The BIG Launch

Sydney Smith, Kate Inglis and Chris "Old Man" Luedecke

You know you are really an author when your second book gets published! We were so thrilled when three years of work culminated in a wonderful book launch for our daughter Kate Inglis last Saturday. And what could be a more special place to hold the launch than the Small Craft Gallery at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax. Friend and banjo player extraordinare, Chris "Old Man" Luedecke sang and played his banjo in between Kate's readings. So special, a prefect combination.

A perfect place to let this book Flight of the Griffons set sail and take Kate on another wonderous adventure.

Kate drew this when she was 6! I am so glad I kept it!

Kate, with braids and glasses, grade primary, Tower Rd School

Look what we started!

Kate has always wanted to be an author, she began at a very young age, perhaps when she was about 4 when she would staple pages together and "write" books! I was so glad I kept quite a few of them and that they are now her treasures. She read at an early age thanks to her wonderful teacher, Mrs. Douthwaite at the All Saints Church of England Promary School in Gosforth, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England (we were there on a year long sabbatical). Kate was further encouraged by her primary teacher, Jane Michaud at Tower Rd School in Haliax, there was no going back now!

Two boys, Ben and Evan - so proud of their Mom.

Kate's first book The Dread Crew - Pirates of the Backwoods, was published in 2009. Flight of the Griffons is the sequel, featuring many of the same characters and introducing some new ones. The illustrations are wonderful, captured perfectly by Sydney Smith. You can find Sydney here and here. There is a wonderful review here posted on the website Finding Wonderland. Books can be ordered direct from Nimbus or from the very best children's bookstore Woozles (yes, they love to do mail orders!).

Needless to say we are very proud of Kate and what she has accomplished - can't wait for the next one - now I need to get back to some quilting!

(There are more pictures from the book launch on my Flickr page here)

More Renovations

First layer of carpet is rolled up, second layer ready to go!

We are gradually making headway with the house renovations. It is a big job but we are making progress. Next on our list after Peter replaced 22 windows was to tackle the floor in our bedroom, get rid of the old carpet and paint the floor.

Second layer rolled, old linoleum revealed.

The carpet was not wall to wall, it was meant to be but it was too small so it was just there! We knew that there was a second layer of carpet underneath, smaller than the first. We moved all the furniture out and proceeded to roll up the two layers of carpet. Our incentive was "spring clean-up" day when we could put anything out at the curb for pick up!

Several layers of printed oil cloth

Closeup of the oil cloth exposing the burlap backing

When we started to roll up the second layer of carpet we realized there was a layer of linoleum. It was quite brittle, no idea how long it had been there. As we started to roll we soon saw more layers underneath. We realized they were a printed oil cloth, at least three different patterns. It was stuck together in several places!

Some of it was "imperfect"!

Not as much variety in the width of the floorboards as there is downstairs.

A few treasures found, a 1964 stamp - the year my family moved to Nova Scotia from Toronto!

It was great to get it all up and out of the house, much healthier for sure! The floorboards in the middle had never been painted so Peter did one coat of primer then 3 coats of paint. We decided to keep it light and airy and I think it worked!

All done!

For now the walls will stay blue, goes well with my "Herringbone Blues" quilt. The quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted by Donna Hazelton (Digby), she did a super job. The walls will eventually be repainted. They were wallpaper at one time and were painted over, as were a number of walls in the house. That is going to be quite the job to strip the painted wallpaper, a job for another day!

Longarm Quilting - A Whole New World!

The "guard bear" greets visiting quilters, watch along the long driveway for other critters!

Last Wednesday my MBQG bee, the Cove Quilters went to Lynn Jones' longarm quilting studio outside of Bridgewater. I had been before but not many of my bee had been. Lynn was quilting Donna's quilt so she waited to quilt the last few block so we could see how the machine worked and how the whole planning and setup worked too.

Awhile ago Lynn quilted my Fireside Log Cabin, a quilt I made in a Heather Stewart workshop last fall. That quilt was the first one on which she used a new computer program which illustrated how the chosen quilting pattern would look on the quilt. She did the same for Donna's quilt. A picture is taken of the quilt top, then the image of the quilting is superimposed on top of the quilt top so you do get a good idea of what it will look like.

Donna's quilt with the quilting pattern on the computer.

It was fascinating to watch the longarm machine stitch. I could have watched it all day! They are quite the machines and there are so many thousands of patterns to chose from.

Lynn has a great setup, a separate building down the hill from her house. It is bright and clean, lots of windows that have a wonderful view across the rolling hills. A perfect place to work. Lynn has a great selection of battings and backing fabrics for her customers to chose from.

Donna, Sandy and Linda talk about different battings with Lynn. Her favourite is a "soy/cotton", a new Pellon batting that had a wonderful soft touch.

Donna and Lynn watch the Gammill at work.

Thanks Lynn for a wonderful and informative afternoon!