Another Week Gone By

We celebrated Sandra’s birthday today.  My little girl turned 30 – I don’t know how that is possible since I’m only 39.  I made these little fingertip towels for her.

I also tried out applique with my embroidery machine for the first time and made this.

It’s a little rough around the edges.  I embroidered it on Timtex and I think because of it’s thickness, it threw the outline out a bit.  Since this was my first attempt, I’ll know how to adjust it next time.

Elizabeth was busy again and made a penguin cake – Sandra is obsessed with penguins.

Abby & Ben had a lovely visit.  Abby is so affectionate towards Ben and follows him everywhere.  Miles, on the other hand, just hisses at him.

There still hasn’t been much quilting going on around here but I did quilt my girlfriends quilt yesterday.

Gotta love that Circle Lord – it makes me look good!

Wonderful Birthday Surprises

Yesterday was my birthday.  To be honest, I don’t like to draw attention to that fact – it has nothing to do with getting older – I just don’t like to draw attention to myself or be the center of attention.   However, that being said, I got some amazing presents this year that I just had to share with you.

My very dear friend Onalee made this little pincushion from a leather baby shoe.  It’s handpainted; embellished with lace and rosettes; there is a little ladybug on the toe and the silver charm says “made with love”. 

As if that weren’t enough, she also made me this:

His joints are all moveable and I think he is just adorable!  I can’t get over the talent this lady has and to think she finished him off with a broken arm.  Onalee, I love them both!

Elizabeth, my son-in-law’s sister, made me something very special too.  She is the talented lady that made the adorable birthday cake with all the little bears on it and she made this cake for me.

As soon as I saw it I knew it was a quilt – she even has little lines on it to indicate the quilting. 

I told Leo I didn’t want anything as I’m going to buy a new camera and that is going to be my present, but he surprised me with this beautiful orchid.  I’ve never had much luck with them, but hopefully this time will be different.

Finally, Sandra & Darren had given me (among other things) some more Lucky Dog scratch tickets.  I scratched them last night and won $59!!!  I think I better head to the casino soon as I seem to be on a winning streak!

There hasn’t been much quilting activity going on, but I did get my ladybugs all sewn together on Friday night when I couldn’t sleep.  Now they need to age for a while till I get up the nerve to try quilting something creative on them.

By the way, I’m loving Windows Life Writer – it makes posting pictures so easy!

A Great Start to the Week

What a lovely surprise I got this morning when I opened my e-mail and found out I’d won the pattern for this beautiful machine cover from Rose. 

Rose does the most fantastic work and her version of Bonnie’s Double Delight is absolutely stunning – check it out here.

My little aliens are starting to take shape but I think one of them is going to bite the dust as I think this quilt is going to be big enough with 9 blocks.

Now this little baby is just crying out for some custom quilting so that box of mine is going to have to be well and truly opened.  Can’t you just see feathers in the white diagonals – me too - but not my feathers! 

My Aunt, Ben and I had a nice outing today to Bayfront Park in Hamilton.  We’d never been there before although it’s almost on our doorstep.   There are walking, biking and rollerblading trails and lots of benches in the shade to sit and watch the world go by.

We saw a pair of swans with their two babies but they weren’t too pleased when Ben went to investigate.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera as travelling with a dog is similar to travelling with a baby – we have the leash, the halter, the water bottle, treats and bags, of course.  All this for one little dog!

Our day would have been perfect except we tried at 3 different places to have lunch on their patio and they wouldn’t allow Ben.  I’m now on a mission to find out if it is a Provincial law or if it is just at the owner’s discretion.  The staff at one restaurant were incredibly rude and told me “absolutely not” when I asked if we could sit on the patio with Ben.  What possible harm could a well behaved little dog do sitting under the table?

Just Testing

I’m trying a new program – Windows Live Writer – to see if it will be easier to post pictures using this program. 

I just finished hand stitching the binding on this little snowman strippy.

I’m rushing the season a bit, but nothing like being prepared.

My quilting was pretty wobbly on this – I haven’t touched Tillie for well over a month!

I just looked at the preview and it looks like this just might work – woo hoo.  If it looks weird or the pictures are too big on your computer, please let me know.

Just Breathe

I finally feel like I might actually live but it's been a long haul. A specialist figured out what was wrong with me and now I'm on the right meds (and off those horrible steroids) and feeling a whole lot better - hallelujah.

The last couple of weeks just seem to have gone by in a blur and there certainly wasn't anything noteworthy going on in the quilting front. Yesterday and today, though, I have made up for lost time and I'm happy to be back in my groove.

Don't ask me what on earth I was thinking when I cut these stacked posies out. They are 3" unfinished - I can't even blame the drugs as I cut these out months ago. My original intent was to put sashing between them and make a lap sized quilt, but when I looked at them on my design wall the way they are, I thought it might look nice to sash them and then make each one of these 16 blocks a large block and break them up with something else in between. I've also thought a tablerunner might be good and that way it might actually get finished.

I also finished embroidering all my little aliens ladybugs.

I discovered when you click on my pictures to see them full screen, they are too big. I only realized this when I went into my blog from a different computer one day. My good friend Sandy has given me detailed directions on how to fix this problem, but I just haven't got around to figuring it out yet. I upload all my pictures directly from "My Pictures" and I guess I need to save them somewhere first - why do they have to make everything so difficult!

I did make it to a special little boy's First Birthday Party on Wednesday. Take a look at the cake that his Mum Elizabeth made. Check out the hamburgers - she had some with lettuce peeking out and some with cheese and everything was made from fondant. Can you imagine the hours she must have spent on this?

Here is the birthday boy - my little adopted grandson Alexander.