Sunday 27 April 2014

Show & Tell: My Latest Block

It's been nearly a month since I last blogged. I've been busy, but I'm not sure what I've really accomplished. It hasn't been quilting, though I have gotten a little of that done. 
It seems likely that I will not be moving to Ontario in the near future. My daughter got a casual job at a seniors' home and they will pay half of her tuition for her Health Care Aide course and deduct the payments for the other half out of her pay cheque over the next two years. So she's kind of obligated to stay around for that long. Plus the job hunt for me in Ontario was not going well. I sent quite a number of resumes and had one screening interview and that was it. Besides, nursing wages are significantly less in Ontario and, as long as I'm supporting my daughter and grandson, I can't afford to take a big cut in my pay. I had pretty much made up my mind to stay in Alberta, when I got a voice mail today from one of the places to which I had sent a resume. The position I had applied for was filled, but the woman that left the message wanted to know if I was interested in a management position. Alright, that just gives me more to think about. I would still like to move to Ontario, but have no desire to be that far from Damian and Sophia. I will call back tomorrow and see what they have to offer. If it's tempting, I will discuss it with my daughter and pray about it, too, of course. That goes without saying. 
Meanwhile, National Nursing Week is coming up fast, May 12-18 here in Canada. And I was hoping to have my Florence Nightingale quilt done for the display I'll set up at work. Lest you get confused, this is not the Florence Nightingale block from the Dear Jane quilt. No, this is a quilt designed by Common Threads Quilting utilizing the Women of Courage fabric line from Windham Fabrics. And it's much more complex than the Dear Jane Florence Nightingale block. Here's the main block used in this quilt, measuring 9 inches finished size:
It's the only block I've finished so far, but I've done all of the fabric cutting. I've also made up all of the half-square triangle units, 160 of them, measuring just slightly over one inch square.
 And I've got one red side triangle on all 80 of these Flying Geese units.
I've just started putting the other side triangles on. That's as much as I've accomplished. 
Though it's a bit of a "finicky" block, it's nowhere near as tedious as the pixel quilt I've been working on. I need to make 20 of the above block and the rest is filled in with solid pieces of fabric. You can see the quilt top design in the Common Threads link above. I decided to take a "detour" from the pixel quilt to work on this one. My next scheduled day off, so my next opportunity to rent time on the long arm quilting machine, is May 12, which is the first day of Nursing Week. So if I choose (and am able to finish it) to display this quilt, I will need to both quilt and bind it in the same day, so that I can display it the following day when I'm back at work.
And on the subject of Nursing Week, Company's Coming, the cookbook company, made a very generous donation of cookbooks as prizes for our celebrations. So I would just like to recognize them here and acknowledge their contribution. Thank you, Company's Coming. You rock! And you have great cookbooks as well!
So what will I do for Nursing Week next year? I was pondering this and decided to do a series of quilts in honour of various nurses. I found a pattern for Clara Barton's Cross of Love, also made from Windham fabrics, but I might have to substitute fabric, as I don't know if I'll be able to find what I need in the Clara Barton line. There's also a Clara Barton quilt kit you can buy from Connecting Threads. Edith Cavell, Jeanne Mance, Mary Breckenridge and more could be inspiration for new quilt designs. Am I going to take up quilt designing? Maybe. But that can wait for another time. Right now it's time for bed.





Photobucket
<a href=’http://catscrossing-laura.blogspot.ca/p/show-tell.html'> <img src=' http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/w583/september59/CatrsquosCrossing_zps2b7e332e.png ' style='border:none;'> </a>
Guidelines for Show & Tell 

  1. Link up any recent post that features your current creative project. And it can be a work in progress as well. 
  2. Please remember to link to your actual blog post, not your main blog page, so others don't have to search. 
  3. Somewhere in your blog post, you must link back to my blog or put the 'Show & Tell' button in your sidebar. 
  4.  Please don't just add your link and go. Check out a few of the other links and comment. The best idea is to check out the 3 or 4 links just previous to yours. That way every link will get visited. And maybe you'll pick up a few new followers along the way. 
  5. You don't have to follow me to post your link on my blog, but that would be much appreciated. 
  6. Have fun. This is a party after all.