Monday, December 31, 2012

Another Year Goes By

Not many finished projects this year.  But I did finish a lot of tops.  Just have to get them quilted.    I have been procrastinating.  My machine is still not working as I would like it to.  That is why I haven't completed much.  Going to take it in to see if it can be fixed for good this time.  If not... well, I guess I will have to buy myself a new machine.  That can't be all bad.  Can it?

Here are some of the projects I worked on this year.


Hope 2013 will be a great year for everyone!

Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

SNOW!

I am sure everyone has heard about the snow storm that moved through our area over night.  It dumped about 10cm of the white stuff on us.  I know that is not a lot, but it is the most snow we have received since March 2011,  At least that is what the guy on the weather channel told me.


I love how clean and white everything looks outside.  It's very fluffy because it was -5C overnight.  And today it did not warm up much more than that.  The windchill was -11C.  Needless to say, I didn't go out today.  I took these from inside the house.


I especially love the way the snow sits on the Sedum pods.  There were lots of birds at my feeder, but the snow was so high that I couldn't see them or capture them with my camera.

The snow is not the only thing that is white around here.  A third stalk grew on my Amaryllis bulb.  I was really surprised because I have never had a third stalk on one of these plants,.  And it bloomed on Christmas Day, which was a bonus.


I have spent the day cleaning and organizing after the holiday.  I wanted to do a bit of sewing, but my mojo had gone missing.  So I made some fabric out of scraps.  That is always a great stress releaser for me.  It was a very gentle way to return to my sewing after so many days off.  Now I am going to make some more of the cartoon quilt blocks.





Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas


A reason for the season.


Sunday, December 23, 2012

My First Day of Christmas

Today is the first day of my Christmas this year.  We are getting together for a family Christmas this afternoon.  Lots of food, presents, fun and family.  The way Christmas should be.  There are four grandchildren all walking around this year.  It should be good.

To get me into the Christmas spirit and help celebrate this first day, I made a little journal quilt.  It measures about 9 inches by 11 inches.


I am busy doing some laundry, baking an apple pie, preparing veggies for out pot luck dinner and wrapping presents.  Felix is helping me.  Well, sort of.


My sewing room is a disaster and Felix loves it that way.



Thursday, December 20, 2012

I've Got Mail

Look what came in the mail yesterday.  An envelope from Japan.  How exciting!


My friend, Keiko sent me a present!  How cool is that?  It's a pair of mules.  She made them herself.  I am so happy that she sent me a pair, because when I learned that she was taking a course to make them, I wanted to move to Japan so I could take that course too.  They are in my favourite colour, blue.  And they fit me perfectly.  They are so comfortable!


Thanks Keiko!





Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Santa's Workshop

My DD's school held their Winter Concert this afternoon.  It had to be held during the school day because all of the teachers with the Toronto District School Board are working to rule since they were denied their democratic right to strike by the Ontario Liberal Government.  But don't get me started on that!  That would take all day.












I went over to see the concert and to take some photos of the costumes I had made.  DD's students did a great job on their skit.  It was very cute.  Here's how it went:  The elves were working in Santa's workshop.  It was very quiet in there so they turned on a CD - Justin Bieber's 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'.  As the elves danced around the workshop they touched the various toys and as they did, the toys came to life.

The elves and one of the bears

They were all dancing when Santa came in.  Everyone stopped instantly because they thought Santa would be upset that they were dancing instead of working, but Santa gave a few Ho, Ho, Ho's and started dancing too.

Santa starts dancing too

Everyone in the audience was tapping their feet.  Even the little spectators were dancing.  It was fun to watch.  My photos didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.  There was too much movement on the stage and the lighting was bad.  But you get the idea.

The robots

The boys were having a difficult time making some robot costumes, so last night DD and I made a few billboard type robots with dials and gizmos on the fronts.  We used dryer duct for their arms.  This photo is totally out of focus, but I think they liked their costumes because they were dancing up a storm.



Here's one of Santa that I took before the concert started.  He greeted the audience as they came into the school.  Isn't he cute?  But I think Santa needs to fatten up a bit.  Don't you?



Monday, December 10, 2012

Continuing Along Easy Street

Lots of things happened this weekend, so not much time for sewing.  Had to take Mimi to the vet twice on Friday because she was vomiting and that could have dislodged her feeding tube.  But all was well.  By Saturday morning she was back to her tubed, satellite dished self - not too happy, but eating some soft and chewy Lov, by Purina.

