Wedding Dress Road Trip

Last Saturday Leslie, two of her bridesmaids, and myself, went on a road trip to Kelowna to go wedding dress shopping.  Now any good road trip has to start off with food, so Wendy's was the first stop.

The girls were trying to hide all the real fattening food by setting it on Leslie's car, but .......

The next stop was Starbucks in Vernon (an hour away) for a pee stop, and new drinks.  Then came the dress shop in Kelowna.  Off to our little waiting room to wait for Leslie to show us THE DRESS.

Of course I can't show you THE DRESS, but I can tell you Leslie looks beautiful in it!

Now to get out of THE DRESS a bridesmaid is sometime needed.  Not necessarily Heidi's best side, but fun anyways.

After stopping at Shopper's for more drinks, it was back on the road.  Falkland was the pee stop on the way back, and of course, more food.

The Petro Can in Falkland carries the black licorice cigars that I love.  Brianna doesn't like licorice, so I was force to eat two.  What can I say.

A great day with three wonderful young women.  Thanks for letting me join in!

Friends

Today I stopped by Katja's Quilt Shoppe to check out what was happening.  A small group of Quilters were in the classroom sewing up a storm.  This group of friends gets together once a month for a little sewing, a lot of food and great companionship.

A couple of the ladies were shopping when I had the camera out.  I'll get them next time! Thanks for letting me stop by.

I would like to say that I was so inspired by their mini quilt gathering that I rushed home to finish the quilt I was working on for a friend.  However, truth be told, I had promised to have it done by 6 and was determined to make the deadline.  I find deadlines help me focus.

An Irish Chain is always stunning.  Green and Pink are not colours I would normally put together, but in this quilt they really compliment each other.

Deanna's Big Boy/Girl Quilts

A good friend of mine, Deanna, makes a quilt for each of her grandchildren when they turn 4. These quilts are the big boy/girl quilts made to fit the big beds.  The latest quilt is for Sadie. The batik hearts are bright and cheerful.  I quilted the quilt with overall paisley hearts using King Tut #921.
Sadie's name was pieced using Tonya Ricucci's method of free form piecing.  Check out Tonya's Word Play Quilts book available at Katja's.

Cleo will be the lucky recipient of this batik star quilt.  In both quilts Deanna replaced a block with the child's name.  Great idea!

Mylah is already using this beauty.

Soren wanted farmyard fabrics on his quilt, so Deanna created this fun quilt.

Olin was into construction equipment, so this is the quilt he received.

Hunter's quilt was made before Deanna knew how to quilt the name.  I'm sure he loves it just the same.

Thanks to Deanna for agreeing to let me show you these great quilts.

Small Blog Meet

I was just visiting Lilysquilts and she has a wonderful idea to help newer bloggers like myself, link up with others.  My post is supposed to say a little bit about myself and my quilting.

I started quilting about 28 years ago and still love it.  I love traditional piecing as well as new and funky piecing.  I try to find the easiest way to make a block.  Life is to short to do things the hard way.  I have taught quilting classes at the local quilt shop for the past twelve years and have long arm quilted the last eleven years.  Now if you are keeping track of the numbers, you have figured out that I'm a little older than most bloggers.  But what is age, just a number and no, I'm not giving up the number.

I hope you take a minute to scroll through some of my posts and return again.  Thanks.

I love to feather!

I love to quilt feathers.  I think every quilter finds a quilting pattern they just have to use whenever possible.  For me that pattern is feathers.

Today I finished quilting a quilt based on a pattern from Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, January/February 2011 magazine.  The original quilt is called China Girl.  The quilt had a lot of different shaped background areas that I just had to fill with feathers.

A medallion feather for this spot.

A funky feather in a straight line for this area.

And a feather in this box that looks an awful lot like a flower.

Of course I did add a continuous feather on the border.  I will show you the finished quilt when I get the binding on it.

For those of you who are quilting feathers, remember, they are just half a heart.

Valemount Quilt

If you are driving through Valemount, you must stop in at the info centre to check out this wonderful quilt.  It was made by the local guild and depicts scenes from around the area.

The centre block is the view of Canoe Mountain.

From the info centre head across the highway and a couple of blocks down 5th Ave. to the Bear Paw Den.

Even though the store is small, it contains all sorts of treasures.  Even the men will find something interesting to look at.  If not in the quilt store, then at the sporting goods store next door.

Canadian Death Race

As part of our recent holiday Doug and I went to Grand Cache Alberta for the Canadian Death Race.  The race is 125 km. long running through the mountains of the area.  For those of you that think that this sounds easy, click here to check out the elevation change.  The winner of the race solo completed in a little over 12 hours.  Totally insane!
The reason I was there was to see my son Harvey compete on the PPCLI relay team. Harvey ran the last leg of the race so I was able to see him come across the finish line.

Running the majority of his leg in the dark and rain, Harvey completed his leg in 2:13.  Way to go Harvey!

This was the time on the clock as Harvey finished.  3 minutes is taken of for the official finish, to make up for the time spent in a boat on the river crossing.

This is the team at the finish line.  James Hewitt (squatting), Harvey, Brian Crowhurst, Josh Bowen and Sean Cochrane.

These two pictures were taken when Doug and I were out bike riding along the edge of town.  What a beautiful part of Canada.

On Monday at the awards breakfast, the team was called to the stage to receive an award in memory of Richard Kurnow.  Richard was their team mate who was tragically lost during a training run in Edmonton.  The team was running in his memory.

By Monday Harvey was looking well again, even though he admitted to being a little stiff.  Love you Harvey.