ROW BY ROW EXPERIENCE, ONTARIO

I'm crazy and so is my sister.  We've just spent weeks traipsing around Southern Ontario on the July Shop Hop and now the Row by Row Experience, Ontario, www.rowbyrowexperience.com.  There are no fees and no passports.  From July 1st to September 2nd, visit participating shops and pick up your free row pattern in the Sew a Season quilt.  

I can tell you that this is addicting.  

I've chosen our route and off we go . . . 

Cherished Pieces, Tillsonburg

The Quilting Bee, Fonthill

Cobwebs & Caviar, Shelburne

Country Concessions, Cookstown

Kalidoscope Quilts, Exeter

Ye Olde Quilt Shoppe, Stratford

That Quilt Place, Shakespeare

So here's my pile of twenty Row by Row Experience kits purchased along the way.  I've got a lot of work to do.

As an added bonus, many of the shops offered for sale fabric personalized shop license plates (way cool!).  I've been to 20 shops and picked up only five.  It seems that the Row by Row Experience is sooooo much fun that shops have sold out quickly.  I've left my name at all the participating shops in hopes that they will mail one to me when they are back in stock.

The Quilting Bee, in Fonthill, has even issued a challenge to use the fabric license plates in a quilt.  This is their quilt.

JULY SHOP HOP

I haven't been spending too much time in the studio lately.  I've been out and about Southern Ontario, taking in the July Shop Hop.  13 quilt stores are participating, with each store giving away a free block pattern and red & white fabrics to make the block.  My sister did the driving and I did the navigating (sort of).  I don't know east from west or north from south so most of the time my sister just got us to where we were supposed to end up.

We started out at The Marsh Store and continued from there . . .

Seven Sisters Quilting, Norwich

Quilt Junction, Waterford, is featured in Spring/Summer 2014 Quilt Sampler

I even had Lana autograph the page for me!

The Hobby Horse, Georgetown

Ye Olde Fabric Shoppe, Stratford

The Quilt Place, Shakespeare

Creative Sisters, Kitchener

I now have 13 blocks to put together into a quilt.  Each of the participating stores had completed their version of the red & white quilt and I was allowed to photograph all of them except for the Creative Sisters, Kitchener quilt as no permission was given by the makers (even though a picture of the quilt is shown on their website). 

USE THE FORCE, LUKE

I volunteered to make a quilt for a baby shower that my sister's theatre group was holding for a couple of their long-time members.  Except that baby boy Luke was born in May and his parents were actors in community theatre, I didn't know anything else about them, so what type/style of quilt to make?

I had only a few days to complete the project so a modern quilts, using just a few large pieces of fabric, did the trick.  I chose blues for a boy (call me sexist).  To me, the name Luke is reminiscent of Starwars, so I borrowed the Star Jedi font for the name LUKE and the label on the back of the quilt entitled Use The Force, Luke.  

The name was adhered using Steam-A-Seam 2 and raw-edge machine appliqué.  The piece was machine quilted in vertical lines.  A sleeve was added to the back for hanging  instead of using it in a crib.

  

WHO'S GOT THE BUTTON

For a recent quilt guild potluck, I made simple sugar cookies - in the shape of buttons - really easy:

And I had the perfect tin for them.

QUILT GUILD POSTCARDS

I received a couple more great postcards.  These are the last until next year only if I decide to partake in the exchange.  I have so many cards that I don't know what to do with so will have to make a decision to carry on or not - but I really do love each little piece of art.

SELVEDGE SPOOLS

I keep every bit of fabric, including the selvedges.  The Block of the Month for September was "selvedge spools".  I had no issues trying to find the selvedges, but did have issues with the inset seams.  If this were my block, I'd make 1/2 square triangles for each corner of the spool and stitch the pieces together like a 9-patch - sssoooooo much simpler than inset seams.  I made two blocks for the draw, but didn't win.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CANADA!