An afternoon at PatchworkPottery

We got back from Seattle late Wednesday afternoon. We were expecting that there would be long line ups at the border crossing as it was the day before Thanksgiving - the busiest travel day of the year in the U.S. - so we were told. The traffic was very light and there was no line up of any concern. I didn't buy much in Seattle - a few Laurel Burch Christmas fat quarters. I did get to go Bed,Bath and Beyond. The first time I had been there. I bought a few things there -- a very nice turkey baster for $5.00. I stocked up on Aleve and mostly just wandered around Pike's Market - enjoying the good coffee and the sunny weather.

Yesterday I got to go to spend the afternoon with Laurraine at PatchworkPottery yesterday. I went with one of my "Quilting Peeps" -Krista. Laurraine made Krista and I a lovely lunch and wonderful Cinnamon buns for a treat. The buns were so tasty - Krista and I shared a 2nd one!

I met Laurraine at Quilting by the Bay in September and she sells the most fabulous handmade and unique items on an Etsy store. She brought a bunch of items to sell at our retreat but I was too busy sewing ( or talking) to notice. When I finally discovered all the items on her site I just had to have this little coffee cup bag. Don't you just love the bag!



Laurraine made the cutest little cupcake pincushions and tape measure houses. She has a few published patterns as well. She has a new pattern for the sweetest little monkey baby quilt. There is a list of her published patterns on her blog - PatchworkPottery She also does pottery - although her kiln is not in operation at present. And --- she doesn't live that far from me!! So I will have to keep an eye on her blog for future cute things that I really, really need!! Although Jim keeps saying that I don't need one more bag. I find he is getting a little annoying about it actually -- so he hasn't yet seen the coffee cup bag!

Now for the next incredibly cute item. This is a little bear that one of the ladies from my Friday quilting group made for each of us in the group. Thanks so much to Barbara for this little guy.



He is only about 3 inches high. Isn't he cute!

Look at that cute little face..............



Well.. enough cuteness for one night.

Pattern for new Oven mitts

A few months ago I bought a pattern for Oven mitts from a quilt shop in Vancouver. It is their own pattern. There were kits as well with the cutest Mary Englebreit fabric - but I just bought the pattern - and then promptly stuck the pattern away with the rest of my patterns. But knowing I BADLY needed new oven mitts I had plans that one day soon I would make some new oven mitts.



Well that day will be VERY soon -- Jenny decided the oven mitts must be food!! I am sure it was pretty tasty. They really are a disaster and I can't even remember how many year ago I bought them. Anyway.............. I got my Moda Fat Quarter Club this month and it was Mary Englebreit - Recipe for Friendship - perfect for a new pair of oven mitts.




That day will have to wait for a while yet though. We are off again on a little trip. We are going down to Seattle for 5 days. Jim has to work and I am just going to tag along and have a little holiday.

It seems we have been away so much this year - or at least I have been away a lot this year. No big travel plan yet for next year so I think there will be a little less traveling - the plan for this year is a little kitchen renovation.

I am looking forward to this trip. Seattle is so close and we don't very often go down and stay for a few days - usually it is just a day trip here and there or just passing through on our way somewhere else. It will be nice to have a few days to wander around Pike's Market and enjoy walking around downtown and finding places to stop for a good cup of coffee - searching out a quilt shop or two - maybe doing a bit of Christmas shopping.

I got all the fabric I need for my Morris Garden quilt. I ordered fabric from two different online shops -- The Door Mouse and the Just for Fun Fabrics both shops were very good and easy to deal with. I usually just order everything from The Fat Quarter Club but they didn't have the fabric. I was thrilled to be able to find the missing piece. I was quite disappointed that Hancock's couldn't have been a bit more helpful.




Of course I ordered more that just that one piece! I also ordered 2 yards of the medium blue fabric for the outside borders.

( I have just had to switch computers in mid sentence. The lab top just died - hopefully not permanently!!) I am planning to take the lap top with me to Seattle and keep up with my email and such - but we will see if it recovers. Maybe I will come back from Seattle with a new lap top instead of fabric ---- okay - I can dream can't I!



