Rosyquilter's Life: Family, Friends and Quilting: Addicted to piecing

Weather here in the Pacific Northwest has been breaking temperatures for hot days. A bit of a surprise and Mother Nature has taken us from long pants and long sleeve shirts to tank tops and shorts. It was cold and wet for tennis and suddenly, we are playing earlier to avoid the heat! Crazy but not complaining other than time is being spent watering all the new growth in the gardens and the newly planted seeds that are coming up quickly. Our electricity consumption, because of a/c use is higher than ever in the province for May and also breaking records.

It was a lovely Mother's day and rather than ignoring the day as I usually do, my sister and niece came on Saturday for a great visit and an overnight stay with breakfast the next morning. We had a good catch up on all that is happening in my niece's life - she is creator of Bad Cookie Pictures which is not my favourite genre - horror and ugh! But, I try to be as supportive as I can without actually watching any of her productions. She is also creating a home based business with clothing alterations, repairs and creations and doing some embroidery designs as well.

Ha ha... the pajama girls. My sister and I were raised in a home where it was pajamas and housecoats in the morning until you got ready for the day.

I quick look into my front garden this morning brought a smile to my face. I love it when the first poppies open and show their glorious colour.

This is a long weekend for us and the weather was fabulous up until this morning when predicted cooler temperatures and clouds rolled in. I spent part of Friday and Saturday immersed in reading. I can't put down my book(s) by Patrick Taylor who writes about an Irish Doctor in a small town in Ireland. There are a lot of books in the series and I am up to #7. I also will admit to be being hooked on the Virgin River series and try to intersperse them. However, the most enjoyable reads for me have been Gil McNeil who is a British author and writes about "Jo"... a woman who is raising two sons on her own and buys her grandmother's wool shop. Because I was raised by a British mother, so many phrases and actions echo my childhood. I love her sense of humour and her descriptions make me feel like I am in the room with her. Needles and Pearls was the one I finished and horrors - I read the books out of order. I accidently discovered the first one I read in our library in Mesa and turns out it was the third book... so found the first and this one was the second. A good read for me and am now looking at some of her other books though, discovered that it isn't easy to find British authors in our bookstores (love the Bookman that is local to me) but will keep searching. Our local library doesn't have any of her books?

Piecing has been how I have been spending every afternoon this month. Has been three weeks of morning tennis and then home for lunch and heading to my sewing studio. Just when I think I should actually finish a top into a quilt, "just one more" pops into my head and off I go on another idea and direction.

I had many projects cut and bagged and ready to work on while at the one day retreat at the end of April. My last 3 weeks have been a continuation of that piecing spree. First up is Strip Twist by GE Designs. This block uses jelly rolls - 2.5" strips of both color and background. I started off just making a few to get the feeling of how this block goes together.

Then I cut a few more strips and kept stitching as leaders and enders and the blocks on the design wall grew. I need it to be larger so am now piecing more strips and cutting up to make more blocks. This won't be finished any time soon but that is ok.

I had a few tops that resulted from my retreat stitching and getting the blocks assembled one home and they were piling up on a chair, waiting for the thing I dread the most - pressing the finished tops. UGH. But, done! This is a Carolyn's block made from charms and some of Noni's fabrics (see previous post) and will be a Survivor quilt. (Residential school survivor)

Hopscotch blocks were sewn at the retreat but I needed to lay them out to see how many more blocks I needed. Top is done - and now on a hanger waiting for quilting.

At our May guild meeting, I taught a 3 yard class using the pattern Town Square. I had chosen my fabrics but as I arrived at the meeting, a quilting friend and fellow guild member handed me a stack of Canadian themed fabrics. She now has ALS and cannot sew any more. So very sad but was determined to use her fabric as quickly as I can so I can show her the finished quilts. The red in this quilt was in the stack of fabrics she gave me. I have since added in a few other blocks to give a little more interest to the top but this is still living on my design wall - oops, the wind blew the blocks off so will have to get them put up again.

Finally, after bribing myself, I got all the finished tops pressed and folded and hung up, waiting to be quilted. These are all framed charms, using some blocks made by my Diva friends, myself, and some of Noni's fabrics. I have 6 quilt tops waiting to quilted and donated to Quilts for Survivors. All simple quilt tops but hoping they will serve their purpose of wrapping someone in hugs and caring.

I might have shown this earlier this month but, it is now pressed and is a Carolyn's block quilt top and again, for Survivors.

This top is also now pressed. This is a strip lattice, free pattern from Jordan Fabrics in Oregon. I stitched the entire top using leftover strips from making quilts that use Canadian themed fabrics. Many are from backings or leftover after cutting blocks. Even the background fabrics were leftover pieces of lighter fabric.

A new project! My quilting buddy and good friend and I visited the Langley quilter's quilt show last Saturday and I fell in love with this small panel. It helped that I had a gift certificate for the shop that had come as a surprise in their Christmas advent box and, of course, I had to spend my money. I got the top put together - very simple to do and now it is waiting to be finished.

The modern guild I belong to chose this as a block for a lottery at our June meeting. The organizer had cut templates for us to use and I dug out some fabrics to make a cheery hexagon block. This was simple compared to the last time she has sewing curves.