Sew the two strips together on the diagonal -- just like when joining all the strips together for the binding -- to get that diagonal seam that will lays flat.



Trim off the excess fabric to have just a 1/4 inch seam allowance.


And the binding finished off the exact right length and lays nice and flat, with a perfect diagonal seam -- just like the rest of them. You can't even tell which seam it is from the rest of the seams.
Now -- that just couldn't be simpler. I am so happy with this method. Probably everybody - or should I say - every Quilter - already knows this method and I am just the last to discover it. But in my various books - etc I have never seen this method, and it is by far the easiest way to join the ends I have ever done.

The baby eagles in Sannich

It is just amazing to have watched these eaglets grow from this little falling over babies into full size birds and fly from the nest. They were born sometime in mid April - the exact date is not know. This picture was taken about May 15 - so they would have been about 4 weeks old at the time.


Here is a picture of them being fed by both Mum and Dad.


As they got older they would rush the parents when they came to the nest. The parents would bring the food in their talons. Sometimes if they came empty handed or is that empty talonned - the eagles would rush and grab onto there feet and pull. As you can see them doing in this picture. This picture was taken sometime in June I think. The first Eaglet (Victoria) fledged from the nest around July 12th. The smaller male eaglet stayed in the nest for 2 more weeks. He was smaller and younger than the female, and as a very small eaglet the old, bigger bird would take most of the food until the male got a bit stronger (after a great salmon feed) and could fight back a bit.

And here is what Sydney the male looks like now. I was watching the live feed the day he decided to fledge the nest. It was interesting to see as he would flap his wings - look like he was going to go and then hesitate, walk about a bit - come back to the edge of the nest and think about it some more. It took him about 5 minutes of back and forth to finally decide to take the leap. Boy can you imagine what a leap it would be! A bit of a leap of faith I think.
He has been flying for about 2 weeks now but he is still coming back to the nest and bringing food to eat in the nest, and resting in the nest for long periods as well.

So needless to say I have been spending too much time watching the eagles and not enough time quilting. I have been busy the last couple of days though. I have finished hand quilting my fish quilt and I am now putting the binding on it. I also have started back to work on the table runner that I started the beginning of June. I have also been working a bit on my Blogger site and with great thanks to Patti from Vancouver Washington I have been able to add some stuff to my sidebar!! I'm pretty excited about my new knowlege of computer code (very limited really). But I must get back to quilting.

Scrap or Stash Quilts

I have decided to join in on the Sunshine Quilts blog for the Scrap/Stash quilt project. I have never really made a scrap quilt, I alway seem to spend hours trying to match fabrics and then always need to go off shopping because I don't have just the right colour of green.

This is a workshop I took a few years ago where the fabrics were all cut into different widths of strips -- from about 1" to 2 1/2" and then the strips were used to make all the little blocks. This was definately scrappy and fun to do. In the end I just put a plain border around it although it was supposed to have more scrappy blocks in the border as well. I thought enough was enough - I would never get it finished if I had to make more scrappy blocks.

I have made a few quilts out of fabric collections -- like yellow/blue and animal prints, 30's fabrics and now the Dear Jane - but they are not really scrappy or stash quilts because I spent alot of time shopping for the fabrics. Although they do have lots of different fabric in them. I have quite an assortment of small pieces left over from these various quilts and those are the pieces that I will use for this scrap quilt. I haven't gone through and picked out the fabrics like JudyL is doing - I will just start grabbing fabric from my piles I think. I really would like it to be truly scrappy - full of bits of all the different quilts I have done.

I again tried to do a little computer code writing for the pictures in the side bar. I am getting closer - I think I may actually figure it out at some point. Boy - it is alot of work and in the end I got a "something" in the side bar -- wrong spot and it wasn't a picture but it was a link to the picture but it didn't work. At this point I just want to conquer this thing more than put pictures in the side bar!!!

Technology and me

I think every post needs a picture. This is an eagle that was sitting on the dock on the water. I took this picture by putting my digital camera up to the eye piece of our spotting scope on our deck.

I have been watching the eagle web cam from Sannich and watching the baby eagles grow from these tiny little balls of fluff to full sized birds and then take flight. It was quite amazing to watch them grow and fledge.

Maybe a lot of my blogging experience is like a baby eagle growing and fledging. It has been interesting to start blogging ( I became a blogger because of a chef named Hans ) I had no idea about blogging when I decided to start and then discovered all these wonderful quilters who were showing what they were doing with their quilting. Now I am trying to figure out more and more in the blogging world. I then heard about Bloglines ---- my goodness that took me most of one day - I thought I needed to know some kind of OMPL or was it OPML code -- I quickly contacted Eric ( the family computer expert) who reassured me that I should be able to do it ( although he wasn't really sure what IT was) without writing computer code. He was right, with some struggle I set up a bloglines account. Seems like a nifty idea.

