Concerts, Gardens, and More Critters

I'm finally getting around to blogging about the concert I attended last Sunday night in Ottawa.   Cathy Miller, the singing quilter, writes beautiful songs about quilting  - historical songs that bring tears to our eyes, like The Rajah Quilt, and very funny songs like 100 Ways to Hide your Stash.  Her husband accompanies her.  Every quilter in the room (and their partners) had tears in their eyes then roared with laughter as she mixed storytelling with songs and a trunk show of her own quilts.   She starts by giving us some historical background about the quilt and the song.  For the non-quilters she describes techniques and the meaning of some quilting terms.   She told us that she started out writing songs for a Quilt Canada Exhibition in Ottawa in the early 90s.  It was later on that she began quilting - and her quilts are fabulous.

The most interesting one for me is a song using the various names of quilting blocks - well, it was really based on the expression 'stack and slash' (I hope that's accurate - it's a long story).     Every block in the quilt is part of the story in her song.   We were invited to  'read' the story in the quilt from left to right top to bottom - with blocks such as 'log cabin' 'sunbonnet sue' and 'puss in the corner' .    Take a look and see if you know the names of them.

I must admit, not being a traditional quilter I was stumped but my friend knew many of them.   Cathy is amazing and her songs speak to all quilters.    She has sung at hundreds of quilt guilds all over the world and apparently even does quilt cruises.  If you ever have a chance to bring her to your city or town you will not be disappointed.  (No she is not paying me for the compliments).  My friend emailed me today to say that she is still basking in the glow of Cathy's concert.

Here is a photo I took this week in my friend's garden.   I've never done a poppy quilt before......

And last of all, we met this prickly little critter out on the trail last Monday.   Neither of us wanted to give way so after staring at each other for some minutes and some grumbling on his part, he decided to walk around us.  Needless to say we were not going to make the first move.