Good News for Curtain Call 2

Curtain Call 2

Last week I was surprised by some very good news.  "Curtain Call 2" has been selected for a "cash award" in the "Art-Naturescapes" category of the International Quilt Association's show in Houston, Texas. The exact nature of the award will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on October 29.  Unfortunately I will not be able to attend to receive the award in person.  More information to follow. A few days ago I also received the news that "Curtain Call 2" will be one of the quilts featured in the International Quilt Festival: Quilt Scene magazine. This magazine is dedicated to the quilts and happenings of the International Quilt Festival.  I have seen it available at Chapters stores here in Canada in previous years.

              

If you would like to own a little piece of this series, "Curtain Call 3", below, will be up for auction in the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) annual fund-raising auction on Monday, September 23.  

Curtain Call 3

I am currently preparing for a busy month of teaching and travel. My Art Quilt Series starts here in Ottawa at The Running Stitch on Sunday, September 22. I will be teaching for three days (October 4, 5 and 6) at Cherry Tree Quilts in Summerland, British Columbia.  A few days of vacation will be added to spend some time enjoying the Okanagan Valley. My week-long dyeing class "Dyeing to Quilt" takes place October 21-25 at the Haliburton School of the Arts. I am busy revising notes, inventorying patterns, getting copies made, reviewing my dyeing processes, and beginning to pack. I am also working on some new patterns and starting to give thought to a simple pattern for my first line of commercial fabrics. I am still not revealing the name of the company until I have some concrete details to share.

The weather has been just gorgeous here and the trees are starting to turn. My husband took this photo last weekend. I hope to carve out a day to spend seeing and photographing autumn this coming week.

Summer Sights, Part 2

There were a few glorious weekends throughout the month of August. A walk in Mer Bleu bog (about 15 minutes from my home) on a gorgeous day offered these sights.

Beautiful reflections!

A visit to Orleans Fruit Farm, also close to my home:

A Sunday road trip to Prince Edward County, about three hours south-west of Ottawa, on Lake Ontario included a sunflower field.

Driving country roads, we happened upon a beautiful old graveyard with this lovely gate

and a beautiful place to sit.

A quiet final resting place.

Hollyhocks were blooming along country roads.

We paid a visit to the Waupoos Winery,

and enjoyed viewing boats on Lake Ontario in the village of Waupoos.

You can see the site of the old Waupoos Cannery. At one time fruits and vegetables canned in this part of Ontario were shipped all over the world.

There is a wall dedicated to farm and factory workers who worked in often (what we would consider) uncivilized conditions!

If you click on this photo, you should be able to read the British/Canadian factory laws in place at the time that the factory ran.

On our way to dinner in Bloomfield, I found this husky dog who had fallen asleep with his head dangling out of the car window, waiting for his human companions to return.

A week or so later we enjoyed an afternoon walk in Ottawa's Arboretum.

It included a visit to my favorite tree in Ottawa, a more-than-100-year-old Bebbs Oak. The branches stretch so wide now that a post holds them up on one side. Yes, this is the tree that inspired my quilt called "Invitation".

I hope you found these photos inspiring! It is September now and time to get to work! 

Summer Sights, Part 1: Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Wow, it has been a few weeks since I blogged. Aside from dyeing about 100 meters of fabric and working on some new patterns, in the last month I've just enjoyed summer and some beautiful sights. In this blog post and the next I'll share some photos of some inspirational places I've been in the past month, most of them pretty local. Today's post, however, contains photos from last week's vacation at the northern tip of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. 

I have to report that there was a lot of rain! These three photos, however, were taken on the one and only day that the sky was blue and almost cloudless. The first two show the beach at the cottage we stayed in Dingwall. Idyllic, no?  Peaceful?  Yes!  Pristine and unspoiled, my favorite kind of place.

A little walk out to White Point.

Boats in the harbour on the way to Meat cove.

The beautiful and magnificent Cabot Trail! It might have been cloudy, but at least it didn't rain that day! These photos were taken on the west side, heading toward Cheticamp.

We experienced several storms involving wind and driving rain. A couple of days we stayed close to the cottage. On our last day I finally stopped and photographed Dingwall Harbour. This is where the lobster fishermen park their boats. Very peaceful and beautiful even on a grey and cloudy day.

This photo was cropped out out of the above photo, when I noticed a beautiful little spiral under the dock.

I hope your summer included some beautiful sights!