These pictures were taken yesterday. Look closely, the “lawn guy” in my parent’s complex is mowing the lawn in a snow storm! He even had mitts on.
Last Saturday, the temperature was 20 degrees and sunny, today it is freezing–temperature is zero degrees!
We are still looking for Spring! I think someone misplaced it this year!
After stitching with the FABs this morning, I headed out to the tulip fields–today is the first day of the local Tulip Festival.
It may be 20 degrees out, but we are still within winter’s grasp as there are no tulips in bloom yet. The owner of the fields told me that by next weekend there would be “some” colour and hopefully within two weeks the fields will be in full bloom. However, he added that it might be longer as there is snow in the forecast for next Thursday!
On the way home, I stopped to take pictures of Mt. Cheam. It is a gorgeous mountain that overlooks our small town. No matter where you are in town, you can get a view of Mt. Cheam.
These are all my 9 Patch Pizzazz pieces cut and ready to go. The FABs have been having lengthy discussions about block layouts. I am prepared to go with the layout in the book and have cut the following:
From my focus fabric – Merkitties – two 12 1/2″ squares, four 6 1/2″ squares, one 2 1/2″ strip.
From my wave fabric (I believe the author of the book calls this one your companion fabric) – I only had 1/2 yard piece of the merkitties and so I am using the wave fabric to substitute for merkitties. I should have had one yard of merkitties if I was going to follow the pattern exactly – cut one horizontal rectangle 6 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ and two 2 1/2″ strips
From the yellow challenge fabric – I cut three 2 1/2″ strips, one vertical rectangle 12 1/2″ x 6 1/2″, four 6 1/2″ squares
From the green and pink fabrics – I cut three 2 1/2″ strips of each colour
I managed to finish putting together the top (less the borders) by 1:00 pm (that’s starting at 8:00 am). I only managed to make one mistake — I reversed two of the nine patch blocks. I am not going to change it–as Pam says, IIWII (it is what it is). I made another quick switch and unless you really knew what this pattern layout was supposed to look like, you would never notice my mistake. It is now part of the charm of this quilt.
I am not sure whether I am going to go with the border treatment in the book or if I am going to make up my own border design. sometimes these things have to age a bit and you have to consider options before making a decision.
This was a great way to spend the morning–quilting with Internet friends!
This is the quilt pattern book that the FABs are going to use this weekend during our Quilt-In. We won’t be making the quilt on the cover of the book (this one is on point). The quilt that we are going to make is called, Lily Pond. Each of us is going to make our own version of Lily Pond or some version very close to this depending on what we come up with on our design walls when we lay the blocks out.
– Sewing will start at 8 a.m Saturday. You can choose between central time and pacific time…since we are in 2 time zones
We have sewn together as a group. We use e-mail, digital cameras, and IM to let one another know what we are up to, where we are in the pattern, to answer each other’s questions, and to cheer each other on to the finish line.
Once again I find myself not posting for two weeks. I have been busy quilting–just not for myself.
I quilted this first quilt for a customer to give as a wedding gift to a special couple that are her neighbours. The flower blocks were embroidered with her new embroidery machine. She asked for hearts in each of the floral blocks with waves between the blocks. 
This is a picture of the back of the same quilt. This picture shows the heart and wave quilting a little clearer.
This is a quilt that I quilted for an international friend. This quilt was pieced by a perfectionist and was a delight to quilt. I enjoyed looking at all the fabrics as I recognize many of them–some were in my stash in the past and some are still in my stash now!
The next three quilts were pieced by the same person. This lady is busy “using up her scraps”. How wonderful to give such colourful scraps new purpose.
This quilt showcases a wonderful collection of prints. The piecer of this quilt intends to gift this quilt to a very special friend.
This quilt was pieced by a new quilter–her first quilt! The woman who pieced this quilt is also an expert seamstress and her skills shine in this quilt–there are no mismatched seams in this one!
And so now that the backlog of customer quilts has been caught up, I can breathe and spend a bit of time working on my own projects……until the next wave of quilts arrives anyway!