Earth Hour and More

Hope you are celebrating Earth Hour by turning off your lights for an hour this evening.  For us that will be 8:30pm until 9:30pm.  We will be at my DD's house.  I plan on taking my hexagon stars to work on by candle light.  In order to do my part for our planet in the coming year, I will try to give up plastic bags for keeping left-overs fresh to using re-usable containers instead.

In case you are wondering how they look (my hexagon stars, that is), here is the latest photo.  I am really enjoying these blocks.  They look complicated, but they are just as easy to do as any English pieced project.

 I also finished another block for my 'The Queen and Her Court' quilt.  This is definitely not my favourite block.  I still have three more blocks to do and then a lot of applique blocks.  It doesn't have to be done until August, so I have lots of time.

Enjoying My Special Day

No sewing going on today.  I've been shopping and driving around on my scooter, enjoying the spring weather.  I am 23,377 days old today!  So I have been getting lots of emails, phone calls and regular mail.  It's been great!  Everyone has been singing to me!  I love it!

Want to know how many days old you are?  Go here.  And because I can't post anything without a picture, I will attach my Pulmonaria (Lungwort).  I have never had this flower look this beautiful on my birthday.  Usually it is still covered in ice and snow.  This definitely is special!

A New Hexagon Quilt

I wasn't able to go to Fabricland on Friday.  My scooter was willing, but the weather did not cooperate.  It rained all morning.  Even in the afternoon the weather people said to carry an umbrella.  So I didn't go.  And in my depressed, irritable state, I wasted spent a couple of hours exploring blogland.

To my great delight, I came across a new hexagon block. It's called Rose Star. There is a tutorial for it here!    And it's a wonderful, portable, handwork project, perfect for the summer.  I made a couple of blocks and I just love them.  Don't you?

Where Did Spring Go?

It was another beautiful day.  The sun was out.  The sky was blue.  The temperature was hot.  It seems we have gone from winter directly into summer.

I have some news regarding my scooter.  Someone finally came yesterday afternoon to pick mine up.  It needs some bearings replaced and other miscellaneous things done to it, at the shop.  It may take a few days or several weeks, but the good news is they gave me a loaner for the time being,.  That meant I was able to go out!!!!   Tomorrow I want to try going up to Fabricland.  They have a 50% off for membership holders only.  I really don't need much, but what the heck.  Now that I have a scooter, I want to go places!

Here are two of my flying geese blocks that I have been doing with Em from Em's Scrapbag.  The one on the right is week 2 and the one on the left is week 3.  I did week 2 in reverse, but I don't think it will matter.

Mimi sends her love and thanks everyone who left such nice comments about her.

Signs of Spring

Yesterday Marilyn from Marilyn's Maze showed some signs of spring in California.  I couldn't even recognize most of the plants she showed.  It looks nothing like our springs.  But it did arrive yesterday and there are lots of signs out there right now.  Today the temperature is around 25C but with the humidex, it feels more like 30C. That's a record breaker!  The weather is perfect for being outside!  My garden has never looked so green.  Everything is coming up far earlier than usual.  So here are a few photos which I took in my backyard this morning.

These are some of my purple crocuses.  They really look good this year.  And here is a purple striped crocus variety.

The squirrels have been busy digging and pulling up tulips, crocuses and even hyacinths.  They don't seem to like the daffodils.  I think I should plant some more of those in the fall.  Lots of buds on this one.

Some early insects have also come out.  Can you see that huge bumble bee in this little crocus?  He buzzed around me for several minutes.  It was such a nice summer sound.

I planted some fall crocuses last year.  The squirrels had them dug up by the next morning.  But this one is seems to have survived and is doing well.  Do you see that brown stuff around it.  That's Cayenne pepper.  It is supposed to keep the squirrels away.  It works, but it has to be sprinkled around the plant almost every day,  Especially after it rains.

Mimi asked me to take a photo of her favourite garden herb.  It's catnip and there is lots of it this year.  Shhhhh, don't tell Mimi, but I am going to have to pull some of it up.  There is just too much of it.

What was that, Mimi?
Oh, you want me to leave all of it in the garden?
Okay my precious.  Since you asked so nicely.

"Purrrrrr.  I love catnip and fabric!"

Mimi is sleeping on my fabrics.  I started to clean up my sewing room, but only managed to make a bigger mess.  Mimi doesn't care.  She likes my fabrics to be all over the place.  Doesn't she look happy napping there in the sunshine?  

I am now going outside to sit in the sunshine too. 

