Foggy mornings, sunny afternoons some wool inspirations...

Several of the past few mornings we've been waking up to fog.  Some I can barely see the trees and others are a bit clear.  Both today and yesterday started that way.

I headed over the Ironworkers' Bridge to North Vancouver and the Creative Edge Quilt and Sewing Machine shop to meet up with some fellow stitchers of wool.  Maureen who owns the shop graciously opens on the third Monday of the month for our group.  She doesn't have a website but if you ever come to the Vancouver area please come and visit her. Yesterday we had 12 come but not all projects were photographed.

This first project is by Uschi Greiner who leads our group.

This is a Sue Spargo piece called Flower Bed.

Uschi dyes wool and most of the wool in this piece were dyed by her.  She has a wonderful eye for colour.

Long curvy stem around the final border.

Lovely turquoise plaid dyed wool.  Her website can be found here.

Sharon belongs to the North Shore Needle Arts guild and their challenge for the new year was to make a stitched name tag.  She got the scissors charm for getting hers done.

My friend Sandi made this lovely crazy quilted stitched bag and is waiting for her charm.

This is the back of Sandi's bag, she has a jump on the next challenge of stitching a bug!

This is part of a needle book that Uschi is designing for sale.  She has a bug on each of the inside pages. First a lady bug.

A Bee.

Another lady bug.

A spider's web but no spider.

Sharon made this needle case as one of her first projects.

This is the back.

I stitched these two pieces from Scrap Quilt and Stitch.  I'm not sure if I will make them into a quilt or the little hangers as she shows.  Be aware I have had problems downloading some of Roxanne's projects but she has graciously e-mailed them directly to me.  I'm currently working on the December one...yes I'm a bit behind.

These next two projects are being stitched by two friends, there has been a third gal also doing it but she wasn't present yesterday.  This one is by Judy.

This one is by Jean, they bought their kits from Uschi and you can see they have slightly different fabric choices in them.

These grasses caught my eye outside the shop.

As you can see the sun was shining brightly.

Back home I went for a walk and saw these seagulls apparently walking on water!  But no the sandbar was being covered by the incoming tide.  The Fraser River is tidal in front of my condo and as far up as Mission which is about 23 km. upriver.

The orange witch hazel is in full display.

The yellow version is a few days behind.

Looking up river toward Golden Ears Mountains.

Snowdrops have been blooming for awhile.

Some of the last of the beauty berries.

Interesting seed heads.

I like the sunlight in the background of this photo.

These photos were taken at about 3:30 in the mid winter sun.

I like this shot.

A last look at the seed heads against a pink winter cabbage.

Spring is coming and a guild creation

This quilt was designed by two members of the Fraser Valley Quilters; Cher Olsson and Val Smith. In September 2013 they brought 96 hearts and background fabrics and gave them out to guild members to appliqué. They were due back in October...all 96 were returned! The centre dove was done by Cher and Val and at our October retreat they did the planning of the placement of the hearts and then sewing them together. Various members helped with the ironing of the rows and then the sandwiching and pin basting of the quilt. Cher then did the machine quilting and it was donated to a local hospice society for their use. It is truly a magnificent piece, my regret is that I only had my camera phone and did not get a better picture of it.



This afternoon I went for a walk to take some pictures and found I had a dead battery on my SLR camera, but on the way back I remembered the trusty camera phone and took a couple of pictures.


I love this witch hazel plant and usually take pictures as this spider like flowers, there is a second yellow one not far away.


Imagine my surprise to see one of rhododendrons already blooming!


I then found a second one...no wonder the Vancouver area is called the banana belt of Canada.


Tomorrow I hope to get some photos of some snowdrops blooming in a friend's garden and a few other west coast blooms.

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Foggy morning.

When I looked out about two hours ago this was the view is saw. It was very bright but the river was no place to be seen.



Now the fog has started to burn off but you can barely see the Alex Fraser bridge to the left. It has two large H supports one you can see just to the left of the blue tarps and buildings across the river.


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Another Snowman Finish! Grow Your Blog!!!

Last night I finished the winter banner from Primitive Gatherings. I added the snowman's smile and some eyebrows.  I had also forgotten to add the snowflake on the bird's wing before doing the quilting.

 Because I didn't fuse my wool I quilted the piece quite heavily.

 I used the snowflake as a jumping off point to start most of my quilting.  Now to make the base quilt to attach each of the seasonal banners.  They suggest using Velcro but I'm toying with another method but will have to see if I can make it work once the base quilt is made.

I've also decided to link up to the Grow Your Blog hop on January 25th.  Currently I have 17 followers and hope to gather some more.  Please come and join the blog hop on Saturday, Robbie Burns Day, also my best friend's birthday so a day I'll remember!

Grow Your Blog!!!

                                                           

Dorr Mill Store sale purchases.

Dorr Mill Store sells some lovely wool, and they currently have their January sale on.  I went to look and couldn't resist buying some of these lovely wools.

 These first three are larger pieces I plan to use for a background.  The green will be used for a Christmas tree.

 These smaller pieces attracted me with their colour.  They all are folded in half.

The next group was bought as a bundle, I like the visual texture they offer and the rainbow effect.  With some clever placement you could feature just one or two of the colours.

They also have some of their kits on sale, I don't think I got mine on sale but they have it on right now along with some other one.  Check them out at this link.

Art of Quilting...

Today I got an e-mail from Mel McFarland with an attachment of the article below.

Udderly nonsense milk cow exhibit dry was written by Sherida Warner from The Sentinel in Grand Junction Colorado and published December 1, 2013. Photos taken in the article are courtesy of Loyse Hinkle. Sherida graciously agreed to let me share the article with you. Thanks.





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Mini Snowman/Snowflake Quilt done! Snowman banner ready for quilting!

I found this cute snowman/snowflake mini quilt by Lyn Brown and decided to make it up using just wool fabrics on this great snowflake batik I found. You can find the pattern on Lyn Brown's blog or by clicking here.  She has mini quilts for every month.  You may see more in the future.

 I just finished the last of the stitching on my Primitive Gatherings Primitive Banner-Winter Snowman and it is ready to sandwich and quilt.

 I chose some brighter colours for my snowman's scarf and snowflake.  I also used a decorative stitch for the snowflake rather than the buttonhole stitch.

 You can see the wing is a plaid while the body is solid.

I'm going to sandwich this today and then figure out what to make the base quilt out of.  This project has the four banners to swap out.  Here is the link to the item from Primitive Gatherings.  I've already stitched the Autumn one but it needs to be sandwiched and quilted.  I'm hoping to get each ready for the season this year...Sew Finish It Up!