A Mindless Break

Sometimes, you just need a break from everything. This week, Michael's had a sale on Pom Pom yarn. I came home with a couple of balls, and after a couple of evenings in front of the TV, I have this.

It is about 8' long. I will sew the ends together and make an Infinity Scarf. Since the weather is finally starting to improve, I think it will become a present for next Christmas.

Meanwhile, I am trying to bring a little spring indoors.

They don't look like much yet, but in a week or so, they will be covered in blossoms. Every year about this time, I cut a couple of branches from my Forsythia bush and force them. I have this vase, a larger vase, and a juice glass full of twigs. You can already see a tiny touch of yellow on a few of the buds, so I don't think it will take long. Sadly, I don't think they will be ready for Easter.  Poor planning on my part (of course the drift in front of the bush was about 5' high until a day or so ago.)

Happy Spring!

Auditions

After playing with the Disappearing Four Patch, last week, I went in search of some fabric that might like to join the 3 blocks I had already made.

No surprise, I found lots of candidates.

Here are some of the volunteers.

These are the purples (I had a few!)

Some green and turquoise:

And some volunteers that may not make it into the quilt:

Early days, yet. Who knows what will end up in the mix.

Meanwhile, I was aided in my search by my very helpful assistant, Arthur.

I think he will be returning to the shelter later this week, to find a family to live with forever. I'll tell the shelter staff he likes to sew.

I finished a sock on the weekend, and have the second one on the way.

A friend was looking at them the other day and told me my socks were "kind of weird, but cute, a lot like you." I don't know, is that a compliment?

Playing with Fabric

March Break is a time to play, right? Heather, over at Books and Quilts was playing with disappearing 4 - patches, last week, and I just had to try them.

I used the instructions, found on What comes next? I used some fat eighths, that I had laying on my cutting table (I had used some of the package to make my mittens, a couple of weeks ago). I cut the largest squares I could from the pieces I had left, which came to 5 1/2". Here is the results.

I like the results. They will trim to 8 1/2".  I am thinking of making more, and see if I can use up some of my fat quarters. I don't remember if I had plans for many of them, when I bought them, and I am running out of space, so I think it is time to use some up.

Linking to the Needle and Thread Network: WIP Wednesday.

Old Friends and New Joys

When I was 5, my parents moved us to a small town, thinking that it was a good place to raise their ever growing brood.

I soon met another little girl, at Sunday School. She informed me that she was 6, and I was awed by her obvious maturity. Due to the arbitrary rules of the school board, we went to Grade 1 together (and because it was a small town, all the other grades, until Grade 12). We went to summer camp together, and we lockered together in High School. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding.

Although we now leave 7 hours apart, but we are still good friends.  Anyone meeting the pair of us would wonder how we ever became friends, since we seem to have little in common. She neither knits, nor sews, and she can't even fathom the quilting. Her mother did all those things, and I think it was a small act of rebellion, that she never learned.

She became a Grandma for the very first time, in January. Since I knit a sweater, some years ago, for my friend's baby, I wanted to knit a sweater for her grandbaby. Grandma picked the yarn, and the pattern, and I provided the skill.

The pattern says that it is size 6 - 9 months, but I think it will fit Baby next spring, unless she is much bigger than her mommy was.

There is a shower for the new baby next weekend. The sweater is heading out tomorrow, to add to the pile of gifts, since I can't be there.

Serve Others

In 1915, the YWCA and other interested women's groups got together to organize an after school program for teenage girls. The girls wanted to help with the war effort, and the women's groups wanted to help them by creating a safe environment for the girls to meet. The group became called Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT) and the group continues today.

I have been involved in CGIT since I was 12, and I am currently blessed to have been asked to be the Resource leader for the group at our church.

The CGIT purpose (written in 1915) says the among other things,
As a Canadian Girl in Training, it is my purpose to: ...
Serve Others...

The group asked me to help them make a banner on the theme of Serve Others. We brainstormed last fall, and last night, we started creating.

Sixteen hands, two for each girl in the group and one each for the two leaders and two resource leaders.

I am going to turn each one into a mini quilt, and bring them back in 3 or 4 weeks, so they can embellish their hands. I am going to add 4 more blocks with hearts on them, so they can add the names of the people who have helped them this year, along with a centre section with the words Serve Others. We plan to have our work of art finished by the end of year banquet.

Virginia Bound

My church group receives donations of quilt tops from time to time. The donation is usually anonymous, leading us to wonder why the quilter failed to finish the piece. Sometimes we suspect the the top didn't turn out quite the way the quilter imagined, so the top was set free, to find a new destiny. A couple of years ago, a top arrived with no explanation (it was left, like a foundling, at the door of the church).
The group usually has 2 quilts on the frames, one for the excellent quilters, who can quilt in all directions, and in curves, and one for those who just hand quilt in straight lines. Some of the straight line crowd are beginners, and some (like me) don't really plan to get better than straight lines (I have a machine for that, after all). The donated top was put on the "Rookie" frame.

After quilting it all last winter, it was completed, bound, labelled, and today was commissioned to its new work. It will become a warm hug, from us, to the family that will live in a Habitat for Humanity home that a group from the church (young and old) will be working on during March Break, in Virginia.

Before it heads off, I took it for one more outing  in the snow.

I didn't have the exposure set right on the camera, but I think you get the idea. I know as we quilted on this one, there was a lot of discussion about how appropriate the gold border was. We were all sitting too close to it, because, from a distance, it looks great. The quilt is crosshatched down the middle of all the little squares in the middle, with the cross hatching extended into the floral blocks. The border is quilted with straight lines 1" apart, perpendicular to the edge. It has a flannel back and is about 64" square. A nice big hug, at that!

For the eagle eyed, that is one of my Moskoka Chairs, just peeking out of the snow, to the right of the quilt.  Yeap, the snow is about 4 feet deep in my back yard now. I almost wish I was going with the quilt, next week.

A closeup of one corner

Meanwhile, because the snow is still that deep, finishing my Frost Buster Mittens seemed like a good idea.

Don't they look nice! They are off to show and tell tomorrow.