Busy Braid Week

I spent yesterday at a friend's house. sewing a French Braid quilt.  There were 11 of us in her basement.  Lots of fun!!!  I asked my DD to drive me since I don't have my licence back yet.  She agreed and then I thought she might like to make a French Braid quilt too.  We went shopping for fabric and I spent several days cutting and preparing for Saturday.

Here is the one I made.  I still have to sew the sashing together and then border it with a narrow black border and a 6inch butterfly border.  Don't look at the black strips.  They are too short and I will have to add to them or cut new strips.  I was following the pattern and it said, 'cut 1 1/2 inch strips from WOF'.  That means width of fabric, doesn't it?  It should have been cut from the length.  

And here is the one my DD made.  Isn't it fantastic!!!!!  This is her first quilt done on a sewing machine.  She's a natural!  She picked her own fabrics too.

When I got home last night I was too wound up to sleep, so I went into my sewing room and because it was St. Patrick's Day, I made some green fabric with my green scraps.  Then I turned the green fabric into a Shamrock which I saw on Hillary's blog.  She got the pattern here.  So now I have a cute shamrock all ready for next year.

Flying Geese

Somehow I have lost my mojo.  So many things going wrong at one time, I guess.  My scooter is broken (won't start) and the repair people haven't contacted me yet even though it has been a week since I sent them an email.  A few weeks ago I lost a filling in one of my teeth.  I had it fixed last week and by the end of the week I had lost another filling in another tooth.  I have a dentist appointment next Tuesday.  Because my scooter wasn't working, I couldn't take my library books back and so I had to pay a fine of $6.   I am never late taking my books back, but this time there was either something wrong with my computer or the library's was out of service, so I couldn't renew them online.  Also, I have a headache and my neck feels stiff and sore.  I wonder if I am coming down with something.

So today I didn't feel like working in my sewing room.  I didn't feel like making houses and I didn't even feel like making fabric with scraps.  But then I remembered that Em from Em's Scrapbag is doing a Flying Geese quilt-a-long on Wednesdays.  So I went over there and took down the information.  Then I started sewing my geese.  My sister phoned as I was working on them and told me that she has seen a lot of geese down in the yard where the subway trains are kept.  (My sister drives a subway train.  Cool, eh?)  So it seemed fitting that I was making flying geese blocks.

Here is what I managed to do today.

I feel as if I have been a tiny bit productive.  And I almost forgot to tell you!  I won one month of the Bargain Lover's Fat Quarter Club.  That means I'll be getter 10 fat quarters for free!  That also made me feel more positive.  Thanks to everyone who voted for me!  I think I need to take a nap now.  Oscar is sleeping on my bed and he wants me to join him.

A Conundrum - Edited in Red

I have a problem.  A couple of weeks ago I sent a photo of a quilt I made to Sew Sisters.  It was part of a challenge they gave all of us in the Bargain Lover's Club.  I'll show it again in you missed it.

Initially I thought the quilts would be judged by the Sew Sisters staff.  But now it seems that anyone can vote for their favourite - like 'best in show',  'most original' etc.  So what's my dilemma?

The voting isn't set up to just click on a box.  In order to vote an email has to be sent to Sew Sisters.  It seems like a lot of work, but the part I am uncomfortable with is this.  When you send an email, the party you are sending it to automatically gets your email address.  That seems a bit invasive to me.  I can't ask folks to make their email addresses available to Sew Sisters.  They could use it to send out all kinds of store related sales and events and other nuisance mail that others might not want to receive.  After talking to some quilty friends today, I now feel that it really is not such a big deal.  Emails can be deleted.  I am going to leave this up to my blog readers.  If you feel like voting, then by all means, do so.  I would really appreciate it.  

So what do you think?  Am I being neurotic?  Should I just ask my blogging friends to please vote for me?  I think the voting ends on Monday.  The voting actually ends on Tuesday, March 6th.

In case you want to do just that, go here.  That will take you to all the entries.  Some of them look really good so it might be a nice place to view some eye candy.  My entry is number 31.  Sew Sisters email address is on that page.

Now for something springlike.  The snow we got a few days ago is all gone.  In fact it was all gone by the end of that very same day.  I bought these tulips when I went shopping last week.  They brought me joy all week long as I watched them open up.  They have a lovely springy fragrance too.

Thanks!

Winter!

It's the first day of March and I think winter has finally arrived.  There was snow on the ground this morning, even though the weatherman said it was going to rain.  And it is still snowing.  I think this is the worst weather we have had all winter.

Needless to say I will be staying indoors today.  I have to work on my 'The Queen and her Court' quilt.  I am way behind on that one.  My next class is on Saturday and I want to be caught up by then.