Random Acts of Kindness Create Sunshine

I picked up a parcel from the post office yesterday.  I had no idea who it was from or what it was.  Imagine my happy excitement to discover that the package was soft.  It had to contain fabric, that much I was sure of.  Then I realized this package had come from Amy at The Calico Cat.   I could hardly wait to get home and open it!

I sent her an email last night because I was puzzled.  Why did she send me this wonderful fabric?  She said it was just a random act of kindness.  A Random Act of Kindness?  OMG!!!  It was much more than that!  It lifted my spirits.  It brought me joy.  Just to think that someone was thinking about me made me happy.  It was like a ray of sunshine!  If you are reading this, Amy, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I know this fabric will go to good use.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And in keeping with this jungle and sunshine theme, let me show you some of my garden.  It is like a jungle out there.  We had a very late spring and I was not able to plant anything until the first of June.  My little plants looked so pathetic.  But then it rained and rained and rained some more.  My plants grew quickly and now they look like this.

The plants in front, growing on that trellis-like thing are cucumbers.  You can tell by the bird feeder that they are at least 3 to 4 feet tall.

These are my tomato plants with some bean poles in the back.  I have never had such tall tomato plants at the beginning of July.  There are lots of flowers and even some tiny green tomatoes on these vines.  Can't wait for them to ripen so I can take a huge bite of this delicious fruit!

Sorry, this post is getting longer and longer, but I want to show you some of my sunshine.  These are the yellow flowers that are blooming in my garden at the moment.

Yellow Day Lilies

True Lilies grown from bulbs.  The yellow colour means gaiety.

And these are Rudbeckia in my back garden.

I bought this plant at the beginning of our planting season.  It was sitting on a table with the Echinacea or cone flowers and I thought it was one of those.  I lost several Echinacea plants in our cold winter and I wanted to replace them.  I was very disappointed when I got home and read the tag.  They were Rudbeckia and I had lots of those already.

But this variety is called Iris Eyes and the centre is not black, but green.  The bright yellow flowers really light up that dark spot in my garden.  I am really happy that I made the mistake of picking this plant up and planting it.  It has turned out to be gorgeous!  It is one of my favourite plants at the moment.

There are many more yellow flowers in my garden, but this post is getting too big, so I will stop for today.  Thanks again Amy!  You are terrific!

I'm In a Jam

My DD went strawberry picking and she brought me a whole basket of berries to make into jam.

That is more jam than I need, so I froze half of the berries.  I will make strawberry milkshakes and other yummy things with them.  Here is the jam I made.  It is low sugar jam.  The only kind my Mom lets me eat.

I also bought some cherries at the market on the weekend.  I made a batch of low sugar cherry jam with them.  Yum!

So guess what I had for lunch yesterday?  Did you guess a peanut butter and jam sandwich?  Well if you did, you are right.  Haven't had one of those in a long time.  It was delicious.

Happy Birthday Canada!

Canada is 147 years old today!  Happy Birthday, Canada.

Wishing all my Canadian friends a Happy Canada Day!

Introducing....

Elly the elephant.  I finished her this evening.  I made up the pattern as I went along, so there is no other elephant like her.

She is right at home in my jungle garden.  Here is a close-up.  Cute, eh?

Hexie Transformer

I sewed my hexies together for the June hexie blog flower last night.  But I didn't have the layout for it.  And I sewed it wrong.  The stem at the bottom would not have come out straight.  If I wanted it to turn out like the one on the hexie blog, I would have had to undo many hexies and anyone who does these things knows how difficult it is to rip them out without shredding the rest of the blocks.  So I redesigned it and now it will be appliqued to a background fabric and made into another outdoor pillow.

I liked the colours because I have lots of purple flowers in my garden right now.  Here are some Sweet Williams.

And this is the Hydrangea that I planted in the spring.  My first Hydrangea flower.  Am I ever proud!  It is one of those lacy ones.

Hope everyone has a terrific weekend!  We are going out to the Mandarin to celebrate my husband's birthday tonight.  It's a long weekend for some of us.  Canada Day is on Tuesday.  Some folks are taking Monday off too.  Every day is Canada Day for me!

I am linking up with Angie at A Quilting Reader\s Garden

The Mystery is Over

Someone named Wendy Jones sent me an email, suggesting that the pattern I showed you yesterday is called, Rosewood Cottage.  I looked it up and this is what it is supposed to look like.

I think I may have taken this quilt as a class at one of our now-closed quilt shops.  I have all the patterns for the blocks, but I didn't realize there was so much applique to do on the borders.  I may have to make up something of my own.

Thanks for all your wonderful comments!

Look What I Found

While organizing some of my UFOs a few days ago, I came across these interesting blocks - some pieced and others appliqued.  I have no idea when I started them, but I am sure it was a long time ago.

