Art Show in Kelowna

This is part of the art show that we went to Kelowna to help set up. It looked quite nice once it was all hung and arranged.

It was a nice surprise when my nephew, Ron, walked in the door. We knew he lived in the area but hadn't known he was coming to the show.
Now we are on our way home.

Rocky Mountain High Up

Ham, cheese and fig sandwich at The Quarry in Canmore, Alberta.



We drove as far as Revelstoke yesterday. The mountains are beautiful but much more tense driving for me.

Travels

We are on our way to Kelowna, BC, for an art show. Yesterday we traveled across part of Manitoba an all of Saskatchewan and spent the night in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Saskatchewan was straight and flat with ginormous skies. Some people might call that boring but I think it is subtly beautiful and relaxing to drive through. Today we tackle the Rocky Mountains. Could there be a greater contrast???

Borders...

I felt that this quilt needed some kind of border to pull it all together. This is what I am thinking of using.

Cats

I have been spending very little time in the studio lately. Lack of quilting time seems to be a summer thing. Not to worry. There are lots of fun things to do in summer. I'll be back at the quilting full speed once the snow flies again.
I did sew the cat houses together but now am a bit stumped as to how to finish it. I am out of the green fabric with flowers so I need to use something else around A Home and Cats. I have debated about blue at the top and more of the green at the bottom. I could also incorporate a couple more cats from the fabric...or flowers or birds or stars...

Tibetan Robe Finished

I finally finished the Tibetan Robe. There were a lot of facings to be hand sewn down and that was what was taking me so long to get going on. I am not a big fan of handwork. I am pretty happy with how it turned out but it was much too hot out there to spend time taking a better photo.

Party Time

We went to a party in North Dakota at our friends Brenda and Du's place. They made a special BBQ for kabobs. It was very successful. I made the chocolate truffles in the first picture. Tanis brought salad on skewers, another inspired idea. It's funny that they live less than ten miles away from us but in a different country.

A Good Thrifting Day

These two costumes will fit a little girl of about 10 or so. At $3 each I couldn't resist them even though there is nobody here of that size. I particularly like the one with the green skirt. The bead ornament at the neckline is beautiful.



I always check the cookbook section and this time I found this vegetarian cookbook in mint condition. It's not like I need any more cookbooks but with the garden starting to produce, I'm sure I'll find a few good recipes in this one.

Pressure Cooker

I got a pressure cooker a couple of weeks ago and am learning how to use it. The picture above is a beef short rib stew. Normally, that would have to simmer for two or three hours but it was done from freezer to table in about an hour using the pressure cooker. It would have been done faster if I had closed the lid properly at first.
I am thinning out the beets in my garden. I dearly love beet greens lightly steamed.


This is my new pressure cooker. It is an 8 quart Fagor . I got it at Amazon .

Trans Canada Trail

This morning we took a walk on the Trans Canada Trail. It was incredibly beautiful. We saw a large buck, ate saskatoons and wild raspberries and took a lot of pictures.
I got two wet feet and a lot of woodticks.
It was a fine morning.

Basket/Bag

Today I made a liner for another basket. This one is for my friend, Brenda, and is much larger than the one I did for myself.

Back at Last

I don't think I've ever gone this long without posting since I started this blog. It's been a busy time with the last event being our yearly July 7 party . This is a picture of the potluck table. What is better than a potluck? I just typed potlick , which is also appropriate! After the food we had a big bonfire and some fireworks. I forgot to bring my camera though, so no pictures of that part of the party.
Hopefully, today will be a back to the studio day.

Quilting Again!

I did a bit more work on my latest cat quilt today. I finished the letters for the quote. In the last word I've worked in some cats. Now I have to decide what fabric to use to join all the pieces together.

Canda Day

For Canada Day I made Chinese food using the Sun Lee Cookbook. I now have a new respect for Chinese restaurant cooks! Timing is everything. I had to make lists and notes. Lots of chopping ahead of time and lots of last minute stir-frying. Good thing I had a some help. My favorite was probably the lemon chicken or maybe the Peking Duck.

In the picture above, Peking Duck with scallion pancakes
Lemon Chicken, Spicy Bean Curd, Cold Sesame Noodles, Bean Curd Salad, Ribs Wuxi Style, Orange Beef, Broccoli with Garlic Sauce and Rice. Oops, the rice wasn't on the table yet.

Our eldest granddaughter (far left) just got home from Halifax and was able to be here for July 1st. These are four sisters. Aren't they fabulous!

Graduation

This week my grandsons, Sky and Free graduated from grade 12. Here they are with their sister, Summer and cousin, Ariana who were escorts. It seems like yesterday that these four were tiny tots . Summer and Ariana will have their turn next year. Congratulations boys.

