Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I thought I should post some Christmas pictures –  "what we have been up to lately pictures" ......
I started off this Christmas Season getting my fabulous notions holder and a few extra goodies from Carole – Quilting Adventures. 




Then I spent a day making Biscotti – 25 dozen.





We put up a tree ---- a very nice little tree..............


Decked the halls – sort of………….




Eric and Darla came for Christmas Eve dinner.




Cadence the Grand dogter – has come to spend the Christmas holiday while her mummy and daddy get to spend Christmas in Hawaii.  Can you see the look on Jenny’s face – she is wondering when we are going to send this dog back home!

Christmas dinner --- Saddle of Lamb.
We have been watching  “Upstairs, Downstairs” – and they eat a lot of Saddle of Lamb – so Jim decided we needed to search that out – so…. here we have Christmas dinner of Saddle of Lamb – Gordon Ramsay style.




First you have to trim it off the bone.




Could I have a little bit there Jim?  Huh – just a little??






Then you add a few sage leaves…………






Then the spinach and mushroom stuffing.




Roll it and wrap it and bake it in the oven..





Ready to carve and enjoy for Christmas dinner.




Could we have a little there Jim…. just a taste??





Just the tiniest little taste?  Please…………

So on that note I thought I would add this picture of me - peering over my glasses at Jim - as I take a lot of pictures of Jim - peering over his glasses at me - it's only fair I guess. Merry Christmas.... to all - and Happy New Year!

After a year like this - its best to laugh out loud!! 

Christmas time

Christmas around here means a glass of port and a couple of home made biscotti.



















Maybe my New Years resolution should be I post a little more regularly!

I am slowly getting better - more mobile and getting ready to head back to work in January.

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a Good Night.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Well - I am still alive!

And walking - more or less --- and pictures to prove it................... This picture is taken just outside the Burrowing Owl winery in Oliver B.C.





The weekend before Halloween Jim and I headed off to the sunny Okanogan to meet up with my mum and dad for a little get away.  So here I am with my mum and dad - standing on two feet - in shoes.  I am hiding my cane............. I am doing well - can't walk too far and limping a bit and whining a lot but I have been out of the boot for almost 3 weeks and now I need to try to take off the weight I put on while sitting on the deck and doing nothing for 2 months............and we go to spend the weekend going from winery to winery buying wine!!  Like that was a good idea!


Halloween has come and gone and Jim decided he needed to carve a pumpkin this year............






I have been doing a bit of quilting.  I am making a baby quilt for Vincia ( who got married a couple of years ago and I made the African Wedding quilt for - I will see if I can find a link for that.)  Here is the link -- African wedding quilt




Vincia gave me a Winnie the Pooh receiving blanket when she gave me the fabric she wanted in the wedding quilt.  So she phoned a few weeks ago to say she is expecting - so I can take a hint :)  It was hard to find fabric to match the colours in the receiving blanket but I found the green polka dot fabric in Armstrong BC on our little trip in October.  I have a plan to put a small narrow light yellow border between the quilt and the green border.  I had saved a picture a couple of years ago of a split nine patch with Winnie the Pooh fabric - this quilt is pretty much the same as the picture I had saved at the colours in the fabric are the same.  Vincia loves the original Winnie the Pooh - not the Disney Winnie the Pooh - I am not sure where she found the receiving blanket - I hope I have turned her little receiving blanket into a quilt she will be happy with in the end. 

I am off to a quilting retreat next weekend so I can finish the baby quilt and do a few more of the many Civil war blocks I am working on at the present!

But I am still alive :))

A (sewing) Room with a View

This is my favourite picture this week – although I am sure it is not Jim’s!  He decided he was going to make Thai prawn and salmon soup one day  after work this week and what a mess the kitchen was by the time he was finished!  I don’t think we ate dinner until 8:30 PM.  The soup was wonderful!  Jim is very devoted to get me through this darn broken ankle and he is doing a great job of it – although I think the soup was just a bit too much – even he admitted to that by about 7:45 PM.

I have been able to get out to a few of my usual stitching activities  thanks to quilting friends coming out to get me and Andrew driving out - in my car – which  he has gone off with – since I can’t drive you know…………no point in it just sitting there…

This weekend Jim asked if I was able to do all the quilting I had wanted while I was up on the deck.  I said that I wished I could work on the Barbara Brackman Civil War Block of the week but because my sewing room was downstairs and the patterns were all on the computer –which is on the deck it was something I just couldn’t do. 

 

So – off Jim went to Costco and bought a small table for $30……

 

Here is my new little sewing space –on the deck – on one condition  he says – once I can walk it has to go back downstairs.  I think he figured he had better make that condition because I think I would rather stay up here. 