I also don't know where the pattern came from - whether it was a magazine or book or maybe from the web.  I may have acquired it in a batch of scraps that were given to me.  I have a few more completed blocks and some hand drawn ones that need to be appliqued.  If anyone recognizes this quilt pattern, please let me know.  I would like to finish this quilt and empty out another plastic bin.

This morning I had a couple of hours to spare, so I worked on putting this block together.  (I still need to press it)

There is another block in the bin that is sketched out.  It has a birdhouse, a fence and a bird.  I'm really looking forward to putting that one together tomorrow.

I am linking up with The Needle and Thread Network.

Summer Solstice Stuff

As you may know, my DD is expecting a baby in the fall.  She wants to decorate his room, (yes, it's going to be a boy) in a jungle theme.  I made a quilt many years ago from the book, "How to Make an American Quilt".  She has had that hanging in her quest room for years. Now she wants to hang it in the baby's room and add jungle animals on shelves along with other jungle things.  I am glad to oblige.

This is Leo in my vegetable jungle.  I decided to crochet these wild animals.  I know Leo doesn't look very wild.  He is actually kind of cute.  I think he knows it too!

.
I also plan to make an elephant, giraffe, rhino and monkey.  So I have my work cut out for me. Or rather, crocheted out for me.

But speaking of cutting things out.   I decided to make a pentagon ball.  I've been seeing them on the web lately.  Pentagons are five-sided polygons.  I cut out 12 of them from kid fabrics. Then I put the ball together using the English Paper Piecing method.  It turned out great, in my opinion!

Hope you all had a good first day of summer.  It's wonderful, but now the days will be getting shorter.  And I don't know if I like that.

I have linked up with Angie at A Quilting Reader's Garden.

I Do Finish Some Things Some of the Time

The nice weather is finally here.  Only a couple of days to go before summer starts.  Most of the gardening has been done.  Now it is just weed, weed, weed.  But that can wait for another day.  We had some unsettled days, weatherwise.  Lots of rain, thunder and lightning, hail, heavy winds and even a tornado just to the north of us.  But now the sunshine has arrived.

I have been quilting the Bob the Builder quilt for my DD's friend.  The baby shower is on Saturday and I had to get it finished.  So finish I did.  I put the last few stitches into the binding this morning.  There is still a label to be made, but I don't know the baby's name, so I think I will put that on after he is born.

While out in the garden I noticed my wisteria is blooming.  Our winter was very long and cold and I worried about this vine because it took so long to show any signs of life this spring.  But now it is doing fine.  It has lots of lovely flower racemes on it.

In all my excitement to get the quilt done, I have decided to link up with The Needle and Thread Network.  I think I have an hour or so left to do that.

A Bluish Purple Garden

My blue and white Iris is in bloom.  I love this plant and wait for it to bloom every year.  It has not failed me yet.  This thing is gorgeous!

And as I looked around my garden I noticed a lot of other bluish/purple plants in boom.  Here are my perennial Geraniums, also known as Cranesbill.

And my Chives.

I bought this basket of Million Bells several weeks ago.  I had to take it in and out of the house when the weather did not cooperate.  But it survived and looks amazing right now!

That is when I remembered that I had some scraps sitting beside my sewing machine.  So, yesterday, after returning from my outing with the Tuesday Friendship Quilters for an end-of-the-year luncheon, it started to rain like crazy!  There was nothing else to do but sew my scraps together and make a cushion for one of the garden chairs.

I used an old pillow form that had seen better days.  It is 14 inches square.  The fabrics are not really outdoor ones.  I will have to take this little cushion inside at night.  But it feels great to use up some of my scraps and make something pretty for the garden.  I hope to make several more of them from my scrap bin, in lots of other colours to match the flowers that will bloom later in the season.

Little Blue Hat

I needed something for instant gratification.  So I spent my evening, yesterday, knitting this little hat.  I made the pattern up myself.  It turned out okay, but I have no idea how big a baby's head is.  Anybody have any ideas?

I think I will make a few more of these once I figure out the right size to make them.

My Design Wall

I know it seems as if I am not doing any sewing and I'm not doing a lot, but I do have some things on my design wall.

This is a 16 patch which I saw on Nicolette's blog.  I loved it and I thought I could use up lots of 4 inch strips that I had cut out several months ago.  I think I was planning to do a star quilt or something, but it was all in purples and it just didn't turn me on.  My design wall is doing double duty.  You can see some maple leaf blocks behind the 16 patches.  I still have two more blocks to make on that one.

If I make the 16 patch quilt 4 blocks by 5 blocks, as Nicolette has done, the quilt will measure 56 inches by 70 inches.  I might add another row to the bottom to make it 84 inches long.  This will fit my bed better, since I am still using a hospital bed and that measures 36 by 80.

In my garden there is lots of colour.  I especially like blue flowers, so here are my Virginia Bluebells - Mertensia virginica.  I just love these!

