A New Quilting Project

Well, at last we're going to talk about some quilting.  Tomorrow is the last meeting of the quilting group I attend here.  Our leader is a woman who farms, i.e. she farms, her husband is a builder.  So she will be wanting to get out on the fields soon.  The ratty snow we had yesterday is gone, and our current temperature is +6 C, so the farmers will be anxious to start their spring work.

Last week on Tuesday this group went for a "quilt shop hop."  Seven of us left town about 8:30 in the morning and went to Cotton and Candy, a quilt shop in Strathmore. This shop used to be in Standard, a really, really small rural town, and moved about a year ago to the large and growing center of Strathmore.  I was so impressed with how much nicer their shop is in their new location.  So much more room!  So much more material!  So enjoyable to see.

Then we visited Country Creations, south of Strathmore.  Lorraine Stangness lives in the country and has a quilt shop in her basement.  Lorraine is a wonderful quilt designer and teacher.  I've used several of her patterns and bought quite a few of her kits.  I've also taken a few classes from her, including machine quilting.  She had some "how to" demonstrations prepared, and did an excellent job of showing the techniques to the group of us.  I bought her "Spring is in the Air" kit for a wall hanging.  Look it up at her web address: www.countrycreations.net.  The jacket I'm wearing in my blog picture is one of her patterns, and here's a blouse I made from one of her patterns:

From there we went to Calgary and had luncheon at Millstone's.  Noisy and busy, but the food was excellent.

And in Calgary we visited two more quilt shops, whose names I have forgotten.  But I did find a pattern for a new quilt for our bed.  About three years ago I bought 44 fat quarters of Moda fabric, "Aunt Purdy's Parlor" at the Heritage Park Quilt Show.  I later realized that was not enough fabric to make a floor to floor quilt for a queen sized bed, so two years ago I bought another bunch of 44 fat quarters from Moda, also designed by Kansas Troubles, this one called "Bound to the Prairie".  So that fabric has been waiting in my cupboard for the right pattern to come along.  Here's a picture of the first block out of thirty-six.  This will be my sewing over the summer months.  

It's always such a treat to start a new quilting project.  I'm really looking forward to sewing on this gorgeous material this summer.