The Cutting Room 

The ironing Room 

North Van Outdoor School 

Sitting outside in the Sun

More Dear Jane Blocks

I have completed three more Dear Jane Blocks! I am enjoying doing them. I guess that's good since I have 260 or so left to do.

I am going off today to have a visit with someone I haven't seen in a long time. It will be nice to see her and get out of the house. I have been home all week with a cough and a sore chest from coughing - not really a cold but tired and sore. I still have been coughing a fair bit at night and I didn't work yesterday because of the cough. I hope getting out and about today will help me feel better because I have my quilt retreat this weekend and I have work to do. I plan on finishing the table runner for Jessica's wedding and put the binding on the big sampler quilt. I would like to finish both completely by Sunday. I think I need to start something new though - I have been buying a bit of bright, fun fabric lately - Jane Sassaman - and a few others and I think I need to do something fun with that fabric. Once the big sampler quilt is ready to go in the show I will start something new. I have been seeing some various quilts on different blogs that have inspired me.

Fat Eighths 

My first eBay purchase

I have purchased some fabric for my Dear Jane quilt on eBay. I have never bought anything on eBay before and it was surprisingly easy. Although I just did it yesterday so we will see how quickly it gets here and how smoothly the rest of the process goes. The mail seems to be very slow to our little village at the best of times. I still do not have the invitation for Jessica and Ben's wedding and she sent them out almost two weeks ago.

I had opened an eBay account quite a few months ago because Andrew wanted to try and buy some sort of music recording equipment on eBay. We were unsuccessful in our bid. Which in the end was good because the program he was interested in had some bits of hardware that would not have been able to be installed in the laptop computer he was going to be using.

I have been trying to find bits of Civil war reproduction fabric for this quilt and I thought --- why don't I do a search on eBay -- well surprise, surprise there is tons of fabric for sale on eBay. I tried to bid on some - a set of 17-12.5 inch squares that someone in Nevada I think was selling - but again my bid was unsuccessful. I didn't "win". I find that when people say - "I won this on eBay" I think of winning as getting it for free - but you really have to pay! Anyway I found someone that sell all kinds of fabric - fat quarters, yardage etc, nice looking pictures of fabric and she sell civil war fat quarters. I was looking for fat eighth's and so I sent her an email and asked if she also sold fat eighth's as I just needed small bits for the Dear Jane. She emailed me right back with a link to a nice looking bunch of fat eighth's that I could "buy it now" Thank goodness because my bidding skills are obviously lacking so far. So I bought it now! I am quite excited - she sent me back another email - it was all successful and she is mailing them off today.

We had a nice Easter dinner yesterday with Andrew and Anri and Eric. I never took any pictures. We had turkey. I was kind of hoping to have a nice leg of lamb but we couldn't find a leg of lamb anywhere on Saturday when we were out shopping. We went to about 5 different grocery stores. So turkey it was. Andrew was happy, he is not a big lamb fan. We used to have a nice roast dinner every Sunday when the kids were all younger and living at home. Lamb or beef usually. Lamb was my favorite - and then on Monday we would have Beef or Sheep dip or Beef stew or Lamb soup. All those foods we just don't make anymore just for the two of us. I really made a wonderful Lamb Soup. Anyway I seem to be wandering off at the fingers here. Happy Easter.

Magnolia Tree in Bloom

The Magnolia tree in our yard is blooming this year. This is the first year since we moved here that the tree has bloomed. I am not sure why it has decided to bloom after four years of doing nothing but it is so lovely to see it finally blooming away.

Everything is starting to come up so early this year. The hosta's are already well and truly coming up - way ahead of anything from the past years.

Jim and I are planning a road trip to the Grande Canyon the first two weeks of May. We are going to drive down through Washington - the I-5 until Portland or so and then drive down the Oregon Coast - into California and along the coast to San Franciso, Carmel, San Simeon to see the Hearst Castle and then east to Los Vegas and the Grande Canyon and Phoenix. I have never been to the Grande Canyon and I am really looking forward to the trip.

I hope to find a few quilt shops along the way. I don't want to have to go driving out of the way to find quilt shops but it would be nice to come across a few in our travels. I will try to do a bit of pre-trip research. I am still looking for the Civil War Repro fabric for my Dear Jane quilt. I have 8 blocks done now. I may take a few blocks to hand stitch up along the trip.

Red Roses

My Dear Husband went off this afternoon to get gas for the BBQ and came back with a lovely bunch of Red Roses for me. Such a nice surprise.

