Heritage Park Festival of Quilts

Well, I managed to survive the snowy, wintery weather that we had in Calgary this week-end (note the winter jacket!). Yes, while most of the country east of us is enjoying beautiful spring weather, we had cold, windy, snowy weather for the past several days. Just in time for the Heritage Park Festival of Quilts! But, as usual, the wonderful volunteers who devote their time and energy to this event were up to the challenge and the quilts were all beautifully displayed - indoors. I can't imagine the frantic scrambling that must take place when the weather takes a turn for the worse. Thank you, thank you, thank you to these dedicated ladies who always manage to make this event successful. Also thank you to the many vendors who were at the show. 
I'm not sure that my husband will be as thankful when the Visa bill arrives, however I enjoyed some great shopping there.

I am in the process of uploading photos from the show and some are currently available on Flickr. You can see what I have uploaded so far by going to http://tinyurl.com/264w4zm. I hope to add more descriptions time permitting. 


Now I need to finish unloading my show purchases. I already have some new pattern ideas brewing in my head from these new fabrics!

Happy Victoria Day!

Well, we have finally been enjoying some warmer weather here in Calgary - up until the long week-end, that is. Yes, in Canada it is Victoria Day long week-end,traditionally THE week-end to put in your bedding plants and clean up the yard. So you're pretty much guaranteed that the weather won't cooperate. Even though it was cool, we did buy annuals and rose bushes - the hardy, shrub kind (no tea roses for us here - too much work!) as we wanted to put these in our side garden. Hubby had expanded it and cleaned out the few struggling plants that still remained there and it was all ready for the new roses to be put in. But...


Apparently more dirt was needed to replenish the existing amount in this area, so we did what anyone would do who needed dirt. No, we didn't go to the garden centre and haul a bunch of bags of soil home. Hubby ordered 2 bags of dirt on-line.  How easy is that? You order the type of soil you want, you pay on-line, they tell you when it will be delivered, you put an X on the driveway where you want it dropped - done deal. No fuss, no muss. The dirt arrived on the day promised and earlier than I would've thought, which was great.
But ...


How much dirt did we really need for that side garden and the planters that we use every year? I guess a bag of top soil and a bag of potting soil should do. But I'm not talking the kind of bags you pick up at the garden centre. I'm talking the big 1-cubic-yard-of-dirt kind of bags. Wow, I had no idea how big that much dirt could be. I don't think my husband knew either! Well, the top soil would go to good use as we needed to replenish the side garden and we wanted to plant some grass seed over another part of the lawn, but how much potting soil do you really need? Apparently not as much as we thought! After I filled all the containers and planters, we still had about 95% of the bag full. So what were we going to do with all this good potting soil? Well...

Now we needed to construct a box to contain the potting soil so we'd have it for next year.. and the year after... and the year after. Well, you get my drift. So, today hubby and eldest (and only) daughter (seen here with her brother pursuing their favourite activities) spent the day constructing a box for the potting soil. Luckily there was still enough wood left from the playhouse we constructed last year to use for this, so it would match nicely. Finally, several wheelbarrow-fuls later, the box was full. 


BTW, the rose bushes did get planted, but the annuals are still in their pots waiting for warmer weather before I plant them in their containers. Maybe next week-end?

Quilt Canada - Part 3

Well, finally, my last post about Quilt Canada. Just as I'm getting ready for the Heritage Park Festival of Quilts. Oh well, better late than never I always say!


I was delighted to meet Heather McArthur, the editor and publisher of Quilter's Connection Magazine. I was excited to get my hands on a copy of magazine and of course I had to sign up for a subscription. Heather and I had been emailing back and forth before the show, so it was nice to finally meet her in person - and enjoy some delicious meals with her too!


It's so great to finally have a Canadian quilting magazine that you can pick up at the newstand. We have so many talented designers and quilters that you never hear about - now you can in Quilter's Connection Magazine. If you're interested in learning about the Canadian quilting scene, you'll want to pick up the Summer issue of Quilter's Connection Magazine which should be out in a few weeks. Heather also has a blog and a newsletter that you'll want to check out.


Heather was manning (wo-manning?) her booth at Quilt Canada with Tricia Sherman of The Great Canadian Shop Hop. If you've been following my blogs, you would've met Tricia in previous posts. Tricia writes a column in Quilter's Connection Magazine called "A shop near you". It was great to visit with Tricia again; I hadn't seen her since November in Vancouver. I guess it might be my turn to return to the coast for our next visit.


Now that things are back to normal, my next event to look forward to is the Heritage Park Festival of Quilts at the end of May. I'll have two quilts on display this year: Hoot-mon! and Twirling Whirlies. If you plan to be down at the park that week-end (and what self-respecting quilter wouldn't be?), see if you can find them. I know that I'll be looking for them and the quilts that my friends have made too.

Quilt Canada - Part 2

Well, I promised you more about Quilt Canada and here it is - another view of our booth! Actually, I wanted to talk about the other vendors whom I met at the show - not about the Pine Freckle Forest booth - again! 

I was fortunate enough to meet some of the other vendors at the show and have made some new friends. Our booth was next to that of Cathy Tomm from Leduc, Alberta, who was selling her amazing and beautiful hand-dyed fabrics. I was unable to resist the bright colours and managed to come home with a few of her products. Of course it was hard to resist when she was waving them in front of us :) Be sure to check out Cathy's blog to see how she actually dyes her fabrics.

I also met Jean Boyd, a pattern designer from Brockville, Ontario (my home province). Jean designs traditional, redwork and stitchery quilt patterns and I purchased a few from her while I was there. Her memory quilt patterns are photo holders, where you can take the photos in and out of a plastic pocket. No need to print the photos on fabric; you can just switch out the photos any time your want. You can see some of these designs behind Jean in the photo. I was particularly intrigued by Jean's use of the Kaleidoscope Kreator 3 software. It creates kaleidoscope images from photos and she used it to create new fabrics which she then used in her "Wonky Squares" pattern. Ingenious! Jean also had die-cut appliqués already fused with fusible webbing to use with her patterns. Think of how quickly you could construct a small wall hanging if all you had to do was fuse on the already-cut-for-you appliqués! Brilliant!

I'll have further details about my Quilt Canada experience in my next blog.

Withdrawal

Okay, I'll admit it, I'm an internet junkie. Yes, I must have my daily, or should I say, hourly, internet fix or I start to go into withdrawal. The thought of not being able to email my friends and having no access to my favourite quilting sites starts me shaking. 


We've been having problems with our Telus modem and it finally died a few days ago. Well, you'd think that you could pick up a new one at one of their stores - simple, right? Not! You have to wait for them to ship a new modem to you. Well, it did arrive in two days, so that was good, right? Not! It wasn't the right piece of equipment. My handy home tech support (husband, Gary) was able to work around this while we're waiting for a new modem to arrive - again, by mail. 


So, if you wonder why you haven't heard from me for a few days, it's because I've been in withdrawal. 
Hopefully my new fix will arrive by next week and I'll be back to normal - or as normal as I get.