I am not planning on getting much fabric as I have enough to keep me happy for a while in the new sewing room - and the Canadian dollar is a little on the low side right now - but you just never know!

Blogging friends forever

Kieny - The Dutchlady - my blogging friend from Taiwan gave me this award. It is such a lovely award to receive!

The rules are :

-that you give this award to four dedicated followers of your blog;

-and to one person who is new to your blog and lives on the other side of the world.

-Link back to the person who gave you this award.

I would like to pass it along to four followers of my blog --

Quiltmom A long time follower of my blog who just recently started blogging herself! I got to have lunch with Anna in Red Deer. It is always so nice to meet fellow bloggers.

Wendy - Snippets of a Quilter --- we live close enough to each other that we got to meet for lunch as well - and I am working on getting Wendy over for a visit to teach me how to do that wonderful stitching that she does.

Carole - Quilting Adventures -- one day Wendy and I will hopefully talk Carole into making a trip out west.

San - Gypsy Quilter - who was my Secret Santa Christmas partner last year and has stayed with me ever since and she sent that lovely little quilt for dear little Hunter.

Andrea - from Tierra del Fueg0 is probably my farthest away follower but she has been following my blog for some time -- but I thought I would include her because she is so far away and so sweet and I enjoy my visits with her as well!

Micki - Irish Muses - is a recent visitor to my blog and she is far away in Ireland.

Isn't the internet wonderful?

I decided to bring out the little featherweight machine to work on the Gladiola quilt - pictured in the previous post. The fabric is a bit of a vintage design - so I thought I would give the featherweight a bit of exercise. It is still sewing like a dream. And so much fun to play with.



Doesn't it look lovely -- sitting on my Tazzie mat with my Darlene pin cushion at her side. I think she might need to be out for exercise a little more often. It was last year when I took her to the retreat that she was used last. I think she might even need a name.... I wonder if that is a little too much -LOL.

Well -- I am off to the quilt shop...........

Jim says that this quilting seems to be more about the "stuff" --- I said it's ALL about the "stuff" !!!

Back from a very eventful retreat

I have been back from my retreat for a couple of days but I have been unable to type much until today.



Here is a view from my chair at the retreat. It is held on an island just a short ferry ride away from Horseshoe Bay. The place we stay is right off the water. It is a lovely little spot -- I don't think I spent more than 30 minutes outside for the entire 3 days. I was busy! There was a hot tub there to ease our aching backs though and I did sit in that for a few minutes one night.

I finished my bag - which turned out great --- finished the Christmas stocking for little Hunter. I made a little bag from a "This and That" pattern - which didn't turn out that great and I started a quilt from a kit I bought in 2004.



And I injured myself -- twice. First injury was a bit of a freak accident. My little sewing snips ( the ones that are sharp and always open and you squeeze them together to snip threads) were sitting on the table in front of my machine - where I usually keep them and I knocked them off the table and they started to fall to the floor --- so I very quickly closed my legs together to catch them before they fell to the ground.

I hope you don't mind the picture but I completely impaled the snips into my thigh -- look at that bruise!

Then later that same night I cut my right thumb with the rotary cutter -- right through the nail ---- ohhh now that one hurt. I completely cut about 1/4 of the nail away. I have no idea how deep it is or if I should have gone to get stitches - I just held tight and hoped I didn't bleed on my fabric. It was pretty sore most of the week and I haven't been able to do much with my right hand until today. It is healing nicely though but I am sure that the severed nail will be falling off soon. ( I didn't think you needed a picture of that one!!)


And the last picture is the quilt that I started from the kit. It isn't a great picture of the quilt but I had spread it out today to measure it for the borders and here.... to prove that quilts are not just cat magnets!!


I am heading off to work a couple of shifts tomorrow. I was thinking I might not be able to work with this thumb but it seems to be healing fairly well and I find that if I wear a finger cot and don't hit my thumb on the fridge door ---ohhh that one hurt! I think I will be fine - wish me luck!

