Cove Quilters Challenge #5

My bee's 12"x12" challenge is done! Our 5th challenge theme was "Stars" thanks to Linda H, we could use any techniques incorporating a star theme in the block and as the others it had to be 12" x 12' finished. It has been fun doing these challenges. While I haven't gone too far out of my comfort zone, I have tried to use new to me techniques or try techniques I wasn't comfortable with and wanted practice - like paper piecing.

Thanks to Krista at Poppyprint, I had seen a block on this blog, Six White Horses along with the paper piecing pattern so I thought I would attempt it. I have done some paper piecing in the past and I always found it a bit awkward. I learned to piece the traditional way almost 40 years ago with templates and keeping in mind the straight of grain. With paper piecing the straight of grain sems to not be an issue. At least I haven't figured out how to do it!

Friends are Like Stars with thanks to my very special friend Cheryl who gave me a ceramic heart with this quote - "Friends are like stars, you don't have to see them to know they are there". An appropriate quote as we live many miles and an ocean apart, but we will always and forever be friends.

All the bee blocks, closeups can be seen here in my Flickr Photostream.

Heather is in charge of our next challenge. She gave us a small piece of fabric, a few snowflake buttons and the theme "Winter". We are to use the fabric in any amount, front or back and use at least one of the buttons. This is going to be a wonderful January project, I already have an idea but Christmas comes first!

Maine and More

The busy days and weeks have slipped by all too quickly! I really meant to be better at posting more often, now I have way too much to catch up on...again!

Sails at Sunset - jo Diggs

We had our annual trek to Maine to visit with my dear friend Jo Diggs. This has become and annual visit in between Remembrance Day and American Thanksgiving - before the silly shopping season begins! I always feel so inspired and refreshed after visiting Jo. She is such a gracious, fun host, wonderful cook and a friend. It is always a busy week for her as it is in-between the Designing Women craft shows where she sells her work. We were able to help her set-up her booth at the Freeport fair and do a little shopping at the other booths. We hope to go back in late June when Jo wll be the featured quilter at the Vermont Quilt Festival - such an honour for a wonderful quilter.

We went to Portsmouth for a day and had to stop in at Portsmouth Fabrics of course. Just has to be one of the best quilt stores anywhere! We stayed overnight at the lovely Inn at Tanglewood Hall and has a delicious dinner at the York Harbor Inn - all to celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary!

Inside Fiddlehead - love the tin ceiling.

On our way back home we stopped in Belfast, Maine to visit a new-to-me quilt store called Fiddlehead, it is right on Main St. next to Darby's Pub. What a terrific find! It was filled to the brim with delightful fabrics, lots of books and art supplies in the back. We arrived at 10am on Sunday morning and it was constantly busy while we were there. This will definitely be a must stop on my favourite quilt store list!

So sad to see this house near Belfast, Maine. It must have been a beauty in it's day.

I'll be back soon, promise, with more scraps from my life!

Catching Up Yet Again!

Every two years my Guild has a quilt show. It is held during the Scarecrow Festival weekend at the end of September. It is a busy time getting ready, not only for my entries but I do the show labels and signs or I should say I do it with a lot of help from Peter. He is a whiz when it comes to using Pagemaker, much easier and quicker than me struggling with it and asking him questions all the time! More pictures from our quilt show can be found here.

All ready for visitors.

Peter and Brian helping to hang the show.

 Molly's quilt Pinkalicious Parade, all ready to be mailed to Calgary where they already have had snow!  

Blessings my challenge, a table runner

My bee, the Cove Quilters have taken on the responsibility for the Silent Auction of the Guild Challenges. This year the money raised is going to be donated to Christmas Daddies, a charity that makes Christmas happen for needy families through donations and a telethon to be held early December. We put together 32 kits of 5 different fabrics, all were sold and we got back 21 finished pieces. Despite the lower number of completed challenges, we made more money than we ever have before, over $1700. All in all a very satisfying Silent Auction. 

Cheryl in front of the fabric barn at Suttles and Seawinds in Mahone Bay, NS.

Inside Suttles and Seawinds

Just before the Quilt Show we had a visit from very dear friends from England who were on a cruise that took them to Norway, Iceland, Greenland, NS and then on to New York. They were supposed to go to the Hebrides and St. John's as well but the weather and the small detail of a hurricane axed that plan and they got in to Halifax a day early. So we had a wonderful dinner at the Wooden Monkey then the next day picked them up for a jaunt to the South Shore and then lobsters and a visit with 2 of our Grandchildren here. All in all a most wonderful and treasured couple of days! I don't think we stopped taking for a second. Lucky for us it was a picture perfect day and warm.

At Pier 20, Halifax waterfront, on to NYC!

Then last Thursday I was asked to do a trunk show for my "city" guild, the Mayflower Quilters Guild. Mayflower is kind of the "mother guild" for NS with about 10 chapters around the province. They began in 1974, just a year after I started quilting. I jumped right in and joined, so happy to find a group of women who also loved to do what I did. Over the years I served on many committees and did my bit by doing the program and workshops and serving as President, as well I was on both Quilt Canada committees in 1984 and 1994. So when I was asked to do the trunk show I was thrilled to gather up my 39 years worth of quilts and share them with the members of Mayflower. I was pleased to see some familiar faces in the audience, several who go back as far as I do. I felt like I was in a race - 39 years of quilting in one hour! Many of my quilts and wallhangings have been given to family and friends or sold on commission but I think I gave them a good cross section of what I have done and several quilts in progress. I just can't work on one thing at a time! If you go here you can see some of the quilts taken by the Guild's photographer (I hope that works!). Just click on the right hand side of the picture, in the middle, to see the slide show.