The white kitchen sink

Of course I didn't take a "before" picture of the kitchen sink. But the story is that our house has a white kitchen sink - and the taps are terrible - they have been replace two times already and the plumber guy at Home Depot says that white kitchen taps are never as good as the chrome plated ones. The taps were replaced again in the summer and the new taps leaked and then just two days ago they got really leaky and wouldn't shut off properly and needed to be replaced again!!



So - I told Jim about Susan - from Blackberry Creek and her new taps - Chrome taps on a white sink - and how good it looked. He looked at her taps on her blog and then printed out the picture of Susan's sink and off we went to Home Depot in search of new taps! Although we didn't get the same taps - I really liked Susan's taps - they didn't have exactly what we wanted in stock. Jim wanted the Kohler taps and I decided I wanted a little soap dispenser. We used to have a boiling hot water tap which was leaking as well. So thanks to Susan - we have lovely new chrome taps for our white kitchen sink!! And they are a dream!!




And on the quilting front I have finished my Secret Santa gift, and I have been working on a Dear Jane block -- G4 - Shutterbug. So far I have the centre of it completed -- as you can see it is 3 inches at this point and there are 17 pieces in these three inches!!! I can't believe I am doing this quilt! So no wonder this darn thing takes so long!!

Some Mail and some wool

Last Thursday I came home from work to a bunch of great mail!! First I got a nice little package from Carole of goodies some of which came from Australia. It is amazing when I got the package of goodies - Jim and I enjoyed a few and then I thought -- oh, better take a picture before we eat it all - LOL. As you can see, not much left -- I love Turkish Delight, haven't had that in years. Thanks so much Carole!


Then I also got my first Moda Fat Quarter Club package from The Fat Quarter Shop in Texas! Very pretty fabrics this month -- Decadent Victorian by April Cornell.

Next is a photo of the wool I have been collecting for the past few months. There is a woman that lives in my village that hand dyes her wool and I have been picking up small pieces here and there. This weekend at our retreat she brought some small kits and gave a wool applique workshop and she also had some black wool for me to buy. I bought two metres (for a pretty good price). It was very expensive in the Quilt shops and I was going to order some online but her prices were pretty comparable to the online shops, like the Quilted Crow that Carole likes to go to.


I think I have managed to get myself a pretty good collection. Although I noticed I need a bit more blue.




I started one of the wool kits this weekend. It is a small mitten that you can put goodies inside and hang up on the tree or give away. Very cute. So I bought a few more kits as well. Nice little gifts. As to whether I will get them done to give away for Christmas - that's another question.


I have been working this week on my Secret Santa gift. I have no idea who my secret Santa might be and I don't mind if they post a picture of the gift they are making - although I will like the surprise of finding out on Christmas. I don't even know if I read the blog of my Secret Santa - there are so many people on the list!! I am trying to figure out a way to organize my blog reading to make it easier for myself so I am not missing out on posts that I wanted to read. I think the thing the gets in the way of my blog reading the most is Work!!! Gotta figure out a way to fix that - LOL!!

After the Retreat on Monday

I have been so incredibly tired all week. I don't know why but beside from working two days I have been too tired to do anything. I went off to sleep last night early (around 8:30 pm) and I finally feel a bit brighter this morning. I have neglected my blog reading terribly this week.

These are a few pictures of what I arrived home to Monday after the wind storm.


This is my street - note the power lines hanging down. We were without power for 14 hours. Which is actually pretty good as last year we had a power outage of 5 days. Also note the Bear trap!!! The bear is still in the neighbourhood and not at all interested in the bear trap which has been sitting there for over a week, apparently it caught a raccoon last week!!



The neighbour across the street had a tree come down on the corner of their house. This is a view from the side of the house - there were three trees down in the yard and this is a picture of part of one downed tree -- the part on the roof was already removed and there is a tarp on the house already. When I came home the fire truck was sitting in front of my house - but it was there to work on removing the tree across the street.


This is what is left from a shed that belonged to another neighbour - two doors down, on the same side of the street as us. We were pretty lucking -- no trees on us!!


New Generator!! After borrowing one last year Jim decided we needed one of our very own!

I sure hope I feel better this week - and the tiredness is just left over from 4 intense days of sewing! I have to post about my wool applique - next post!!

What I did at retreat

Boy - Blogger is really misbehaving tonight!!

Here is my work station. I set up the Featherweight and spent most of the weekend sewing together the blocks from the Jelly Roll that I got from Toni (Quilting Pirate)


The Featherweight worked really well -- note my Tazzie mat as well - which I love!




I finished all 20 blocks. I didn't really do much else. I had plans to do a few things on Monday but, with the power failure that didn't happen. I am really happy with how these blocks turn out though.

Returned from my Quilting Retreat

We got back from Bowen Island early yesterday. It was a fabulous time and we could have stayed until 4 pm but there was a wicked wind storm and we lost power at 8:00 a.m. But we had 3 great nights anyway.

I took so much stuff to work on and all I really needed was one small bag because I spent the entire weekend working on my Jelly Roll Quilt. Typical quilter hey!! I will post pictures of the quilt later as we were planning a show and tell for Monday that got cancelled because of the storm - so I have taken some pictures of my blocks up on my design wall at home.



Here is a picture of a couple of fellow quilters in the room that we had. It was a great place to have a retreat. The big windows let in a fair amount of light but the overhead lighting was not that great - they said that the overhead lighting will be improved next year.