A new product

This is a new Pellon product -- or new to me anyway.

It is a very light weight fusible web with a one inch on point grid.

I decided to try it for the Christmas stockings that I like to make - I would find making the scrappy on point "fabric piece" for the stocking shape to be quite time consuming.




You cut your squares of fabric to fit on a one inch grid -- but slightly smaller - these squares are cut 2 7/8 inches - so there is a little space between each piece. You iron them on the grid and then just sew seams of 1.4 inch along in each direction.



It was quite quick and easy and then gives me a big piece of fabric squares to cut out my pattern.


This is the stocking I made last year. Now I need to make one for little Hunter!!



I am just quickly typing this up as I am waiting to be picked up for my 3 day weekend quilting retreat. My first goal of the retreat is to make little Hunter a Christmas stocking. But of course I have packed up my entire quilting room to take along!!

A bit of this and that

I am quite happily puttering away in my reorganized sewing space. I finished my November BOM on the weekend. Jim has reorganized the other side of the room and set up the stereo. The record player is working great and it is so much fun to listen to the old records as I was sewing my block -- remember "Rubberband Man" What a hoot! That was "The Spinners" back in our Disco days (or was it daze?)




I am getting ready to go off to Bowen Island for a three day retreat this weekend. It is so nice to look through my fabrics and patterns to pick out things for the retreat.

The other thing I did this week is figure out how to use my EQ6 program! I was so excited to make a real block. Probably if I had read through the book I would have figured it out a lot sooner!! But anyway.... I have a number of pictures I have saved of quilts I would like to make one day. My plan was to draft the blocks in EQ6 - so finally I can maybe start on that a bit.




This is the first block I have drafted. It was a quilt I saw on a blog. I want to use the Morris Garden by Moda fat quarter collection that I bought from Hancock's in a few months ago. There is a really great pattern for this collection - "Stepping Stones Quilt" Nancy Near Philadelphia is making one. I really like that pattern as well. But I am planning to make one with this block - I have no idea what the name of the block is - anyone know?

So this is my plan for the retreat - to make these blocks - with my Morris Garden fabric.

When I received my fat quarter bundle - months ago. I discovered that I was missing one fat quarter of the collection. Hancock's substituted another fabric - which didn't belong to the collection at all and I have no idea where it came from. I sent them an email and they said at the time they were out of the one fabric and if I wanted I could send the bundle back for a refund. I didn't want to send the entire bundle back and they never offered to send me the fabric when they could - I think I asked if they could send me the fabric but they never responded. I have been looking around the internet - eBay, and various online shops and it seems there isn't any of this fabric anywhere to be found. I find that amazing. I was hoping to find a piece of it - before I started the quilt -- but no such luck. I will go ahead and make the quilt anyway - maybe one day I will find a piece on eBay or somewhere. If anyone sees some of this fabric in there web surfing - send me a link if you get a chance.




And now that we are finished with all of this -- here is a little of that....

Jim filleting up a really big fish!



It is a very large Chum salmon that he cut up and smoked last weekend -- in the midst of building my shelves. Now it needs to be vacuum packed --- so off I go to help.

Getting reorganinzed

I have been busy refolding and reorganizing my new shelving unit this week. It is hard to decide where I want to put things but I am pretty much finished now and I have lots of room to add more fabric! It is nice to find some things that I had long forgotten about. The Ikea cupboards have pull out drawers that are large and easy to pull out for storing the fabric. I now have a Dear Jane drawer, a special fabric drawer ( wool, silk etc) and a Projects drawer - a drawer of batting and fusible web, a Notions drawer, Fat Quarter drawer -- and so on - I have a 12 large drawers and two shelves. As you can see I still have a couple of storage containers under the table. I think a sewing room is ALWAYS a work in progress!!

My side of the room.



Jim's side of the room. Now he has work to do!






These are the blocks I completed at the retreat on Saturday. I really love this Peace on Earth fabric. I still have one more block that is almost completed and then I am caught up to November.





And I am also working on a Professional bag for myself - like the one I made for Jessica. The outside is completed - now to do the inside.

