The Canada Quilt

Quite a momentous day today. I have finally finished my Canada quilt! Back in April last year when I had barely done any sewing and before I even owned a sewing machine, a lady in the village called Kim was running a quilting course. I signed up and then (much to her frustration I'm sure) I told her I didn't want to make a nice simple sampler quilt, I wanted to make one where each square represented something about Canada!

I started sewing it by hand, then after a couple of months, I bought a machine without blanket stitch (big mistake!) and then for most of last summer the completed squares sat untouched in a folder while I fell out of love with the project.

Then as winter came round and I progressed to my second sewing machine I started on it again, and with our departure from Canada looming there was suddenly a target date to finish it by!

So here it is finished at long last! Huge thanks are due to both Kim Wood & Fiona Sadler who taught me so much and made me finish it when the whole thing nearly took a diversion to become cushion covers (don't ask!) For the first time in a long time, I now don't have a quilting project to work on... I'm sure that won't last!

Aside from quilting, I also made my first skirt with invisible zipper this weekend (see left). So easy and I love the result. Knowing how to make clothes will certainly prove useful as we travel round the world and find our shopping options sometimes a little limited!

And talking of traveling around the world, we still don't have an exact date for our move to Cyprus, but suspect we'll be leaving here mid-July. As well as packing up here, we have been filling in the usual paperwork for quarters and issue furniture in Cyprus. The army has a quite archaic system of deciding who is entitled to what furniture. I still laugh when I see "nest of tables (officer only)" on the form. I had a nest of tables in Germany and believe me, they are nothing to write home about!