Summer vacation with Maxine ;)

 

Ok, not really, this is me with my step mother and father on our mini vacation to Niagara-on-the-Lake, but honestly, doesn't she look like Maxine to you?? Not bad for 90 and 85 respectively (no I won't tell you how old I am!). It was an enjoyable trip, visits to a couple of winerys, a couple of plays (Come Back Little Sheba and Present Laughter), eating out and visiting. I even got to do some of the driving!

When I returned I spent some time organizing my house in prep for the ladies. Here's my table all set and ready for the quilt group. I made a Banana, Pineapple, Pecan coffee cake, and served a Cinamon coffee cake and fresh fruit. We had an enjoyable social evening and lots of laughs. To make room for all my plants I brought home from work, I had to move the cat tree to the living room window. On the right is a pic showing my new cellular blind (behind the star). This took a whole morning to install, but I'm happy with it and now all my windows have either a roman shade or a blind. Hopefully this should help cut the sun during those hot humid days.

 

Of course there was some shopping, err I mean antiquing during my vacation. And, yes, I managed to find some pieces of my china - 2 coffee "Cans". I think it's too weird that I always find these pieces in pairs ...Happy Birthday to me !!

 I also picked up a couple of crystal glasses - why ? to make tiered cake plates of course! Here you see my choice of plates, some are Czechoslavkian, some are Limoges, and some are English china.

Here they are all done! I'm happy with the gold one, but am thinking I might just add one more smaller plate to the blue one. Nothing to it ladies, just a wee bit of Gorilla glue, some candle holders or small wine glasses from the Goodwill and voila!

And finally, I finished a project!! I started to hand quilt it, doing X's in each block, then decided to finish it off with machine quilting around each block and free motion around the florals in borders. Got the binding all done last night, one spinning 4-patch down, another on the design wall now!

TTFN

Summer Vacation

I am on summer vacation. A shorter one than usual, my life calendar challenges struck again and for many stupid reasons - too many to go into - I only have 2 weeks this year ;(. None-the-less I m making the best of it and filling up my time creatively and productively. The first 2 days were eaten up taking care of life necessities, renewing car license, passport, oil change for the car, cat to the vet (YEAH - Simone got to the vet finally!), prescription renewals, house cleaning (not enough ...) etc. Thursday I finally had some time in my "studio" and created a bunch of "artsy" photos (see above) for the blog. I have been blog surfing over the last few weeks and admiring other people's creative talents soooo much. My camera talents run along side my calendar/scheduling abilities - poor to none However, with the power of a good digital camera and Picassa , well, you can see for yourself :)
I must admit it was an interesting and fun afternoon, digging through my collections of vintage linen & doilies & sewing accessories, then trying to stage them artistically. Next time I have more ideas and will branch out .

Took an afternoon and did "lunch" with a couple of quilting girlfriends. Drove out of town to a local 50's diner and flea market. We stopped at an antique store where I managed to break the lid on this Nippon sugar bowl. It was in the $5 bin and I honestly thought the lid was taped on (like they always are!). My mistake. Anyway, while we finished shopping the old gent glued the lid back together for me and then they knocked it down to $2 (probably because it was broken before me - er- the big chip on the inside!) None-the-less I am happy as it matches the three Nippon pieces my mother gave me - what's left of the tea/berry set she inherited from her mother. I have always loved this Nippon pattern, probably because mother always treasured it. So, broken or not, I will treasure this beauty as a memento of a lovely afternoon.
Yesterday I dragged the Husky downstairs to the dining room table and machine quilted (GASP) yes, I said machine quilted around each block and one border of my burgandy spinning 4 patch. Hopefully I will finish the other side today and get the binding on tomorrow. Next week will be another busy one as I am traveling to Niagara-on-the-lake with Father & step Mother to see 2 plays, and Thursday the quilt ladies are coming to my house. By Friday I'll be gearing up to go back to work (wahhhhh).
TTFN

Toxic people

 

ALWAY listen to your inner voice! Whenever I don't I always regret it. This is especially true for me this weekend! That voice has been whispering in my ear for several weeks, telling me "there's something just not right here". Did I listen ? Nooooooo. Now I find myself on my Condo Board for the next three years, and the neighbour who has been nattering at me all winter to get involved - well, she goes and resigns!

 

What the F_ _ _! Of course, not before she managed to argue with absolutely everyone, pushed the management company to the brink of resignation and spread her toxic stress around for all to enjoy. GRRRRRR! Another life lesson re-learned!!   ALWAYS LISTEN TO THAT INNER VOICE!

On a happier note, I'm on vacation - YEAH!! Nothing better than summer vacation, right?  Of course I have a To Do list a yard long, including lots and lots of sewing, in the daytime, in actual day light, Oh Joy! Oh Bliss! Stay tuned for lots and lots of show-n-tells coming soon :)

Lazy Days of Summer

So how's your summer going? Other than running back & forth between the parents mine is rather lazy. Above is the finished table runner using the 10 spinning 4 patch blocks I "won" at the guild workshop. I am sooo glad I added the lime green inner border and binding as it really makes it pop (least I think so). I used a slightly different lime green on the back, not my usual colour scheme, but I kinda like it! The burgundy spinning 4 patch is being basted as I write and I should start the quilting this evening .... stay tuned!
For those who follow this blog , mother's cataract surgery went fine, all's well and she is seeing better already! YEAH..
TTFN

So this week is cataract surgery for mother. I have taken a day off work to be with her at the hospital , then  back home and an overnight stay just to ensure she is comfortable. My sister will drop over the next day and spend the afternoon and dinner with her. Mother hasn't had surgery for over 40, 50 years, and is understandably nervous. My only experience with surgery was when I was 4 (?) and had my tonsils out. All I remember is the Junket puddings and ice cream ;), and being fussed over. So now it's mom's turn to be fussed over .... Since we live in the same town, this will be different for me, I haven't had a "sleep over" at mother's for years and years! The cats will be "ticked off" as I won't be there to feed them and let them out to play. It's only one night and only one eye. I expect that six months from now we'll be doing a repeat performance for the other eye. That's good, maybe mother will get back to reading. Now, if only we could solve the squealing hearing aid issue!!

TTFN

Summer Bird feeder :)

So not too much happening on the home front these days - it's been TOOOOOO HOT!  A friend and I attended Summer Shakespeare at our local University - A Winter's Tale. Hadn't even heard of this play before, and now that I have can't say it was all that much different than most Shakespeare plays. Still, it was an outing and an enjoyable evening. I have been crafting -oh just a wee bit, and made several TeaCup bird feeders :)
After the fact I thought, how silly. I should have taken pictures and made it into a tutorial. Sorry, but here come mini intstructions:

• go to your local hardware store and find some spiral garden stakes. In my case the "spiral" was not flat and I had to pound away to flatten the spiral.
• Flattening the spiral so that it was level looks easy .... but I had quite a time on the first go round . Good luck with that one ladies
• while at the hardware store get some epoxy glue. I used Gorilla glue

• to make your's just like mine also pick up a fence post top. Sand, and paint to match the tea cup.
• now go to your local thrift store and search out some nice tea cups. In my case I scored and found 2 matching cups and saucers
• lightly sand the bottom of each cup, the inside and the bottom of the saucer
• Glue the tea cup to it's saucer. 
• I attached the fence post top to the spiral garden stake with  three cable straps
• now, glue the tea cup to the top of the fence post top, fill with bird seed , and voila!

Of course you will have to watch out for those pesky squirrels, Cardinals, Blue Jays and other big birds  as this is a rather delicate bird feeder. You could fill it with water instead of bird seed for a wee bird bath, which might be interesting. Either way it looks lovely in your garden and just another craft to use up all those inherited (or not) tea cups!

TTFN

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everyone :) I did my now traditional patio picnic and had a friend and mother over. Potato salad, deviled eggs, coleslaw, cold ham, and Canada Day cake !!! YUM Got to love those Strawberries :) :)

I got totally into the theme, as you can see and found some flags for my center piece and red napkins !

Lots of fun, and nice to have company and entertain, now back to the weekly grind - least for another 3 weeks, then summer vacation. Can't wait!!

P.S. I did manage to get some sewing done. Here's one of the spinning 4 patch quilt tops put together - next I have to figure out the borders ..... any suggestions?

TTFN,

Happy Summer!

On my way home from my financial adviser meeting I decided to stop in at the new Goodwill outlet - you know, just to see what I might score ....

