It’s Been a While

I know it’s been a while since I posted but there hasn’t been much exciting around here to blog about and there’s been even less excitement going on in my sewing room. 

I finished this top ages ago.  It was a kit, and after I put it together I had one of those what was I thinking moments as it was so simple and I didn’t really like it.  Then, I got it quilted and now I love it! 

I borrowed Lee’s Circle Lord Sakura template and it just brought this quilt to life! 

I love the texture this pattern gives such a simple quilt.  You can bet I’ll be asking to borrow this one again! 

I’ve been really tired lately and I had to make a couple of trips to the ER for other complications.  They can tell me what it isn’t, but can’t seem to find what’s wrong.  I do feel much better today, so hopefully whatever it was has decided to move along.

Here’s somebody else who looks very sleepy – and very comfortable on the chaise in the bedroom.  You’d think those pillows were there just for Molly.

6 Months Later

My loyal followers will recall that I redid my sewing room just after Christmas.  One of my smart ass friends (I have many) commented that it looked great, but she’d like to see it in six months to see if it was still tidy.  Well Joan, here it is:

My biggest downfall is ‘piles’.  I tend to put everything I don’t know what to do with in a pile but I have tried to be really diligent and look, Ma, no piles!

When I trimmed my Jelly Braid quilt, I couldn’t bring myself to throw out all the triangles that were cut off, so I made this:

My daughter, Sandra, celebrated her birthday on Saturday.  She is a real girly girl and shoes are her biggest passion.  I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many pairs she owns but she does have a room devoted to them!

Anyway, another friend made these cookies for her birthday – aren’t they adorable and so appropriate!

Ben thought they looked pretty good, too!

Is It Hot Enough For You?

I know most of the country is suffering through a massive heat wave but for someone with asthma, this has been brutal.  Snow is looking pretty good right about now!

It’s been too hot to sew as the air conditioning just can’t keep up – yesterday with the humidity factored in, it was 116F or 48C here.  Before this hit, however, I did get a few things accomplished.

I can now share the tea towels I appliquéd for my friend Joan’s birthday.  I forgot to take a picture before I mailed them, so she kindly sent me one.

If we have to do dishes, we should at least have something cute to do them with.

I also got my Jelly Braid top finished and it’s going in the ‘to be quilted’ pile.  That pile is getting a bit overwhelming, so I need to spend some time on Tillie soon.  At least she’s in the basement, so it’s nice and cool down there.  In fact, it’s downright cold!

You can’t really tell from the picture, but the flowers in the border fabric are a dark purple which picks up the purple in the braids. 

I just received the class lists for Houston.  I’m lucky enough to be going back this year and I thought it might be nice to take a class this time.  The list is overwhelming – this is going to need some serious thought.  Anyone have any suggestions on not to be missed classes?

Queen’s Quay

I met my friend Shirley at Union Station in Toronto on Tuesday and we spent the day on the waterfront at Queen’s Quay.  It was very hot and very humid, but there was a breeze from time to time, so we survived.

We took a boat tour of the Toronto islands and the view of the Toronto skyline was quite impressive!

The dome shaped building is the Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays play and to the right of it is the CN Tower which used to be the world’s tallest freestanding structure. Almost all of the other high-rises are bank buildings – that’s where all the money is!

We had a lovely lunch on the waterfront and watched the ducks and swans swim by.  The above pictures were taken with my phone as I didn’t want to lug my camera with me, but they turned out not too badly.

Blogging

Like most of you, I have a number of blogs that I follow every day – probably way too many!  One of these bloggers, who shall remain nameless, has started to have audio advertising on her blog, as well as print ads all over the place.

This really gets my goat, to put it politely.  Is it all about money?  I know in the past she has said in order to provide free patterns, she needs to have advertisers on her blog.  Why?  Lots of other quilters offer free patterns and don’t find the need to have ads all over their blogs.  It was the audio ads that did me in, though. 

I sent her a very polite comment, telling her I had been a loyal follower of her blog for many years, understood that it was her blog and she could do what she wanted with it,  but felt she had gone too far with the audio ads.  She didn’t bother to respond to my comment and she deleted it from her blog – I guess she only wants nice comments that agree with everything she says and does.

Is it just me?  Is there something I’m just not getting?  I understand why sites like Quilter’s Cache need advertisers but it is almost like a bible to quilters with thousands of block patterns.  It isn’t a blog – it’s a website.

Maybe I’m just in a bitchy mood, but I had to get this off my chest and what better place than my blog.

Ian took this picture of my baby yesterday – look at those eyes!

Construction Complete

I finished the Construction Quilt and gave it to Alex yesterday for his 3rd birthday.

He was thrilled with it and I don’t think I’ve ever given a quilt that was admired or appreciated as much.  Everyone at the party was enthralled with it so that just made my day.  Here is the birthday boy showing us on his fingers just how old he will be.

Lee and I had a sew day last week.  We decided we’d work on something we both had purchased so we could do it together.  This is what we decided on:

It calls for a Bali Pop and a package of clothesline.  You fold the 2 1/2” strip in half, then press each side into the middle, then you take the clothesline and stitch THROUGH the clothesline while trying to overlap the ends of fabric to completely enclose the clothesline.