Cats

Due to various birthdays, graduations etc, I haven't been spending much time in my studio lately, but today I finally got some piecing done. I decided that the quote for this quilt will be "A home is defined by the presence of cats". The original quote used civilization instead of home, but I wanted a more personal tone. I'm not sure that there is quite enough contrast between the letters and the background but I think it will be legible. I could up the contrast with quilting or embellishing with embroidery thread when I'm done if it is hard to read.

Design Piece

This is another exercise from Intuitive Color and Design by Jean Wells.
I suppose this will end up as another pillow top unless I decide to make it a wall hanging. Maybe it's time for some more embellishing...

Basket/Bag

I thought the basket the my granddaughters gave me for my birthday was cute enough to become a purse, so today I made a liner for it.


The inside has a couple of pockets and velcro to close it. The liner looks blue in the photo but it's actually more purple.

Birthday Gifts

Today is my birthday so we had lunch with some friends and then I picked out my own gift. (That's the best way to ensure that you get what you like.) I have wanted a pressure cooker for awhile now so that's what I chose. Now to learn how to use it without taking my head off.


My granddaughters do know exactly what I like though. They put together a basket of my favorite things and they know me well! Gardening gloves, gin and tonic for later and a road map because I love road trips. I'm going to make a nice liner with a drawstring for the basket and use it for a purse. Maybe I'll make several liners and then I'll have more than one purse.
Thanks a lot Sacha, Ariana and Micha!

Practise Piece

Awhile ago I bought Intuitive Color and Design by Jean Wells.
Today I tried the first project which was piecing soft curves. When I had finished the square I thought it needed something else so I inserted the tree shapes since the colors were supposed to indicate earth and sky. The big branch on the left turned out a bit too big so I added another tree. I'm not totally satisfied with it but it was an interesting exercise in color and curved piecing.
I liked it enough to make it into a pillow top.

Done, Done and Done!

I spent a lot of time in the last two days sewing down the bindings on these three quilts. It's nice to have three finishes.

Prize

Today I received these two beautiful fabrics in the mail from Lisa at Upstatelisa. I won a draw on her blog awhile ago. I'm pretty sure that if I went through her stash I would have picked these two fabrics since I have a collection of black and white fabrics, not to mention my collection of fabrics with circles, that I enjoy augmenting whenever I can. Right on two counts!
Thanks a million, Lisa.

Building Houses

Today I made two more cat houses. Now I get to the place where I wonder how to put them all together, what words to use, what other things like trees or flowers that I need to make.
While debating all this, I finished quilting The Teddy Bears' Picnic and most of the Dancing Stars quilts. I had to quit with the Dancing Stars because I ran out of thread with about three inches to go. I'll get thread tomorrow in town and it will only take a few minutes to finish.
Now I have three quilts sitting there waiting to have their bindings hand sewn down. Time to rent a couple of movies I guess.

How to Relax

This is so relaxing after the precision and planning that went into the One Block Wonder. No points to match, no precise seams to sew, no worries about bias seams...in other words, anything goes.
I am going to make some words to go with these houses but haven't decided what yet. Maybe Cheeky Cats...
Any ideas?

It Only Took an Hour

The repair went much faster than I thought it would. This one is far from perfect but I think that once it's quilted it will be better.



Now all the light is hitting the boxes in the same place. The bottom left box was upside down before.
I'm really glad I bit the bullet and fixed it. Now I have to find some backing.

The Other Mistake

This is the other mistake that I discovered after it was all put together. The dark blue should form a U shape and the yellow triangle should be against the gray. Sigh. It's going to be quite a project to correct it but I will give it a try today. If it messes up too much there will be some appliqued flowers appearing here and there, especially there.
Oh no! I just found another even worse mistake on the boxes! I can see that my work is cut out for me for the next few days.

Together at Last, But I Need a Fish

This one is finally pieced together. There must be a thousand short little seams in this quilt and quite a few long ones with points to match. Thank goodness for Elmer's School Glue. I do need a fish to cover up the mistake in the box below.


I am undecided about taking this section apart and trying again. The two reasons are: glue and bias seams. I'm afraid that by the time I pull the glue apart it will be stretched out and even worse than it is now. If I wet the seam well the glue should disappear though so maybe it's worth one try. I'll think about it tonight and see how I feel about it in the morning.
My question is whether it is finished or not. It is about 67inches by 65 and I have no idea how it ended up such an odd measurement. I'm pretty sure it should actually be square. I'm wondering if it needs another border. I have no more of the gray but maybe a pink border or perhaps a wide border of the original fabric? I'll be doing some auditioning tomorrow.

Thrifty Tuesday

This was my score for today. All it lacks is the peel but I have one of those. All of this for $12.
Do I really need any of this? Not really but it was too good a deal to pass up. I don't have the cheese grater or the shakers or the serving utensil and my pizza wheel is much smaller. I can also use a second stone when I want to bake flat breads. Then I'll be able to do more at once.