Where have I been??

It must be said that my time on the Internet is quite curtailed these days; that with the shop and the activities of summer, it feels great to be busy. Even Hurricane Arthur which came to our shores Saturday morning as a tropical storm didn't deter our plans.

Even before the shop opened, I had plans to be a vendor at the Annual Lupin Quilt Fair and Market (in its 33rd year) in our little town of Port Elgin NB. Ever since I made those plans, I've been preparing for that weekend. Quilters are a hardy bunch; attendance was down on storm day but it picked up on Sunday.

This was Spruce It Up Quilting's booth!

My husband made the quilt rack and added the signs!

I had no expectations for this venue since I was a newcomer... the point of being there was to meet quilters and non-quilters who had great interest in the art and to have a chance to share my love of it. I achieved that and more! The reception I got was overwhelming... I hope quilters see the shop as a friendly place to visit, to shop and especially to come show me their works of art... after all it goes both ways! We all learn from each other. I love to see what others are making!

As you can see, Deauville is front stage. A lot of people commented on it... after all, this is cottage country. Many asked if it was for sale! Many more took photos! 

I had a few of my own quilts on display in the gym... the one on the left was made in 1994-95 and finished a few years later. The pattern was featured in Fons and Porter's For the Love of Quilting in the second or third magazine issue. It is called Fat Stars because I used over 120 fat quarters to make the pieced blocks. I hand-quilted this one myself.

The quilt on the right was made with leftover fabrics from a signature quilt I made for our parents as a Christmas gift in 1994. The colorful fabrics were chosen by each family member to represent themselves. I couldn't let those leftovers go to waste so I used 30s reproduction fabrics to frame the jewels. It's called My Family Jewels because I can identify each family member in this quilt. This one was hand-quilted by the Anglican Church Women's group in Westcock NB. Both are queen sized and not for sale!

Barnside is also bound and ready to send off to our dear friend diagnosed with cancer. After finishing the binding, I tossed it in the washing machine and it came out so lovely!

While I was photographing this quilt, Sadie was busy putting the final stitches to her large quilt! Excuse the bright light from the window behind her. Sadie spent yesterday quilting hearts on her top and after finishing the last row, she wanted to add more quilting. She decided to return today to do some free-motion quilting in the spaces between the hearts. She found her groove and in no time, she was done! She was so excited to be in front of the machine and plans to return in August with another quilt for more practice. I must tell you that she is also a dedicated hand-quilter who does beautiful work!

You too can rent time on Lolah! Bring your project in and we'll look it over, choose a design, thread and we'll book a time! If you already do free-motion on your machine, you will be amazed at how fast you can transition to the longarm. There's a learning curve and it takes practice but you'll surprise yourself! Sadie went home with a smile, so proud to have done it herself.

Spruce It Up Quilting shelves are just chock full of fabric bolts: Riley Blake, Jo Morton, Kona Cottons, Blue Hill, Maywood Studios, Andover Fabrics, Robert Kaufman, In The Beginning, RJR's Cotton Supreme and many more! We sell batting too: 100% poly, 80/20, 100% cotton on the roll... 

Monday morning, we'll have 21 new backings; 108" X 108". You won't believe our prices! Perhaps I'll see you soon!

Toodles!

Lorette

PS I'm linking to The Needle And Thread Network and to Let's Bee Social... go on over and browse what others are doing... 

Work in Progress... no longer!

Hello everyone from Spruce it Up Quilt Shop & Quilting Services!

The GRAND OPENING last Tuesday was fabulous! Women and men came in 2s and 4s all day and stayed for hours! My sister was here to help out and we had a great day chatting with the visitors and selling fabric.

Lolah was ready and as people came in, I asked them to sign their name on the sample piece. It seemed like everyone enjoyed the experience. The sample comes down tomorrow morning... one feature of the quilt shop is the ability to rent time on Lolah. My first rental day is tomorrow and Lolah will be put through her paces before the customer walks in. This client is very excited to try her hand at this and I believe she'll do really well if I use her practice pantograph to judge her skills. It will definitely be exciting for me.

Roxane from Scrap, quilt and stitch has forwarded the last block! Block 11 was a joy to stitch although it's bitter sweet since this means the end of stitching this beautiful quilt.

Once my client is done renting space on Lolah, this quilt top may be next in line!! Can't wait to quilt it!

