Saturday, August 19, 2017

I didn’t get much accomplished today but I tried. I have two blocks left in order to catch up on my second set of Splendid Sampler blocks – one is pieced and the other is part-appliqué and part-embroidery. I had some time this morning so I made a start.

There are 48 pieces in the pieced block so you can imagine how small they are when they are only 6.5″ once they are all stitched together. I got them cut and a bit of the prep work done but I didn’t start sewing. The other block seemed a bit complicated as the pattern was for needle-turn appliqué and if I wanted to use fusible (and I did) I had to reverse the shapes. So I did a bit of online searching and saw that a lot of the people in the group were embroidering the entire block. That seemed like a better choice so I got it traced out and even put a few stitches into it before walking to my afternoon job.

Today is Day One of Arts Alive in the Park at Willingdon Beach and the Guild have a booth; I had booked myself in for a two-hour shift. The tent was located so we were looking out at the ocean and there was a nice breeze so the space was cool. I sat with a couple of our Texada quilters; all three of us are all doing the Splendid Sampler. There wasn’t a lot of “strangers” stopping by the display but we did have a lot of friends and acquaintances stop in to say hello. Carola, my neighbour down the hill, had a large booth set up right beside us and on the other side is a new-to-town textile artist (Kristin Miller) who will be teaching a class at the Guild this year. I got a bit of advice on my Guild Challenge idea and nothing major needs to be changed; Barb suggested that a challenge with fabric included was better than one without but she also gave me an idea of the fabric I could use for my idea. It helps that she works at the fabric shop and knew what was in stock.

I was hot after walking home and sat to do a bit more embroidery work but overall I’m not happy with the way it is turning out. I’ve picked out quite a bit of it and I may rethink my process. There is a lot of small detail in the pattern and my clunky embroidery doesn’t look very good. Some of the smaller pieces could possibly be coloured rather than embroidered, or I may change the whole design entirely. The pattern is called Gran’s Button Jar and I think that gives me lots of ideas to play with that will be simpler than the embroidery.

We’re invited to a pot luck tonight – a Blue Grass group this time around.