Happiness is...

...being invited to join do.Good Stitches!! I am so excited to be joining the HAPPINESS circle. It is an international circle consisting of several Canadians and a few more from places like Switzerland and Australia. I had the goofiest grin on my face all day as I thought about how exciting this is!

It's been a busy couple of weeks and now it is August 1st; time to come up with something new for the blog banner! Since I last wrote, I defenced my master's (successfully!), went on a road trip to Seattle with a friend to take in a baseball game, made jam and pickles from a bounty of farmer's market delights, and dropped off my youngest daughter at the airport so she could set off on a two week adventure in Europe - all by herself! It has been a busy couple of weeks.

We are just over three weeks away from my other daughter's wedding - it's getting close! I am working away on her wedding quilt and hoping there might be some way to get it done. I also had a happy mail day:

The two fabrics on top are Laurie Wisbrun's line "Brrr". I first started seeing this in blogland a few months back and was really hoping I would get some. I love bears! And I love polar bears! I got mine (and a few coordinates to go with...) at Hawthorne Threads. They are a lovely online shop. One of my favourite things about their shop (besides the loyalty discount) is the way they have set up their fabric search function. If you find a print you like, you can click on it to order it, but you will also find colour swatches which match the colours in the print. Clicking on one of those swatches will take you to a selection of other fabrics which feature the same colour. That may be how I ended up with several coordinates which are stacked underneath my polar bears above...

I added a few more bits to my order as well:

I am trying to add small to medium tone-on-tone or prints with white elements to my stash. I am a sucker for awesome, multi-colour prints but I find them difficult to work with so I'm working on adding these smaller prints, a few at a time. 

I actually have a plan for the polar bears - I think they could work up really nicely into Elizabeth Hartman's "Kitchen Windows" quilt. I envision a little fussy cutting and some cute bears peeking out of the blocks, but that will have to wait until after the wedding. No time for Christmas quilts quite yet!

Are you watching the Olympics? I have been enjoying them as time allows. I am so proud of all the athletes and their accomplishments!

Happy quilting!

e.