I worked on several projects this weekend, but will only show you what I have accomplished on Easy Street.


These are just 20 of the 30+ blocks I have made so far.  They are not too difficult and they take my mind off Mimi.  I am enjoying this mystery, but it will have to wait a few days for more blocks.  My DD has asked me to make a few costumes for the Christmas play her students are doing - 5 elves, 2 bears and maybe a Santa.     The hats are made.  We got them at the dollar store.  Just have to make some bear ears, but I only have a few days, so I'd better get going.






Wednesday, December 05, 2012

A White Flowering Wednesday

No hexie flowers were made this week.  But I did do a lot of white hexagons to join my other hexie blocks together.  I will show you when I have them all done.

 Lots of Christmas Cacti are in bloom this week.  My solarium is very colourful.  And I have a beautiful Amaryllis in bloom.  This is the white one I bought, already planted, a few weeks ago.  The sun is very bright this morning so the flowers have a sort of pink tinge to them.  They are actually very white and look absolutely incredible right now.   Don't you agree?



And in keeping with my white flower theme.  Here is the white Christmas Cactus. loaded with blooms.  And lots of buds for future flowers.  So pretty.



Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Easy Street

I have been working on Bonnie Hunter's 'Easy Street' among other things.  (See my sidebar for the link)  I am really enjoying this quilt along.  So far I have made 70 geese blocks and almost 100 4-patch Blocks.  That makes me about halfway so far.  So I am going to join up with Bonnie's 'Mystery Monday Link Up'.


Click on the link and see what others have done.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Goodbye November, Hello December

This is my last post for NaBloPoMo and I am so glad it's over.  This doesn't mean that I won't be posting any more.  It just means I will only post when I have something interesting to report.  So stay tuned.

This is part 2 of Easy Street with Bonnie Hunter.  Wish I had her handy dandy rulers.  That would make things so much easier.  It took me half an hour to make these 3 flying geese blocks.  I need to make 128 of them I believe.  And I am only halfway through the 4-patch blocks.  Still have about 100 to make.  I think this quilt may end up in a bin like last year's mystery, Orca Bay.  Maybe when I am not so busy, like after Christmas I'll be able to do more on it.


These blocks are purple according to Bonnie, but I wanted to see what a turquoise one would look like.  I haven't totally decided what colours I am going to use.

Here is a photo of my white Amaryllis.  It is not as dramatic as the red one,  The red one had 4 or 5 flowers on each stem.  This one only has 2 or 3.  But I still love it.


Mimi has been sleeping on the heating duct today.  It is very cold out.  We were supposed to get a few centimetres of snow, but so far we have none.  You can see her feeding tube.  It allows food to go right into her esophagus.  I hope this doesn't gross anyone out.  She also has scratches on her nose, which she did to herself when we brought her home from the vet's office.  She tried to push her way out of the carrier and she scratched her nose on the metal door.  I have since made a little quilted pad for the inside of the door, to protect her from herself.


Her fur is getting nice and soft again.  But all she wants to do is sleep all day.  Oh, well, that is what she did  all day before the vet scuttled her butt, so I guess it's okay.






Thursday, November 29, 2012

Second Last Post for NaBloPoMo

I've been procrastinating all day over this post.  I just don't have that much more to say this month.  Mimi is feeling much better.  This morning she found a small patch of sunlight in the living room and she rolled around on it for quite a while.  When she saw me coming with the camera she quickly ran away.  See, nothing has changed.  She is still the same cat.

I have solved the problem of feeding her through her tube.  It was almost impossible to hold her and administer her meds and syringes of food and eye drops etc.  So I decided I needed a sort of baby sling to help hold her.  I looked them up on the internet and found a video that showed how to fold a sheet into a baby carrier.  I tried and it worked.  Feeding times are so much easier now and I sometimes have a hand free to give her a little skritch here and there.  That way she purrs through her feeding instead of wanting to get away.

Remember when I said I needed to order some fabric online.  Well it finally came today.  I just love it.  Part of the order are 4 fat quarters of Scooby Doo fabric.  Here are two of them fussy cut for the centre of the blocks in the cartoon quilt.  Aren't they fun?  My DS will love these.  I hope he doesn't read my blog. 

Well, see you tomorrow for my last NaBloPoMo post for this month.  I am going to take a blog break after that.  I think I deserve it.
 
 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Flowers on Wednesday

It's coming along.  Still working on the white hexies.  This is my evening project, to work on when I watch television.

Not my only flowers for today.  I finally have some Christmas cacti in bloom.  A red one.