It was cloudy and mild today but didn't really rain so I did get out a bit today in the garden. Jessica must have phoned about 4 times this morning about various wedding things. She sounds like she might be getting a bit stressed out with wedding details. She certainly seems to be planning a fancy wedding. She has ordered flowers, a limo, bought her wedding dress. One day I will post a picture of her dress - she sent me a few pictures when she tried it on. It is a lovely dress. She will be 28 this August so I guess that she is ready to get married. Ben is a really nice guy and I think a very good match for her. Hopefully the wedding goes just as Jessica has planned.

Six Dear Jane Blocks

My first 6 blocks are completed. I am trying not to get too obsessed with making them. I have this little pile of stuff in the TV room sitting on the table and on the floor. It has not moved for a month or so. We will just pick it up, vacumn and put it all back. It is all the supplies needed for my Dear Jane - three different pairs of sissors, paper, books, thread, patterns, fabric, etc. - looks like a little junk heap. All the required things needed to make the blocks. I also have the Mariners Compass quilt sitting on the floor because I can quilt a row or two on that when I am not working on the Dear Jane.

I have been sort of stuck at home for the part of this week. I had to take my car in to spend two days at the Volkswagon dealer getting "decarbonized" Seems that the diesel fuel was starting to clog up the car. Andrew came out and picked me up yesterday to get my car. Nice to have a bit of a visit with him. Most of the time he is staying at his girlfriends house - Although he insists that he has not moved out. I kind of miss my visits with him. I do try to get a lunch or a coffee visit in once a week or so. He has been working as a ski lift operator at a local ski hill for the past couple of months. He figures he is the first ski lift operator in the civilized world that does NOT ski! He did get a couple of free rentals and tried a bit of snowboarding though. And he did phone home afterwards to reassure me that he hadn't broken anything.

So I did do quite abit of quilting instead of going out into the garden which was what I really should have been doing. And it was supposed to rain today so I went off and bought myself some new gardening tools -- instead it never rained and I still never went out into the garden. We have a fair amount of work to do before Jessica and Ben's June wedding. So now that I have new gardening tools and if it does not rain tomorrow I WILL go out and do some work in the garden tomorrow. But now there is a hockey game to watch and I think I can do another Dear Jane block tonight.

Flowers and Pheasants

We had not seen or heard from Phineaus for 5 days. I last heard him early Monday morning before going to work so I threw some corn out for him because I knew he would be by early and we would be gone all day. He has been coming to our yard for almost 2 years now at least 2-3 times a day for food and to just sit in the corner of the garden and rest. 5 days is a long time to not see or hear him crowing off in the distance at least. He returned early Saturday morning, bright and early crowing and looking for corn. One day I guess he will go away and not return and we will miss seeing him. We just don't know when that will happen. Not sure how long pheasants live - we did a bit of internet research but the life span of a wild pheasant doesn't seem to be well known. Mostly it seems they don't live more that 2 years or so because of predators and hunters. We think he has to be over 3 years old because this is his 3rd spring in our neighbourhood.
The early spring flowers are blooming. This is a camellia in our front yard.
Daffodils in the back garden.
A large Rhododendron bush also in the front yard.

Time to get out in the Garden and start the spring time weeding chores. I saw that some of the hosta's are already starting to poke out through the soil. I love the early spring when things are growing and green and the ground is wet and easy to dig. All the plants are budding and blooming. The weeds are easy to pull up. By the end of July I have lost all interest in the garden and find it hard to get out and weed. We are going to need to spend a bit more time in the garden this spring because of Jessica's wedding. I guess the visitors from Alberta will be coming to the house and we need to get the garden a bit more presentable than it is now.

Three more Dear Jane blocks

This block had that little tiny piece in the centre that I tried to sew on straight and had a heck of a time. I pulled it off once and then the second time I left it - until my husband commented that it was funny looking! So I then decided to reverse applique the centre piece. That worked much better --- then in all my wisdom I thought I would look up the tips and hints on the Dear Jane CD - guess what the tip was - reverse applique the entire block!!!! From now on I will read the tips and hints for the block before I start the block.


These Dear Jane blocks were all applique blocks. I thought I should go back to a bit of an easier block - that first block had such tiny pieces to stitch together by hand, and it had been years and years since I did any hand stitching of seams. I completely forgot how it do it at first. I have a couple more blocks cut out and ready to go.

I am completely finished hand quilting my great big sampler quilt. I just have the binding to put now. So it should be ready for our guild quilt show in September.

