Loon Lake Retreat

The retreat didn't turn out as productive as I had planned for. Firstly when we arrived at Loon Lake I discovered that the box containing the double wedding ring arches didn't make the trip. Well no big deal quilters come prepared, I had other projects to working on. The basket quilt I had just picked up from the machine quilters needed it's binding and I had hand quilting on my "love to stitch" wallhanging.
So Sat came and I felt alittle scratchy in my throat well no big deal I'm probably just talking too much, so off I go for some tea and honey. That afternoon we went for a exploration walk about around the area. As you can see from the pictures the lake was so close to the building, it was spectacular. I finished my binding and started working on the hand quilting.

Well then came Sunday morning, my scratchy throat turned into a full blown cold complete with fuzzy head and body aches. I didn't even feel like getting out of bed. No sewing happened on Sunday well no big deal, I had a great time anyway. Food was great, friends were the best, surrounding were wonderful. When I got home later that afternoon, I only wanted to get in bed.
Sitting area for stitching. The organizers hung quilts all around the lodge.
View outside the dinning room.
Classroom in the early morning.
This is the mystery quilt that some were working on. Some even got the top finished.
Dinning room. Food was absolutely the best, we had salmon, stuffed chicken and more desserts than we could eat. And we did try....

This was painted by Judy Greenwood. She did this in about a day. After the painting is completed on white fabric, then she will shade, texture and do more colouring using thread. It's unbelievable what she does, pictures don't do them justice. Judy is too humble and will tell you anybody can do what she's doing, not. Check the pictures on her website, they are spectacular.

Thank you for all your lovely comments, it'll be tomorrow before I feel well enough to read your blogs. I better go and have another nap so I can see you all tomorrow.

Sewing Bag

I wanted to make a new sewing notion bag for the retreat this weekend. I finished hand sewing in the zipper last night, not so fun. Don't know if you can see from the pattern I changed the outside of the bag. The pattern calls for Charm Squares, I had everything all ready to go using Roman Holiday fabric and then decided to make up my own design. Now that the bag is done I'm thinking it would make a really good toiletries bag. The pattern is from This & That Patterns.

I've got my halo and soon I'll be heading for my retreat....yippee....

Happy Quilting.

Bowl of Strawberries

Life is like a bowl of strawberries. You never know who might come in to your life. Or was that cherries... Anyway, I've met so many wonderful friends since I started blogging. I just wanted to say you are all fantastic and I thoroughly enjoy your friendship and sharing.




My 4 patch quilt has been sitting for a month waiting for me to add the border. I did it! This quilt came out bigger than planned, it will fit nicely on my queen size bed. This method of 4 patches was from the first Nickel Quilt book, two 4 patch blocks are done at the same time. I couldn't stop making them and it got bigger and bigger...

Today I'm getting ready for my retreat this weekend. I will bring my double wedding ring blocks since I've neglected it for about a year. I'll head over to pick up my DF Arleen tomorrow afternoon. We'll make 2 important stops on the way. One to pick up my basket quilt which is at the machine quilters. And the second stop to pick up any last minute fabric at Quiltopia. The retreat is a Loon Lake, University of British Columbia Research and Education Centre. It has recently been built and looks like a nice place. Can't wait I'm sooooo excited.

Over Flowing with Excitement

Yippee...wahoo....I was soooo very excited when I received an email yesterday from Sandy Berry of Berryvine Designs (scroll down the page) asking if she could have permission to post the Heather's Lacy Heart Quilt I made for Quiltopia in Maple Ridge, BC. Sandy is the designer of the quilt and it's featured on the front cover of her book. How exciting is that to have the designer like my version of her quilt and want to show it off. I feel over whelmed and honored at the same time... I'm speechless. When I first read the email I had to tell someone right away, so as it happens I had just received an email from Darlene that morning and so she was the first to hear my news, Darlene started dancing across the desert with excitement for me. Wasn't that sweet of her, I hope she sends me a picture. ;-)

Quilt Show Pictures

On Friday I went to the Fraser Valley Quilt Guild show. This is the largest guild in my area and they always have a nice show. Here are a few pictures of my favorites at the show.


This is a fabulous applique quilt, a tremendous amount of work went into this quilt. Lots of tiny pieces, hand appliqued and embroidery.

The blue quilt is one I've always liked from Better Homes and Garden Quilt magazine. It was nice to see it made up.

The Tea Cups from Crabapple Hill was stitched by my dear friend Vera.

The stitchery bunnies another Crabapple Hill pattern was stitched by Andree, she is in my quilting group.

