News!

Snowdrops at our front door on, 02 March, 2015. We have full blooms now :-)

Part of the news is that the snow is nearly GONE around here!!!

We have bare grass. NOT pretty grass, but bare  except for zillions of twigs and branches that have fallen in the strong winds of the past winter. I say "past". I surely hope I am right!!

I submitted and had accepted, two pieces of work for the Grand National. It opens at Josef Schneider Haus, Kitchener, ON on 10 May 2015. The theme this year is Connections. The show runs until27 September. Hope some of you can see it!

Clockworks

Poppies Aglow II

A couple of days ago, the UPS man brought me my copies of Dr Sandra Sider's new book, 1000 Quilt Inspirations, published by Quarry Books. It is a bright and interesting collection of - you guessed it, 1000 images of quilts to inspire you, including six pieces of mine. Unfortunately, the six pieces do not represent what I REALLY do. They are more experimental, not serious but fun pieces. I hope you'll have a look at the book if you can and that you may be inspired!

I have opened a Flickr account and can be found on google - rtquilter on Flickr. Have a look. There are a LOT of fabulous photos on Flickr. I follow Carol L Harris, Darlene P Duncan and Bleu Nature on Flicker, all definitely worth a look.


I have been fooling around with filters on Photoshop and have prepared some photos to build quilts. Here are three. I will take my patterns to the printer man tomorrow and then have some serious dyeing to do!

An abstracted hosta

A dying Christmas Amaryllis. I LOVED the translucency of the bloom as it faded.

And two poppies from our garden

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, concludes the news! When the time comes, I shall post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com  I have not posted for a while but hope I am getting back into the groove. Hope you all have a lovely Easter or at least a wonderful weekend if Easter is not part of your tradition.

OK, It is Tuesday , past 3PM. Off to TNTN I go. I hope you'll come and join me .

Almost back to normal

We have been visited by a small delegation from the south! DD, DSIL and OLIVER came for s few days and we have had a lovely, if exhausting time. SOME people NEVER ran out of energy!!!

VERY VERY cute and sweet but more decorative than practical! He carried the broom EVERYWHERE but we never got a lick of work out of him :-)

We saw lots of things-

The intrepid explorer, Oliver in a Canuck snowsuit  looking bewildered

Trumpeter swans and Canada Geese

We were down at the harbour, Hamilton Harbour, watching the geese, ducks and Trumpeter swans

Day 2 we ventured out to Hutch's on the beach, Van Wagner's Beach on the shores of Lake Ontario.

These ice cliffs were a good ten feet high

K, C and O on the "beach" at Hutch's, a local beach eatery famous for fish and chips

The ice and snow didn't seem to bother the gulls

On Saturday, we went to Mountsberg and Crawford Lake, two local conservation areas. It was BITTER cold so picture taking was minimal! These woolly chaps are part of the bison herd at Mountsberg. They were FAR away so hard to catch a good photo even on my new camera. Apologies for the poor photo!

One of the recreated Longhouses at Crawford Lake. These people were ancestors of the Huron.

On Sunday, we really enjoyed a cold, breezy afternoon at Niagara Falls where two thirds of the entire world population had the same idea and were ALL there too. It was a STUNNING spectacle though so I do NOT blame them .

The textures of the ice on the US side were fabulous! Hard to get a clear picture through the thick mist though

The US Falls VERY iced up!

The icy brink of our Horseshoe falls with a double rainbow>

Just a tiny bit closer with my new lens. Look at the thick ice! The river itself was THICK with solid snowy ice with huge crevasses in it. AWESOME , in every sense of the word!!!

Our family left for home on Monday morning and about seventeen hours later, arrived at their house. We miss them but we DID have a lovely visit. 

 On Tuesday AM early, I decided to play nicely with the new lens, (70-300 mm) so I took it out to the back deck in the misty cold air and did some shooting of the birds at the feeder. This White Breasted Nuthatch turned out very nicely for a rank amateur photographer. 

White Breasted Nuthatch with a sunflower seed

We are kind of returning to normal now. I think we are ALL pretty tired. I know DH and I are! It was lovely to have time together though and to witness Oliver's early attempts at speech! We are all trying to decide what "Bwah?? means??? -maybe"what?", as in "what's that?" Anyway, VERY sweet and funny little man!

I will post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com I have been away for a LONG time but am gradually gearing up to do some new Fibre Art work. Don't hold your breath but DO stay tuned!