Now - Cathy in Ireland decides to give instructions on how to post pictures down the side of the blog ( aka -- "sidebar" in computer talk) well I decided I should try to do that!! Completely beyond my comprehension apparently ---it looks so good on her blog, all the quilts lined up down the side of the blog. I really want to do it.

I will have to talk to Eric again.

Salsa's and Ceasars

The tomatoes are starting to ripen rapidly in bunches - so Jim made a very large Salsa today - like we need 2 litres of Salsa. He does make good salsa though, and with the fresh from the deck tomatoes and lots of peppers who can say no? I will probably end up taking a bunch with me to work. It is not the salsa that the problem it is those darn taco chips.

My sister brought a bottle of Russian vodka when she came down for the wedding - I was so busy I never got a chance to find out where she got the vodka or why she brought it. Then after the wedding she went back to work and I still haven't really found out much about the vodka - except I have had a few Ceasars since I got back from holiday and I am enjoying the great Russian vodka. Real Russian vodka with only Russian on the label - it is quite nice and very smooth.

So tonight the weather is much cooler and I sit out on the deck finishing the hand quilting on my fish quilt and enjoying a Ceasar as Jim is busy making buckets of salsa.

Back to work - and it's hot out here

Well -- first thing is the poor fish died. I was away for two weeks and he was fine when I left!! Poor Jim, he cleaned his water the day before I got back and the fish was fine for a few days and then Saturday morning he was dead. I am surprised he lived as long as he did really. Poor little guy. Not much of a life living in a Margarita jug on a dining room table. ( The fish was a table centre piece at a wedding last September -- that Andrew had to bring home, he said Anri had to have the fish -- Anri didn't want the fish and so it made it's home on the dining room table in a glass Margarita pitcher)


So -- This is a "before and after" picture of the bag of quilting I took on my road trip to Calgary. Never even took a stitch!! The weather was too nice to sit with a quilt. I must now get busy on the last little bit of the fish quilt and have it ready for the quilt show in September. Just the binding and a little quilting - so it shouldn't be a problem.



I did buy some fabric though - of course. I was at a little quilt shop in Cranbrook and I found this rack of pre-cut templates that come with a bunch of patteren that you can make with them. I had never seen them before - There were about 10 different sets. I bought a set that makes 45 degree diamonds (Set E) - it has 7 pieces in the set and patterns to make a bunch of 12" blocks. It will be nice for scrap quilts - using the "Bonnie Hunter" methods!! The templates are made by Marti Michell. I don't know why I have never seen them before.

Another project to put on my to do list.

The Calgary Stampede

I have returned from my travels. For the first time in my life I went to the Calgary Stampede. It was great fun. I don't know why I have never been before - sometimes living only a few miles away! We went there on "Seniors Day" and there were quite a few seniors in attendance. We saw the "Super Dogs" and "Bailey the Buffalo" I didn't go on any of the rides, but we did enjoy the a nice little beer joint in the middle of the miniature donkey stalls!! The was a very small quilt exhibit - only 30 - 40 quilts - so that was a bit disappointing. I didn't take any pictures of the quilts. Jessica - who lives in Calgary spent the day at the Stampede with us ( me and my sister and various in-laws of her's) and Jessica was interested in some of the quilts and lamenting that she doesn't have a sewing machine. Since I have extra's ( if you can imagine!) so I will tune up an old Singer that is a nice little machine and send it down for her. Maybe she will become a quilter!





My next stop -- was the "Old Timers Accordian Festival" in Kimberley B.C. That was great fun!! I had no idea - and the "Old Timers" take their accordian playing quite seriously - It is a ten day event and the chairs are set up in the Platzal and they dance on the street. I did not go there because I am an "old timer" but because my father's cousin from Yorkton, Sask was up enjoying the accordian festival. There was a 28 year old blind girl from Australia who has "fingers like the wings of a butterfly" so I am told! She was very good and she play a song with a young man from Seattle Washington that was sort of bluesy and he sang - which was quite good!

There is a nice little quilt shop in the Platzal and I bought a nice little package of jewel tone fat quarters. I will have to post my purchases in the next post.

Packing to go to Calgary

I am busy trying to pack up all of Jessica and Ben's wedding presents to take them to Calgary tomorrow morning....... so I am not very organized here. I will also take a bit of a drive back through the East Kootenays and the Okanagon -- pick up some fruit and maybe some wine.

I am going to take my Dresdan plate quilt to do a few stitches on - it is the quilt I like to drag around the countryside when I travel and then never take out and do anything with it. Maybe this time! I am making 20 blocks altogether - some are stitched on the background fabric. All of the Dresdan plates are together - just the rest need to be stitched onto the background fabric.