A walk through my neighbourhood

A Couple of weeks ago I took my camera with me as I went for a walk through my neighbourhood. These are some of the pictures in no particular order. This is a view of the front of my house from the street below. All you can really see is a big hedge and the chimney.
This is the south end of the road below my house. To the left are the houses that are on the water. To the right is a green belt and the railway tracks. This is a view from the beach access looking south towards Boyer Island. There are only a few cabins and houses on Boyer Island. Jim and I have kayaked around Boyer Island. Lots of marine life around there.
This is a view from the same spot looking more west towards Bowen Island. Quite a few people live on Bowen Island. It has a large artistic community - authors, artist, quilters etc.
This is also from the same spot - looking north up Howe Sound, towards Gambier Island and the mainland.
This is a view of the backside of "The Lions" from the road. There is quite a bit of snow up there this year. It was a little late in coming but the mountains have a lot of snow this year.
This is the north end of the road. This is a small bridge that crosses Harvey Creek
This is a view looking north up Howe Sound from the end of the road. I am standing on another bridge just a bit further up the road from the first bridge.
This is the small beach and park at the south end of the road. Boyer Island is in the distance
This is the street that I live on. Just at the bend in the road to the left.
Home again, Home again. The drive that goes down to my house. We live in such a pretty little neighbourhood and when the sun is out and the sky is brilliant blue I just had to take a few pictures.

Pam's bags

I have been making bags this year. I got the pattern this little make-up bag this fall and have made about 20 of them so far. I gave a bunch away at Christmas time. I thought I would post a bunch of pictures of the bags and then try to rearrange the pictures - thanks to Patty from Texas who offered some advice. So this is a bit of a test post.

The bags are easily made with two fat quarters - one full fat quarter is needed and then the inside lining is just 1/2 of a fat quarter and then there is a small inside pocket and a ribbon to close. I think it's just a great little pattern to use up some of those fat quarter packages of mine.

This next bag is a pattern I found in one of the Better Homes and Gardens quilting projects magazines quite a few years ago. I really like this bag. It has four little pockets on the outside and the inside is quite big - again a make-up travel bag. It is quite complicated to make! At least for me, and requires a bit more fabric than a couple of fat quarters. But I really like this bag. I have made a couple of these over the years. The very first one I made was for Andrew's girlfriend Emma ( when he was 15) she was going away to India for a holiday with her parents and I made her a bag to take with her.

These next bags are again using up my fat quarter collection. It was a pattern that came with the fat quarter fabrics on the left - the purple/yellow/green fabrics. I discovered that if I was frugal with my cutting I could make two bags with one package of fat quarters. Then I also had the watermelon fabric (again a fat quarter package) and thought it would be great for a bag as well. They are lined and also have fusible batting in them. I made four of these bags - gave away two so far. I still have a couple of packages that I think would be great for these bags - some cat prints and chicken prints. These bags are about 19" wide and 26" long.

Now I have to go off to the quilt store and get some applique pins for this Dear Jane - I have never bought applique pins - just used my regular yellow headed ones - but these pieces are so tiny that I need smaller pins.

And a big thank you to Patty as I moved these pictures around and put them just where I wanted!

Holy Hannah Batman

For some reason this Blog has insisted - no matter how many times I tried to repost these photos - to show the back of the block first!

Here it is - my very first Dear Jane block - I think this little block took me about 5 hours to make. I am hoping that I improve with time and as I get more blocks done. If it takes me on average (lets say I get better at this and get the time down to 3 hours) 225 blocks x 3 = 675 hours! I am posting both the back and the front of the block. The back is a bit of a mess. There is a link on the Dear Jane CD to a website for Veronique Crolus who has photos of all the blocks - front and back. I will try to aspire to have my backs look more like Veronique. I think I can - I think I can!!!

I am stitching each block by hand. I think the foundation piecing method would work better but I am left handed and I have never been able to grasp the backwards/forwards/left/right concept very well. I can not cut out a piece of fabric to sew on the backside of a piece of paper and then have it flip right side over and fit the space. For this I blame my mother. She was also left-handed but taught me how to do some things with my right hand and others with my left. Every time I need to learn a new task - first I have to decide which hand I will use to do the new task. Some things I can actually do with either hand equally well -- start an IV or insert a catheter. (that impresses people) But for some reason the concept of foundation piecing is beyond my ability.

There was one quilt I did foundation piecing on - The Mariners compass by M'Liss Rae Hawley - the centre piece was foundation piecing and this is when I discovered my impairment. A considerable amount of fabric was needed to correct my backwardness. So I will sew each Dear Jane block by hand - just like Jane did!

