From K - Road Tripping

The hubs and I are hitting the open road today, destination Seattle. He loves driving so I usually bring busy work to occupy my hands. On the WiP list for this trip are two knit projects and some hand quilting on my Black and White Kites Baby Quilt.

To top off the general fun and excitement that a road trip brings, I've been feeling nothing short of spoiled lately because that cousin/blog partner of mine, Amanda... the who lives so far away... well in a few days I will get to see her for the 3rd weekend in a row!

Two weeks ago we were both back in our hometown in Manitoba to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our amazing grandparents (yes you read that right, 60!). Coincidentally, while we were home the local museum hosted a ribbon cutting to celebrate the opening of the house they met in.

Here's a peak inside the 1920's house:

Then this past weekend Amanda, her husband, and their adorable yellow lab Bowser continued their trek to Calgary where they stayed with us for a few days - yay! Amanda diligently worked on 3 WiPs while I started 3 entirely new unplanned projects. Talk about a role reversal, go figure!

Our weekend looked quite a bit like this:

And now this upcoming weekend we will cross paths for the third time while simultaneously visiting Seattle. We used to see each other once every other year but somehow we've managed 8 visits in the past 12 months - craziness! You won't see us complaining though :)

Well I'm off to pack my duffle and get road trip ready. We'll be sure to share some pics of our Seattle adventures together soon.

From A - One for the Road

I have made a few references to the fact that I'm leaving fair Toronto and moving to the San Francisco Bay area to take advantage of an opportunity that as a family, we couldn't pass up. When this opportunity came along, I wasn't ready to move. Not even close. Early on, I decided that the move would happen gradually over almost two years. This seemed like the only way to make it manageable.

I've been quiet on the blog lately while trying to see as many people as possible and finish off everything at work and at home before leaving. In short, it's been hard. My stress levels are high and I've had almost no time for the things in life that make me happy and give me balance.

After being in the office every single day for a week after my "official" end date, I decided that the only way to avoid spending my very last week in Toronto working 12 hours a day was to sign up for the world's most awesome  four day quilting class with Lizzy House. Yep, you read that right, Lizzy freakin' House. Easy choice.

I'm not sure that I can put into words what it meant to me to spend four days with Lizzy and the wonderful group of women in my class at this stage of the game. Suffice to say that it was amazing enough that I actually cried on the last day...on and off for almost an hour (could also be related to the whole moving/saying goodbye thing).

Class photo!!

Things kicked off with Lizzy's help picking and organizing our fabrics. The next three days were all about getting down to business pressing, cutting and sewing our blocks together. It took me all four days to make it about 1/3 of the way through the cutting and to get one block pieced.

First block.

Amazing, right? I really love how this is coming along. Every part of this quilt is beautiful...even the scraps it generates.

Let's just say that this puppy is going to be a lot of work. The kind of work that bends your brain, makes you hesitate and double check everything before you cut into your fabric and that makes it tough to see the beautiful quilt at the end of the tunnel. Not so different from our move, except at the end of the move there is an exciting new life waiting for us in place of a lovely quilt.

In light of this parallel, it seems appropriate to tackle this quilt on the four week Farewell Canada tour we hatched (no better way to elevate a busy move to truly crazy status). Me, the Mr. and our dog are driving across Canada and down the West Coast until we make it to California. Along the way, we are stopping to spend time with almost everyone that we love and even found a little time for some much needed R&R.

I'm hoping to grow this quilt throughout our journey, making a block a day so that when I arrive in the Bay area, I'll have a gorgeous quilt top to remind me that difficult things can also be beautiful.