Last Weekend.................

Before I get to what we finished this weekend .... let's take a look at what we did last weekend - or maybe it was the weekend before - I can't remember - it all seems to blur together in a haze of sore muscles.....

After we finished the painting of the outside of the house - which is now officially "not WHITE"  The new colour is Mortar.... with a little bit of Baffin Island and Dark Chocolate Brown trim - we still have yet to paint the white doors - which will be Carmel Apple - like the garage door. 

Once the paint was dry - it was time to move the wood pile back to where it belongs - under cover - right up against the newly painted house - but away from the rain.  The wood pile had been under a tarp on the lawn for the better part of the summer and we had a very rainy September so we needed to move it.
I got to help!




Here is Jim - as more than half the wood pile is moved by the time I decided I needed to take pictures.... so the wood pile went from here....................

To here....................



The other half of the wood pile.

Jim has a bit of a hoarding instinct when it come to wood.  He will come to a dead stop if driving down the highway and sees a tree down that would be good burning wood -- like a Cherry tree - or Arbutus... it's a bit of an illness I think.  When they were building the new highway there we all kinds of trees being cut down and Jim would go back at 6 AM with his chainsaw and truck and pillage the dead fall.  Lord knows you can never have enough firewood!

Then as I was looking around the back yard I realize what a total disaster it was - Good Heavens -- I need a picture of this mess....



Old bird cage...( poor Abigail) --  dead washing machine... lawn mower --- what a mess!!

So a picture of the front of house --- which looks lovely after I swept up all the dead leaves.  That was one of my assigned tasks - after moving the wood pile!! 



I did get to go to a Quilting retreat on Saturday though - QBTB - and I worked on the Civil War BOM for almost 10 hours and I finished 3 blocks!! 

More to come -- and the back yard looks much better this weekend -- bird cage is gone!!

Photo of the day

I know I  have been neglecting my blog lately -- as usual.  I have been working a lot lately and Jim has been cracking the whip with a bunch of house reno work lately - so if I haven't been at work I have been helping with painting/washing/moving wood piles/hauling junk etc at home.

Picture of the day~~~~~






The other morning I got up to find this collection of glasses in the bathroom -- on Jim's side of the bathroom counter....... is this really necessary????

Celebrate the Sockeye

This is a year to celebrate the sockeye - so my Salmon Biologist husband tells me! He has been out on a couple of fishing boats this summer and with a 34 million return this year we are all celebrating the sockeye here on the west coast of B.C. and maybe all over Canada.

I have a few pictures he took this summer.




This picture was taken just a couple of weekends ago at the mouth of the Fraser River - in the picture you can see all the little splashes of water - those are jumping sockeye - just a few of the 34 million!



Jim took another trip to the West Coast of Vancouver Island -- known to him as Area 20.



He spent the day on a fishing boat - mostly watching I suspect.




And eating!!



The season has come to an end.  We are planning a trip to the Adams River in October to see the Adams River Sockeye spawn.  I have never been there but this year is going to be a good one - so I have been told.

I have been working a lot this past week - 5 shifts in one week - so this post has sat in my list of posts to edit for about 10 - waiting for me to finish.

I am off this week - with a cold - and I am totally and completely annoyed.  I had a cold last March and I feel one cold every other year is plenty - so two colds in one years is unacceptable.  I don't think this one is as bad - and I have things to do this week so I am just going to do them!! 

Gibsons Fibre Arts Festival

I belong to a little Friday stitching group sort of know as the "Gathered Threads" although we also call ourselves the "Loose Thread"  as it is a pretty casual bunch and we quite often will invite any one that happens to wander by looking remotely like a quilter to join us for the afternoon.  I also will lovely refer to them all as my "Quilting Peeps"  Last Friday a few of us took a little day trip to the Gibsons Landing B.C. for the Fibre Arts Festival.  It was a very small show - with a quite a large Merchants's Mall - we was heavily weighted in the Fibre end of the Arts.


Here is Dianne and Sharon - smiling for the camera as we have our morning Starbucks fix waiting to get on the Ferry at Horseshoe Bay.  It was a gray day in the morning but it quickly became a lovely sunny afternoon.



A few photos of some of the items on display at the Festival.   Some items I took pictures of the labels and some I did not.

This was an amazing little fruit bowl all made from felted wool.





This small quilt was made by Gail Hunt.  Gail was one of the founding members of the quilt guild I belong to and she wrote a book called Quiltworks across Canada.
It is a great book. 



