Friday Night Sew-In Results: GOLD!

It's pretty hard to sew while John Montgomery is hurtling himself headfirst down a "frozen toilet chute on a cafeteria tray" at 140 km/hr (just so you know, that's his description, not mine!) wearing a goofy black mouth guard with two huge white teeth painted in the middle.

I loved his story of why he chose skeleton over luge. He said going headfirst, the way that gravity intended, just felt right and that the luge was like trying to bring the Christmas tree through the front door the wrong way (top first). Perfect analogy! The other bit about the Canadian Skeleton team I love is the story of their helmet paint jobs....after meeting with a 'sports shaman' (just how does one arrive at that job title?) John chose the turtle and had that incredible stylized image painted on his helmet. It seems to really inspire him as he carried it all night long through Whistler Village. Classic Canadian: helmet in one hand, pitcher of beer in the other. Congratulations John!!

So, the sewing.

I mean, I tried. Really hard. Honest. But then our women's curling team was nearing the end of a nail-biter against Denmark (LOVE their pleated skirts). After we won the game in an overtime end (don't you just love how "we" won, like I had anything to do with it, hehe), and I had seen John receive his flowers at the sliding centre, I finally launched into cutting and sewing mode. By 12:30 a.m. I'd managed to complete step 2 of my mystery quilt and prepare the pieces for step 3.

My goal is to get step 3 all completed before our guild meeting on Tuesday, because step 4 will be in my inbox later that night and I wouldn't want to fall behind....these Olympics have me feeling a little competitive!

Endings and Beginnings

There's been frost the last couple of mornings. A sparkly white dusting on the tips of the grass blades and all along the roof tops. The local mountains even had a skiff of snow at the very tippity tops the other day! Fall is coming to a close around here, which means the moss is growing thick on our apple tree and it's time to pick that very last delicious, crunchy apple...

When we first moved into this house 9 years ago, the apple tree was so healthy and happy. We must have had 100+ apples that first summer. I think we may have stressed the poor thing by pruning some of the lower, kiddie-eyeball-level branches in those first couple of years. Some people say there are so few bees that pollination isn't really happening like it used to. Whatever the cause, there were only about 20 apples this year. Sad.

Our perennial bed is looking mightly droopy and tired. Everything's gone yellowy, fallen over and is in dire need of a clean-up. The hydrangea is the last hold-out on the colour front.

So, on to new things! I received my swap partner today for the Quilting Bloggers Fall Quilt Swap. This is my first time participating in a swap. I've been busy spying on my partner already, sifting through her old posts, looking for clues as to what she likes, her quilting style and home decor. We have to make a small wall hanging, no larger than 12" X 24" by January. I've got some ideas and I'm looking forward to getting started soon.

First, my Mystery Quilt is calling me. At guild last night, we received the first set of piecing instructions. All I have to do now is press this mess and get going!!!

...but really first-first, there are the Hallowe'en costumes to finish up!

I am SO looking forward to a 4 day retreat coming up. I'm hosting 23 women at this perfect place where we will sew, eat, hot tub, walk in the woods, look at the ocean and laugh. A lot. Departure in only 8 sleeps!!! I love retreats.

Don't forget to visit sew, mama, sew and vote for your favourite Stash Buster Tutorials. Voting is open until tomorrow!!!

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!

The olden days...

Is this not the most gorgeous set of old irons? I just fell in love with these beauties lined up all tickety-boo in the window sill. A few weekends ago, B and I ventured to B.C.'s south interior, to wine country, to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. Between the wine tasting, we rode our mountain bikes on a section of the Kettle Valley Railway. After a couple of hours of climbing out of Naramata, we came upon the Chute Lake Lodge. Now, this is definitely the Lodge That Time Forgot. Collections of antiques and curiosities were everywhere!

In this day and age of Rowenta Power Steam Pressing Systems, it is always nice to look back and reflect on the tools that were available to our grandmothers and great-grandmothers as they created their quilts from worn-out family clothing and linens. I'm thinking our foremothers must have had rather large biceps...those irons are H E A V Y! Those are the times I think of as the olden days. My kids, however, occasionally ask me questions about my olden days, "you know, like when you were in high school, Mom." Jeesh.

I'm off on a shopping trip this morning, looking for my mystery quilt fabrics. I need three fabrics (a light, medium and dark) of my main colour - pink - and the same of it's complimentary colour - green. While I am amassing quite a stash of too-small and worn out stripey cotton shirts, recycled clothing just doesn't provide the yardage I need for this project. Therefore, I will go the modern route and buy it. Brand new. Crisp. Delicious fabric.

I'll be back soon to show you my mystery quilt collection!

Mystery Machine

Are you thinkin' Shaggy & Scooby? Velma, Daphnie & Fred? Well, under normal circumstances I would be too, however this mystery is quilting-related and I don't think those kids had enough time off from hunting down Swamp Creatures and Snow Monsters to pick up needle and thread.

Last night at our guild meeting my fabulous friend Dianne introduced us to this year's program. It's a mystery quilt project! Dianne is a rare person; one who actually owns a copy of EQ6 and isn't afraid to use it. She spent her summer (in part) designing a lap-sized quilt with month by month instructions for us to make it. For $10 you could choose a sealed paper bag from her overflowing basket. At every guild meeting up to May 2010, we'll receive another page of instructions, each one taking us closer to solving the mystery. It is really fun at the end of the year to see how different and amazing all the quilts are. Plus, you have an entire month to complete each step - surely I can do that. Yes, I can.

Later in the meeting, we were instructed to open our bags and take a look at the first set of instructions. Along with the instructions, everyone got one of these:

I'm so happy mine wasn't brown. I mean, I can work with brown, but just not as my main-inspiration-sort-of-fabric. It's just too......brown. I have lots of favourite pink fabric, and pink does go with brown, so you never know. The instructions for the first month explain that we should use one of these:

...to find a complimentary colour for our gumball in several different values. I have owned a colour wheel for years, but rarely pull it out when putting fabric together for a project. I mostly just 'wing it' and go with what looks right to me. As a result, Results Have Varied.

Stay tuned as I'll post on my progress each month.

I'm off to find my mini-skirt and go-go boots so I can start solving this mystery!