking effect.

Hah!  Did you know that IKEA sells sewing machines?  For seventy bucks don't expect anything too fancy.

ZUCCHINI REPORT

I'm a day early but here we go:
Picked this week: 5 (gave away 2)
Picked YTD:  14
With the zucchini planted in the compost, I seem to be losing a few small zucchini every week.  They get yellow at the blossom end and fall off the plant.  I'm not sure what is causing this - not enough water???  We will see how the season progresses.  I know that DH squelches a smile when he hears about the lost fruits.

My THIRD planting of beans has sprouted.  Peter Rabbit #2 has been making himself scarce ever since Sadie mowed down on Peter Rabbit #1.

Dear Universe

Some days I cannot even begin to express how much I love my job.

Mmmm.  Colour, colour, colour.

Dog, Red Hats, Garden...

Looks pretty innocent, doesn't she?  I was sitting on the lawn swing, working on the Sudoku after supper, minding my own business when I hear "crunch, crunch, crunch".  Huh??  I look over at Miss Innocent and see that she's eating - like maybe a hunk of wood, I'm thinking.  Um, no.  Peter Rabbit.  
eeuww - gross  
I had to go fetch DH (aka Great White Bwana) to remove the remains.  On the plus side, that's one less bean-stealer-beet-nibbler-sweet-potato-stalker.

Red Hat Day was pizza, then off to Margaret's new place which is a 5 minute walk away from the beach at Rock Point Provincial Park. Four of us plunked on our Red Hats, braved the heat, and went for a walk. The rest of the gals relaxed in Margaret's a/c and talked about us discussed politics.  It would have been a steamy discussion, because it has been about 200 degrees outside for the past week.

Zucchini Report
Picked 9 so far.  Several more are on the plants.  They don't seem to mind living in the compost pile but I've been making sure to water them at least every two days because the compost is not exactly a water-holder.

If you recall a few weeks ago I posted my latest scrappy quilt - yellows & greens.  I've entered that on Quilting Gallery's weekly contest.  Go vote for me!!  I'm #58, titled "SPRING".  You are allowed to vote for 6 quilts, so the other 5 could actually be your favorites.  Voting is open until 6 pm, Monday July 22. Here is the link.   (Yes, shamelessly plugging myself...)

French Braid Quilt

The colours in this quilt are exquisite.

So... Budapest-ian.

Beautifully framed back.

Here is where I'm at with my Blooming 9-Patch.  I have hit a small snag, in that I need 2 more 2" strips of that outside butterfly fabric, and it is at least 10 years old.  So, no way will I find it in a store.  There is an outside chance that a friend of mine may still have a bit, since we both purchased it way back when.

ZUCCHINI UPDATE
Another quilting friend of mine has decided, already, that she will have a bumper crop of zucchini this year.  She was looking for recipes, so I finally organized my personal collection of zucchini recipes into a file on the computer and sent a bunch of them to her.  If you are looking for anything - soup, savory, or sweet - I can probably help you out.  As long as DH doesn't discover the file and burn the computer.

I am going on a murderous campaign over the blankety-blank rabbits.  They are back to eating off my beans.  And now they have discovered my sweet potato plants, which are partly defoliated.  Their days are numbered...

Scrappy 9-Patch & more pics from Larkwhistle Gardens

The 9-patch is such a simple block, but so effective.

To let the patchwork shine I kept the quilting simple - straight lines through the chains and Line Dancing in the alternate blocks.

In the long bands of cream border I quilted make-believe alternate squares.

The dark green borders got pretty quilting.

The back.  I love the appearance of Line Dancing on plain fabrics - it looks like lace.

LARKWHISTLE GARDENS

This is the entrance.  You can see a peek of the house at the end of the alley.  The gardens are to the right hand side of this section.

Split Rail Fences were used with abandon.

Several small concrete ponds hold water that is used for spot-watering the plants.

Pathways are just packed earth.  It would probably be pretty messy in rainy weather, but they are certainly well-trodden.

Split rail arbour in the background.  See it?  And that is Jean's hubby Dave, in his fancy fishing t-shirt.

Early summer gardens are the prettiest.  And that's Jean with her camera.  Jean came to NB with me last summer.  The best kind of friend to have is one who say's "YES" when you call.

Seclusion, if you want it.

There is a potting shed where all the background work takes place.

Brilliant colours.

More concrete ponds.  Love.

Double Wedding Ring

This is a repeat of a quilt job from last fall.  The client cut out enough Double Wedding Ring pieces on her GO cutter that she could make two quilts.

She just cut up all her leftovers.

This has always been on my to-do list, so I'm exercising my skills at bartering.  Some $$ is coming off her bill, and she's cutting one out for me.  It was a tossup between ordering the dies for my Studio cutter (large $$), or having her cut out a quilt for me (small $$).  I decided to save my $$ for the summer trips** I have planned.

Not that you can see anything, but here is the back.

** Summer Trips: 

• Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the AQS show, with my longarm buddies.  We have an annual Beach Day get together - it just happens to be out of town this year.
• Caledonia, NY., for the quilt show at our sister guild.  I'll be going with some of the guild gals, and presenting our fabric for our 'cross-border challenge quilt'. 

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Today I will be picking the first zucchini of the season.  Poor DH.  Let the games begin...

Wednesday progress & LARKWHISTLE GARDEN

Yesterday was one of those days that required more frog stitching than I like to admit. (def. frog stitching: ripit, ripit). But it's all good now.

Today we went on a field trip to LARKWHISTLE in Dyer's Bay. OMG. One acre of pretty much totally cultivated yard, and these two guys live there, charging $3 admission to visitors. I pinched a deadhead from one of the poppies (bad Helen, bad!) but I forked out the $2.50 to buy a seed packet of bronze fennel. I will try to find time next week and post a few pics from there. There were several small cement ponds, and many split rail structures, all with a functional purpose. If you want to see it, do it soon because they are retiring from public life at the end of the season.

Another round of blocks

My three companions here at the cottage all decided to have an afternoon snoozapalooza, so I took the hour to stitch. The pattern for this quilt calls for 1.75" strips. I seem to have trouble following the rules (and I wanted a bigger quilt) so I converted everything to 2" strips. Might have made a mathematical error, although I double checked my calculations. If I can stitch a round of blocks every day I will know by tomorrow whether I made a mistake or not. If I DID miscalculate I won't have enough strips cut, which will mean extra afternoon cocktails instead. And that might not be such a bad thing, right?