A pink one.


And a white one.


There are lots of buds on the other cacti too.  I will show you when they are in bloom.



Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Easy Street

Only four more posts to go for NaBloPoMo.  I am done.  I'm not kidding.  Blogging every day is not easy.  But here is something that is 'easy'.



I know!  I know!  I shouldn't be starting anything new.  I have so many projects on the go right now.  But I just couldn't resist Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street.  It's her new mystery quilt.  She claims it is easier than her last few mysteries.  We'll see.  Here are my first 30 four-patch blocks.  About another 30 are started and I have lots of strips cut for more blocks.  

Monday, November 26, 2012

Potluck at the Guild

We had our Christmas potluck tonight.  Lots of great food!


And desserts.  Lots of desserts.  Yum!


Friends, Food and Fun!  Enjoyed by all.








Sunday, November 25, 2012

More Quilt Show

Here are a few more photos from the Ganaraska Quilt Guild's show.  The quilts were hung close together so it was difficult to take photos of the large ones.  This one was a Dragonfly quilt.  Lots of dragonflies in the fabrics and also in the quilting.


This one was bright and quite stunning.  I was only able to get a portion of it.


Here is part of an 'Amish' quilt.  I loved the little Amish buggies, all lined up



There were lots of wall hangings.  I love the tumbling blocks quilt.


A cute little duckie quilt.

I loved this log cabin with triangles.  I was only able to photograph a quarter of it.  I can see one of these in my future.


Mimi is doing well.  I have figured out how to feed her through her tube and she seems happy.We have an appointment tomorrow to see what the next step will be for her.  Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes!




Saturday, November 24, 2012

Mimi is Home, for a While at Least

Today is day 24 of NaBloPoMo and I am really tired, but I have to give you an update on Mimi's condition, so here is my post.

The vet tried to extract Mimi's teeth yesterday morning.  Yes!  All 32 of them.  She has a condition that makes her mouth red and sore.  It is caused by plaque and can only be cured by removal of all of her teeth.  The operation was supposed to take 4 hours.  I was very worried about her because I thought she would not be able to stay under the anesthetic that long. But the vet assured me everything would be fine.  About 2 hours into the procedure the vet phoned me and said that he was going to take Mimi out of the anesthetic because her blood pressure was unstable.  I wanted to say, "I told you so", but you never want to get a vet mad, especially one who has your kitty's life in his hands, so I said nothing.

So they stopped the extractions after taking only 16 of her teeth out.  They inserted a tube into her neck.  I think it must go down to her esophagus.  I have to feed her through that tube every 4 hours. She is also on pain medication and an antibiotic and she has to wear a collar to keep her from pulling the tube out and scratching her mouth.  They kept her overnight last night and my DD went to pick her up this afternoon.  We have an appointment with the vet on Monday afternoon to see how she is doing.  She is home now and is roaming around the house happy to be back.  I am happy too. She looks better than I expected.  But she will have to go back and have the other 16 teeth pulled another time.

The reason DD had to pick Mimi up was because I was at a quilt show in Orono with Debra from Patchwork Sanity - A Woman\s Piece of Mind.  It was a wonderful show.  Quite small, but friendly and inspiring.  We had our lunch in their tearoom and ran into a couple of other quilters from our guild, which was nice.  We had a fun chat.  So in keeping with my philosophy of a picture in every post, I leave you with one of the quilts from the show.  This was a tiny miniature, but it was beautiful.





Friday, November 23, 2012

The Bags Were Given Out

The book bags I made were handed out to the kindergarten kids this week.  I was there to take photos of them.  Not any photo, because I didn't want them to be visible on the internet.  So I asked them to hold their bags in front of their faces.  Do you know how difficult it is to get that concept across to them?  As soon as they see a camera they just want to say cheese.


I took four or five photos of each class and still didn't have one where all the kids had hidden their faces.




And to keep them standing still, or sitting nicely on the floor, well, that was even more impossible.  So this is what I ended up with.  But they loved the bags and that is the main thing.


On a sadder note, I had to take Mimi to the vet last night.  And the worst part is they kept her overnight to try to re-hydrate her.  She has not been eating well lately and she only weighed 5 pounds.  So today I will hear from the vet as to what procedures they will perform on her.  She may have to stay at the vet's office one more night.  I could use some positive thoughts and hugs for both Mimi and myself.  Thanks.



Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving

And a Wednesday flower on Thursday.

