Fibre Festival

Drove to St Norbert with Lisa and two Woofers, farm volunteers, from France. The festival was a well organized event with great displays and vendors. We didn't take part in the classes but I am sure people enjoyed them as well.

Outside the hall were two different groups demonstrating historic fibre preparation into fabric. Wonderful new ideas and techniques I had never seen or heard of before. Too bad it was so rainy and wet.

Inside there were dosens of vendors with raw and prepared fibres as well as produced items to sell. I bought a few different fibre chunks - dyed Rambouillet batt in cotton candy colours, raw grey alpaca fleece, braid of hand dyed Tussah Silk, recycled sari silk threads, and a variety bag of dyed locks.

I also bought some prepared items - a hand crocheted wool cowl with wooden buttons, a hand woven scarf, and a woven rug of recycled poly/cotton fabric.

What a wonderful day for a fibre lover!! Now Lisa and I will have to officially begin recruiting members for our fibre guild. Prairie Wind FLEECErs. (Fibre Lovers Enthusiastically Enjoy Creating Essentials).

Preparing a fishing net as it has been done for thousands of years!!

Spinning and weaving in traditional apparel.

Indoor spinners, get together to share time and talents.

The hands and wheel in the foreground are spinning a cat and dog hair mix.

Vendors at the festival.

Fibre candy!!  Yummy!!

Felted items.

Woven items.

Volunteer Day at TCI

I was subbing at TCI on Volunteer Day. We helped out at the Treherne Campground planting trees. Lots of gorgeous trees. Even big ones!! In a few years the campground will be very private with trees and bushes to separate the sites.

Planting and watering one of dozens of mid-sized, at least 10 foot tall, trees.

Digging in one of the very large trees.

The gang of volunteer tree planters from TCI.

Over 200 trees planted in the older section of the campground.

Yvonne's Spectacular Quilt!

Yvonne has made an amazing reverse appliqué quilt top. She did the appliqué, embellished it with beads then quilted it on the long arm. Now it needs its ribbon embellishment and binding. It is going to be stunning!

Actually, it already is stunning!  Even though pictures don't do it justice.  You will have to come to the Pilot Mound Quilt Retreat to see it!

Yvonne holding her stunning applique work quilt.

Up close details of the winter and summer tree.

The background quilting is called McTavishing.  

It makes this woman look like her hair is flowing all around her.

The falling leaves are given motion by the grey quilting lines and beadwork.

Notice how the McTavishing crosses into the squared border.  Neat!

Hibiscus flower.

Fairy.

Dolphin.

Flowers.

Bird.

Broken tail feathers (beads coming off) have tape on them, until a repair job occurs.

Assiniboine Circle Quilt Show

Traveled to St Francis Xavier with Mom and Dad on Sunday. Nice drive east on the Old Number One Hwy.

Gorgeous quilts at the show. Lots by Marj who is a member of the Assiniboine Circle Quilt Guild. What do you think of the ones I have photos of here?

One of the stunning modern quilts.

Oops, lots of glare.

A gorgeous scrappy quilt.

Marj's Hoffman Challenge jacket.  

Marj's fall scene.  Love the wonky log cabin squares as the background!

Dad taking a closer look.  

Love the colour flow of this scrappy charm quilt.

City-scape.

Dresden plate and tulip applique.

Paper piecing in all my favourite kinds of fabric - batiks.

Arlie's circle quilt.

Felting Machine

Marj loaned me her felting machine and I have been playing! A felting machine looks like a sewing machine, but it doesn't sew with thread. The needles don't have a hole in them. They are just straight pins. These pins travel up and down and push the fibre through the underneath fabric and causes it to stick in place.

After I had played with it a bit, I made a decorative pin to wear on my jacket or sweater. It is made out of various yarns I dyed with natural materials and spun. What do you think??

Felting machine.

Close up of the felting needles pushing the yarn fibres through the orange fabrics.

(Sure don't want to get your fingers under the needles!!  Notice the safety guard.)

Felted decorative pin.  Yarns dyes with beets, grapes, turmeric, sunflower seeds, rhubarb leaves, etc.

Another Rural Landmark Disappears

The neighbour's farmyard is being bulldozed. What a change in the landscape! Sad to see it go!

Ted and Mary raised 10 kids in that farmhouse at the same time that my in-laws raised their 10 right across the road. Both families farmed the land, raised animals in the barn, and a garden full of produce canned for the winter fruit and veggie supply. Times were simpler then. One set of good clothes for church, barn clothes and school clothes were all that were needed. Of those clothes the majority of them would be hand me downs, or even shared items, such as the sox box or the drawers drawer!

The school bus would arrive in the morning after milking was done and an oatmeal breakfast with warm milk was consumed. The bus made one stop on the road, at the end of the two farm families lanes. One family to the north, one to the south. The numerous school age children from each family would fill the bus, a empty cube van with wooden benches on each side, and travel the five minutes to school.

Memories!

Neighbour's farmyard a week ago.

You can hardly see the barn for all the spruce tress.

Today I looked out and.... what!!........

Now you can fully see the barn.....

and the house.

The entire yard without trees.  Yikes!  What a shame!!

First MPQ Meeting of the Year

Traveled to the Manitoba Prairie Quilters meeting with Annette and Marj. There we met up with Yvonne and found a table in the crowded church hall, about 180 quilters!!

The meeting introduced the executive, each member describing their own personal quilting addiction - batiks, taking classes, purchasing fabric, collecting patterns, etc. Very humorous!

Then a display of all the ABC quilts made over the summer, dozens and dozens. Ending with show and tell where we saw dozens of amazing quilts people have made for family and friends. Very inspiring examples!!

Here is the MPQ raffle quilt.  It really is gorgeous!

Various ABC (Adult, Baby, Child) donation quilts.  I love the one in the centre!

A ring of donation quilts around the 180 quilters in attendance.

The next three quilts were my favorites during Show and Tell time at the meeting.

1.  Gorgeous sampler quilt!

2.  Funky stars quilt.

3.  Interesting design.

Another raffle quilt:

St Francis Xavier quilt guild raffle quilt.  I really hope I win it!!

Marj's home and studio

Annette and I visited with Marj this afternoon. We toured her new home and oohed over all her quilts on display. Wow!

Marj's ladder shows off seasonal quilts.

Gorgeous soft cotton hand dyed fabric in this modern quilt.

Wool applique quilt.

Funky modern wall hanging quilt. 

Marj's bed quilt is a New York Beauty.

Another quilt displayed on headboard.

A quilted bag for all seasons, and then some!

Marj's studio space.

Marj is working on a series of funky wall quilts.  Here is another one.  In progress.

Interesting quilt bulletin board!

Quilt, runner and pillow all from modern material.

(Notice the knitting she has on the go!)