Upper Canada Village

A trip to Upper Canada Village with the kids, on the way home from Ottawa. The village was awesome -- a fully functioning pioneer village where they raise and shear sheep, card and spin wool, weave and quilt, raise produce in a huge vegetable garden, milk cows and make cheese... it was really cool, and I could easily have spent two full days there, looking around and talking to everyone.

For the kids, however, several hours was enough, and they were ready to move on to our next camp site.

I did manage to snap a few photos of sewing-related things. Above, a huge sampler quilt in a frame. At right, a simple bedroom -- but I liked the clam shell pattern on the carpet on the floor. It reminded me that I'd like to make a clam shell quilt some day.

Below, another bedroom shows off the sorts of blankets and rugs that are woven at Upper Canada Village. Weaving could be a lot of fun... not sure that I need another hobby, though!

Mystery Quilt

It's a funny thing about quilt retreats -- I always pack projects to work on, usually UFO's that I'm hoping to finish while I'm there. But more often than not, I end up rejecting whatever I brought, and starting something new. This year, I found myself unable to resist the optional mystery quilt project.

The first step was simply to cut 56 strips of 2.5"x WOF. Since I didn't have any extra fabric with me, this required a quick trip into the nearest town with a quilt store, for some emergency fabric. I decided to try some fabrics I don't normally buy, and ended up with some bundles of folk-arty prints (stars, birds, berries, etc.). I wanted something that wasn't too "girly", since it would likely be one of my sons who ended up with the completed project.

I came back to the retreat and cut my strips. The next clues instructed me to cut many squares and many rectangles, then to piece 4 patches and rectangles with half-square triangles at the end... Finally, I assembled the blocks shown here (just laid out on the floor, but not yet sewn together). 

I admit, if I had known what the mystery pattern would turn out to be, I might have chosen different fabrics. In fact, there was another bundle in teh fabric shop that I'd rejected, that had more blues in it... I wish now that I'd bought that as well, and incorporated some more colour. Nevertheless, the result is a cozy, scrappy looking top. I'm planning to add borders large enough to make it about twin size, and perhaps use a flannel backing for warmth. The boys often want a blanket when sitting doing homework on a winter evening, or to snuggle under on the couch. I think this will do the trick. 

Since I got all the blocks pieced and squared up at the retreat, now I simply have to sew them together, and decide on the border. My current thought is to add a solid black border, and add some folk arty applique -- maybe picking up on some of the motifs in the prints? Stars, birds, grapes...

We'll see how ambitious I feel, once I've got the blocks together! 

Small squares

Here's a little mini I made for fun. I hauled out a bunch of blue and purple fabrics, and cut 1.5" squares, then sewed them together.

I was surprised to discover how obvious mistakes are at this size -- it's really easy to tell if one of your tiny squares is off a bit! A fraction of an inch really matters, when your square is only an inch big!

I actually had to unpick a couple of rows and restitch them more accurately. Even then, it's not perfect! Another time, I think I would do something like this as a foundation-pieced block, so that each row and column is as accurate as possible.