It's been a busy week at Spruce It Up Quilting... opening day, shop duties, lessons on new equipment, brochures to design, print and deliver, finish some blocks and tops, household duties, Father's day... life goes on outside the shop doors despite the shop being in our own home. If  you're ever in the area, please stop by to say hello. We can sit on the deck (or the porch if it's raining) and we'll chat . Bring the quilt you're working on and we can share in our mutual pastime! I would love to see and hear about your projects. Remember, this is a friendly shop... I'll save you a chair!

Toodles,

Lorette

A Journey Begins!

Roxane of Scrap, Quilt and Stitch has done it again! Another great block to add to our De Deauville to Cape Cod quilt was sent to us last week. This is Block no 10...

As you can see, we had to sew the two backgrounds together before adding the flags. Simple but very nice!

One more block then the borders... I can't wait!

Meanwhile, I visited my sister and husband last weekend in Northern NB. We prepped fiddleheads her husband had picked for us to freeze... a big job but we will enjoy these in the dead of next winter. While there, I always take a stroll through his beautiful gardens whatever season and take lots of photos. To my surprise, he had these floats hanging from his trees... I just had to take photos... Lucky guy to have found these at a garage sale!

Before leaving on the weekend jaunt, I finished block no 3 Une Annee Dans Les Etoiles from Sylvie at Un Atelier A La Montagne . How cute is this block? I spilled the beans on this quilt too... this is for my niece Danielle whose mother, our oldest sister Viki, died 1 year ago in January. I am using clothing from Viki's closet to decorate these stars. Viki will always be the brightest star in the sky and I hope this will bring Danielle and her family joy at having this souvenir. My father's tie was used to make the bird house in block no 1; he had many, many bird houses around the ancestral home; the buttons are from Viki's dress shirts. 

Peppermint Place is back on the drawing board... or in this case the cutting table. I was not happy with the instructions for the borders. I tested my 1/4in seams throughout to make sure they were accurate but then the instructions tell you to trim to a certain size. Once that's done, you sew on the top and bottom borders but since you trimmed the blocks, the squares on point don't match up well nor do the bottom and top triangles look good because part of the tips have been cut off... 

 

My solution is to pick out the top and bottom borders and resew the strips so that the triangles aren't missing parts. It will make the borders narrower but I'll worry about that later. The center of the quilt is all sewn together and it looks great. This is one project that I will be thrilled to see done. It's been a joy to work on until the borders!

For the longest time, I've been in love with Dear Jane! Every year, I've contemplated beginning my own but the plans never worked out because of life's interruptions.

I've admired gorgeous and expertly crafted DJ quilts, at quilt shows and in museum exhibits etc. The following Dear Janes were hung at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver June 2009. We were in town for meetings and while my husband attended lectures, I wandered to the Capitol building to visit the quilt show. 

They were hung back to back and for the longest time I thought they were one quilt with 2 complete DJs front and back! But as you can see in the 2nd photo that is not the case! However they are still beautiful and have captured my heart once again.

So what's a poor girl pining for a Dear Jane of her own to do? One who is near completion of 2 BOMs? One who needs an evening project...

Of course I have to start one... my initial investment has arrived! I ordered the book, software and rulers. What I need to sort out is what fabrics to choose. I have a beautiful white tone on tone for the sashings and corner stones and I love the brightness of the two quilts above. I must go through my fabrics to see what will be suitable. I hope the software will be a great addition to the project; you don't need it but I hear it's quite helpful. 

My journey with Jane begins...

Toodles,

Lorette

De Deauville & Dreaming...

It's a long weekend in Canada... hope you're enjoying some extra free time and terrific weather!

Roxane of Scrap, Quilt and Stitch sent us Block no 9 this past week! What a cute one too!

We can now enjoy two thirds of the quilt top put together.

It's looking great! I think if I were to make another one of these, I would paint some sky and water fabrics because I really like my samples from class with Mickey Lawler at Road to California in January. Wish I had some of those paints... I would get right to it. Gorgeous weather we're having would allow for quick drying outside.

Block no 10 won't arrive until mid-June! Oh dear!

I have a small collection of older model sewing machines. This week, these old machines were cleaned, oiled and are now ready for use. There are spaces around me where I can display these machines as a reminder to keep them working. I plan to use each one on a regular basis so that they don't just collect dust! 

All but the first one of course! This was given to me as a Christmas gift by my parents when I was little. Our mother and grand-mother used a treadle sewing machine and we were definitely not allowed to use it let alone play with it. My sisters and I made doll clothes.The crank still works but then it was much more fun to use the power supply. It worked well enough for us.

