Kudos to Amy of park city girl blogspot for creating/organizing this online quilt festival! What a terrific idea.

This lap quilt is my submission to the festival:

It is not my best quilt. It is not the prettiest or nicest of my quilts. There was no pattern for it.  It started as a store challenge with a small scrap of yellow rooster fabric. The fabrics I added were scrappy and uncoordinated, and mostly leftovers from some other quilts.  I never even met the person I gave it to. But, this is a special quilt, and I feel that it deserves to be shown and acknowledged.

This quilt is special because it was given as a comfort quilt to a lady who had terminal brain cancer. The process of  giving it to her, and knowing that she used it in her last year of life, and knowing that it brought her some joy, makes me proud to be a quiltmaker.

The quilts that I make are made to be used and loved. My quilting career so far has been fairly short - I basically learned how to sew 5 years ago, and quite often I still feel like a novice quiltmaker. But, every quilt I’ve made since I started  is either used in my own home, or has been given to family & friends. I am always so pleased to give someone a quilt, but giving  the comfort quilt made me the happiest.

We made table runners at my LQS’s Friday Fun Nite. There was no “real” pattern, just grids and ideas on how to use charm packs and coordinating fabrics to make a table runner in whatever size we wanted. This is how mine turned out:I used Moda Holly Taylor “Trail Adventures” charm pack  and fabrics. I will machine quilt it.

This morning I put on the final borders for the Thimbleberries 2008 Lodge quilt. I will post a photo later on.

Happy Easter! It’s so nice to have the extra time off this weekend, and I’m using that time to put together last year’s Thimbleberries Club Lodge quilt. This morning (between lattes) I got the centre portion sewn together:

Thimbleberries 2008 club "Lodge"

now, I’ve got to trim it to 64 x64 and start adding the borders. It will be queen size once it is all together.

No - not in Ottawa.

What’s with this crazy weather?? Snow…cold….I refuse to go back to wearing boots.

With Easter weekend coming up, I’ve dug out some of my spring-y quilts. This is a little stitchery that I made a couple of years ago:I love the little carrot fabric that’s the border. I can’t credit anyone for the pattern, as I cannot recall  - it was from off the internet as a free download.The daffodils are part of an interchangeable quilt - each season the panel changes.

This little bunny will work for chocolate!

Stephen & Justine

Justine and her boyfriend, Stephen, are headed west. They caught the midnight bus on Monday morning (well, it really still was Sunday night), for the 72 hr trip to Vancouver (ETA Wednesday night). Unfortunately, because of a fatal accident on the highway outside of Deep River, the highway was closed and they are now delayed by 10 hrs and will arrive in Vancouver on Thursday morning. The bus thing is their choice - ahh….to be that young again…

There is so much that I loved about them being home. I know that I am biased, but they are  pretty terrific kids. We enjoyed their company immensely and we had many lively discussions.  Erwin and I love cooking for them. Especially after them being four months in Nepal, where, as Justine puts it, the food was pretty “sketchy”.   At home, they love everything we cook up, and they actually EAT! During their stay in Ottawa they were hired to paint the complete interior of our business building. It took them 14 full days to paint the interior. The building is almost 100 years old with high ceilings and many nooks and crannies (they had to deal with original tin, trims, wainscotting,  etc.) It was fiddley work, and they did a terrific job. I am so happy that we got to spend the last 6 weeks together - and I’m going to miss them a lot.

Here is my block for the Thimbleberries Lovers 2 online group monthly lottery:And, this is my April block for our 2009 BOM “Building Blocks”:All the BOM blocks from Jan-April:On a family note: DD, Justine, and her BF, Stephen, are heading back to Vancouver tonight. They are making the cross country trip via Grey Hound - should be in Vancouver by Wednesday. Unless DH and I can get to Vancouver this summer, we won’t be seeing them again until Xmas!  So, I’ll be filling the void over the next 8-9 months with lots of quilting and knitting! Thank goodness that I have crafting in my life!