Another pattern I really like and hope to make one day.

The wool applique quilt is called "Midnight Garden" and was hand applique by another dear friend Teresa.

The Bacon and Egg small wallhanging was the funniest at the show. The sign read "this was made for my son because he thinks bacon is a food group" Too hilarious!

The picture was taken at the Quiltopia booth, a local quilt shop. The Heart Quilt in the back of the booth was made by ME!

The show organizers made some really cute signs to remind everyone not to touch the quilts. I took this picture because my MIL likes frogs.

And this is my purchases for the day, not much but that's because I have soooo much fabric at home waiting for me. Cheryl Wall is a local designer of Country Quilts and she has only been making patterns for a few years. I swear she doesn't sleep with all the quilts and patterns she produces. So I picked up one of her patterns just because. The 2 rolls of fabric are 1/2 yards and I couldn't resist the folksy pincushion.

Pink Quilt for Rebecca

Baby Rebecca was born on March 18th. I always wait until the baby is born before making a quilt. Here is the Yellow Brick Road done in pinks and without a border, I didn't think it needed a border.



There's so much organization going on with Judy's sewing room, "to do" lists and Carole's Ditch Witch, isn't this exciting. I have this note book made by a friend, she makes beautiful Altered Books and teaches classes too. Rose and Leigh gave me the idea for using this note book "bling the light went on" organizing my "to do" lists. The pen next to the book is not a pen but a mechanical pencil made of wood. This is a gift made by my wonderful hubby.

Give Away Fabric

I had plans to post a picture of Baby Rebecca's quilt I just finished. Apparently I can't download pictures on my new camera when the battery is low. But anyway it's a Yellow Brick Road all in bright pinks. Hopefully I can post the picture next time.

On my last post I promised to give away some fabric to a lucky person as part of my Brooms out of the Closet cleaning. Well I wanted to make it completely random so I wrote all the names on a piece of paper and put them in a hat. To make it totally random I asked my DD to pick the name from the hat. So...the lucky recipient of a Charm Pack from me is...... Libby. Cleaning out is so much fun....

I can't tell you guys how much fun I have peeking into your blogs and getting so much inspiration and enthusiasm from everyone. When I started I didn't imagine blogging would be this much fun.

Libby please send me an email with your address and I will send off in the snail mail right away.

Happy Quilting.

Time to Ditch It!

Ever since Carole's posting on "The Broom's out of the Closet" and ditching things not used in a while got me thinking about what I should do with my oldest of the old UFO's. My girlfriend who I had lunch with yesterday mentioned to me she wanted to make a quilt for someone but felt she didn't have the time right now. Well this was a perfect opportunity to offer one of my quilt top (see previous post on Oldest UFO) sitting in the closet waiting for someone to finish. So we made a trade, she will make good use of my UFO and in return she will give me a couple of yards of fabric. I really didn't want anything because the quilt top is not worth anything to me sitting in the closet. But she insisted that we should trade. So there you go! One UFO out of the closet going to good use.

I have 2 more lap size flimsy's that will make good community quilts for the LQG so here they are and out of the closet they go.....this is fun....I'm free of these old UFO's.


This Magic Tiles flimsy I made soooo long ago....time to clean out.



I don't know what I was thinking when I made this red and yellow rooster flimsy, other than I really like chickens and I have several in my kitchen.


The friend I had lunch with also was having her Birthday. Here is a little gift I made for her with embroidered leaf on the front. It's using Twelve22 zipper again (love that zipper). The bag is perfect for carrying threads etc to meetings. The size zipper I used is 7".



GIVE AWAY
And to celebrate my cleaning out the closet I would like to give away a Charm Pack, leave me comment by Monday and I will draw a random number and the Charm Pack will be yours. Sorry I don't have a picture but who would turn down free fabric :-)

Happy Quilting.

Tagged by Rose

Well there I was this morning browsing around my usual blogs enjoying all the tagging going on, and guess what Rose tagged me. Thanks Rose, I feel honored. I'm still new to blogging but will do my best.

Rose is such a sweet person, the first person I got to know through blogging. I've aways look forward to peeking into what she is doing that day. I don't always leave a comment but I visit most days. Her stories are always fun, interesting and well written. We are still getting to know one another, I would love to have coffee with her and become great friends.

So...I've been tagged for the "Thinking Blogger Award". The rules are simple 1. write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. 2. Link to Thinking Blog Award so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme. 3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.

I know some of you have already been tagged by others but here I go anyway. I hope this is okay with everyone.

