Crocus Quilters' Amazing Show

First of all, a huge bouquet goes out to Marg who chaired the Quilt Show and to her committee and to all the willing workers from the guild who made this show beautiful, amazing, and wonderful!  Mostly this blog entry is photos with very few comments.

Enjoy!

This was our raffle quilt.  Our winner is already planning to paint her bedroom to coordinate with it.

Here's the bargello which won the People's Choice Award.  It's a beauty!

We had vendors and I hope they all had successful sales as their displays were so tempting.  Thank goodness my year of not buying fabrics ended before the show.

Here, in random order, are our quilts and other stitched items:

Two high school classes entered their wonky houses and their Alzheimer placemats.

These entries are from the Hex 'n' More class.

These are from the Curved Ruler class.

Dorothy was our featured guild quilter and her corner was inspiring and beautiful.  I hope you all noticed her childhood Singer sewing machine that still had its original box 

which stated "this is not a toy."

We had a sale area with lots of cool items.

And then we had still more quilted entries.

Our "Anything but a Quilt" had lots of creative entries.

We're so lucky Jaynie is part of our guild and could bring the "Wind" creations of the Fibre Art Network to our show.  Jaynie gave permission for me to show the pieces here.  Each one of these artists is as talented as the previous ones

The next one is Jaynie's piece in the FAN show.

Our featured quilter from Saskatoon, Barb Dawson, brought a humorous cow challenge from her group of stitchers.  I loved them all!  The details in each are so funny ... like this drunk cow's bloodshot eyes.

I can't believe it!  Barb Dawson's cow was one of my favorites as it is a NYC cow and my photo of it is too blurry to use.  How did I not notice that when I took the photo?  Barb and I discovered our mutual love of NYC.

Our guild ladies put out a spread for those attending Barb Dawson's Trunk Show.

The chairs filled quickly.

Barb is a charming presenter who told lots of stories as she took us through the history of her quilting starting with the first quilt she ever made.

Barb, thanks for giving us an evening of incredible works, stories, humor, 

and a shared love of quilting.  As well, I thank Barb for giving me permission to show her works here.

There's No Place Like Home

We arrived home last night after taking this turbo prop of West Jet's over the mountains.

The snowy mountains, that is.

I will really miss hanging out at this cafe and the apartment above it where Elizabeth lives.

Being with these two was a lot of fun.

I enjoyed all the colors of nature ... from this tree to blooming heather to pansies to all green vegetation.

But home is such a great place to be.  Finn was looking out the window for us when we arrived last night and he danced around us crazily for the longest time.  This morning he enjoyed watching Bob shovel the minimal snow that was in our driveway.

Travel and adventure are great interludes from the life we live in Weyburn.  We have no complaints about travel nor any about returning home.

Another Hike and Another Elf

This morning we picked up London Fogs at the Willow Street Cafe and headed past Nanaimo to Englishman River Falls Provincial Park.  The forest is stunning...

as are the upper falls.

I can't decide if some artist put this piece of bark here or it randomly fell and randomly looks like an owl.

The lower falls aren't as spectacular.  I wonder if in spring with heavy runoff, the water goes over this big rock rather than under it.

Linda, should we eat this mushroom?

This table suggests that it isn't the right time of year to picnic here.  However, it was certainly the right time to hike as we had the trail to ourselves the entire time.

Instead we went for lunch at Goats on Roof in Coombs.  I had what I've had for most lunches:  clam chowder and this was laced with dill.  Yummy!

We shared two desserts:  sticky toffee pudding cake and a Nanaimo bar.

It's best to stop at the washroom before you are too desperate.

They have enough horseradish ... er, goatradish.

I love this hedge in Chemainus as it reminds me of the yew hedges in Ireland.  This is actually cedar.

Okay, okay, I can't resist showing you one of Chemainus's murals.

Do you know what the people of Chemainus are called?  Chemainiacs!  Isn't that wonderful?

At supper Elizabeth and I had time for a few speed games of Scrabble.  Do you think I traded in letters when I had this rack?

I did.

Bob and I were lucky enough to get tickets for tonight's sold out performance of "Elf."  A family  turned in a couple of tickets that they couldn't use.  Before the show we had a family photo with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  Mrs. Claus just happens to be Elizabeth's roommate.  Santa whispered in my ear.  He didn't whisper " have you been a good girl this year?"  Instead he whispered, "your daughter is doing a good job."

Tomorrow it's time to head home.  Finn, we'll see you soon.