Happy Halloween - I am off to work for 4 hours today.

A very busy weekend for Jim

Well - it was a busy weekend for me as well. I attended my all day "Quilting by the Bay" retreat on Saturday - from 9 AM to 10 PM. I really enjoy the days I can go to "QBTB" as I am not always able to attend. It is such a fun day - we get a nice snack in the morning - a great lunch and supper - a glass of wine or two and a day spent chatting with all my "Quilting Peeps" AND do a bit of sewing. I was able to get caught up on my Fat Quarter Shop BOM blocks. It is amazing how much stuff I haul off to these events and all I really needed is those five BOM blocks and my machine!!

There were a few "newbies" at QBTB this time and one of the newbies has an Etsy shop and a blog -- Patchwork Pottery She brought some cool items for sale - which for some reason I completely missed - but I did check out her Etsy shop and her blog and it is well worth the visit. And she blogged about QBTB -- and there is a picture of me on her blog! And I already ordered something from her Etsy shop.

While I was away this weekend - at QBTB and then I worked on Sunday and Monday - Jim decided to surprise me with a new shelving unit for my sewing room!



He also removed the stereo unit from my sewing area and relocated it to the computer side of the room!!


But -- I came home to a very big - hmmm - mess would be the word I'd use. He had to move a lot of things around to take out the stereo and install the new shelves. He bought new pullout drawers for the old shelving unit as well. So he took all my fabric out of the shelves and put it on my table - back in on the shelves in big piles and on my cutting table.



I have been busy today working on reorganizing my sewing room -- thanks to my thoughtful husband who realized I was having a bit of a creative crisis and decided he wanted to help. Isn't he wonderful.

I think the reorganizing is going to take a bit of time. I now have twice the shelving space -- all of the shelves are easy to see pull out shelves. But I am not sure how I want to organize the shelves -- what fabric should go with what and on what shelf. I should be an interesting week!

A couple of pictures of Hunter on his new quilt.

I am heading off to an all day quilt retreat tomorrow morning and I hope to get some serious quilting done. I have plans!!

But I thought we needed little bit of Hunter first. It has been a while since I have posted any pictures. Jessica received a new video camera for her birthday in August and she is mostly taking little videos of him and not so many still pictures.

Here are a couple of pictures she sent of Hunter with his lovely new quilt sent from San - Gypsy Quilter. San was so generous and wonderful to have sent this special quilt up for Hunter. It is such a "snuggle up and hold the baby quilt" It has the softest and prettiest yellow flannel backing. I am sure it will become a favourite quilt in no time at all.




I love this picture of him. He is starting to look more like a little boy now. Look at those cubby little arms.




Isn't he a cutie. Jessica called me on the phone yesterday to listen to him giggling away. He was just laughing and giggling. It was so nice to hear him laugh. I have been told that he really misses his Nana. I think a quick little trip to Calgary may be needed soon.

My Quilting Room aka "The Stash Disaster Zone"

I was reading Caron Mosey: Michigan Quilts today about her stash. I was thinking that her stash and my stash must be cousins! Although now that I look at my pictures I see it much more untidy than her stash -- so I must be the poor cousin nobody likes to invite for dinner -LOL

It started out so organized in my new sewing room when Andrew left home and I took over his bedroom. The big Ikea cupboard was converted into a perfect stash cupboard.




Soon it was overflowing.

I think I have been away from home either in Alberta x3 - Sask, Alaska, Washington State and the Yukon or working - more than I have been home these last 6 months or so. Rather than quilting I have been happily adding to my stash in a sort of "shopping and dropping" style. I buy fabric - go home - drop in on my cutting table and go off to the next shopping destination!

Here is my cutting table piled high with purchases that have yet to be unpacked. Mostly because I don't know where to put them.




I also have items in my sewing room that are taking up valuable floor space -- like Andrew's Ikea chair - that he doesn't want and I have no idea what to do with it. And if you look on the far right beside the table there is Jim's 1970's stereo - turntable - record albums and all!! That I would like gone as well. I think my stash would look much more organized with the extra space.

