Yes, Spring Did Finally Arrive

We are finally enjoying spring like weather, the leaves are out, the daffodils are up and my fingers are crossed we will have some tulips this year. I hope they bloom before the town deer find them. I think last year I had one. Stay tuned!

I have had a busy few weeks. I participated in the 52 Quilters project. This project was begun January 1, 2015 by a British quilter, Chris Webb. Each week a new quilter takes over the blog, the Instagram account and the Twitter account from somewhere in the world. Chris is looking for more quilters to take over in the coming weeks, so if you are interested contact him through the link above. It was fun to participate and share some of my quilts and quilting in Nova Scotia.

Making Do, machine pieced and machine quilted (by Lynn Jones)

My quilt Making Do has flown all the way to Lethbridge, Alberta! It will be in the Canadian Quilters Association's annual National Juried Show. It has been a few years since I entered and I was thrilled to be accepted. There were very few east coast quilts on the list, I am glad I entered!

My nephew (who was married early last August) and his wife are expecting a baby in July so I just had to make them a baby quilt. I love using the "Falling Charms" (a Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorial) pattern for baby quilts so I made two as my niece and her husband who were also married last August are expecting a baby in October! They don't live in Nova Scotia but they do come home as often as they can, I know how much they love it here so the fabric I chose was "Beach House" by Kate Nelligan. I love the images of lobster, nets, waves, mussels and fish - all very Nova Scotian!

My Brunch Bunch got together this week, it has been ages since I have been able to join them all. We have been getting together for 32 years now having gotten to know each other through volunteering with our provincial craft council, NSDCC and working on their exhibition "Profile '81" which traveled nationally. We enjoyed those meetings so much we kept on going! I had forgotten that Shirl was the recipient of one of my Christmas gifts one year.

Circle of Friends was hand appliqued, machine pieced and machine quilted. I love the effect of the wavy fabric on the lower right and border. I must look and see if I have any more of that!.

I have new projects coming up, a 2 day workshop with Becky Goldsmith (Piece O'Cake Designs), she is coming to Nova Scotia to be my Guild's "Extraordinary Quilter". She will present a lecture at our 15th Annual Dessert Party and then give 2 workshops. I have old projects I really must re-visit and accomplish something. I am really looking forward to Becky's lecture and workshop.

We continue with the house renovations though every nice day (when he isn't golfing) Peter can be found up a ladder re-shingling and painting the exterior of the house. The pinky beige is going replaced by a lovely blue. Upon removal of an old shingle he found a previous paint colour that is very close to what we chose. After the winter we had, we are hoping for a good spring and summer for painting!

The front hall is done too, the old plaster had to come down and be replaced by gyproc, the floors have been sanded and refinished, the carpet is gone from the stairs and they have been painted but we don't know yet who Barry was!

The mysteries of this old house continue!

This and That

A few bits and pieces...2014 grape crop, more house renos, a quilter visits and the making of a scarecrow!

The racoons are loving us this year! It has been a good crop! We have 2 grape arbours, one over the back deck and one over the secret garden room, both have had a good but sour crop this year. We are still using last years harvest which was made into grape jelly.

They have been here a long time!

House renos continue and thanks to the good weather Peter is making progress re-shingling the worst of the shingles, the south facing back wall. He uncovered a bit of a surprise...birch bark flashing! 

And lots more wide boards and handmade square nails.

After a Google search, yes, Google does know everything, I found it is quite common in houses as old as ours. Creative builders?

I was so delighted to hear from Kay Phillips awhile ago, she and her husband were coming to NS and would have time for a visit. Peter and Gerry went golfing and I gathered together a couple of quilt friends and we had a lovely but too short afternoon talking quilts! Kay shared a couple of her latest quilts, can't wait for her to come back next year!

Now we are getting ready for the Mahone Bay Scarecrow Festival which starts on Friday. Well over 150 scarecrows will appear all over town. If there is one thing this town does well, it is having festivals thanks to a huge crew of great volunteers. More information and the schedule of events can be found here. Our Mahone Bay Quilters Guild bi-annual quilt show and sale happens this weekend too with set-up starting tomorrow.

Please come!!

After moving here last fall, we were determined to have our own scarecrow this year. We get quite a lot of traffic by our house both cars and foot traffic so we just had to have a scarecrow who would advertise our quilt show. Here is her transformation...

This is how she arrived,stuffed with plastic bags and dressed in crimpoline! She is ready for any weather! Thanks to PJ's in Oathill, I had told them she was going to be a quilter and this is what I got! Gray hair and all!

Auditioning outfits!

Thanks to Ben we are getting there! The quilt top was pieced by Peter, a good 35 years ago! Come back to see the final version tomorrow!

Summer is Slipping By...

Here we are enjoying our first summer in our "new" house, enjoying all that Mahone Bay has to offer and continuing with smallish renovation projects. Nothing too ambitious that it won't get in the way of Peter's golf games or sailing plans! 

The flowering crabapple just after a rain, it is now full of very tiny "apples'.

The garden continues to surprise us every day. The rhododendrons and roses have been wonderful though they suffered from the high winds and rain of post tropical storm Arthur. Thankfully all the huge trees on and around our property stayed up! Lots of leaves came down and small branches. The town came through pretty well compared to other parts of Nova Scotia and we only lost power for 3 hours, lucky us.

Looking from the PEI side, it sure is an engineering marvel. You can read about it here.

We took a day trip to Prince Edward Island, on the hunt for some upholstery fabric at the Bargain Fabric Outlet in North Bedque, just across the Confederation Bridge. I had never been to PEI via the bridge so that was pretty cool and it was a beautiful day. And I found just the fabric for the two chairs that are desperate to be reupholstered. Now to fins a new smaller sofa and then tackle redecorating the den. But that is too bi a project for right now, maybe in the fall. Right now Peter is painting the downstairs bathroom, which used to be a pantry and enclosed staircase to the back (maid's?) bedroom.

I haven't been doing much quilting, I desperately needed some inspiration. Something or someone to give me a good swift kick and say "just do it". Well, that person just happened to be Kaffe Fassett! I heard last winter from a friend that Kaffe was coming to Nova Scotia for workshops in Amherst at Deanne Fitzpatrick's rug hooking studio. 

Yes, that's Kaffe Fassett getting his microphone adjusted.

We just knew that if Kaffe was willing we could get a bunch of quilters together and bring him to Halifax for a lecture. Long story short the three local Guilds did just that, we asked and he came! We booked a wonderful lecture theatre at Saint Mary's University and sold all 171 tickets. Suttles and Seawinds set up shop with a lot of Kaffe's fabrics and the university bookstore sold Kaffe's latest three quilt books. terrific co-operation from all involved and all without a meeting...just over 150 emails!

So I am back to "work", I have almost finished piecing my challenge for the Mahone Bay Quilt Guild's bi-annual quilt show in October, I have been quilting my redwork quilt as well as hand appliqueing a border for my Antique Flower Vase quilt and I have one last challenge to finsh ( a year later!) for my bee challenges that will hang in our quilt show. 

And then there is the garden, it is a beautiful day here today so I think I will head outside!