Switching my Quilt Addiction for a Plant Addiction

It's finally planting season.  I have been busy - digging, pulling weeds, moving things around and buying plants from the nursery.  I managed to get a couple of quilt blocks done, but not much else as far as sewing goes.

Last weekend my DH and I went for a walk in the woods.  I used some walking sticks - you know the kind that have spikes on the ends, much like ski poles - and I was able to get around without any problems. There were a few trilliums in the woods.  They were just beautiful.  I love seeing the trilliums,  When they are in bloom I know it's spring!

I also spotted a plant that I don't think I have ever seen before.  I think it is a Toothwort.  If you know this plant or know what it really is, please leave me a comment.  Thanks.

To all my friends south of the border, have a fantastic long weekend!  We had ours last weekend.  Drive carefully and stay safe.  The weather is just perfect here at the moment.  I am going back outside to plant a few more things.  Hopefully I will have time to do a bit of quilting next week.

Butterflies in my Garden

Last week I showed you the wonderful butterfly for the month of May by The Hexie Blog.

I saw a smaller hexie butterfly on the internet a couple of weeks before this orange one.  I decided to make a couple of them - purple one...

and a pink one/

I have no idea what I will do with them, but they were so much fun to make.  I think there will be a few more of these in my future.

I am linking up to A Quilting Reader's Garden.

Going to the Dogs

Introducing... (drum roll please) ... Patches, my little dog!  Isn't he cute?

I have neglected my sewing for the past two days in order to put this little guy together.  But it was worth it, I think.  I am very pleased with how he turned out.  But not only was a bit of crocheting going on around here, a lot of growing was going on in my garden.  We had some extreme rain in the past few days and the temperature was very spring-like.   Just look at how my garden has blossomed!

Here is Patches in my Bergenia.

And here he is admiring my Euphorbia.  This is one of my favourite plants in my garden.

But he looks lonely, don't you think?.  I must get busy and make him a brother or sister. 

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

 

Have you hugged a Mom today?

Butterfly Hexies

I joined The Hexie Blog to make a different hexie block each month.  The block for May is a butterfly.

I didn't add the hexagon with the antenna because I didn't have any fabric that would work for that.  I think I will just embroider some after I applique the butterfly to a background fabric.  Here is another shot of it beside some dandelions that are coming up all over the place.  It's spring and I love it!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Dance of Joy

The Folk Dance Jamboree is being held because it is Education Week here in Toronto.  Every evening this week, Albert Campbell Square is alive with the sounds of music and children's laughter.  I have always loved this wonderful event, so I asked to go along and they let me.

I loved it!

On the sewing front, nothing much has been going on.  I had an extremely busy weekend. There was a lot of fence staining going on.  My future weekends will likely be filled with more of that.

But I finished the baby blanket I was working on.  It is loosely based on a Lion Brand pattern. And when I say "loosely", I mean it.  I didn't use Lion Brand yarn, not even the bonbons yarn that the pattern called for. I used mostly Red Heart yarns - huge balls called 'Comfort' and some others that I had in my stash.  With size 6mm needles I cast on a number of stitches that I thought would make the blanket wide enough.  I don't even remember how many.  Then I knit some white rows and changed colour according to the colours of the rainbow.  I had these yarns at home, so I didn't even have to buy any yarn.  I used 8 rainbow colours.  The only problem I had was running out of the white about 10 rows from completion. So I went out and bought another ball.  Bummer.  But now I have enough to make another blanket.

It's just plain knitting, but I love how it turned out.  It's about 35 inches wide by 45 inches long. My DD loves it too.  I made it especially for her.  Well, not for her exactly, but for her new baby boy.  You see, my DD is pregnant and that is why I am doing the Happy Dance!

What I am Working On

I am always asked why I don't post more often.  People complain that they visit my blog, but there is nothing new going on.  I am working as fast as I can, folks.  But it is spring - sort of - and I am busy in the garden, getting out on my scooter and doing other outdoor stuff.

I am still sewing and quilting, but not as much as I would like.  I do have something to show you though.

Here are some of my maple leaf blocks.  I still have a few more to go.  Hopefully I will finish them in the next week or so.  I am trying to sew at least one block per day.

And here is something new I started a couple of days ago.  I am sewing selvages together that will eventually become a bag.  This is so much fun!

If you want to show me how much you like my blog, leave me a comment.  That way I will know that folks are interested and maybe I will post more often.  Thanks!

Bob the Builder Baby Quilt

The top is finished!  Now I just have to sandwich and quilt it.  My DD commissioned me to make this for a friend of hers.  It is approximately 42 inches square.  The baby shower is not until the end of June, so I have time.

This was a fun project to work on.  I have another piece of fabric with dinosaurs on it.  Someone gave it to me.  I think I will make another quilt like this one, using that fabric.  But first I have to finish the maple leaf quilt.  Hope to show you that one soon.

I am linking up with the needle and thread network and a quilting reader's garden.