Recent purchases piled high on my ironing board - as I am not quilting so hence I am not ironing.



Under the ironing board is a big container that has fabric that I took to a retreat last November - Hummm - I am going off to that same retreat again in a couple of weeks - I won't even bother unpacking it now!
There is also some of my fat quarters from the Fat Quarter shop in Texas.



Piled under my table is my various containers -- one is scraps, one is UFO's and one is all my Dear Jane fabric -- although that is getting full and I have Dear Jane fabric piled on the ironing board now as well.


I really would love to have an organize stash - but I think at this point getting it organized would require professional help -- and someone who is interested in a Stereo for 1970!!

Turkey SURPRISE!

We had our Thanksgiving Turkey yesterday. There were only the four of us for dinner - Jim, me, Andrew and Eric. Andrew's girlfriend Anri had to work. But we had a lovely meal and a great visit with the two boys.

When the kids were in school every spring break we rented a house on Chesterman's Beach near Tofino B.C. Quite a few years in a row we would cook a turkey while we were there and spend most of the week eating turkey -- Turkey taco's, Turkey pizza, Turkey omelets, Turkey sandwiches and finally we would have Turkey SURPRISE -- like really - turkey? It is my favourite way to have turkey actually. So - although we had a great turkey dinner last night -- Tonight it is Turkey SURPRISE -- you have to say it like it is a SURPRISE!!

Step one --- everything from dinner ( except the potatoes ) goes in a big bowl and is mixed together -- gravy, all the leftover vegetables, stuffing, bits of turkey -- mix together and put in a casserole dish.




Step two -- Potatoes are cold and hard so mix in some milk, sour cream, a couple of eggs and some grated cheese -- whip up with the electric beater until nice and fluffy and smooth.





Step three -- put potatoes mixture on the turkey mixture and bake in the oven for about 1 hour at 350 degrees.




Step four -- wait for it to cook!



There is Jenny hoping just a bit more turkey will fall on the floor!!

We went for another nice walk today in Lighthouse Park - the day was gray but there was no rain. And we went and voted - so we can sit and watch the Federal election results while we eat Turkey SURPRISE.

It is so nice to travel but there is no place like home!

Well - it was a nice week. Relaxing and restful - although I worked Monday and Tuesday and they were very busy days - the weather at the beginning of the week was sunny and warm.

We started off the week going for a lovely walk through Lighthouse Park. One of our favourite places in the Vancouver area to go for a walk. There are still 500 year old cedar trees growing there. And there are many paths that wind along the park - through the Forest and along the ocean. It is only a 15 minute drive from our house so we are pretty lucky.



I have posted a few Lighthouse Park pictures before - it is such a great place to take pictures. I don't know if I have any pictures of the really big trees. It was a good walk - we did about 1 hour of steady walking and 1 hour of looking -LOL. Good for the soul!!




Most of the tomatoes we grew this year were eaten by the neighbours as they ripened while we were in the Yukon. Apparently they enjoyed them thoroughly -LOL. This week there were a few tomatoes left on the pathetic looking plants. The tomatoes are really sweet this year. I made a Tomatoe and Basil Pie that I found the link for on Carole's blog. Very, very tasty -- thank you Carole. And it was two meals!!



And I started so sewing - I am making myself a "Professional bag" like the bag I made for Jessica for the baby. I am moving right along with it. It has been so long since I made the last one that it is like starting over again. I cut all the fabric out before summer and never got to it - and so now I bought some other fabric in Red Deer when I was visiting Anna - that I like better then this fabric - oh no! I might have to make another. But I really like this fabric now that I am actually sewing it together.



I am starting to make my way around the blogs again -- it is nice to catch up on everyone. Although I accidentally clicked on "Mark all as read" in my Google Reader - it then said "Are you sure" and for some reason I wasn't clear what I was doing - and said Yes!! Anyway I guess it will be a new beginning for blog reading - LOL

All in all it was a good week. Now I am going for lunch with my friend from UBC - who I haven't seen since May.
Have a great weekend.