A Couple of Schemers

Here's a nice photo of the girls I received after I did this post.

It was my birthday celebration early in September.  Here I am with two of my granddaughters wearing dresses that their mums wore in the '70s! 



And here's a photo of Suzie with the pink dress.  It was graduation day from Nursery School.  She was about 4.

After we had finished dinner and strawberry shortcake for my birthday cake we all settled down in the family room.  

The two girls ran in from the kitchen full of giggles
and said "we've found the cake", giggle, giggle!  
We ignored them and after it happened again,  
Susie went to the kitchen to check them out, 
there they were pulling out the strawberries from 
the remains of the Shortcake.

August's CQJP 2014 Block

This year's CQI Retreat was super.  The largest group so far in the seven years this has been running.  I think about 26 or so ladies, many that I had met before and were already friends, and lots of new crazy quilters to get to know.  The Retreat was from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday morning, and it's amazing how much we did in that small amount of time.  The organizing ladies did a super job. Elizabeth from the Kansas City area, and Cathy K. and 
Gerry H from Colorado made it happen - thanks!!  

Rather than take a mountain of projects and embellishments, I travelled with only two of the CQJP blocks, July and August.  I finished the August one, and here it is:

August's CQJP2014 Block
My sister Helena
If you look extra closely, I still have a few tiny Charlottes to go around the photograph, I actually ran out of them, even to looking between the couch cushions!

  

CQJP 2014 August's Naked Block

CQJP 2014: August - Helena

I'm stretching the truth a lot when I say this is a naked block.  It's actually full of wonderful Indian bead, sequins,  and gold work embroidery.  

Helena is my younger sister.  We didn't grow up as good friends possibly because of the few year's age difference and probably because I was a bit of a bossy big sister.  

Last year when we spent seven months together looking after our mum, we had an amazing time, mainly messing around with all the ethnic fabrics that abound in Toronto.

Helena discovered my stash of saris and other well embellished garments, and set about creating wonderful fabric montages, all of which she named.  I think the total number was a bit over 200.

So to celebrate our sisterly friendship I created a bejewelled block.  I'll still add more to it, and especially to the lacey pieces as I am still mindful of Gerry K's lesson in using lace and embellishments to the max!

I am off the the CQ Retreat in Kansas City on Wednesday and this block will be the one I work on during "stitching time".