I finished the last hexie block for the inner border of the quilt.  From now on it is just going to be white hexies and dark blue hexies for awhile.



My Amaryllis is looking fantastic!  I staked it up rather
than transplanting it, just in case it didn't want its roots
disturbed.  Lots of red today.







I also want to wish all of my American friends and neighbours a very Happy Thanksgiving.  We already celebrated our Thanksgiving in October. So I am really happy that you celebrate yours so late in the year because it gave me the opportunity to watch 'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' one more time last night.


Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!


Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Looney Tunes Quilt as You Go

I got my sewing machine working and finished a few more blocks of the quilt I am making for DS.


There are several more, but I don't have room to display them all at once.  They are 12.5 inches.  I will be putting a sashing in between the blocks when I join them.  Don't know what colour yet.  Hope the blocks will speak to me when I have more done.


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Not Your Typical Tuesday

I know I promised you a better post today.  But... it started out as a typical Tuesday, but it didn't end up that way.  I was waiting for my friend to pick me up for our Tuesday morning quilt group.  I had a few minutes so I decided to sew a few more strips onto the cartoon fabrics for my DS's quilt.  But first I ran out of bobbin thread and then when I put in a new bobbin my fabric got stuck and I couldn't get it out of the machine.  I took the throat plate off and cleaned the lint out but I ran out of time.  I still have to see if I can get it to work.

The rest of my day was busy.  I rode my scooter up to the plaza and then spent the afternoon doing housework and cleaning up the kitchen.  Yuck!  I hate housework.  My DD came over after school and we went to Wendy's for a hamburger.  That was nice.  I don't usually get to go out on a week night.

My cat, Mimi is not feeling well.  She is refusing to eat.  I have to phone to vet tomorrow and see if I can get an appointment for her.  I hope it is something that they can treat.  She is getting old.  I'll deal with that tomorrow.

But now I have to fix my machine and hope that I can get it to work.  I have a lot of sewing to do in the next couple of weeks.

Here is my token picture, my newest Poinsettia.  Don't want to have two photo-less posts in a row!  It's just a small plant, but I love it!







Monday, November 19, 2012

A Post Without a Photo

This is a first for me.  I did not get a chance to take a photo of my progress today.  But I have been working hard on my DS's cartoon quilt.  I'll show you soon.  Thank you to everyone who sent me links and advice about ordering fabric on the web.  I have made some purchases and plan to make a couple more this evening.

Today's prompt for the 2012 NaBloPoMo is:
If you had to get locked in some place, overnight, alone. where would you want to be?

I would love to spend a night in a quilt shop.  A shop with lots of patterns and books and magazines.  How fun to spend the night planning new quilts and picking out fabrics.

Tomorrow I should have a more interesting post.  See you.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

It's Official...

...Santa is here!

He arrived in Toronto today, as part of the Santa Claus Parade.  Oh, now, who is that big guy?  Another Santa?  Oh, no.  It's our Mayor, Rob Ford.  Put a beard on that guy and he could be Santa too!


Now that it is official my favourite radio station is playing non-stop Christmas music.  It's putting me in a Christmas stressful mood.  I am being reminded that it is just over a month until Christmas.  I want to make a quilt for my son.  For years I was collecting cartoon fabrics.  I tried to put a few blocks together today, but realized that I don't have enough fabric.  Did I actually say that?  I have tons of fabric, but not enough cartoon fabrics.  My DH took me to Fabricland this afternoon, but I couldn't find anything.  Does anyone have any idea where I can get some?  I have never ordered anything on the internet, but I think I am going to have to start.  Just hope it will get here in time.  Here is what I have done this afternoon.
I plan to cut the focus fabrics into 6.5 inch blocks and put some 2 inch strips around them.  I am using scraps for the strips and doing them in blue and red.  I will use the 'Quilt-as-you-Go' method to quilt it.  I am hoping for some more Star Wars, Scooby Doo, Road Runner and Wile E Coyote, Charlie Brown and other such fabrics.  If you know where I can get some, please let me know.







Saturday, November 17, 2012

Another Amaryllis

While shopping today I found another Amaryllis plant.  This one will have white flowers and it was already planted for me.  How could I pass that up?  It's still small, but I will watch this one as it grows too.  I also bought that little Poinsettia in the background.  The coloured bracts are pink with a white patch down the centre.


The first flower of my red Amaryllis is totally open.  The stalks have grown very tall and it is top heavy at the moment.  I am going to transplant it or just put the whole thing in a heavier pot so that it can't fall over.