The photo doesn't really do the quilt justice.  It is just full of texture and detail.





This is called "The Eyes Have It" by Trisha Joel of Gibsons B.C.  "It is screen printed fabric suggesting eyes and the red suggests danger"  I was quite drawn to this quilt - must be the eyes!






There were a series of quilts hanging together on a wall with this label.  The picture is a bit blurry. Jim had the new camera and I was back working with the small little Canon - obviously not working well with it!








They were all done by a Carola who is a local quilt shop owner in Gibsons.  I have no idea how she found time to make these quilts.  I have had Carola at our quilt show's Merchant's Mall a couple of times and Carola works non stop - she is always at the many quilt shows with a booth.  She is a great person and has a  shop in Gibsons called Carola's Quilt Shop.
After seeing her booth at so many quilt shows I finally got to go into her actual shop and spend money there!



There was this beautiful piece - it is all felted wool.






Here is another piece that caught my eye.  Of course I don't have a picture of the label and I can't remember the details. 




 
This one is called "Mandala" and it is felted wool.  It is by Hieke Fink of Prud'Homme Sk.





This one is called "On and Off the Grid" by Janet Tufnall of Sechelt B.C.  It is layers of fabrics that have been slashed and sewn and maybe slashed again.  Quite interesting.



The were a few items there that would not really be in the Fibre part of Fibre Arts - but lovely to look at none the less. 


My favourite of these was this hand painted little gourd.  It is by Gloria Micheal from Half Moon Bay B.C. 
It was for sale for $200.00... which I thought was a pretty reasonable price.






This shawl was the piece that won Best of Show.  It certainly was lovely.






Most of the items were for sale and I could have bought a couple of things!!  But I didn't.  I'd love a dragon fly gourd....


The show was really heavy in the wool - knitting, weaving, felting etc and only a few quilts.  The merchant's mall was also mostly wool shops with only a couple of booths selling fabric.  So ---- I decided maybe I should try my hand at KNITTING..... LOL.  But I found a little free pattern and bought the required supplied and decided to try making a pair of socks. 



I am hoping that the knitting ladies at my Friday Stitch group will guide me along.  I started the "tension test" piece last Friday and I think I maybe should knit a scarf first.  Maybe socks was a bit ambitious.  But it is supposed to be a very simple pattern.... no heel as they are tube socks. But really....... socks....... what was I thinking!!   I have done some knitting in the past but I think it was probably 30 years ago.  So first maybe I will head down to somewhere like Micheal's and get a pattern and wool for a scarf.  It seemed like such a good idea at the time!

It is raining today - it hasn't rained here in a long time and we really need the rain so I won't complain.  I am hoping to finish up the quilting on the table runner and put the binding on today.....but first coffee and maybe a bit of  the Y&R!!

Abbotsford Air Show

At the Abbotsford Air Show this year there was a flying Avro Lancaster on display.  Jim's father was a pilot in the RCAF in Second World War and flew this airplane in Bomber Command.

Jim had the opportunity at the Air Show to spend some time with the crew and go up in the plane and even sit in the pilot's seat.  He was pretty thrilled with the day.  We got the see the plane fly.  There are only two flying Lancasters left in the world and one of them is in Hamilton Ontario.  I think the other is in England.

Jim belongs to a Lancaster Forum on line and has met some of the crew involved with this plane on line but he got to meet a few of his internet friends in person this weekend. 

A few pictures of Jim's adventure. 

Jim in the pilots seat -- the fellow standing beside him is a crew member and a member of Jim's online forum as well.  All the crew members are volunteers and spend hours and hours maintaining this plane.


Jim was just so thrilled to be able to sit in the pilot's seat - even for just a few minutes.  Jim's dad flew a lot of operations in these planes.  His dad died in 1994 - just a few weeks after we got married.

Jim has a picture of his dad just like this one - taken during the war. 

This is Lisa - one of the members of Jim's online forum as well as a volunteer member of the crew.  Lisa's grandfather was a pilot in the war as well and belonged to the same Squadron as Jim's dad and flew a couple of the same planes as Jim's dad although they did not seem to know each other during the war and Jim and  Lisa discovered their connection through the forum.

Here is Jim walking beside some of the crew and the plane as it is being towed out to the runway for a flight.

It was quite a special day for Jim and his friends from the Lancaster Forum made it all possible for him.

What have we been doing this week!

