Wednesday Stuff and Give Away

Summer has arrived - finally!  It seems like we only have two seasons, winter and summer.  We had record setting temperatures yesterday.  The humidex went up to 39C.  I kept busy watering my garden.   It was too hot to sleep.  I had the air conditioner on, but it didn't seem to be working.  It turned out that someone had turned the A/C off at the furnace.  Once my DH turned it back on the air became cooler and I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep.  Today it is a lot cooler, but the winds are strong and everything in the garden is dried out again.  Guess I will have to go and water again.  Here is a lovely, colourful basket.

On Monday evening we had our last quilt meeting for this year.  It seemed hard to believe that another year has gone by.  We are now off until September, but that won't stop me from working on a few more charity quilts over the summer.  Here is the top of one I made on Monday night, after our meeting.  I couldn't sleep anyway so I figured I'd use the time productively.  It's a DNP.

And today was the day I promised to pick a winner in my give away. 

The winner is Nynke from the Dutch Purple Rabbit.

Here is your mini quilt!

Please send me your snail mail address, Nynke and I will mail it out as soon as possible.

We are expecting a mail strike starting at 11:59pm on Thursday.  If they reach an agreement before that I will mail it out on Friday.  If they go on strike I will hold onto it until the strike is over.

Flowers on Wednesday

I am still working on my hexagon flowers.  I made 6 of them yesterday.  I still have to attach them to my wannabe quilt.  I'll show that when I have the section I am currently working on done.

I took this photo outside at around 4:30pm today.  It was really windy.  But, what is that?  A ray of sunshine?  OMG!  I had forgotten what sunshine is.  So many rain days!  And more to come.  This is just a little tease from Mother Nature.

 I have decided what I am going to give away.  It's this little miniature quilt.  The blocks are 3in. square when finished.  Each block has 21 pieced in it.  It is paper pieced.  I have not sewn the block together.  I will do that tomorrow.  If you want to take part in my give away, just leave a comment on this or yesterday's post.  If you are a follower of this blog or of my blog 2, let me know and I will give you another entry. I will draw the winner on June 1st.  Good Luck everybody!

Feeling Better!

Thank you to everyone who left well wishes on my last post. I am feeling much better today, although not perfect. My sinuses still aren't cooperating. It is cold and dreary out. On and off snow flurries all day and when I look out my kitchen window I can't tell where my neighbour's roof leaves off and the sky begins. Everything is white.

But my day has been brightened by Barb of Bejeweled Quilts, sent me these nifty little squares of fabric. There are 28 of them. And she even included a spool of thread. Thank you Barb! I have no idea what I will make with them yet. I might even have some fabrics that would go with these. Anybody got any ideas?

Also, while I was recuperating, I knit my son a new scarf. He wanted one in black. So I just cast on 39 stitches and did a knit three, purl three across the rows. I changed the knit and purl stitches every three rows to create a sort of basket weave effect. Maybe you can see it if you click on the photo. I love this pattern for a scarf. A friend of mine suggested it to me many years ago and I still make a lot of scarves this way. It is an easy pattern and gives me just enough of a challenge to be able to watch television or just recuperate from a cold while I knit.

What I've Been Up To

The sun was shining this morning! Kind of a novelty, since we've had rain for several days! I decided to go out on my scooter and see what trouble I could get into. I went through the ravine and was almost knocked off my scooter by the heavenly, intoxicating scent of the wild roses that lined the path! They were so fresh and delicate. What a stroke of luck to be passing by these while they were in bloom. I don't think I have ever noticed them before. And, in another stroke of luck, I had my camera with me.

I went to visit some friends and on my way home I passed by a garden centre and bought a few more plants to fill another planter. When I arrived at home, I noticed that the mail had come. How exciting! A few weeks ago I entered a give-away on Pat's blog and I won. My book arrived today!

Edit: Pat had put a fat quarter in the package, which I did not see until she emailed me to ask if I had found it. She was afraid that she had forgotten - age, you know, but it was me who had not checked the envelope carefully enough - age, yeah, I admit it! So here is the new photo.

I am really excited with this one. It has several quilts that I know I will make. I love the sunflower wall hanging and this fan one is lovely. I am thinking of using a fan block in a wall hanging that I am doing at the moment, so this will come in handy. Thanks Pat! I really appreciate your generosity.

Edit: And it seems that Mimi likes it too. She took possession as soon as I put the book and fat quarter down.

And if that wasn't enough, Oscar wanted to get into the action too. I think they are having a quilting discussion.

And I must show you my latest block from the Friday Block Party. This one is called, 'Triangle Chain'. It is a 9-inch block. For some reason the pattern was posted yesterday instead of today. That was fine with me! I went into my sewing room last night and started rummaging around for fabric. I planned on just finding the fabric. But then I started cutting it out. And before I knew it, I was so engrossed in the block that I had the whole thing sewn together! Mimi loves it! It's got silly cats and cat paw prints on it. I love it too. I will post the entire block on the Block Party's blog.

Now I am ready for the weekend!

Happy New Year!

But I Have Some Business To Attend To First

It's the new year and I want to get right to work on all the quilts I am dreaming of making in 2009! But first I have to take care of some business matters. I entered a few blog giveaways and contests near the end of last year, and actually won some really great stuff!


The first package arrived a few days before Christmas. It was from Kathy at Lizzie Jane. It contained these really cute snowmen patterns. I want to make the little snowman wall hanging. I am sure we will have winter until the end of March around here, so I will have lots of time! Thanks Kathy!





Then this box came from Nynke, the dutch purple rabbit. I didn't have to do anything to get this wonderful gift. Nynke just sent me something because that is the kind, sweet and generous person that she is. It arrived just in time on Christmas Eve and was loaded with all kinds of goodies. There were fabrics, some of them hand dyed, I think, some chocolate covered gingerbread cookies and hagelslag or muisjes as they are commonly called. These are little bits of chocolate memories from my childhood. We used to sprinkle them on bread for breakfast! There were also some little bottles of beads which I will put to good use when I do more fibre postcards! There was also a chocolate Sinterklaas and a little Purple Rabbit! There was even a ball of wool so that I can make something for my kitties! Nynke thought of everything!

I also won this quilt in Freda's Hive giveaway! Isn't it beautiful? The workmanship is impeccable! Can you see the label? It says 'One of a Kind from Freda's Hive. I will treasure it and hopefully use it to keep one of my grandchildren warm one day. Thanks Nanette!

And now I can show you some mindless piecing that has kept me occupied over the past few days. I decided to clean up some of my scrap boxes. I am using precious space to store a lot of little pieces of fabric that I should probably just throw out. But who can do that? So I have been making the most of my stash. I used anything that was at least 2in. wide and 5in. long. I plan to do a scrappy wallhanging with some sort of medallion, (an appliqued winter berry thing) in the middle. I got the idea from ems scrapbag and from another blog, but I can't remember which one at the moment. If I find it I will edit this post so I can show it to you.

I am not using a specific pattern, but I guess it could be called rail fence. Each block is 5in. by 5in. unfinished. (4 1/2in. square finished) I have about 15 left to do. And then of course, the applique part. But I love hand applique, so that should go quickly!

Oh, I almost forgot. If you don't already know of the 'Whirl into Winter Giveaway', just click on the snowflake on my sidebar. That will take you to Debi's site where you will find 60+ bloggers who are participating in the giveaway! Good luck!