I am going to spend a week just relaxing at my parents house - so needed!! I am still tired from the wedding -- I know - complain, complain. I will enjoy the break though. I will check in the various blogs I love to read and keep up on the Saanich Eaglets. They are close to fledging.

My first swim -aka "float" of the year

I went out for a swim tonight. It was a lovely evening for a "float". Jim had already been out a few times since the hot weather came, but with the wedding and guests etc I never got out until tonight. These are pictures from the spring - but to show where we swim - we start at the little beach and swim along the shore - the tide can be a bit tricky and it can carry you out and then you have to swim back against it - or you swim hard against it going out and then it just carries you home quickly. We always try to hit the tides that carry you home! Much easier. Tonight we enjoyed the company of a seal. Right at the beginning of the swim this little seal popped up about 5 feet away from us, and it stayed right beside us - just popping up every few minutes for the entire time we were out there. It was a little unnerving at first, I was worried it might bite my feet or something, and it would just pop up all of a sudden quite close - a bit startling. It was a nice swim and I am out of shape and need to get more exercise.

I have registered this wall hanging - along with my sampler quilt for my quilt guild's quilt show in Sept. I now must finish quilting it. I decided to name the big sampler quilt - The Journey - talk about a difficult thing to decide - what to name a quilt. It was supposed to be registered by June 30th at the latest - I registered it June 29th - because I needed to name the darn thing. I hate naming quilts - but they wanted them named. So I thought "The Journey" was a good name for it. As the sampler quilt was the beginning of my quilt journey.
This quilt is from a workshop given by Pam Godderiss. "Newfangled" the fish is an actual fish printed on a shirt that was hanging unworn for years in my husbands closet. The name for this one is "Sebastes caurinus" Since my husband is a fish biologist - I think the fish is some kind of rock fish.

Tasha

In 1996 Tasha came to our home. We adopted her when she was 2 1/2. She had a few "issues" She suffered a bit from separation anxiety and she was the "dog who loved too much" But she was a wonderful friend.

She loved to get the mail - everyday she would sit at the window and wait for the mailman. As he approached she would start a frenzy of barking and then rip at the mail as it was being put through the mail slot. Andrew's social insurance card will forever have her teeth holes in it.

When we moved to our small village I was so happy to find the mail was going to be sent off to a mail box - no more mailman. Instead she set off into the same frenzy of barking everytime we opened or closed the automatic garage door!!!

Jim insisted that I make a quilt for Tasha. I am a bit of a slow quilter (as you can tell from the 13 years it took for my sampler quilt) I had made one quilt for Jessica and was just starting a quilt for Andrew and I felt I should make the kids quilts before I started on one for the dog. "No" said Jim "you need to make Tasha's quilt first, she won't be around as long as you think" So I made Tasha a little red flannel quilt with ducks. She loved her quilt. We would take it to Tofino where she would lay right in the middle of the living room in front of the fire. Right in the middle of everything - just where a dog should be.
She was such a pretty girl. And she looked at you with these eyes that just said "I love you Pam"
Tasha just wanted to be with us. Where ever the whole family was together. Her favorite place was when we were together on holiday in Tofino. A holiday made just for a dog --- walking on the beach, eating, sleeping and all together in the pack.
In January of 2005 Tasha started to cough. She was 11 years old. Her heart was failing. We started her on a bunch of different medications, she had a Echocardiogram and with the help of the heart medication and Lasix to decrease the fluid in her lungs she got better. But the doctor said we couldn't cure the heart failure and June 28, 2005 she died. We still miss the silly dog. We still have her basket sitting in the TV room, with her quilt and her toys. We took her ashes to her favorite place, Chesterman's Beach.

Jessica and Ben Fraser

This is a lovely picture of Jessica and Jim walking down the "aisle" - actually the red carpet. The wedding was in a little park and it was a beautiful sunny day.
These are a couple of pictures of the bride and groom.
The cupcakes displayed very nicely. I still thought they were a bit on the dry side but Jessica said not to worry, everyone would have had a few drinks by the time the cupcakes were eaten and they would love them.
I can see why wedding planners have become popular. Talk about a lot of work. We had a few problems with some of the small details. I had talked to Jessica about music for the walk down the aisle but she never really got around to deciding what she wanted and there was no music. My nephew, Carter, the nine year old ring bearer was standing at the front when Jessica was walking down the aisle - humming "Here comes the Bride" I should have asked him to hum a little louder. So many little details - but in the end the small details are forgotten and it was a wonderful dinner of fresh Spring Salmon BBQ'd by Jim with Mango Salsa, - a wonderful array of salads and fresh vegetables. A salad dressing to die for - thanks to Hans - a fellow blogger and a wonderful chef - Fig infused white basalmic vinegar with white truffel oil. The guest ate all of the food and drank all of Jim's beer and danced up a storm. The Bride and Groom left in the limo at midnight and spent the night in a wonderful hotel downtown. They have now gone off for a week of camping before heading back to work.