After about half an hour, when we had about 6” of one strip done, we decided this really wasn’t a fun project and we’d cut our losses at the pattern and the clothesline.  It was frustrating as neither of our machines were going through all that thickness with ease and the stitching looked terrible. 

Then we spent the next hour or so going through all my patterns and books looking for something else we could use the Bali Pop on. 

Then it was lunch time :-)

We finally decided on this pattern since almost all the others required a background or other neutral to go with the Bali Pop. 

This is what I have done so far:

You can’t chain piece it, so it’s pretty slow going.  I also have my Mystery Quilt to finish as they have a big ‘Reveal Night’ in September. 

Sandra and I are going to see 9 to 5 tomorrow.  Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be another children's dance recital!!

This and That

You probably have to be Canadian to appreciate my excitement over this piece of news.  We now have an American ship to address!!!!  Sandra, Lee & I split the cost of a U.S. shipping address in Niagara Falls, New York.  We can now take advantage of all those great free shipping offers available to Americans that we Canadians never get to enjoy.

The possibilities are endless…fabric, batting, Ebay and Etsy orders, magazine subscriptions, coupons, thread, Sephora and much more! 

Since Sandra & I usually go to Buffalo about once a month anyway, we can pop in to the facility and pick up our packages.  We’ll save the cost of the address on our first shipment each!

The construction quilt is almost ready to go on Tillie but I won’t bore you with more pictures until it’s quilted. 

Instead, I’ll share some pictures of my babies that Ian took yesterday.

I love this picture, even although he looks so sad.

Just chilling out enjoying the sunshine - you can see Leo’s roses in the background.  Roses that I have to water every day while he’s gone as well as all the other flowers!!!!!  I HATE watering the garden.  I HATE dragging out the hose.  I HATE rolling it back up and I HATE that I have to do it for both the front and back garden!  It also doesn’t thrill me that I have to take the garbage and recycling out too while he’s gone.  I know I’m spoiled but I like it that way :-)

Molly doesn’t look too thrilled to be woken from her nap.  I have no idea what all that crap is on the window – it looks like it’s filthy, but you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s not – honest!

Construction is Almost Complete

My construction quilt is almost finished.  I still have 3 more borders to go on, then it will be ready to go on Tillie.  I’m not looking forward to that part.

This has been a fun quilt to work on and I’m really happy with how it is turning out.  I just hope Alex is as happy when he gets it for his 3rd birthday which is fast approaching.

For those of you with a memory better than mine, I told you about my Ticketmaster woes in my last post.  I’m pleased to report that they refunded my money in full and agreed that their website was misleading.  Woooo Hoooo – with the money we saved (wink) we’re going to see “9 to 5” in a couple of weeks.

Leo is leaving on Friday for a ten day fishing trip.  While I’m sure I’ll really miss him, I am looking forward to some uninterrupted sewing days and just having a sandwich for dinner if that’s what I feel like. 

I don’t have a whole lot to say tonight, so I’ll leave you with this quote that my friend sent me today.

Constant use will not wear ragged the fabric of friendship – Dorothy Parker.

Under Construction

This quilt is so much fun to do and I love how it’s coming together.

There is a large section in the middle that I’m starting work on today.

Yesterday, Sandra & I had tickets to see Cabaret.  We’d seen it before, but both of us love musicals and are always game when they come to town again. 

When we arrived at the theatre, there were a lot of kids in costumes in the lobby, but since this venue has multiple stages, we thought they must be appearing in another area.  When we received our program and glanced at the inside we immediately knew this wasn’t the Cabaret we came to see – it was a little kids dance recital!!!!!

We left our seats and I went to the box office, but was told that since I bought the tickets from Ticketmaster, I would have to talk to them.  I called them immediately, spent 35 minutes on hold and was told they would have to e-mail someone but they would call me back in about an hour.  Naturally, I didn’t hear from them.

When we got home, I checked Ticketmaster’s website to see how we could both have been stupid enough not to notice.  Turns out, on this occasion anyway, we weren’t stupid – the reviews are all for the original Cabaret and no where on the website does it mention that this is a dance recital.  I’m not letting this one drop – I’ll be on the phone as soon as they open this morning threatening them with false advertising if they won’t give me a refund!

On a sadder note, there have been a lot of tears shed around here this week.  Miss Annabelle, or fondly known as Miss Annie had to be put down on Wednesday.

It’s a bit of a long story – we adopted her 11 years ago from Animal Aid.  We were told when we adopted her that she was about 2, but when I took her to our Vet, he thought she was more like 7.  She lived with us for a couple of years until we started having some major renovations done.  She hated the disruption in the house and was visibly upset every day when the workmen appeared.  My Mum, who had just recently lost her cat, offered to take her until the work was finished. 

When the work was finished, my Mum had fallen in love with her and begged me to let her keep her.  Since Miss Annie wasn’t overly fond of Ben, and as hard as it was to give her up, I let my Mum keep her.  I cried buckets for weeks.

