Back to the Cottage

Hubby and I had already been to the cottage to open things up a few weeks ago and the second time there we had more work to do. He took care of all the yard work and picked up the boat from storage while I took care of a few things inside. I painted the kitchen ceiling (after prepping it the time before), removed a fugly wallpaper border from the bathroom and repainted that room as well. After that, my bad shoulder needed a break…so back to English paper piecing (EPP).

I managed to complete the top for the EPP 6 pointed star that I had been working on for a while. The pieces for this quilt were quite manageable because they weren’t as small as some of the other pieces I had worked on in the past. Each long side of the diamond shape was 2” long and very easy to fussy cut. I’ll have close-up shots of the blocks for a future post as well as tips and tricks for fussy-cutting and also pressing the back of each block to make them nice and flat. For now you can get a preview of the top draped over a chair overlooking the lake.

Because I knew this top was close to completion I also remembered to bring a bunch of scraps, a 1” acrylic hexagon template and papers, small rotary cutter and small cutting board, and glue pen, and was able to prep a lot of hexies for my next quilt. I know it will take a lot of them, but I plan on doing a double sized quilt with a bajillion scrappy hexies for our bed at the cottage. A Chinese food take-out container was perfect for storing prepped hexies.

The cottage is only half an hour away from Brockville, Ontario, where I was invited to present my trunk show to the Thousand Islands Quilters Guild. Last summer I had attended their quilt show and was blown away with the talent within their guild. Everyone there made me feel most welcome and even invited me to join them for their weekly sewing session/get-together in the park during the summer. Hopefully some of our visits to the cottage will coincide with the Tuesday sew days there.

Of course, no visit to Brockville goes without a visit to Taylor Sewing Centre. I managed to get a few fat quarters in my fave bright colours…keeping in mind what I need for EPP. I always manage to find something I love there.

the start of the hexie quilt

my haul from Taylor’s