And I am exhausted. I think it will be a relief just to go back to work.

The cupcakes that didn't turn out.

Here are the cupcakes. I wasn't sure if I would even post a picture of them. They did not turn out they way I wanted. I was having a bit of a trauma with the Icing. I wanted to pipe the icing on with one of those icing bags -- I couldn't get the icing the right consistancy and the tip was too small and it looked terrible. So I scraped the icing off -- added more icing sugar and tried again -- still looked terrible and the icing was stiff and too sweet, so in the end I just spread it on and then added the strawberries. Thank goodness I am not the one that will be putting on the icing in the end. Anyway - the cupcakes taste pretty good - I didn't think they tasted as good as the test batch I made three weeks ago -- but then that could have been the frustration with the icing.
This is the picture of what they should look like. And I added an awful lot of red food colouring and they still didn't look as red as I wanted.
This is the picture that Jessica sent me to begin this cupcake instead of wedding cake thing. I think once they are all on the lovely silver tray with all the strawberries and the gold foil they will look much better than sitting on a plate in the kitchen.

I iced about 12 of the 96 that I made (as a test batch) then I wandered around the neighbourhood giving them away. The teenage boys will eat anything!!! I will take some pictures of the final display on Wedding day.

The bride and groom have arrived and it has been very, very hectic here, to say the least. And the World Cup needs watching and Edmonton lost to Carolina last night. 

Didn't make cupcakes today

I forgot to buy butter yesterday so I couldn't make the cupcakes this morning as planned so I decided to make up a batch of "Gruel" for the birds! Gruel is our word for this mixture of wheatberries, pasta, rice, millet and whatever else grabs me when I am wandering through the bulk section at Whole Foods. When you cook up a little of this and a little of that you end up with a whole lot of Gruel. Now I need to drive off to Safeway and pick up about 100 little snack ziplock baggies to put the stuff into and then I freeze it. The birds just love the stuff - when I give it to them I add some frozen corn and peas that have been thawed and warmed up.
This is Abby - she is a three year old female we got from the SPCA.
This is Zoe - who is about 6 years old and we have known her since she was an egg! My daughter had a couple of cockatiels that some room mate just left with her and they had a couple of batches of eggs -- Zoe was baby #2 from the first batch of eggs. When my daughter moved away a woman who lived near her and used to raise cockatiels took the two parents and the second batch of babies -- and we ended up with Zoe. That in itself is a long story -- kids who want pets and parent who end up with pets -- and vet bills! So she is now my little bird.

So -- I am off to get some butter!! (and baggies). I think I will also buy some stuff - icing sugar etc. to make a test batch of icing. I bought some icing bags and tips yesterday to put the icing on the cupcakes -- rather than just slathering icing on with a knife. I hope it looks nice when it is all finished. And taste good!! 

Dear Jane -again

When we went off to see the Quilt of Belonging we stopped into a nice little quilt store in Surrey, Wineberries. It is a store that I haven't been to in a long time because it is about an hour or longer away from my house. Well -- I was quite excited to see they have quite a Dear Jane section. The woman who sells the Bernina sewing machines is a "Janiac" she brought out her workbook for us to look through. I never got her name but I think she also posts on the Dear Jane digest. So of course I bought some fabric - I also bought the two rulers - something I was thinking of getting anyway.
So I have started another Dear Jane Block. This one has been a bit of a challenge with the curved pieces. I use the freezer paper and iron it onto the fabric and then mark a sewing and cutting line and then sew them together by hand.

I should be doing wedding stuff! I have a huge list of things to do - but I am slowly working my way down the list. Jim keeps saying -"I don't recall you being so anxious about our wedding" I don't recall that either. I'm not sure why - but there seems to be alot more details with this wedding of Ben and Jessica. Maybe because I am the mother of the bride and I just want her to have everything work out the way she want it but yet I am not planning the actual way it should be?? Not sure. Plus they live in Calgary and are planning most of it from a distance and then they will arrive next week -- and it is only 2 weeks away now.

She had decided she wanted to have a three tiered tray of cupcakes instead of a wedding cake - so I am going to make Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing and a strawberry cut in half to look like a heart. Actually - I am making the cupcakes this week and then I will freeze them and I will make the icing next week - Thurs or Fri and then the two women I have hired to help set out food and stuff on the day of the wedding will ice them and put on the strawberries. I think it will look lovely. Anyway enough wedding stuff it just gets me going! I think I will go work on my Dear Jane and procrastinate a little bit more.