We had a deer come visit Saturday morning. The weather on Saturday was lovely and sunny.





A couple of pictures of the little bay that the camp is situated on. This is the view from the camp to the other side of the bay.

The camp in CNIB camp for the blind on Bowen Island. The food was fabulous!! We had the place all to ourselves - including a very nice and large hot tub! Except for the Monday morning power failure everything was so much fun.

I was going to upload a couple of more pictures but blogger seems to be resistant to that right now so I will just have to try to do another post instead.

Heading off to Retreat

I am packing up and heading out for a 3 night stay on Bowen Island for a quilting retreat. The weather is supposed to be pretty rainy and windy this weekend so I hope we don't lose power.



I have my Jelly Roll that I won from Toni's Quilting Pirate blog. It came with a pattern as well - so I had a different pattern in mind but I really like the pattern it came with so I might just do that one instead.

My bags are almost packed. I am going to take two sewing machines with me. This will be the first retreat that I take my new Featherweight. It is all tuned up and ready to go. But I will also take my Pfaff as I have some machine quilting I need to do this weekend. I was planning on piecing the jelly roll quilt on the Featherweight.


I will catch up with all my blogging on Tuesday. Have a good weekend everyone!!

My next two stops

There is a really great quilt shop in Tillamook. Jane's Fabric Patch

It is in a cute little house along the main street - which is also Highway 101. I didn't spend a lot of time in the shop and I didn't buy a lot of fabric there but I could have!! I bought the Lori Smith Sampler pattern which I really wanted. A few fat quarters and two pair of socks for making some Sock Monkies. We can not get these socks in Canada. So I was pretty happy to find some. The package has two pairs. Does anyone actually wear these socks or are they just made into monkies?

Jim was sitting in the car and I didn't want to spend too much time in the shop. Later I discovered that there was an Airplane Museum just down the road - so I could have sent him off to the museum and shopped to my hearts desire -- ah well there is always next time :))



The next shop was quite fun to find - BJ's Fabrics and Quilts This shop is in the basement of a house down some winding dirt lane just off of Highway 101 somewhere around Cloverdale. It is stuffed full of fabric. The shop was full of women shopping and the parking lot behind the house was full of men waiting for the shopping women. So I happily left Jim in the parking lot with the rest of the men and shopped to my hearts content. Jim did eventually come into the shop and picked out a few fat quarters to add to the "Long Beach Quilt" collection -- (that is a quilt he wants me to make one day).



At BJ's if you bought 2 you got the third for free -- fat quarters, 1/2 yards, or yards. So -- good deal. Great shop to visit. Full of fabric -- stuffed full of fabric. I bought a few yards - and a pattern for wall hanging for Andrew - to put on my "to do" list.

I just finished two 12 hour shifts and nothing gets done when I work. So today and tomorrow I need to prepare for a retreat I am going to this weekend. I have a few things I really would like to get done - and it is a 4 day retreat!! I am pretty excited. I have lots to prepare - I have a bit of my Secret Santa gift to finish as well. And if you can believe it - I actually have to buy a bit of flannel for backing for a small quilt - can you imagine - I have to go fabric shopping!!

The Reason for the Fairy fabric

I guess before I get any further into my Oregon Coast shopping trip I should announce the reason for the fairy fabric.



My daughter is expecting a baby in April -- although I have no idea if it is a boy or a girl. I just knew that if it is a girl that Jessica would love the fairy fabric for a baby quilt.

It is quite exciting. Jessica is pretty excited. Her and Dave have bought a house just moved in on Monday. They are not going to find out whether the baby is a boy or a girl until after she/he is born. Therefore I will not be making any little fairy quilts until after ( I just can't see a little boy wrapped up in fairies!)

I am switching my email to Gmail - I can't seem to log in to my new Yahoo mail (I can log into the old classic Yahoo) and I can't seem to figure out how to contact Yahoo. So it won't really make a difference for the blog replies though. I will give Gmail a try.

My next quilt shop along the Oregon Coast will be coming up next -- Jane's Fabric Patch in Tillamook.

Creative Fabrics - Wheeler

My next stop was Wheeler Oregon. The quilt shop in Cannon beach had given me a copy of the "Quilt Run 101" for February 2008 - so I was set up with a great list of quilt shops along Highway 101 for the rest of the trip.

Creative Fabrics does not have a web page for me to provide a line. Wheeler is a very small town with the one main road being Highway 101. The main shopping area is only about 3 blocks long. Creative Fabrics is a great little quilt shop. It has a selection of non cotton fabric as well as a good selection of 100% cotton quilting fabric. The staff were friendly and I went there twice - I decided I needed more of the fairy fabric and needed to go back. When I went back I bought I more than I had planned. That is always a sign of a good quilt shop - you buy more then what you went in for - LOL



I loved the fairy fabric and I bought one yard - and then on thinking of the quilt that I planned to make with it realized I needed more. I love the fat quarters of the Chinese fabric. I'm not sure what I will do with it, maybe a bag. I also bought some fabric here that has been given away already - so not in the picture.

The quilt shops in the U.S. seem to have lots of pre-cut yards and half yards - not just pre-cut fat quarters. I don't see that a lot in the shops in Canada. I like the pre-cut yards. I found it nice and easy to pick up a couple of yards - if it had not been pre-cut I probably would have picked up fat quarters instead. Of course the cost of $9.00 a yard makes it easier to pick up as well.

These are a few pre-cut yards I picked up at Creative Fabrics. I definitely liked this shop.