Life higher up

This week marked one month since we've been renting on the mountain.  We have watched the record breaking amounts of snow that fell this winter, mostly melt off during that time as we experienced some gorgeous warm weather. However, it is a mountain that is home to a ski resort, so at this elevation, rain can become snow - which is exactly what we awoke to, yesterday morning!

 The sky was so heavy with precipitation, we couldn't even see the Okanagan valley, as the snow came down, fast and furious.  It was a brief white out of snow!

The view from the windows in our living/kitchen area in the morning May 30/18.

It was beautiful! I knew the snow wasn't going to stay, so it didn't bother me to see it coating the trees and cocooning us. 

The view from the dining room table (where I have my sewing machine set up).

The views are changing and always inspiring. It is one of my favourite things about renting here. I am grateful for this temporary home and love being able to step right out into Nature.  It is so peaceful and we are doing our best to make the most of this opportunity - hikes are becoming a daily treat, allowing us to commune with the rhythms of the season at a higher elevation.

An evening view from the deck off our living room. If you look off into the distance, you can see Kalamalka Lake ( it's that bright area in the valley and one of two large lakes that the city of Vernon is blessed with).

Besides enjoying the great outdoors, I have also been making time to work on my final blocks for the Community Sampler sew along hosted by the talented and lovely Art Gallery Fabrics designers;  Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell.  You couldn't ask for more supportive and helpful guides for quilting!  The blocks can be found on their blogs as free PDFs for you to download, along with tips to help you achieve the best results.

Here are my versions of the final three blocks for the quilt I'm making in the Community Sampler sew along.  Each one has been made using scraps from my stash!

Block 9 of 11; Double - T, for Community Sampler sew along.

Rather than use a single fabric square in the center of this block, I chose to piece some of my tiny low volume fabric scraps into a square.  It always makes me happy when I find fun ways to use up even the smallest bits of fabric!

Block 10 of 11; New Four Patch, for the Community Sampler sew along.

This block kept me busy digging through my scraps to find just the "right" colours to mix! ;o)

Block 11 of 11; Sawtooth for the Community Sampler sew along.

The final block of the sew along is actually a half block as the quilt layout has the blocks on point, so each row of blocks needed a half block (the other 2 half blocks were made in week 4 of the sew along).

Here's a mock up of the blocks (you will notice that the 4th block is actually a half block, so it has 2 places in the mosaic). The final layout may change and of course the blocks won't be positioned like this as they are place on point in the final design. I may move things around a bit, but love seeing all the blocks gathered in a mosaic to see how the colours are working with one another.

Late yesterday, I started playing with possible layouts and auditioning fabrics for the background.  Lots of fun! It's a bit different doing a layout without the aide of a design wall - so I laid my blocks out on our bed to help me with placement.  This worked pretty well and I took several pictures, which gives me another perspective when deciding if I have a layout that works nicely.  I am getting so excited to start piecing this top together!  Guess what I'm going to set aside time to work on this weekend? ;o)