When my Mum went into hospital early last year, my Aunt took Miss Annie as I knew she wouldn’t be happy in our house with both Ben & Molly.  She captured my Aunt’s heart as well and lived her final years with her in the lap of luxury with her every whim looked after.

While always a picky eater, a couple of weeks ago she stopped eating completely and the the Vet told us it was her teeth and there really wasn’t much we could do.  On Wednesday, I took her for her final trip and she died in my arms.

Construction Everywhere

I’ve been working away on the construction truck quilt.


I needed a grey background to imitate a road and thought Stonehenge would be perfect.  I couldn’t find any around here, so Sandra & I made a trip to Buffalo this weekend.  I couldn’t find any there either, but I did find a Jinny Byer fabric that I think will work just as well.  The cement truck above isn’t on the background yet – it’s just on my design wall.

We had a great day shopping and got some great deals!  Sandra is really good about checking all the department store websites and getting coupons, shopping passes, etc. and both Macy’s and Lord & Taylor offer an out of state discount to shoppers travelling.  The stuff was so cheap we couldn’t leave it in the store!

On the way home, I took a different route as I wanted to cross at the Peace Bridge as there is usually much less traffic at that crossing.  I really like my GPS – it’s built into my car and it gives me the option of various routes – shortest, fastest, etc.  What it doesn’t have that I really think would be useful is an “avoid ghetto” route!  We drove through some pretty sketchy neighbourhoods and I was really nervous.  I kept thinking this is the kind of place where you hear of drive by shootings and for once in my life I wished I had darkly tinted windows so nobody could see two women alone inside the car!

It got me thinking – I don’t think there are any neighbourhoods in Toronto that I would be afraid to drive through.  Sure, there are some worse than others, but I’ve never been really scared.  Are there areas in your town/city that you would never drive through? 

I didn’t feel like sewing yesterday, so I finally finished a pair of socks I’ve been working on for ages.  My friend Margaret gifted me this wool and they turned out great.  The yarn is Mini Mochie and is really soft.

They aren’t identical but strangely enough, this doesn’t bother me.  The part you see below your pant legs looks the same, so I can live with the tops being different.  This made me think of another question – do you always get your striping yarn socks to match?  I started them both from 2 different balls, but they were wound differently so I just started knitting – life’s too short!

You Can’t Make A Silk Purse

Out of a sow’s ear – but you can try.  This is one of my oldest UFOs.  I made it probably 5 or more years ago when I first started quilting and I knew nothing about anything!  I’m not sure I know a whole lot more now.

  Why did I pick such a blah background – who knows?  Anyway, I quilted it last weekend with my Circle Lord Swirls and it’s as good as it’s going to get.  This template makes anything look good. 

I’m going to donate this one to the relief effort for the victims of the Great Slave Lake fire. 

I had quite a time trying to get a picture of this as a certain little someone loves to walk across my quilts the minute they go on the floor.  Here she is, enjoying what little sunshine we’ve had lately.

Here’s her brother, my baby, also soaking up the sun on the patio.

I’ve started a new quilt for a certain little someone I know.  He loves construction equipment and when I saw this pattern in Paducah, I just had to have it – in fact, there were quite I few patterns in her booth that I just had to have!

Here’s the first block – I think this is going to be fun!

A Productive Day

I bought this flannel children’s panel years ago, and finally got it finished.

I used the Daisies Galore panto on it as there are a lot of daisies in the panel.

This quilted up beautifully and I’m as happy with the back as I am with the front!  I used Superior Thread’s Highlights in the bobbin as it was the closest thread I had in colour to the backing.  There is a King Tut variegated on the top. 

This ended up being one expensive baby quilt as I paid a small fortune for the flannel backing.  Flannel isn’t cheap around here and the backing alone cost me almost $50.  This will have to go to a very special baby!

I also finished this table runner.

Mark the calendar – I didn’t do a panto on it, I actually free motion quilted it! 

Although it’s really hard to see, I did a feather wreath in the middle of the 9 patches and tried some pebbling on the black sashing.  It’s a long way from perfect, but it was kind of nice being outside my box for a little while.

It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

We’re having the nicest day of the year today and Leo has been busy in the garden and I’ve been spending some quality time with Tillie. 

I still have a few Quilt Show pictures to share, so here they are:

This one is called Feathers & Roses by Lynne McCulloch.  The detail with her thread painting is beautiful.

There were also a collection of quilts from Canada Packers which had been collected from County Fairs over the years. 

 

These quilts are just timeless and exquisitely done.

This gorgeous quilt was hand appliquéd by Kathy Dunnigan.  Her work is nothing short of perfect!

This heart quilt was done by Grace Maloney and she incorporated a lot of ‘heart’ sayings into it – i.e. – key to my heart, heart to heart, broken heart, half hearted, etc.

Now that I’ve shown you all the Quilt Show pictures, I’m going to have to get busy and finish some things of my own to show you.

I did get this baby quilt finished last week and off to the recipient.  It’s my favourite circus fabric based on Mary’s Strippie Quilt pattern.