a summer finish

With a deadline of April 2019, I surged ahead to finish this piece anyway. 

Many of you may be aware of the project undertaken in New Brunswick, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of L'église historique de Barachois which will be celebrated in 2019. They are looking for 200 hooked cushions to line the pews of the church. The timing is also tied in with the World Acadian Congress in 2019, with celebrations happening in summer 2019.  The 2019 WAC theme is « la Mer Rouge qui nous rassemble » ( "The Red Sea, which unites us").

I love New Brunswick and have visited this unique, beautiful church in the past for a rug hooking exhibit. It will be an amazing display of hooked cushions from, literally, around the world. If you want more information or would like to see some of the completed pieces, visit the group's Facebook page. There are specific dimensions provided for the cushions to fit the space, so it's important to register with the organizers and get the details. 

You'll see that I took the Congress theme and used it for inspiration. Once hooked, I began the process of making my piece into a cushion. 

Here's the finished project....

Across the top it says "la mer rouge" and across the bottom, "the red sea". The strait between NB and PEI is referred to as the red sea because the red dirt eroding into the waters sometimes lends it a reddish tinge. You'll see that I've exaggerated that! One of the wools i used was even named "PEI Dirt". Nice to find a use for those wools that never seem to get used. 

This was a lot of fun to work on, and I'm excited to deliver it in person this August! I'm really looking forward to seeing some of the other finished cushions. They still need more cushion donations, so if you're a hooker go to that Facebook page and sign up! You have until next April to complete and deliver a cushion, and to be a part of this amazing rug hooked endeavour!

Mistakes, I've made a few

You haven't heard from me in a while, my apologies. Life's been busy, but who's isn't? I have been slowly working away on a few fibre projects. Seemingly with no finish line in sight.... until today.

I knit a cowl. Twice. Still not right. Long painful story. It'll be done but not for this post, as planned. 

Still, I persisted with another project. I'm counting this as part of my #18in2018 because the 50s replica fabrics were purchased in the 90s. I loved them at the time, but had no plan for how they'd be used. When I was looking through my stash for projects suitable for #18in2018, I recognized that these fabrics really needed to be used up and a nice summer quilt would be the perfect plan for them. 

So I found a pattern online that I could use as inspiration, and that would be flexible with the many fat quarters I had. I pressed, and I cut. Then I figured out how I could use those fat quarters in some semblance of order. 

I think I started in January or February. Not bad for a quilt turnaround. Not bad for me, that is. 

You may have seen some of these in progress shots. 

Quilting finished today, and photographed on the deck. This quilt will be a snuggly addition to the cottage for cool summer nights. 

By no means is it perfect, there are a lot of mistakes. I'm okay at piecing, but really sub-par at quilting on my machine. But I'm a lover of "done". That's what this is.... done!