Busy, Busy, Busy and One Flower Wednesday!

I've had a busy start to my week. No time for blogging or reading comments. On Monday evening we had our first guild meeting for this year. It was nice to see everyone again. We had a guest speaker, Renske Helmuth. She is a fibre artist and appliquer. I loved all of her quilts! She had some real beauties to show us. On Tuesday she held a workshop for members of our guild to do some wired-ribbon flowers. I had never done those so I signed up for it. It was a fun day. We met at 43 Police Division. They have a huge room with the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in. The room is surrounded by windows. Too bad it rained yesterday, because I think that room must be fantastic on a sunny day. The only drawback was the airconditioning. They still had it turned up full blast. We almost froze and complained but were told that they couldn't do a thing about it. Apparently the temperature is regulated by their head office downtown. Grrrrr. Tax payers' money! But I won't start on that! Here is what I got done.
The sunflower is not sewn yet, which is a good thing. Now that I see it in a photo, I realize that the flower is not centred. I also didn't get the top leaf appliqued yet. There will be one more flower and a bud to make out of the wired ribbon. The centres of the flowers will be done with seed beads. I hope to get this project done before the end of October so that I can bring it to the next guild meeting for Show and Tell.

I wish I had some hexie flowers to show you, but I only got a lot of green pieces done for the red hexagon quilt. I have 49 completed flowers for that quilt - to date.

I saw a beautiful hexagon quilt on a website and thought I would try making something like that. I had some hexagon pieces that I couldn't use for the red quilt. So I made a few more and put them together based on the beautiful quilt I found on that website. I am aiming for a quilt, but it may just become a wall hanging. This is what I have done so far. Some parts have not been sewn together yet.

Leaves

Now that fall is here, my mind is on colourful leaves. Bright reds, oranges, yellows. browns and purples. So here is a block to celebrate Autumn. You can find it by clicking on the Friday Block Party on my sidebar. It's called Ozark Maple Leaf and it is 12 inches square.
Happy Friday everyone!

Eleven Flower Wednesday

I worked on some flowers this week. Eleven to be exact! These are all small ones for my red garden. Here are the finished ones. There are 7 of those.

And another 4 prepped and ready to sew. I also made some green leaves to go between the flowers.
Today is the last day of summer. The Autumn Equinox occurs at 11:09 tonight.

Two Blocks from the Friday Block Party

I managed to get two Block Party blocks done. The first one is called 'Cups and Saucers' and it is a 9 inch block from week 36. The pattern is from Quilter's Cache. You can click on the Friday Block Party logo on my side bar to get it. Sometimes Quilter's Cache has bizarre instructions for making the blocks. In that case I usually just make them the way I think is best. But for this block I followed their 'quickie method' to make the flying geese units. It worked like a charm. I just love the red fabric. Don't you? It's from America Samoa. Barb sent it to me a while back. Thanks Barb. It really makes this block zing!
The next block is from this week (week 38) on the Block Party. It's called 'Grandmother's Puzzle'. I really like this block, even though I am not a grandmother yet. It was quick and easy. Just a few HST and some 2 1/2inch units. It is a 10 inch block, so I used batiks. I must look for the other 10 inch blocks that I've made to see if I have enough for a quilt. If anyone is interested in joining the Block Party, just let me know and I will send you an invitation so that you can post your blocks on the site. Hope everyone has a terrific weekend - the last one for this summer if you live in the northern hemisphere. Of course, if you are 'down under' you are looking forward to summer. (sigh) A large flock of robins came to my garden today. There were so many that I could not count them all. I guess they are getting ready to fly south - a sure sign that fall is close. And a very noisy Blue Jay came to see if there were seeds in the feeder. It's the first one I have seen since last spring. There were no seeds in the feeder because I planted some Morning Glories at the bottom of the post and they have taken over. It's probably good that I am not feeding the birds right now, otherwise they may decide to stay too long and not be able to make it all the way to warmer weather before it turns too cold.

Wednesday is Flower Day!

The summer is just about over, but I still have some lovely flowers in my garden. This one is called Lavatera. I started them from seeds, indoors. The package said they were mixed colours, but most of mine are this wonderful pink. They are a member of the mallow family. Can you tell? Other plants in the mallow family include hibiscus, okra, hollyhocks, cotton plant, Rose of Sharon and many more. In fact there are about 200 genera and over 2000 different species in this family.

Here is a close up.

A few white Lavatera came up too. I really love the large, snow white blooms.

Family: Malvaceae. Genus: Lavatera.

A couple of other flowers are blooming in my hexagon garden. I made several this week. I joined them to the others, so I am not exactly sure of how many I made, and I am not going to show you how it looks at this point. These flowers are rather small and it doesn't look as if the quilt is growing. I'm afraid if I take a photo every week I will get bored and not finish this quilt. Yesterday I joined a small group of quilters for tea and quilt talk. I was able to make two more flowers. I now have 35 flowers altogether.

