Retreating from Cornwall

Nav Res - Conference center

The guys from Downstairs while on basic training

Last Sunday I awoke at an awful hour to catch a plane to Ottawa, our nations capital, then a bus to Cornwall where military chaplains were meeting for a week to study, pray and relax.
It was wonderful to see friends that I had spent basic training with and to catch up with all that has gone on in our lives in a year.  For some there have been huge changes, moving from country to country, into theater & out, even death of family members.  Even myself, in  year I have had to adjust to having a husband living two provinces away to being under the same roof, moving into new house and other assorted life changes. 

Since the flight ( there and back) were so long, I took some hand work to do.  Finished the binding on place mats for Christmas.  Yes I know, a bit early, I'm an overachiever.  I also did the hand work on the cathedral windows that I made up as a sampler.  It turned out pretty good.  I will be making it into a pillow top but I think I want to make some more cathedral windows.  Its nice hand work to do when your traveling.

Cathedral windows

waterwheel blocks

 
When I arrived home I found I had three envelopes from the States waiting for me.  They were the blocks I had asked for as part of a block exchange earlier in the month. I just had to lay them out on the floor with the ones I've been making to see how they will look. Now only to get some free time to do some heavy duty stitching.  I think my free time is going to be a bit skimpy for a free weeks so I might not be ask productive as I hope I will be.  This weeks projects, just so I can hold myself accountable, are finishing the cathedral windows pillow, put away the mountain of yardage that needs to be ironed, finish the binding on the bento box quilt, and put binding on the tree skirts.  I know more Christmas stuff. 

Fandango Bits

Kate Spain came out a while ago with a line called Fandango which is a wonderful mix of lively orange, green, white, turquoise and yellow.  I find it so pretty and fresh that when I saw some scrap bags full of this fabric I bought myself two at my local store, The Cloth Castle.  Of course the annoying thing is the fabrics that I see and would like some are often ones that my local store doesn't have on its radar or takes so long to get in that it is out of stock in the US by the time it comes to Canada.  Good for those folks in the States who are looking for fabric no longer easily found there, you might be able to find it here!

easy cathedral windows

Anyways I decided that I would make two things out of all these scraps.  The first, some place mats for my mom, cause I think she will really love the colors and the second.... well lets say I was stumped for a bit, until I went to my " I wanna make this someday" file and saw the pattern for cathedral windows.  Since it takes small bits and I wanted a uniform look from a sole fabric line, I thought it would work well for Fandango.  As I am not interested in watching the Stanley Cup playoff, even if its my provinces home team, I sat down after supper and started pressing and folding, steaming and more steaming little packets to form the windows.  After two hours and four episodes of NCIS reruns I had enough for a pillow top.  I need to spend time tomorrow after work tacking down these babies cause I don't think Air Canada will let me on the plane with these pins.  Hopefully this will be enough to keep me occupied on my flight from Victoria to Ottawa.  Can you say painfully long. I know not as bad as flying to Australia or Japan but long none the less.  For those of you interested in the tutorial I found for this, it is here.  I found the tutorial easy to understand and put together.  I like that when that happens.