Seams French

Finally back home on the Pacific coast of Canada, life is slowly returning to a comfortable rhythm and routine. With my project list before me, I am looking forward to a fall and winter of creating and producing as many things textile as I can. My "hirondelle" boutis piece is coming along (see my previous post) and I hope to begin the cording before long. Other projects, I will write about as they come up. To get back to Vancouver from Montpellier, we took a long, round about route to Heathrow Airport in London, where we eventually caught our flight home. Our detour took us from Montpellier to northern Germany, Belgium and Calais,France, where we caught the Eurostar to London. On this little tour of northern Europe, we spent some time in the Belgian cities of Antwerp and Bruges. Wandering through the medieval, winding streets of Antwerp and Bruges, our senses were constantly delighted. From the sweet, spicy scent of Speculoos cookies and gingerbread baking ...

This hummingbird is the first in a series of boutis pieces featuring birds that I am currently in the process of designing. As with most of my quilting designs, the hummingbird has evolved in the construction process, and may change some more before the final stitch is sewn. The centre of the piece has already been stitched and I hope to get a lot more work done as we make our way back to Vancouver. Tomorrow morning we lock up our little place in the sun and will spend a few weeks on the road touring northern Germany, Belgium and France before heading home. Train travel is a good place to do some stitching, so ever the optomist, I expect to get at least a little work done en route. I'll report when we are settled back in Vancouver, sometime towards the end of October. Until then, enjoy the colours of autumn wherever you are, and Happy Thanksgiving to Canadians, where Thanksgiving will be celebrated on Monday, Octob...

A quilt show is a great place to be inspired and to celebrate our craft with other artisans. Spread throughout the town of Ste. Marie-Aux-Mines, as well as 2 other nearby towns, this show did not disappoint in either way. There were many fantastic quilts to marvel at, and even more fantastic people to meet and share ideas with. When at these shows, time is always at a premium, so I prioritized the exhibits that I hoped to see and did my best to get there. Here are a few of the highlights. The first exhibit we saw were the Canadian quilts. Just as with the Amish quilts, a church acted as the gallery. Churches make great venues for displaying quilts. Canadian quilts under the stained glass windows made for an interesting presentation. "Accumulate" by Amanda McGavour, Toronto, Ontario "Triumph of the Hexagon" by Jeannie Jenkins of Toronto, Ontario Libby Lehman is very well known throughout the quilt world for her free motion mach...