It's been awhile since I did a post.

Can you believe it is July 10th already!  Today is the 119th anniversary of my Grandmother's birth!  She passed away just shy of her 93rd birthday in 1992.  She loved flowers and I'm sure she would have loved these ones in my friend Rita's Garden.

 Love the different stages of how far open they are.

 The jellyfish succulents are growing nicely.

 Some have more tentacles than other.

 I was asked how they did them.

 Well it appears they flipped one of the hanging baskets upside down and then planting the succulents, mosses and trailing vines on a pole which delivers the water to them.  Rita has this display close to the front of her condo.  Apparently the water isn't quite getting to the top of the plantings so the gardeners had to borrow one of her water cans to help augment getting the whole plant watered!

 I finally made a decision of what fabrics to do last month's Dresden Plate on The Grasshopper Quilt.

 Originally I was going to use some of the colours of the leaves for the blades and then chose to use the yellow, orange, pink and turquoise polka dot fabrics from one line and the greens of the leaves.  I'm pleased how it has turned out.

 Remember these birds from my Simple Folk, they were a test for the larger birds for The Grasshopper.  But after making them I found a different turquoise accent for the wings to use.
                           
I kept the darker dimples fabrics turquoise as a contrast against the Kaffe Fassett print which I think worked well.

 Sarah Fielke does needle turned applique, I've never mastered it to my liking so I use the freezer paper and paint starch along the seam allowance and press it back.  I find a get a clean smoother edge to my pieces.  The birds were just pinned to see if I liked how the fabrics work together.

 For circles and repetitive pieces like the leaf shapes I use non melt Mylar and cut out the shapes.  I have a selection of circles from Karen Kay Buckley or I cut my own if she doesn't have the right size.

 I thought the linear turquoise and leaf prints contrasted nicely against the Kaffe prints and mimicked the feather shapes.
                               
Here are my next two Simple Folk blocks pinned and ready to stitch. These leaves will overlap on one side, think they will be a bit tricky to do.

 I've already stitched the stems, flower and vase and currently working on the dark leaves right now on this block.

Hope it isn't so long till I post again, have a surprise in store the next time!

High Water, Victoria Day Weekend.

On May 15th during my walk along the Quay I saw several signs set up warning people about the high river flow happening along the Fraser.  Higher up several communities have had some major flooding.  At least twice while I've been living here we have had massive sandbags appear but so far they have not arrived on the scene.

But I did spot a couple of sea lions feeding on some fish.  You may be able to see their ears if you click on the pictures.  Seals do not have ears Sea Lions do.

 When I first moved here I could often hear them having late night conversations with each other often in May.

 In preparation for the Victoria Day weekend there were hanging baskets placed below the support poles along the quay.

 Two for each support pole.

 The tulips usually are being pulled up and replanting happening.  I'm guessing they will wait until the threat of flooding has passed.

 I went to the local fabric store and found these mats and one of the cutters.  I already had a turquoise one but needed the pink one.

 I made the large and small Bionic Gear Bags in 2015.  Love my Gingher snips on the turquoise polka dot ribbon.

 I also found the latest Spring/Summer Quilt Sampler.  I think I have every issue.

 In almost every issue I've been to one or two of the shops.  Quiltworks in Bend is a lovely shop.

 Marilyn is a lovely helpful store owner.  I love the quilt shows she has in her upper gallery each month.

 Victoria Day Monday May 21 I went to walk along the boardwalk and as you can see it was blocked at each access from the brick walkway.

 Notice the darer mark on the support pilings?  The high tide was on the wan!  Despite the warnings I saw several people walking with friends or their dogs along the boardwalk.  Love the crow photo bombing the picture!

I also saw this huge log boom negotiating the bend of the river.  There was another tug to the right out of range of the camera towing, with these two helping ease around the bend.

 And a fourth one bringing up the rear!

 I missed the first bloom of peonies and the next are just starting to open, but caught this beauty.

 On the table I found this lovely Gerbera Daisy, I don't think I've every noticed one with the extra petals coming out of the centre.

 It was busy at Angelina's and I waited almost half an hour for a table with lots of others waiting behind.  The great news is that Eric is expanding the restaurant and hopefully the grill also.

 Spotted this pretty Iris in Rita's garden.