I decided to join an online BOS (Block of the Season). I know, I know. I already have too many projects waiting to be finished. But this is going to be a small cat wall hanging. I just couldn't resist. Check it out. It's on Ellie's Quiltplace. Or click on the Cat Quilt icon on my sidebar.

A Walk Along the Bluffs of Lake Ontario

My DD picked me up yesterday and took me to Rotary Park in Ajax, just east of Toronto. The park has a paved path along the top of the bluffs. People are encouraged to walk, bike, skate or jog with a view of Lake Ontario all the way. I walked a little and got pushed in my wheelchair for part of the way.

It was a beautiful day. The temperature was around 21C and there was a sort of hazy sunshine. There were Monarch butterflies all over the Milkweed and Yellow Goldenrod plants. Canada Geese honked from the water down below the bluffs. I took this photo facing east. The sky was a nice blue colour. It is hard to see the water, but that is what I like about Lake Ontario. It is different each time you see it.
Although these photos were taken at exactly the same time, the view to the west looked completely different. The clouds were beginning to roll in. It is hard to see, but that large area of concrete buildings is the Pickering Nuclear Plant. To me this is the only blight on an otherwise beautiful natural setting. I know we need electricity, but heck.... don't get me started on that!

The Baby Quilt is Done!

My first finish for September. Remember that Baby Quilt my husband wanted me to make for one of his employees who had a baby? I hoped to get it done a couple of weeks ago. But things always take me longer than planned. In this case two times longer, which is about par for the course. I finally sewed the binding down last night. I think I will call it,'Pastel Baby'.
I think it was the back that took so long. I thought I had a piece of fabric that would have been perfect for the backing. It's the blue one with the little bears and stars on it. When I pulled it out I could only find a couple of large pieces and a lot of scraps. I thought I had a lot more of it. I have a feeling that the rest of this fabric is hiding somewhere in my sewing room. It has all of the colours that I used in the top, so I just pieced some of the leftovers from the top and did some back art. I hope the baby likes it.

Flowers on Wednesday

I made a few more flowers this week. I now have a total of 29 finished flowers and another 5 ready to be sewn together. I also got some more green hexies made. But these flowers are so small that I feel as if I am getting nowhere. I know this won't make any sense, but I can't stop making them. They are so inviting when I go to my sewing room each morning. I always work on a few just to get my sewing mojo back each day. I guess there will be hexies in my future for a long time to come.

Scrap Happy Summer Parade

I am sad to report that Em's Scrap Happy Summer Challenge has come to an end. Of course this doesn't mean that I will stop making things with my scraps! I will keep playing around with even the tiniest of fabric pieces to make something new.

So for the finale. Here is my Scrap Happy Summer Parade.

I have made several more of the strip blocks. They are not sewn together yet, but I hope to have them done soon. With Mimi's help I should be able to make a quilt out of these.

On previous posts I have already shown you some of the other scrap projects that I have been working on. Here are a few of them. The small flowers, the 2 1/2 inch crumb block quilt, the picnic quilt, the klosjes and the red and blue blocks and the 3 1/2 inch crumb blocks.

I haven't shown you a photo of my ongoing flower garden for awhile. These are the larger flowers. I think this one is almost done to the flimsy stage. I am not sure how big I will make it. I guess I will stop when the flowers become boring or if I run out of scraps. So far there is no sign of either of that.

And finally for today I want to share with you the row I made for the Row Robin Barb is hosting. I used some of my scraps and some of the fabric that came with this row. The theme for this quilt is springtime.

Go on over to Em's Scrapbag and see what others did this summer.

Flower Garden Update

This week I completed 7 more flowers and got 2 more prepped and ready to sew. That makes a total of 21 flowers. I also added a lot of green petals in between the flowers. This really looks great 'in person', but I am not sure if I like that purple flower in there now that I see it photographed and on my screen. Maybe if I add some more of that purple colour, it will look better. At any rate, I am not going to unsew anything. These little flowers are too precious. And have been sewn so tightly that I can't even get a seam ripper in there without damaging the fabric!

I have several other projects I need to work on, so this is all for Grandma's Flower Garden for this week. Hope to get some things done by tomorrow so I can show them to you.

It's the first of September already. Where did the summer go? School starts next Tuesday. I still get that 'back-to-school' rush, even though I don't have to go back. It doesn't feel like the end of summer. Still hot here. Too hot to sleep. My air conditioner is running at full speed. Okay! No more complaining! It will be winter before we know it and I will be wishing for a nice, hot, summer day.