My second machine was acquired by my sister-in-law who attends auctions on a regular basis. I had asked her to keep an eye out for a Featherweight; she knew of them, knew they "went" for lots of money. She was surprised to see this unusual case and when it came up she snatched it for $110. Apparently, not many people bid on it. This was over 13 yrs ago. It has a beautiful stitch and after some pampering, runs like a charm. This one was manufactured in Great Britain but the power cords are NAS and its number suggests a birth date of 1968-1969, the last years they were produced I believe.

My next one was a used-appliance store-find. I forget the reason we were in that shop, but when I saw the case, I was intrigued. This machine had had very little use despite the banged up case. It was cleaned and oiled and it too has a beautiful stitch. It was made in Canada.

Next up is a lovely in-cabinet 99K. That piece of cloth was put there by the previous owner and I chose to leave it there. We found this one by the side of the road at a garage sale in 1998 and it came home with us. It's been here at the farm all the years we were in California so it was in great need of a little TLC. After a good cleaning and oiling, it too is ready to sew. 

I inherited my grand-mother's treadle. Before I took it home, it had spent many a year on my parents cold porch. It's been with me for nearly 30 yrs and I've never used it. I'm afraid the weather in the farm house hasn't been good to it either. I doubt I'll ever get it restored; both the machine and the cabinet are not pretty. Perhaps I'll take a picture as a memento and pass it on to someone who can give it some new life. It's not worth the space it occupies. 

I've had several other machines that I parted with because of space not because they weren't working. In 1999, I acquired a Bernina Record 730 with cabinet complete with all sewing supplies and tools and cabinet inserts/stool for $65 at a local auction. I left this machine in California with our daughter. It even came with a case! 

My dream machine is a Bernina... oh how I wish I had one of the new ones! They are huge, but not as big as this one!! 

On a bike tour around Lake Konstanz in Switzerland/Germany/Austria in 2012, we rode by the Bernina factory and I just had to have a picture beside this one. Our tour brought us by on a Sunday so nothing was open which was very lucky for my companions! :)

Coming soon... news about this sign...I promise some excitement!

A side note: the last blog post was no 100 since my humble beginnings as a blogger June 17th, 2013.

Toodles!

Lorette

De Deauville A Cape Cod

Roxane of Scrap Quilt and Stitch provided us with block no 8 last week. This was a fun and quick block to make!

First we had to connect blocks 4 and 7 which I had already done then add block 8th's background fabric to span the width of the two blocks. Simple! Again I used some sky fabric painted in Mickey Lawler's class at Road to California Quilt show in January. We were to use previous fabrics for the flags.

Cheerful isn't it?? Block 9 will go between blocks 1 & 2 and will be above this group and together they will form a little more than half the length of the quilt. I'm getting impatient waiting the rest of the month before the next block is reveled!

Toodles!

Lorette

Dreaming of beaches while iced!

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we experienced several hours of freezing rain and it hadn't stopped by the time we went to bed. We still had power and internet but the phone which went down yesterday morning is still not up. That is a little aggravation we will soon have to deal with. 

All the ice was gone from the trees and the power lines when I got up this morning! They're saying we'll be getting more but I sure hope they're wrong.

Bad weather or not, I did manage to work on my De Deauville To Cape Cod Quilt Mystere by Roxane at Scrap, Quilt, And Stitch. It feels great to be up to date and just in time since the next block comes out soon! People who know me can appreciate my uneasiness at being late for anything; I just had to get these done. Besides, it was great to dream of beach weather while under this coat of ice. 

No need for explanations here... just the details!

Block no 4

Block no 7

Blocks no 4&7 are next to each other and have been sewn together. Block no 8 will span the top of these two blocks. This isn't a very large quilt; it finishes at 29 1/2" X 42 1/4" before borders.

Block no 6

I got bored with working the stem stitch so I decided to change things up a bit. I pondered long about the net wondering if I could use some plastic netting that cover fruit from the grocery store. Then by the time it came to embroidering it, I knew I just had to do it my way. I think it works. 

By the way, you must click on this De Deauville link to see Roxane's album showcasing everyone's version of this cute Quilt Mystere! It's a wonderful perspective of how each person has interpreted their blocks.

Have a wonderful day and keep dreaming of the beaches! Perhaps someday Mother Nature will quiet our shores long enough for us to enjoy some spring!

Toodles,

Lorette

I have linked to The Needle and Thread Network and Let's Bee Social.