Sewing Days at Hazel's

A new-for-me activity are the "Sewing Days" people here do together, when the chance arises (or, as often as not, is created). There are multiple such groups in Yellowknife - the "Tuesday Group" and the "Friday Applique Group" which meet at the Quilted Raven are just two of several more I know about.  I count myself lucky to have become part of this particular gang, the same group with whom I went to Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. Over the past year we've spent many hours in many venues planning and plotting and designing and doing "fibre." They're all better at it than I am, so I'm learning lots!

That was my Thanksgiving - a terrific traditional Sunday turkey dinner with family, sandwiched between a Saturday and a Monday advancing fibre projects. 

Sewing days are literally that - gathering with projects in hand at one person's house. Equipment is either brought or borrowed - this time I used one of Hazel's machines while Brenda and Donna brought theirs, and supplies are liberally lent and gratefully borrowed. Hazel's space isn't that big, but amazingly well-organized and capable of fitting four agreeable people and their machines quite comfortably. It's also wonderfully sunny, as you can see from this picture of Donna and Brenda hard at work cutting and sewing:

Of course there has to be an ironing station: Hazel has a table-top setup which is perfect for quilting (rather than ironing shirts, for example). Despite the fact that in due course everyone needs to press something, there's not an urgency about "turns" - all such activity simply flows. Hazel was working on a Christmas tree skirt, potentially for a class she might be teaching (she's one of the master quilt teachers in Yellowknife):

Hazel and I worked at a long table just under the window - the machine I was using on the very far left, hers on the very right, and in the middle a new quilting machine you would really want to own if you were a serious quilter, as my friends are:

Finally, a closer-up of my station, with a sample of my current project: "stash reduction through mass production," I jokingly call it. I'm trying to use up my stash of Christmas fabric and some other recycled material by making Christmas tea cozies, seven of them so far. It's fun just in general, but much more fun when I can spend time with friends while I'm at it.

So I give thanks for all my friends!