Hah! You guys are funny! I didn't expect so much agreement to my genius comment! Anyway here is the latest progress on my 'robyn' project. I've been busy the last 2 weekends; first we were away in Michigan visiting friends. I managed to work on my piece on the train ride to Windsor and finished up the dome border and vines and added a few berries. Still left to do are to add a few more leaves. While in Michigan, we visited Ann Arbor, a business expo, a few comic book stores, a few used book stores, and a Jo Ann's for some cheap fabric and some quilting tools...a little bit cheaper in the US than Canada. I will show photos on my next post of my latest quilt treasures, when I download them.


Saturday, we had our guild's roadtrip to the Kitchener/Waterloo Art Gallery or kw/ag for the Grand National Quilt Show and the Waterloo County International Quilt Festival. This is the mecca of quilting in Ontario as it is also Mennonite country.

Below is Ethlyndryal the Protector by Rice 2007 from the Grand National. This year's theme is Fantasy.This was an amazing 3D piece, mixed media with metal, stones and more. We were not supposed to take any photos, so I don't have many photos to show.


After visiting the kw/ag, we travelled on to the quilt festival located at Rim Park. I have more photos that I will post later, after I try and find most of the names of the quilts. I should have written them down, there didn't seem to be a program of the entries, or I missed it somehow. Here was one of the more popular pieces 'Zodiac' by Martha Brown:

From idea to application:

I had a brilliant idea, I was going to put a patchwork border around my Robyn Pandolph applique, but when it came to doing it was a little more difficult than anticipated. The problem was that the applique was on a dome shape in the original.

First I made four strips of patchwork for each side, then I made up a piece for the 2 top corners.



Then I placed the corner piece in the corner, wrong sides together, then I place my side piece on top, right sides together and made a straight seam through the 3 pieces. On bottom right corner, you can see that I made a freezer paper template of the curve and ironed it to the back of the corner piece. Then I trimmed a quarter inch from the freezer paper, flipped it back onto the applique background (top right). I then needle-turn appliqued around the freezer paper, leaving the top open to pull out the freezer paper (bottom left)


I did the same for both sides:


Then I sewed on the top and bottom pieces. I made my patchwork in nine-patches and then sewed them together to make the side strips. I was then able to make my patches line up better, by adjusting a few seams here and there. I am always amazed that no matter how hard you try, you cannot match up the seams perfectly. sigh.

Here's the back:


Ta Da! Here's the front:


I'm a genius! (if I do say so myself :P)

Anyway, it's still not done, more applique to come in future posts!

Stitch 'n Bitch in Grand Bend

Here are a few pics of our Stitch 'n Bitch. There were only 4 of us, so there was more stitchin' than bitchin', I think :) We did have a chance to take a walk down to the beach and it was very quiet. You could see the steam/fog rising off the warm sand and hitting the cool air.


I was totally fascinated by the patterns in the sand, the shells collected along the shore and the strange teepee someone had constructed:


It is quite refreshing, yet peaceful after a long winter. And yes we did sew: