Today was a rainy day – a great day to stay inside and quilt.

I worked on a quilt inspired by Bonnie’s Bricks and Stepping Stones pattern. I am making my quilt larger than Bonnie’s–mine should finish about 86″ x 104″. I am half finished piecing the top – 5 rows complete – 5 more rows to go!

I am determined to make this quilt from scraps. Placement of fabrics is totally random, no planning or engineering in this one to make it a “controlled” scrap.

This weekend is the Westcoast Quilt Shop Hop. Five of us who quilt together regularly on Tuesday nights got together, rented a van, borrowed one of the husbands to act as driver, and headed out on our journey yesterday morning.

The hop lasts from Friday, June 2 to Sunday, June 3. Thanks to the organization of Dot, we managed to complete 12 of the possible 14 shops yesterday. It was a long day, but very fun! Each shop had their own block kit with a garden theme available for $5.00. This price included the pattern. At each shop, we picked up our $5.00 block, had our “passport” stamped and did a little bit of shopping.

This is the 5 of us, outside the first shop at 9:30 yesterday morning. We arrived at the first shop before they opened. We are eager quilt shop hoppers!

This was my favorite block. It is a paper pieced humming bird. The shop that had this kit was Wineberry’s (Dewberry’s to my friend, Colette).

These are the treasures that I picked up at some of the shops other than the $5.00 blocks. I bought some floral fat quarters for my floral Yellow Brick Road quilt, some 1/2 yard pieces for my chicken quilt, a floral panel that I will use to jump-start another floral quilt, a bag pattern, and a kit to make a poppy table runner.

I am now off to finish the last two shops on my list. They are local and so I won’t have to travel far.

I was at another quilt show Friday night. This time the show was in Abbotsford. The venue is huge and so there were a lot of vendors. In fact with all of the quilts that were there to look at and all of the wares displayed by the vendors, I actually ran out of time to really see things as thoroughly as I would have liked.

This show featured the Worldwide Postcard Quilt Exhibit. In 2004, the Alaska Fiber Festival sent out a challenge to quilters around the world to submit a postcard quilt, with the theme of “My Backyard”. they collected over 200 miniature quilts from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, the UK, and the US, and Canada. They were wonderful! These are some of my favorites:

This quilter obviously had a sense of humor.

I have been away – I traveled across the country last week to attend a training workshop for work. While spending time in the airports waiting on flights, I worked on my cross stitched quilt. This piece has seen many miles as it seems that I only work on it when I travel. When I am at home I either piece on my Bernina or machine quilt on my long arm. I don’t do much hand work anymore. I have to finish the yellow and orange flowers and then I can proceed to the quilting stage.

As I stated in a previous post, this piece is at least 11 years old. While I was at the Langley Quilt show a couple of weeks back, I spotted a twin to my quilt! I wondered if the quilter had this project sitting for years in her UFO pile and she just recently finished it or if it had been finished for some time and she just chose to showcase it to the public now. Somehow there is comfort in thinking that there is someone out there with UFOs as old as mine! Seeing her quilt finished and hanging in a show has inspired me to work towards completing mine. I think I will do a little more hand work in the evenings just so that I can finish it.
The quilter added solid colored borders to her piece and quilted it following the blue suggested quilting lines that are printed on the top.

My top is all wrinkled (see picture above) from being carried everywhere in my travels. I think it will need to be pressed before being quilted. However, if I touch the top with heat I am sure that I will “heat set” the blue quilting lines permanently into the top. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can flatten the top for quilting while preserving the quilting lines and still have them so that they can be removed with washing later? I am also thinking of adding a border to my top. I am not sure what the design will be yet, but I like the idea of a pieced border–perhaps triangles.

This is us 25 years later – May 16, 2006.

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths.

No man or woman really knows what perfect love is

until they have been married a quarter of a century.

(Mark Twain)