Another handpiecing project!

Last year at BIQR someone made this lovely top out of antique blocks she had collected. She had hoped she would use them all up, but nope, she had some leftover, which she generously gave to me!

they languished in my drawer for a year and I brought them out to bring to the retreat. I sorted them and decided I was only going to use the 6 large blocks. I then passed on the rest to friends.

I went for a simple pattern and decided I was going to hand piece them since all these blocks were originally hand pieced. In between other projects I worked on it.

I trimmed the blocks so that they were all 12.5inches square and pre cut my sashing from fatquarters and shirts and scraps 3.5 inches.

here are some photos of the underside:

here you can see more clearly how she pieced the square, surprisngly, using triangles blocks in the corners.

in these 2 photos you can see how when she ran out of fabric she just pieced in some more!

Handsewing at the Cottage

This year I took some hand sewing to the cottage to work on....If I was out on the dock I would read, but if I was up on the porch I would hand sew....it is a peaceful (piecefull) thing to do. I made 11 blocks, each block is 5 inch square finished, and then started putting some sashing in... 4 blocks....then 6 blocks...

then 9 blocks...the others ask me what is it that you are working on...

I do not know, but I will let you know when it is done.....

Hand sewing progress report

Cottage Vacation

morning mist:

Hubby and I and our friends from Michigan spent a week up at our friends cottage on Oxtongue Lake. It was very relaxing, but the weather wasn't the greatest. We spent a lot of time reading with a few day trips into nearby towns. I made it out on the kayak a couple of times, though.

When the water was so still and there was a perfect reflection on the lake you almost felt like you were floating in the sky instead of the water!

That is not the cabin we stayed at though, this was an abandoned one next door. It's been empty for probably 20 years or so. It is so tragic. We checked it out and all the windows have been broken and the door was ripped off the hinges. Toilet is broken. There is still curtains hanging in the windows, gently wafting in the wind, and furniture strewn around; there is even food products and cleaning products still in the cupboards, the remnants of a fire, holes in the roof with puddles of water on the floor, old clothes hanging on hooks...we found an old Detroit Free Press from 1984 and a telephone book from 1979!...strangely beautiful and sad. I took video footage of the inside.

serene sunset:

As not to interupt the peacefulness of the cottage, I hand pieced 2 liberated stars: