Long time, no see!

Helllloooooooo~~~~~ there is definitely a big echo here.

Its been a long time since I have posted anything here. Not because I haven't had anything to show or talk about....just life seemed to get in the way. I have missed the Blogworld terribly and I have been pining for months to get back to it.

What have I been up to??? Sadly stitching has taken a back seat in recent months, and baby stuff making has been in the works. Because there are 3 little grandbabies cooking away and getting ready to make their entrance into the world in a few short months. And when I think of how much time I have left to get everything ready, my crafting mojo goes into overdrive.

And up first some pics of the baby quilts~
This is a twisted log cabin design done in beautiful bright colours. I love this quilt, it makes me happy just to look at it. Here you can see a pic of the fabric used for the backing. I used a jelly roll to make this quilt, so just used pieces of the leftovers joined together to use for the binding. I like the scrapiness of binding strips like this and it fits in with the scrappy log cabins. This quilt is for my future grand~daughter!

And next up ~

This is from a pattern in the book called Schnibbles x2. I used a layer cake called Lily & Will by Bunnyhill (love their patterns!). I had this layer cake in my stash for a few months, anticipating the need to make a baby quilt.

And then I learned, I needed to make another one when my daughter found out she was expecting twins! Luckily, Bunnyhill made this fabric line in a couple of different colourways :-D
So another layer cake was on the way~
....and a blue one this time, once I found out the twins were going to be boys!

So as you can see I have been spending a lot of my free time here:
But eventually I hope to get back to this lovely sampler~
Heaven Doth Ask, by Brenda Keyes
Stitched with DMC on 40 ct Lt. Sand linen

Remember the sweet baby puppy I showed in my very last post? She grew .... a lot! (and needs a day at the doggy spa)And Bella says hi too
Okay, enough already, I get the hint....

Is it really November?

I'm back in blogging land! No real excuses as to where I've been or why - but I guess I found I had overloaded on responsibilities. Something had to give. And then procrastination set in....

I've been around and lurking and commenting here and there and stitching and quilting and knitting and reading to my heart's content! Well almost - work does tend to get in the way somewhat.

Wanna see some pictures? Because after all, that's what we are really about. If we can't do it all, we can at least look at pictures of people who stitch and quilt and knit wonderful things and imagine that we will some day too.

This is what I did on my summer vacation - really. Lo How a Rose - in a Christmas book that I begged, borrowed and pleaded to get because I had seen it so many times in so many places and I knew I had to make this one for myself. Luckily Clare had the book and she lent it to me just in time for my August vacation. It took about 8 days of dedicated stitching to make and Ta-Da - I'm in love with this piece. I used only DMC for it - no fancy threads here - and I dug out a piece of Lakeside Linens 36 ct linen that I had in my stash. I used one thread over 2 because I wanted a lighter, lacy feel for it. Its been relegated to my bag of finished pieces (BFP's) until I can scrounge up enough $$ to get this one framed.


This is Yule Sampler by Primitive Needle. I finished it last week and I am still in shock that I got something done before a holiday took place, instead of my usual finishing of it after the fact. Again, DMC's, not the called for Crescent Colours, because although I have a healthy selection of CC's, I didn't have one bloody skein that was called for. This was done on Lakeside Linens River Willow 32 ct. Its such a cute little piece and I really enjoyed it.

"Greetings" by Blackbird Designs, from their Peppermint& Holly book. I started this last week, using mostly GAST (with a little DMC, because of course I don't have all the ones that are called for). I'm using the rest of the Lakeside Linens piece of 36 ct fabric that I used for Lo How a Rose above, but 2 threads over 2 this time, for better coverage. Don't you just love BBD's!

And I finished up 2 Hallowe'en pieces, that have already been put away and given away....before pictures were taken (Gasp!). One day I'll get a picture of those.

I made this wee quilt to actually hang something on one of the walls for a change! Its only going to be 24" x 36" when finished and its just waiting to be quilted now. I used the Square in a Square technique - classes that I have been taking with Marg since last January! The main quilt that we are making is a ways from being completed, although we only have 2 classes left. I have lots of very pretty blocks made but I was needing to see something finished so I got this one put together with one of my favourite blocks, I think called Ribbons.

The urge for a new start isn't limited to my stitching - it takes over quilting too. This is the start of 'Log Cabin Squared' using two 'chelsea buns' from Sanctuary. Chelsea buns are rolls of fabric that are 1 1/2" strips from one fabric line, this one called Sanctuary. Really could the manufacturers make things any easier? But I wish they would get away from these yummy food titles for these things.

And lastly, a peak at something waiting to be quilted, using 2 charm packs from Blackbird Designs, called Beach house.

Whew, that was exhausting! Bella thinks so too :-D

And a RR makes its way home

What a great mail week! Look what found its way to my door, after making its way across Canada, the U.S. and Australia. My neighbourhood RR is finished!!




I love the houses that everyone chose for their areas and all the little extra's make it so fun to look at. I think I'll add a border around the neighbourhood and stitch in all the names of each person beside their home. Huge huge thanks to (starting at the top going left to right) Glenna, Carol, Nicole, Deb, (centre house is mine) Bine, Carissa, Karen and Leslie!

And now just a peek at some sewing/quilting I've been working on ~

A quilt finish

Thank you for the anniversary good wishes! I really love reading comments and I am so appreciate of the time each person takes out of their busy lives to leave a few words behind for me ~ Thank you!!!

Hubby and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the David Duncan House in Toronto, actually one of his favourite places to go. Of course he gets there far more often than I do, since its so close to his office, which means a favourite spot for business lunches. We had hoped to go to the new Indiana Jones movie, but the time we wanted was sold out and to have to wait for the later show, meant I probably would have fallen asleep and we wouldn't be home in time to pick Kristy up from work.
Hopefully we can get in to see it soon!

On Saturday I worked away and finally finished the machine quilting on 1 my Lucky Stars quilt, although I think the name should be Long Stars quilt. This one has been 5 years in the making. I have no excuse why, I absolutely love the blue/purple batiks that I used in this, but it just seemed to fall to the bottom of the pile of quilting that I kept adding on. That's a terrible fault of mine that I keep seeing new projects that I want to do and start, and forget about finishing off the numerous starts that I have made. But I do get around to them eventually :-D]

Happy Monday!

Love Progress!

Some goodies bought at yard sales this weekend....2 Omni grid rulers, both looking brand new, and for only 25 cents each! That's a whale of a bargain! And some more wooden spools to add to my collection.
I have managed to get some good stitching time on the Love Sampler the past few days - enough so that even I can see some progress. I'm about halfway through the third set of pages, after that only one more set....I think I might get this done in time for the September wedding!
Meanwhile machine quilting has come to a dead stop. My wonderful little Janome machine has never honestly done well with free motion quilting but now its putting up such a fuss, that I'm ready to throw in the towel. I haved tried numerous different types of needles, but still the thread keeps breaking or the needle skips several stitches, not to mention the tension on the back is awful. No amount of playing with different settings seems to make any difference. So my Lucky Stars quilt sits with half the stars stippled and the other half barren. I've been checking the want ads thinking to buy an older used machine for simple machine quilting.
And I think I think some lessons in photography..... :-(

Some updates

Finally....a chance to update my blog! I feel like I have been in a whirlwind since we got back from Charlotte last week. Carrie and I had a wonderful time visiting with Kelly and Chris. We did a lot of shopping, lots of eating, and even had a chance to visit Carrie's bridesmaid Erin who lives about an hour from Kelly. I managed to find shoes for the wedding and a handbag, as well as some gorgeous new sandals for summer, and some clothes to add to my disgraceful wardrobe.

Since I've been home, I put together a McKenna Ryan wallhanging. Its a present for hubby's dear aunt who is turning 75 this weekend. She is an avid gardener and although I tend to forget the names of most flowers, the purple coneflower I do remember being plentiful in her garden so I thought this wallhanging was perfect for her. All that's left to do is handsew the rest of the binding on and its finished.

And I finished up Donna's round robin for the Quaker Friendship Round Robin. Just in time too I think because the next mailing date is fast approaching.
Sorry for the darkish picture! Donna chose NPI silk in a gorgeous deep green for her piece and it looks amazing in RL.

And a finish for me - A Stitcher's Prayer by Little House Needleworks. I had to admit that I was glad to get this one done, I made so many mistakes and frogged so many sections, even using the completely wrong colour floss in the house. Why do designers use symbols that are so similar? Or is it just my eyesight that needs some help? So when I realized, half way through, that there was a huge error in counting in the bottom line of design, I left it as is....kind of fits with the prayer that way I think.

Thanks for stopping by!

Quilting...and a mail surprise

Sewing...that's about all this drab weather is making me want to do these days. So I dug into some 5" charm packs that I bought a while ago and decided to make a lap sized quilt for our cottage. I only had 2 packs of 32 pieces each, so I needed to add a little onto each charm piece or this lap quilt would be baby-sized!




Its amazing really how fast this has gone together, I think having all those charm pieces pre-cut makes a big difference. I have the entire thing put together, I made a 7 x 10 sized quilt, as I dug into my stash and found a few more brushed cottons that fit in very nicely so I could make this a wee bit bigger.

On the stitching front, I have been working on my Fair & Square blocks so can't show those. And to soothe my ruffled feathers since Carrie and JF have left for Las Vegas....without us.... I made a wee order to Needlecraft Corner. I admit it, I couldn't resist all the fantastic new things coming out from the Nashville Show. I ordered one of the new Blackbird Designs books, the Goode Huswife Book of Designs, and Quaker Turtles by With My Needle. I am so looking forwards to getting all these goodies in the mail, hopefully with the Blackbird Design Loose Feathers piece too, since I am on automatic for that.

I almost forgot, I joined in the Quaker Friendship RR that Edgar set up, so the pattern is on its way for that too. I still haven't decided on fabric/floss yet. Where's my mail when I'm so desperate for it???

But I did get a fantastic little package in the mail that gave me such a lift! This was from Bine, who set me a very sweet card, and included some lovely Valentine's fabric, and silk floss, ribbon and sweet little charms. Bine, this was so unexpected and so wonderful of you to send to me! You certainly made my day and I can't thank you enough!!!

Lucky Stars Quilt

Not too much stitching from me the past few days....I guess I'm in a bit of a slump right now. My Paradigm Lost replacement fabric is on its way to me and hopefully when that gets in, my stitching mojo will be revved back up to swing back into full speed again.

Meanwhile I did get a quilt top sandwiched. I think I have 4 quilts tops pieced and ready to go, dreadful huh? This one is called Lucky Stars and I think it was originally started almost 5 years ago. I actually did get one Lucky Star quilt finished, because it was a fat 1/4 quilt, and being a beginner and very enthusiastic 5 years ago, I bought far too many fat 1/4's. So I weeded through them all, and picked out the golds and greens and finished those into a very nice twin sized quilt. I decided to keep all the blue and purple fat 1/4's and make a matching quilt.

Which kind of fell by the wayside for quite a long time, all the pieces nicely cut, until finally last year I sewed it all together, and now at long last its sandwiched together. Its still laying out on the floor of our extra bedroom, waiting for some kind of inspiration as to how I'm going to machine quilt this one. I keep thinking if I look at it long enough, some kind of magical inspiration is going to hit me, but I realize that I'm really only looking at it on my way to bed at night and the only kind of inspiration to hit me then is how comfy my bed and pillow are going to be. I hope it doesn't take me several years to quilt this one!

Shopping Stash

Here is a picture of some of my stash from the Toronto Needlework show. I didn't get too much cross stitching stash....but I did buy LHN's Home of a Needleworker, which I have coveted for along time! Mostly I bought quilting goodies, lots of fat 1/4's in lovely greens/peaches which were a great price, a pattern for tablerunners to make using charm packs, and of course a charm pack in some pretty fall prints, 2 jelly rolls in lovely dark fall fabrics, and a great kit to make a roly poly Santa. I took a picture of this cute little kit, and somehow lost the picture on my computer somewhere....??

I couldn't resist trying out my new pattern yesterday with the charm pack. The charm pack is a package of 5" squares of fabric which come from one fabric line. I think this one was called Autumn Bounty. All the fabrics of course coordinate beautifully so it makes putting something together so easy. So for dinner last night, we had this lovely tablerunner to grace the table:

We celebrated hubby's birthday Friday night and then on Saturday went to a surprise birthday party for my oldest sister! And Autumn has hit with a vengeance ~ the temperatures dropped to 0 degrees last night! Time to start on a new quilt I think!!

Only a couple of days to go until the Paradigm Lost / Cirque-des-Cercles SAL starts!

A quilt start

Thank you all for your Anniversary well wishes! All your comments were so wonderful and heartwarming to read. Thank you to each and every one of you to take the time to leave such lovely words for us!!!

Before I forget, here is a picture of the flowers hubby brought me for our anniversary. Beautiful aren't they! I only wish cut roses lasted longer, sadly they don't look as spectacular now a few short days later.

Hubby had a guys weekend at the cottage and I stayed home and decided to have a quilting weekend. It was hot, hot, hot on Saturday, much nicer to stay inside with the A/C going, although I did venture out with Carrie to go apartment hunting. She and J-F have decided they need a little more space and its time for them to move on to their own place.



I bought these fabrics at a local fabric shop 1-2 months ago during a 50% off sale. I couldn't resist, the fabric line was called Sunporch and they are so pretty and so soft. And with the sale price, they were $5/metre each. Its time for a quilt for the cottage, so I was busy Saturday and Sunday and got these made up:

So far this is only one type of block, there is one more style that will be interspersed with these ones. I got quite a few made up so far, kind of an assembly line process, with getting most of the cutting done in the beginning and them laying out all your pieces and zipping them through the machine.

This afternoon we have a meeting with Kristy's case worker and her current foster mother and the kinship worker. Don't these people ever get tired of meetings? I know I am......they should all be over with soon!