Hourglasses Before & After

I know it's been a month since I've posted any actual sewing, but I'm in the long, same middle parts of a lot of projects, so there's nothing really new to show. The past few days, though, I've been making strides on my hourglasses quilt.

It's been great for using up all those 5" square freebies I've picked up here and there. The blue and the green fabric above were favours from the Trenton Quilt Guild's show last year. The light fabrics are both more of my infamous Rite Aid fabrics.

My quilt guild Rouge Valley has just firmed up it's next quilt show date for early April 2014. So the pressure's on! Maybe my show quilt will be Riviera Star, or maybe it will be this one, the hourglasses. I think this could be a fun show quilt, for reasons not yet revealed, lol.

You may recall that the main purpose of this quilt was to use up the many, many dubious fabrics that I've accumulated over the years. All the following photos feature one brown Asian-style "faux patchwork" fabric, which is so hard to use. It was interesting to see what happened to it during piecing:

Not bad! Here's a higher contrast piece:

Also better than expected, I thought. The last one was rather serendipitous:

I like the way that wheel came out, although I'm pretty sure the top will be cropped off when I trim the blocks. Anyway, it's fun to see the new patterns emerge. There's still a long way to go!

Panda Diplomacy

Our Prime Minister Stephen Harper was at the airport today to greet the giant pandas that are beginning their visit from China. He is taking some heat in the press, because, you know, he has other important stuff going on. But the pandas are an important diplomatic token these days, so it is beneficial to our relationship with China to treat them well. It is certainly better than selling China all our future oil production... oops, too late!

All right, I'm off my soap box, because really I just wanted a chance to dust off my photos from the pandas' last visit in 1985. Are the pandas an exciting zoo exhibit? Judge for yourself:

I recall that there was quite a while between each of these photos. I think the series says it all. :)

Hopefully I'll be sewing again soon!

Score!

I had a major piece of good fortune today. Not quite Irish luck for St. Patrick's Day, but Scottish. My wool crazy quilt idea has been living in the back of my mind since I had to abandon it in December. All along I've wanted to include some tartan scraps in the quilt. Today I managed to acquire this sample book of authentic Scottish tartans from The Wee Tartan Shop in Port Perry, Ontario.

It really was a case of being in the right place at the right time. We were actually driving out of town when I felt strongly that I should turn back. Sample books like this are not offered for retail, but it just happened that they had recently bought a new one, and the owner was in the shop and willing to sell the old one. Who knows, maybe they will see a new business opportunity with quilters! There was quite a bit of tempting jewellery as well, but I spent all my money on the fabric, as usual.

So now I am the proud owner of 32 authentic tartan samples, each with about 6.5" square of usable fabric. The quilt pretty much designs itself from here!

I am a little disappointed that I won't be doing this project as part of CQJP. Maybe I could beg my way back in, but I think it is clear to everyone (even me) that I tend be deadline-challenged with creative projects.  It will probably be best to just work on it as inspiration strikes. And right now I have lots!