 These Snapdragons have a gorgeous colour to them.

 This poppy is starting to drop it's petals.

 I love the seed heads when the petals have dropped.

 This one is a fairly new bloom.

 One of her Allium breaking bud.

 Even a few buttercups.

 Queen Anne's Lace.

 I don't think I've ever seen so little of the diversion above water.  This was about an hour after high tide.  See some of the large logs floating past it.

 The hanging baskets are up and by summer's end will be huge.  New Westminster is known for it's hanging baskets around the main streets and along the quay.

 A slightly different angle where you can see a couple of huge tree trunks and their root balls have hung up on the diversion.  The river splits into the North and South arms at this point.

 One of the palms along the quay.

 Before I can stitch down that large yellow flower on the right I need to add my corner triangles.  I've added the centre flash with a heart in the centre of it.  I'm loving the Simple Folk Pennsylvania Dutch influences that Sarah has done.

 My two headed birds are pinned here but have been stitched down except for the hearts, eyes and centre dot. I still need to do the Grasshopper BOM.

Fraser Valley Quilters' Present...Felicity Ronaghan!

My former evening co-chair and then chairperson when I was President of FVQG came to do a trunk show, presentation and between meetings workshop today.  Felicity joined FVQG in 2001, she was such a dedicated member that when she delivered her daughter G ten and a half years ago the baby was born on the December meeting day at 1150!  She announced that during her talk at....shivers time 1150 this morning!

 Felicity shared some of various challenge pieces and shared in her talk how she manages to do things in 20 minute windows of quilting time a day.  Some days more than 20 minutes built around her family life, work and other obligations. Check out Felicity's Blog here.

 Another Vancouver Modern Guild challenge piece.

 Named by G Dancing in the Moonlight.

 Solid Fat Quarters cut up and sewn in stripes.

 She and her family moved from Vancouver to Naramata in the Okanogan several years ago and this is Naramata Sunset.  The region is known for it's fruit trees and when looking for a house to buy she saw different wood pallets outside one night two of which were painted blue.

 Created at a workshop with the Ladies of Gee's Bend.  Hand quilted, a rarity for Felicity.

 The One that Got Away made from a solid charm pack!

 Felicity joined the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and had organized a Round Robin one year.  Each month they were given various prompts.  Her choice was to have tones of one colour for her various rounds by her fellow robins.  She deconstructed it and added some red and the black and white to make it the size she wanted.

 The second round robin again was deconstructed and re sewn.  This one has some Essex Linen included.

 A sampler class she taught using only solids...no prints.

 Se sent a picture into You Patch for a black and white challenge and this is what resulted!

 On Instagram you can find her @felicityquilts this is one of her #beesewcial quilts  Each month they sew blocks for one of the members.  Hers was Winter Improv.

 Between the meetings she was going to share her technique for a bull's eye improve cushion.  Set differently it becomes Eye Tears (I think, will confirm).

 We got the first reveal of her The Canadian Sampler.

 This pattern was designed by various Canadian Quilters and is available at Sew Sisters Quilt Shop.  From their blog here is the information about the pattern. This setting was Felicity's own design. Felicity designed the Maple Leaves 4 Ever block and went to school with the coordinator and owner of Sew Sisters!

 Her show and tell all laid out.  Check out Felicity Quilts Instagram feed here.

 Unfortunately her Bull's Eye class was fully booked, I had hoped to be a last minute drop in, so I went for a walk along the quay instead.

 The tulips are on their last legs.

 The pink ones are starting to loose their petals.

 The city gardeners will be pulling them up along with the other Spring Bulbs and planting the Summer annuals.  The hanging baskets will be out on the Victoria Day weekend.

 I love the centres of tulips with their dark stars.

 The Dogwood tree is our provincial flower.  The provincial tree is the Western Cedar.

 I always seem to miss this one in bloom but caught it today.

 My favourite bull's eye tulips.

 One rogue yellow and red tulip.

 The Rhododendrons are in full bloom.

 Love this red one.

 Small blue flowers in our rockery garden.

 Last night I laid out block 5 of Simple Folk.  I got the stems and vase stitched down and during the meeting I got 8 of 9 leaves and one outside flower stitched!

There are two blocks this month along with one applique for Grasshopper and a 25 pieced en point block 3 to do.  Four of them!