There was a lovely set of 8 Johnson Brother plates, I purchased the best 2 - love the floral centers, the yellow borders and the gold trim! Then I found this fab wicker basket .... I plan to use as a sewing basket when I travel to our Stitch-n-Bitch - opps, I mean Quilting Get-togethers ;)

 

Silly me managed to miss last weekend's 50% off sale ;(;( but still managed to score some fabric this week at the local fabric store, also on sale (40% - not bad) At the top next to the basket is a coral to use as sashings for the black & coral spinning 4 patches (S4P), the dark green in the bottom left will be an inner border for the burgandy S4P (original fabric on top), and on the right is a hot pink  backing then a lovely lime green (sorry the pic isn't good colourwise) to use as an inner border. Yes, I will have to unsew the borders in order to insert the lime green, but I think it will be worth it. It's raining this morning so I'm inside blogging - hope to hit the patio real soon and will engage in the unsewing then!

Happy summer everyone .....

TTYL

Spinning 4 Patch!

 

 A few months back I took a fab workshop with my quilt guild for the Spinning 4 Patch technique - a derivative of the Stack-n-Whack technique. I had such fun in the workshop, but couldn't decide which fabric to use, so I use the fabric I brought with me (pictured above), and bought some fabric from the workshop teacher (pictured below). Yesterday the local fabric store (not a quilt store) had their frequent 50% off sale, which inspired me to get at the blocks I cut but had not yet sewn. My question is why do you always end up with one extra block? Huh ? How does that happen?What will I do with them???

Who knows, I'll just change the layout maybe. Anyway, needless to say I did not make it to the 50% off sale, so I still do not have any backing fabric for either. The burgundy one I have four choices for sashing fabric. Still need to decide on what to do with the black one. No hurry though, guild quilt show isn't until October .....
TTYL

Happy 85th!

 Happy 85th birthday! This weekend the family gathered and celebrated our mother/grandmother's birthday. Dinner out at a local restaurant (Michael's) then cards and gifts. They say this side of the family are long livers. I hope so, only  7 more years and she will surpass Great Grandma B! I know she's hoping to see a great grandchild - no pressure on the new bride ;) ;).

So I have not been lazing around . It's a hot humid Sunday and I'm in the kitchen making Strawberry freezer jam! I know they say it will only last in the freezer for 6-8 months, well, I last made jam in 2005, and finished the last jar about 2 months ago. The berries are LOCAL, and cost a fortune (I should have picked my own ...) It will be worth it next winter when I'm craving a PB&J on a toasted English muffin!

I am well on my way to getting my "scraps" in order. Above is a pic of the three boxes I have organized so far. (left) large strips, (top) small 1" strips, and (right) various sized squares. Of course I have a basket yet with various sized triangles, and just plain scrappy scraps which need to be cut into some shape/size then sorted.
And that's been my week/weekend. How about you- whatcha been up to?
TTFN

Spring Cleaning!

Now that the wedding is over I can concentrate on Spring cleaning! As you can see, the second room I attacked was the sewing room. Oh No!!! SILLY Silly girl! Well, it started with "Oh, I must put away all

those fat quarters I bought this past winter" and quickly moved into "Oh, that box is full, must move them into a bigger box"! YIKES! as you can see from the pic on the left I destroyed my sewing room and spent days reorganizing and shuffling fabric. PHEW! On the right are the fat quarters which have yet to make it into a box! Wonder how long that will take me ....
Although it took way too many days of my "week off" I am pleased that my sewing room is once again organized and clean. On the left is the cupboard - notice the boxes are all labelled (yup - I'm a wee bit OCD on that one) and on the right is my closet. Once again I am using the large wicker hampers I purchased years ago. I did have 3+ boxes of blue fabrics, and can hardly believe that the one large basket barely holds all my blues. Got to stop buying blue!

Well, as you can imagine that expedition into the my sewing room encouraged my organization mania and I am now in the thick of "organizing" my scraps. If I could give new quilters one big HINT - it would be to organize your scraps from the beginning! Here's a pic of my couch. I have gone through the first scraps box and sorted into strips (lights, mediums and darks) small, medium and large squares and rectangles. There are two more boxes of scraps to go!!! Do I see a scrap quilt in the making?? You betcha.

In case you think - silly girl is that all you did on your vacation? Well, no. A good friend and I escaped the city and went to Christie's antique show last weekend. I found a replacement chimney for my great grandfather's oil lamp and this plate for my (not antique) china. Woohoo!

And to finish it all off .... my peonies bloomed! YEAH Here's a pic before the requisite rainstorm blew most of the blossoms away. Luckily I cut two bouquets before the rain, so I had something to enjoy :)
TTFN,