 

The view from the ironing board!  I can sit on my rolling office chair and sew on the little featherweight and then easily iron.  It is a great set up. 

My ankle is getting much better – I could not have done this two weeks ago – it still would hurt if I had my foot down for any length of time but now the swelling is really going down and it hardly hurts at all. 

I have already completed a couple more since these pictures – I have 12/16 blocks completed.  I have also completed on Dear Jane block.

 

And just to finish off ----- the soup………..

I have a bunch of pictures of my ankle…………………..Nahhh

A little video demontration

It has been quite the event to post this video!  But since I am NOT doing much else I persevered and I think I might finally have done it!  I took this video with my IPhone gripped in one hand as I held the crutches as well. 
I shot this video the other afternoon – just to entertain myself mostly.  The Bed, Bath and Beyond bag at the bottom of the stairs is a bag of laundry I am working to getting to the laundry room – just to clarify.
I continue to spend most of the day on the deck – but at least now the sun is shining – it might actually get warm this weekend! 
Believe it or not I am actually planning to go to the big Quilt show in Tacoma next weekend – my fabulous quilting peeps have organized a FART ( Fabric Acquisition Road Trip) and the big APNQ show ( which is now called something different) is in Tacoma instead of Seattle this year.  My friend Dianne has found a wheelchair rental for me – and has volunteered to be my pusher – who can resist a personal pusher??  I have had this trip planned for months so I hope I don’t have too many problems with my mobility down there – but I sure could use an outing!!
I have been working on my Wool BOM and I have almost finished Block 11 of 16 and I have also started another Dear Jane block – FINALLY ---YAY for me!!
It seems there was also a problem with my comment section on my blog so I have changed settings and we will see how it is working now.

Fairy quilt and Grandbabies

You would think I would be blogging every day now that I am incarcerated here on my deck with nothing to do but drink coffee and quilt! 

I have been going like crazy on my Wool Applique project.  The weather has finally - hummmm - I don't want to say warmed up because it is still pretty mild but it isn't raining every day.  I am spending most days on the deck - looking out at the activities on the water and watching Netflix - right now I am watching "Damages" with Glenn Close and Ted Danson.

I am just uploading a few pictures from my phone and I don't think I had ever posted a picture of the quilt I made for Phoenix when it was completely finished.  Jim and I took the quilt with us when we went to Calgary in May - on  the Mother's Day weekend.  Of course I didn't take any pictures of it before I took it there so finally Jessica sent me a few pictures - as well as a couple of pictures of the kids in the yard this summer.  And I know I haven't posted pictures of the grandkids in a long time - as Anna had mentioned - so the pictures are for her :) 




Forest Fairy Quilt




I used the little squares that were on the panel for the corner blocks but I had to sew a little green border around each square to make them the right size for the sashing.  It took awhile to find the right border and sashing fabric and then I needed more of the dark green for the binding - so it took longer than I thought but I am very pleased with the final quilt.  Jessica says Phoenix really loves it.  And it is much larger than a crib quilt so it can lay nicely on her little bed - as she is no longer in a crib.


Phoenix - 18 months.




Hunter and Phoenix - this summer - Calgary Alberta - and see that sweaters are needed in Calgary in July!  What a summer.




Gosh they're cute!  If I don't say so myself :)

I have pictures on my camera of my finished Wool blocks - lets see how quickly I can get those posted.

Having a broken ankle does have a few bright moments. I received a wonderful visit and these fabulous flowers from my quilting friend Dianne ( double NN ).




I am starting to go a little stir crazy though. I went outside last night for a little exercise hop up the driveway - which is much steeper than I thought!! And coming back down was almost scary! Jim walked ahead of me just in case I lost control and ended up at the bottom smashed into the garage - sort of like the drywall - but that's another story.

But I am finding ways to entertain myself. My blog might benefit.

Finally a bit of summer has come to the west coast.





I have myself set up on the deck. I signed up for Netflix and I am working on my wool appliqué BOM from Creative Edge Quilt shop in North Van. Jim made a lovely BBQ Leg of lamb and Greek salad for dinner last night. It sounds like it's going to be panko breaded jumbo prawns tonight. Hopefully I don't gain a bunch of weight sitting around and enjoying Jim's cooking. Now he's going to put a keg of beer on tap!!

I have to say that what has happened in Norway is just heart breaking. My deepest sympathy to the whole country and all those parents who's lives will never be the same again.

Location:Seaview Pl,Lions Bay,Canada

The reason I started blogging........................

My mother was commenting today that I haven't been blogging lately!  I figured I had better do something about that!

It is a bit of an interesting story about how I started blogging.

