Tank-Full....and mystery fabric reveal!

That's me. My tank is full. Of turkey, cranberry sauce, apple cake, pumpkin tarts and ferry food. We had a wonderful weekend of relaxing friendship and fun in Victoria (and got very lucky with the ferries, considering the massive crowds, line-ups and waits due to an engine room fire last Friday on one of the boats). Didn't dampen our weekend in the slightest. Don' cha just love it when you can stay with another family, or have them to your place, and it all just works without seeming like work? That's what Thanksgiving weekend should be all about...and it was.

While the turkey was busy cooking to perfection, we enjoyed a crisp fall bike ride to this farm:

So you know I was happy! D loved seeing the orange fields, too. "There must be a kajillion pumpkins out there - are they all going to get carved???!!!" A stop in an incredible local bakery for pretzels, organic chocolate rolls (need I say more?) and spelt bread was another highlight. Look as this amazing centrepiece they were auctioning for charity:

On our last morning, we took the dog, kids and a soccer ball on a neighbourhood walk, over a hill to the beach. Check out the amazing colours! Aaaaaah, fall.

Now, back to quilting! Remember the guild mystery quilt I told you about here? Well, the final two fabrics arrived by mail last week, so they are all now beautifully folded across Amy Butler's scrumptious Lotus which I plan to use for my border. You can see that I've wavered slightly from the bubble-gum pink, but I think that's allowed.

The instructions were to buy specific yardage of a light, medium and dark fabric in both your main (in my case, pink) and contrasting colour from the opposite side of the colour wheel. Finding lights was the hardest - most quilt shops are full of medium fabrics with a section of 'background' fabrics in the ivory/cream/neutral family. I lucked out with an Amy Butler quilting solid in palest pink, along with her Daisy Chain print; both were found at Hamel's, an excellent Canadian online source for older, out of print fabrics (and new ones, too!). Both of my darks are Dimples by Gail Kessler (Andover fabrics), my current favourite solid-but-not-so-solid fabric.

So, now all I have to do is launder, press, cut and await further instructions! Those will come next week at the guild meeting...I can hardly wait to see this quilt come together!

Are you enjoying the online quilt festival? I've had lots of visitors, which has been very exciting. If you haven't had a look yet, click on the Festival button in my sidebar and take a peek at quilts around the world....I think there are more than 450 of them now - better brew a big pot!