International Embroidery Day.

Today is the day, embroidery is celebrated around the World.  Showcase your beautiful work and inspire everyone around you.

 Machine Embroidery.

 Cross-Stitch.

 Stitching.

 Crayoning and art, to add dimension to the the final product.

 Labels, love the mouse.

Enjoy the fruits of your labour,  what an amazing way to colour the World.

Enjoying summer.....

  

With all the rain and just cooler weather, we have all been waiting for summer to arrive.  It has played hide and seek up until now.  Summer is finally warming up.

It brought us unexpected visitors, so we took them to see one of great wonders, it was just a flying visit,

A quilt show within a local church.

Farmers markets every saturday.  They have some interesting vendors....

 Even a hundred years ago, socks could be knitted fast, if one had one of these knitting machines.

 This is a sock knitter, made from cast iron.

 From the top, showing the knitting in process.

This is what it looks like, closed for the knitting process.

The finished socks, on offer.  In all the colours of the rainbow...

...now, to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Why we need Therapy Blankets.

Funny how in this day and age, the world will medicate to eradicate its problems.  Sometimes one need to follow the yellow brick road and do the alternative!

Years ago,  as part of sensory therapy, our son needed to have a heavy blanket.  It was part of his occupational therapy for his Autism.  When it was explained how sleeping under a heavy blanket has a calming effect on the person and the fact that this weight had an impact on all the large muscles.  It not only wrapped the person in a close hug,  it provided passive therapy at the same time.  Little did we know when we were doing this how beneficial it would turn out to be.

Today it is also used for people who have very many needs in everyday life, from anxiety, PTSD, insomnia and stress.  It has an almost instant effect on children with hyperactivity to calm their behaviour  and make them relax,  without the use of medication.

How?,  simply place the heavy blanket over the persons shoulders and wrap the blanket around them, sleeping under a heavier than normal blanket every night is something that is done every night and the lasting results of this therapy is amazing.  The person is given the gift of living a much more productive and normal life,  a gift in itself.

Quilters make quilts all the time, use minky on the back, this adds weight instantly. A Long Arm quilter I have met recently, showed me what she makes for this very reason, what she makes can be used during the day and she did not know just how well the therapy actually works, until I shared with her what it did for our son. 

Learning new things.

The rag quilt is large, took one look at it and decided it would be kinder to use my pinking shears and trimmed the fabric raw edges with it, instead of snipping it the regular way.

It is queen size.

The hope is this way, it will create a chenille effect once it has had its first wash.

I was asked to teach two amazing young ladies, they just turned fifteen recently how to thread paint.

After showing them how to do it, both designed their own designs to embroider.  This was the progress in just a few hours.  Much more was finished, I will hopefully be receiving a progress photos of both pieces in the near future.

Taking a little break.

Road trips are part of summer fun.  Interesting things happen and the bits that can follow you home, from the places you least expect to find them.

Found this one at T-shirt shop in Almonte, what a find. (They had a tea set in a tin as well)!

This one, at in a kitchen shop,  perfect for applique.

This one in an art shop.

As well as all the other essentials, a punch, thread and a block party kit.

Thank you Betty and Kelly , visiting your two Quilt shops, is always a pleasure.

Fleur de Grace!

This one won the Best of show.  Attention to detail was everywhere.  With the cutout windows, the beading, embroidery and the applique.  Using fabrics with a high degree of difficulty as well.

A beaded window.

Applique and quilting detail, on the borders.

The center of the quilt.

 This quilt, seen up close was an amazing experience.

The quilter, Colette Dumont, from Saint-Romain, Quebec,  who made it, came along to see her quilt, so a few of us got to meet her.