Welcome to My Blog

Hi. My  name is Chris and I live on a dairy farm in the Hamilton area of southern Ontario. I have been quilting for a lot of years and have a group of friends who come to Quilt at the Farm.  I have been blogging for more than a year now and cannot believe how much quilting I have accomplished since I started posting my progress here. I have also met with some pretty amazing quilters across Canada and around the world. Some are working on the same projects, other are doing their own creative thing. I have been inspired beyond belief with my quilting and my faith.

BTCT # 20

On of the quilts I am working on is the Beyond the Cherry Trees from Sentimental Stitches.  This was offered as a free BOM several years ago before I discovered it. I am needle turning and hand appliqueing as I babysit my wonderful grandchildren. I keep a bag ready to take with me. I got 9/12 leaves stitched down tonight. Try as I might, I still get peaks in my curves. Need more Practice. I will get that soon enough when I start on those 43 round cherries. I cut them out using one of the GO dies that has the right sized circle, I hope. Now, should I glue baste them in place or use the tiny pins like I have been with the leaves?

Blessings,

Chris

Original CCCQ

I found a picture of the original Chester County  Criswell Quilt made originally in 1852 as a wedding quilt. You can find more info  here  about the BOM.



I have been working on mine for 14 months and below is my progress so far. It is here that I have learned to do needle turn hand applique and am really loving it. Stitching around all those narrow inny and outy points with a size 10 Milliners needle  has given me an opportunity to learn to stitch with confidence. The original quilt has 61 blocks. Some of them were repeated by different family members. I am making mine with the 33 block pattern that are being made available.

 

Blessings,
Chris

GORF Retreat Update

We had our very first ever GO Real Fast Quilt retreat here at the Farm this past weekend. I had this crazy idea that a whole quilt could be prepped, cut out using the Accuquilt GO cutter and dies, blocks designed and laid out ready for machine applique in just 1 weekend. Two of the girls are making a 9 square quilt with swag borders. They are designing their own blocks using mine for an inspiration starting place. The other girl is making the same 16 squares that I made with swag borders. She could only come the one day and I forgot to take pictures of her progress. Each of the girls will be returning in the next 2 weeks to complete their blocks.

This is my yet unfinished quilt. I am quilting it in sections and my quilting machine is still at the repair shop. I machine appliqued the flowers onto the swags as a demo for the girls who practiced setting up their machine tension and thread on scrap bits after cutting out their shapes.

This is Daiva's work space above and she is ironing on the heat-n-bond fuseable web.This took longer than I expected.

How creative is this? She got 3 blocks done and 3 more started.
We laid out the blocks and border  on the design wall to see how the swags are going to look, then auditioned different options to connect the swags by pinning them on.

Leslie is cutting her very soft pink focus fabric after ironing on the heat'n'bond lite fusible web.

Her creative process was fun to watch.

 I learned a lot.

1. Everyone needs their own table space.
2. You cannot make the whole thing in a weekend if it is your first time.
3. Laughter is very good for the soul.
4. So is potluck food.
5. Not everyone wants to copy my patterns exactly.
6. Giving freedom to use my blocks for inspiration to create their own works.
7. This takes more time than copying a pattern.
8. I can learn from my students.
9. Helping each other is faster than doing it alone.
10. Three quilters at a time is perfect.
11. I never take enough pictures.
12. I want to do it again.  

Blessings,
Chris

GORF Retreat

Preamble Before the Retreat Officially Begins

I got the house tidied up, guest rooms ready, project boxes stocked with Lindor chocolates, tables, irons, etc . . . dill pickle soup is simmering on the stove . . .

the only thing I forgot was to complete mine . . . oops. . .
and they are here . . .
to be cont'd . . .

Dear Jane 2 Progress

Looks like I need to double check the size of each of these blocks. I have been home for nearly a week and spent most of Saturday working on DJ2 blocks and taking pictures for Quilting Jane at the Farm .
Had no internet until last night so here I am, catching up. Those blog posts will be up one at a time this week.

There are many joys of living on a farm that technically is within the boundaries of the City of Hamilton. Things that are not included, although my taxes do not reflect this, are fire hydrants, sidewalks, street lights, treated city water, sewers and bus service, to name a few. What we do have is open skies, lots of grass and trees, animals outside and fresh country air. Actually, not so fresh today. My Sweet Husband has been cleaning out the dry cow barn and drawing manure past my window all day. Elly came to visit for the day and helped drive Grampa's tractor, water and pet the babies. She even ate scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast.That's progress for a 33 month old who only wants to eat cereal and drink apple juice.

The first ever GORF retreat is this Friday-Sunday and I am once again de-cluttering my work space to share it with 3 ladies coming over for the weekend to make their very own GO Real Fast applique quilts. I will post pictures next week.

Blessings,
Chris

Home Again Finally

I have been home for exactly 22 hours and have run a gzillion errands, got in 2 loads laundry, a waterfit workout, pedicure and hugs to all the little girl grand children, ate 3 Tim Horton donuts and caught up on emails. Tomorrow I start back to the reality of life and, after a 90 minute massage, I have to (ugh) cook dinner and do some house work since the cleaning lady has not been here for the 5 weeks that I was away and just left for 3 weeks in Spain. Actually, the place doesn't look too bad since my Sweet Husband kept things pretty tidy. I haven't done any housework or cooking in 5 weeks. Sigh. Although I have done lots of dishes.

I dropped in to see the girls after school tonight and 18 month old Devan met me first and called me muma. I corrected her pronunciation of Gramma. Then 2 1/2 year old Elly came running and told me to come with her she has something to show me upstairs and off she ran calling me to turn on her bedroom light. And Ava, who is turning 7 on Saturday got in her hugs and asked if I brought my "bag" with me so we could pull out the fabric. I had not brought the bag since I was not babysitting, just loving on them tonight. I will be taking the bag with me tomorrow night to share time with them before putting them all to bed.

Mom was at night school and Dad was making supper and the girls were competing to see who could make the most noise. Little Devan's shrieks won since her 2 older sisters set the bar pretty high for her to imitate them. Finally their dad, my only son, raised his voice over theirs and informed them that he was the only one allowed to shout since he was the boss. It was awesome. Something about they all wanted me to sit by them as they were colouring, except Devan who was eating the marker. And she pushed a chair up to the counter so she could reach a water bottle that she called applejuice and asked to get up on my lap, then spilled some water and got down and reached, reached, reached really high to get the wash cloth off the drainboard and proceeded to wipe up the floor 2 feet away from the spill. Have I ever mentioned that all 3 of  my granddaughters are a bit OCD? Sh . . .don't tell them . . . they don't know yet.
 
I got to spend 12 days with my 5  month old grandson who, by the way, cut his first tooth yesterday before I left to fly home. And we bought tickets for them to fly out here for my husband's family Christmas dinner which we are hosting this year on Nov 29 the Saturday of the American Thanksgiving weekend. We started this new tradition a few years ago on the suggestion of his brother who moved his family to New York 20 years ago and now all his kids and grand kids are American citizens and they all have a 4 day weekend so can come and spend time with the ever growing family (there are now 16 great-grandchildren 7 and under). We meet on the Saturday at noon in the local church hall that great-grandma books each year. Good thing I remembered to ask her to book it since I have not yet sent out invitations. That will on the to do list for tomorrow somewhere between liver for lunch and babysitting. 

Now I've been home 23 1/2  hours and not done a single stitch on any of the quilts and its time for bed.
Blessings,
Chris