First of all I just finished working a couple of night shifts!!  This past couple of week has been very busy.  My sister and her husband came for a short visit - driving through on their motorcycles.  That was fun!


I have been quilting a bit here and there.  I am working on the table runner that will go perfect with the new "decor"  which we call -- Whistler West Coast Contemporary - or WWCC for short!




The fabric is Moda - Misty Mountain or Misty Evening or something like that - the table runner was a kit for our LQS --  The Cloth Shop

See how well it goes with the slate stones on around the fireplace.



It was hard to get a picture with both the table runner and the fireplace in view to get a real feel of the new table runner.  I am very happy with it.  As you can tell it is not finished - but I did buy some backing fabric for it on my travels this summer so I hope to finish it soon.


I have also been puttering away on my Fat Quarter Club BOM Civil War Quilt.  I am sewing it together on my Featherweight - so that is sitting on my sewing table and I work on it every so often.




Jim has been busy as well.  He is working on the painting and re-finishing the back of the house.  We need to repaint all the white trim brown and he has been busy sanding and re-finishing the soffits and fascia board and posts at the back of the house.



The Soffits were all...... hmmm the word ... crappy looking???  anyway they have all been sanded and refinished now!!  Jim has been working hard.  The goal is to get rid of ALL the WHITE!!




White posts ---- soon become brown posts...... actually I think they may eventually become cedar posts!

They now look a bit like they have been carved out of chocolate..... but better than white!




We have also had a couple of "events" here this week.   First of all - the day my sister was here my Whirlpool Duet Sport Washer that we bought in December 2008 blew out all it's bearing with a lot of noise and excitement!!  Apparently it is not under warranty and the cost to fix it is the cost of a new washer..... buyer beware - Whirlpool was not very helpful and we are now getting a new LG washer delivered on Saturday.  Unfortunately -- Jessica and the babies are coming for a week on Friday - so going without a washer is not an option!!  What timing!!

And today Jim blew out another tire on his car - so apparently he needs a new set of tires....... so needless to say Jim is a bit cranky tonight.  I --- am happy to have finished my night shifts and have my little grandbabies come for a visit.....so Life is okay.... and tomorrow I will go for a lovely walk with Jenny and life will be a bit better..................

A new camera

Before I left on my trip to Calgary and Cranbrook this summer Jim decided he needed a new camera. Jim always enjoyed taking pictures and slides with his Nikon camera when film was still used. Once the change to digital occurred we bought a little point and shoot digital camera and just took touristy pictures when we traveled. Recently I was told that most of the old Nikon lenses that he had in his camera bag would still fit on the new digital Nikon cameras. So after much research - in true "Jim Style" he decided to buy a new Nikon D90. And I got to take it on holiday and play around with it.



It has a ton of cool features that I discovered while playing around with it taking pictures of the babies in Calgary.  I took lots of pictures and deleted lots of pictures!

Once I got to Cranbrook I did not take as many pictures but I did manage to take a few around the old family property.



Cranbrook has quite the deer problem and these are a couple of pictures of the deer right in my parents back yard.  There is a You tube video floating around out there of a deer in Cranbrook that had just given birth  and then attacked a dog that the doe thought was getting a little too close for comfort.  There are just hundreds of deer wandering the streets of Cranbrook -- every year I go there it seems there are more and more deer around.




This is a picture of the old barn out the back.  It was lovely and green this year and not too hot - which was nice.  Some summers I go there it is well in the 30's and just too darn  hot for me. 





Not super technical pictures but I am certainly enjoying the new camera.  Maybe now I will blog a bit more!!!

The Grandbabies

I know I have not been around much lately.  I have been busy - and I actually have been doing a bit of quilting - but not much.

I just got back from a nice visit in Calgary with the Grandbabies!!

Phoenix is just a little dolly!!  I haven't seen her since Christmas and she was only 6 weeks old.  She is now 8 months and she is such a little girl.  She LOVES her brother and is starting to stick up for herself and grab the toys back that Hunter took from her.  She really looks like Jessica.

One of my favourite pictures of her. 




Sitting by the pool - she is such a cutie!



Hunter is just a joy.  He is fully of life - curious and determined and non stop action!



Looking more like a little boy than a baby these day.  He LOVES his sister!! 



It was a great visit - although the weather was terrible!!  Pouring rain and 8 degrees Celsius!!   I always say that whatever time of year it is --  if you go to Calgary you must pack for all 4 seasons!!