It all started because in August of 2000 I fell on a little piece of uneven sidewalk in Edinburgh Scotland while on vacation with my mother and sister.  My sister had just left us to go back to work in Africa and my mum and I were off to do a bit of laundry.  I fell coming out of the laundromat and broke my right ankle.  Although - I didn't go to the hospital - or doctor, because I didn't really think it was broken.  It got pretty swollen and bruised but if I didn't move  it too much it didn't hurt too much and we carried on with our planned vacation.  Two week later when I got back to Canada I got my ankle X-rayed - because it really  had not improved at all - and it was broken!  So that began a year long process of a multitude of splints, casts and crutches - X-rays and CT scans - finally surgery and Physio.  

During that year - right leg mostly out of commission - I spent quite a bit of time on the computer - surfing the web - which was still fairly new at that time.  I was watching the Soap - Days of Our Lives - which is often stupid - and there was a message board that I would visit and read how other people thought it was stupid as well.

The woman who ran the message board - had an acquaintance - in Georgia - who was competing for the Next Food Network Star television show and asked us to vote for Hans online - which I did a few times -- quite a few as I didn't have much else to do!  Hans got on the show but I didn't even get to see the show in Canada - so that was too bad - all my voting and not able to watch the result.   I think he came in third.

Time had passed - I was back to work and we had moved and life carried on and I was still following the message board and keeping up with how Hans was doing with his career - I sort of felt I knew him a bit after all!!  Then Hans started a blog  - Hans was diagnosis with stomach cancer and was blogging about his experiences and treatments. Hans did really well with his surgery and treatment and is cancer free now.   I kept up with his blog - it was the old Live Journal format - then one day Hans switched to Blogspot and I was quite intrigued - and in checking out blogspot and seeing how easy it was to set up -  I decided to start my own blog.

Why am I remembering all this......................

On Monday while out on a hike with my neighbour and the dogs - I fell and broke my left ankle!



This time I went right to the hospital and had it x-rayed.  My cheeky mother says she hopes it's better in under two years!!  So - I've been kind of cranky lately!!



But on the sewing front - prior to the fall I had been puttering away on a few things........


I made a mug rug for one of my Quilting Peeps -





And she made a mug rug for me -----



She called it "Howe Sound Spring"  It is much like looking out at Howe Sound from our deck. 


And I have been working on the Barbara Brackman Civil War Block of the Week blocks. 



I am a few weeks behind but I have time on my hands to catch up now!  Although I am still very uncomfortable and I am finding I can only sit with my foot hanging down for a short time and then I have to elevate it again.

And I feel sorry for poor Jim who has been called to action quite a bit this year and is now back on kitchen duty - Like he says "you're lucky you have a husband who likes to cook"
I am lucky - but not happy!!

Pole Raising–Skidegate

This post will be heavy on pictures of some amazing Haida applique and spruce and cedar woven hats.  There were some many beautiful pieces of clothing that I couldn't put them all on the post.

Jim and I attended the pole raising in Skidegate when we were there.  It was the first Chief's pole to be raised in over 100 years in Skidegate.  There was a huge potlatch after the pole raising that we did not attend.  Although everyone is welcome to attend - we went in to the hall where it was being held and it was a very special event and it was going to be a very long night - they can go on until the wee hours of the morning and we had Jenny in the car.  It would have been amazing to see the dancing - but I am sure that would have been quite late in the night.

There was  probably a couple of hundred people at the pole raising.  The pole was being raised at the home of the new Chief.  Here is a link to a blog called   "Living on the Edge"  This blog as some wonderful pictures and more information about the chief and the traditions - well worth looking at.

Jim and I took a few pictures of the wonderful Haida clothing. 

























The cedar hats are made by the Haida people and the Otter pelts are used for many things - clothing and trim on the head bands.  When we were in Old Masset we stopped at a place where the woman in the centre was weaving the headband she is wearing and triming it with the Otter fur. 


Entire families dressed for the occasion.





This is the chief and his wife watching the pole go up.  The Haida people are either from the Eagle or Raven clan and Eagles must marry only Ravens - and Ravens only marry Eagles.  The chief is an Eagle and his wife is a Raven.




This is the blessing of the pole before it is raised.





A system of ropes and pulleys ( block and tackle) are used to raise the pole.






Everybody gets in and helps pull on the ropes.  There was an incident with a rope breaking and a member of the community that was watching got hit by a block and hurt - some broken ribs - but in the end he was okay - taken away in the ambulance and the work to raise the pole continues.



And here is the pole -- it is a beautiful pole -- an Eagle on top for the chief - the two bars on the very top signify the number of potlatches he has or will have hosted.