Dear Jane

I got my Dear Jane book and CD in the mail yesterday. I started the first block today - A-1 - I'm not sure exactly what I am doing!!! I printed off a pattern on freezer paper and I thought I would hand piece the blocks with the freezer paper on the wrong side of the fabric and use the edge of the freezer paper as a sewing line -- NOT! So I have put a sewing line along the edge of the freezer paper and removed the paper. Boy these pieces are tiny! I think I will be 80 by the time I finish this. It has taken me most of the day to half finish the first block - although I am getting better with the hand stitching. I spent the other half of the day making shrimp tarts for some meeting Jim (DH) has at work tomorrow. So between the Dear Jane and Shrimp tarts I never even stepped foot outside - except to feed the Pheasant (Phineaus). Better get back to the Dear Jane - hopefully I can finish this block tonight while I watch American Idol! (You know the old saying - Simple things for Simple People) Although the Canucks are playing and winning right now so that is priority.

Heart table runner

Here is the Heart table runner that I am going to finish up for Jessica and Ben's wedding in June. I am quite surprised at how much of a formal wedding she is planning. I never thought of her as being one to go for a traditional wedding. She is busy planning place cards and table settings and little gift baskets for the guests. Her theme is red and white -- strawberries and hearts, red carpets and white archways with flowers. I was going through my fat quarter packages looking for fabric for the Dear Jane quilt and I came across this package from Feb 2005. It had a little pattern included for this table runner so I decided to make it up for the wedding. It could go on the head table or even on the food table. Hopefully she likes it and it goes with everything else she's planning. It's more of a country looking table runner -- not terribly formal looking. Her wedding cake is going to be three tiers of white iced cupcakes with strawberries cut in the shape of hearts. So this goes with the theme. Her and Ben are busy doing the invitations and they sound really lovely. Ben is such a nice, caring, hardworking, thoughtful person. I can see he really loves Jessica. They live in Calgary - so I don't get to see them very often. She is doing most of the planning for the decorations from Calgary and we are planning the dinner from here. It won't be too big of a wedding 50-60 people I think. It is supposed to be an outdoor wedding so I am hoping the weather is good for the June. The reception will be in the little village hall so I guess if it rains we will move the wedding - the arch- the red carpet (Cardinal red --Pope ready red!) into the little hall. This is my only daughter (two sons follow) so I am starting to get a little anxious about the wedding but ----- I think as the time gets closer I will get a little more anxious and feel a little more stressed. Right now I'm not quite there yet.

The Great Blue Heron

This is a Great Blue Heron that I started working on a couple of years ago. It was another workshop! Seems alot of my unfinished projects are from workshops. I need to add some yellow and red parts to it, finish the eye and then a small rock or grass for it to be standing on. It is about 18"x 24" It is applique and reverse applique. I would like to finish it - I really like the pattern and I think it will look really good once it is all quilted up.

This photo is an actual Great Blue Heron that was sitting on the dock on the water very close to our house. It is probabley about 150 feet from the house and I put the digital camera up to the eye piece of our little spotting scope that is on the deck. I was quite surprised how well the shot turned out. When we bought the telescope we were told that the camera could take pictures through the scope but I had never tried it. Not bad.

I had to work the first three days of the week and then my sister came for a short visit on her way through to Hawaii. As a result I have done very little quilting this week. I started the table runner for Jessica's wedding table. What a pain it has been with the Wonder Under -- Steam a Seam. I couldn't for the life of me get the Wonder Under paper off the fabric without pulling off all the sticky stuff. I took the stuff back to the store and traded it for Steam a Seam. The instructions for that stuff are confusing, there are many different kinds - I bought light and regular. I tried the light and it didn't work like the instructions said -- and when I did get it to stick I am now finding the hearts are coming off the fabric. So I am not happy with that stuff either. Fortunately it is just five hearts. I am hand stitching the blanket stitch around the hearts now and hopefully everything sticks together. I should have just appliqued the hearts on instead of the wonder under or steam a seam. I just hope that when it gets washed that the hearts don't all fray and fall off. I suppose it will be okay for the wedding but then I will give it to Jessica to use at home and hopefully it holds up for her. I will post a picture of it once I get it all together.

Snow!
Look what we woke up to this morning! Quite the surprise.

It is rare to get snow out here so it is always a bit of a shock to look outside first thing in the morning and see this much snow. We were house bound for the first part of the morning but the weather has warmed up and the snow is pretty much gone now -- by early afternoon.

Jim has had to go off and pick up Andrew to take his car in to get repaired. Some brace/Strut thing under the car has broken and is dragging on the ground. Andrew was unable to get up to the ski hill to work this morning because of the snow - even his girlfriends mother's SVU couldn't make the hill. I was hoping to work on the table runner for Jessica's wedding - it is quite cute - and bought some Wonder Under last week to use on the little red hearts in the centre and the stuff is not working - at all! Very disappointing so I will have to take it back and maybe I will try the Steam a Seam stuff instead. I have three hearts on already (total of 5) but I ran out of old Wonder Under. I will just work on the big sampler I guess. I am still waiting for the Dear Jane book. I am looking forward to starting that!