Carole, she gave me a warm welcome to blogging and she is also a fellow Canadian. I really enjoy reading her funny stories especially getting the "broom" out of the closest. That post really got me thinking about what I need to clean out of my closet. I need that push and ALWAYS feel better for getting rid of stuff I will NEVER use. Carol I'm still procrastinating but I haven't forgotten.

Darlene always makes me smile when I read her blog. She always has very interesting projects on the go with patterns and colours that are "my" colours. I enjoy visiting her blog and would love to get to know her better.

Pam is well organized and always offers me good advise. I'm still getting to know Pam and would love to share my knowledge of wool applique with her.

Swooze gave me a warm welcome to "Stashbuster" ring. She keeps us all organized with suggesting topics each week in case we are in need of ideas for posting. I'm still new so this is very helpful.

Libby has me thinking the most since I've been readying her blog. I enjoy her laid-back style of quilting and life in general. I'm trying to simplify my life and stop rushing to get everything done right now. I'm on sick leave from a very hectic, fast paced and demanding job. I'm enjoying "finding pleasure in the simplicities of life" (quote from Libby's tag line), I've spent most of my life working and looking after my girls. Now they are grown, and I have time off work I need to focus on me for a change. When and IF I go back to work, I will consider a change in jobs, I really need it. Thanks Libby for your insight and inspiration.

A special "thanks" to all you bloggers out there, I have learned so much, got inspiration when I needed it the most and felt very Welcomed by all of you.

Happy Spring

It's starting to feel like spring around here. The daffodil's are blooming and the tulip's are showing signs of opening. The sun came out long enough for the Easter parade and the kids to have fun in the park, playing games and eating hot dogs. My kids are too old for egg hunts but DH and I had a wonderful walk around the park and looking at the vintage cars that were in the parade. My dear In-laws came for dinner and we had a good time looking at their vacation pictures from Hawaii and chatting, drinking wine, eating a delicious ham and the yummy pineapple upside down cake that I made from scratch earlier in the morning. A good time was had by all.

The table runner is from a Quick McCall's magazine a few years ago. I could dig through my magazines to find the issue if needed.

Happy Stitching and Quilting.

Quilter's Obsession with Knitting

Here's a fun little tool that KCQuilter showed us a while back and I have just figured out how to use. It's a index card generator, kinda fun to play around with. My list of things to be done, but all I can think about is knitting my socks. I even have my eye on some more yarn to knit the next pair. I have my BOM this Sat and haven't even started on my block and all I can think about is knitting.


My 3rd pair since Feb, almost finished.

Happy Easter!

Well got the new camera to download pictures. Sometime things are too simple I don't get it right away. All I had to do was turn the camera "on" when plugging into the computer. I know, some of you are going to say that was obvious...no it wasn't for me. My old camera was smart enough to bring up the download screen all by it's self with out turning it on. Oh well live and learn.

Happy Easter to everyone, when I came across May Britt's blog yesterday with the Easter greeting I remembered I made a small Easter wall hanging a couple of years ago. So here it is.

New Camera

This week has flown by so fast I don't even remember what I did all week. Sometimes it seems like one day is the same the next. Well... I certainly must have done something interesting. Oh ya... how could I forget, I made a pink baby quilt using Yellow Brick road pattern, I'm going to back it with chenille and no batting. A friend had a baby girl on Mar 18 so this quilt is for her. I'd show you a picture but...I just got a new camera and haven't figured out "how to" download the pictures yet...arrrgg. I always rely on my "techie" husband and he was too busy this weekend working setting up is wood working shop.

On Friday three of us quilters went on a shopping trip to Burlington and Lynden Wash. We stopped at our favourite store that carries lots of wonderful reproduction prints "A Lady's Art". They also have a wonderful selection of hand dyed wool, Weeks Dye Works threads and Cross Stitch (all of my favourite things). I picked up a border print for my scrappy 4 patch quilt and a needlepunch pattern with a rabbit, cabbage and turnip for the design...so cute. On the way home we stopped at "Folktales" in Lynden. I found a really neat pattern from Swatches Pattern Co. it comes with fabric swatches (2" square) of the whole fabric line. Mine is Renewal by Brannock and Patek. I had seen this type of packaging before and thought it looked fun. We also found a really cute "stitchery" pattern with a series of 12 designs. We each bought 4 and will share them. It's too expense for each person to purchase all 12 designs each. I don't know how the pattern designers would expect that we wouldn't "share" with our friends. So that shopping trip took all day with a stop for lunch and another stop at Joanne's. Hopefully pictures coming soon.

Happy Quilting.