I see pavement!!!

Why is this so important you ask well my last post showed 3 feet of snow on our garage roof and today our driveway it down to pavement. Well with the help of DH tractor  the ice and snow is gone or at least moved to the side.
 I was away this weekend visiting a quilting buddy. We had a girls weekend of sewing, knitting and of course chatting. I finished a knitted headband for my daughter and got a good start on a small quilt top for a friends dog(yes even dogs deserve quilts). I did all the precutting at home and hoped to just sew all weekend. Well good thing I took the extra fabric with me cause I wasn't quite as accurate as I thought and needed to cut more pieces. Missed a few directions in the pattern. So that will be on my agenda this week to finish. I will post pics when I have finished the top.
 It was a beautiful drive home today, the sun shining and the deer coming out of the bush to watch the cars go by. Yes my drive home took me through a highly populated deer area. That would be the same area that I was in this past summer when I hit one of them. Oh well I really got to enjoy the scenery cause I didn't drive faster than 70km per hour! I was not chancing another run in(no pun intended)  I haven't quite lived down hitting that last one. Arrived home to dinner being made by my daughter and DH...now that's a treat!!

One block Wonder

I had wanted to take pics of the weekend and our sewing area but forgot. I am showing a pic of what my friend worked on. She got the main part of a One Block Wonder done. She just needs to add borders to it. It looks great. It is a lot of sewing and a lot of pieces.

Nikki, what a sweetheart

I get to visit with my friend and her dog Nikki too. She is as old as my dog and deaf too but she is quite entertaining. She is always ready to lay on whatever quilt we might lay on the floor!

I might get some slow stitching in this evening, check in with Kathy and see what everyone is up to today on Slow Stitching Sunday!

Is Spring ever going to come???

Time to do roofs

It might be March but in my neighbourhood...it looks the middle of February! Although the temperatures during the day are warming up, we still have so much snow! On a good note this just means that I get to do more sewing guilt free cause what else could I possibly be doing!
Well maybe clearing off roofs. The garage roofs are starting to show signs of snow load! So DH had to get up there and clear them off. About 2.5 feet of snow! I class this as definite man's work, I don't like ladders or roofs!! no matter how soft the landing might be!!!

Quilt on a frame

Quilting designs

So I finally got to hand quilting. I set up a quilt that I put together last year at guild. It has been waiting for the right time to put it on the frame.I thought I wanted to do feather plumes in the large open areas but couldn't create one that would look good so onto plan B. Butterflies(which I had a stencil for) and very small plumes in the white spaces. I can dream of butterflies and spring time even though the weather outside is anything but!!! Just perfect quilting time!! Put netflix on the laptop and I could sit at the frame all day but my butt  and back won't let me so I guess I will still have a couple baby quilts to make and a couple of doggie quilts for a friend.                                                                                                                                                                

My birthday prayer shawl

 I am linking up with my friend
Kathy for a slow stitching Sunday and her theme of the day is completing things even if they are difficult. I had that issue with a knitting project I started. My friend gave me some beautiful wool(that was her mother's) as a birthday gift,. I wanted to make a wrap or prayer shawl(fancy name for shawl) so I found a pattern that didn't look too difficult!! Famous last words, good thing I have another friend who is very good at knitting pattern interpretation...thanks Mallory!!! I did persevere and it is finally done. I love how it keeps you warm without having to put on a sweater. Great for sitting at the quilt frame or being in my sewing room which is in the basement!

Good sewing weekend

I am linking up a day late, as my camera decided to be dead today and I so wanted to include photos of what I have been up to.

1st charity quilt notice the binding

showing backing

I just love when it is a good sewing day and things just come together ...don't you! Well this was one of those weekends. I had a class at guild on panels and putting them together or what to do with them. I just took some small blocks that I had here and am going to make a cuddle quilt for charity.So I got most of the pieces sewn on Saturday and than on Sunday I finished the quilt. Measurements and the math worked out well and I even found a backing fabric that was just the right size .I even got fancy and did a two coloured binding. Green to match the front and use up scraps and blue to match the Pooh backing  fabric. So I thought I was on a roll, I started a second quilt.

2nd one hard to see the sashing

Backing pieced with a border print

 This left the evening to do some hand stitching and  relaxing time with DH and netflix.

bright sunny kaleidoscope on a cold winter day

I put the final stitches in my kaleidoscope and it is done. Then I did some binding on the first charity quilt and then it was bedtime.
If I could only continue at this pace I would get so much done..but life has a way of getting in the way, as I am sure you all know!!!Off to guild tonight to show off some of my weekend handy work!!

 Kaleidoscope pic was taken in my driveway on a three foot high snowbank!! Yep it is still winter here in Northern Ontario!!

Happy Valentine's/family day weekend

Along with Valentine's day here in Ontario we have a provincial holiday (family day) so that means a long weekend for some of us! Our daughter is home for a visit and I am hoping for nice weather when she leaves tomorrow to go home again. This winter you just never know what it is going to do.

BEFORE

I have been very busy but not in the sewing room...in the kitchen. We have started my birthday present which is a reno of my kitchen. We have moved  and rearranged all the cabinets and wow what a difference. Even though it doesn't look it, there are big differences in layout and where certain cupboards are.Now there has to be some cabinets built(as you can see by some of the holes and some fans and flooring bought.It is a slow process but I am okay with that.

AFTER so far

almost half done

 I have been hand quilting a small project. You can see the start of it here. I thought it would take a  long time to complete but it is going along quite quickly.
So today after shoveling the driveway and doing some cleanup around the house. I am sitting down to enjoy some hand stitching time with Kathy and all her followers on slow stitching Sunday! Relax and enjoy your weekend!

Hello February!!

Hope everyone is keeping warm where ever you are, as I know some of you have seen snow that you are not use to!! Happy winter!!

south western Ontario

I am thankful my DH has a tractor with a snowblower or else I am not sure where I would be putting the snow. Although we don't have as much as some places.Where my daughter lives, the snowbanks are higher than large trucks, it is just amazing!!
So when the shovelling is done I have been spending a lot of time in the sewing room. I am trying to get UFO done. I have some that are 12-14 years old.Not that old but I would like to clear some of the older ones out to make room for newer UFO!!

50" square

We had a workshop at guild this month using a technique of Ricky Tims. I showed a start of that star here. Funny thing about this technique, I found a magazine with his design in it and mark the page as something I would like to do. That was in  2002!! Guess I can take that off my bucket list! Also is it just me or do men quilters use and waste a lot of fabric. This is the pile of crumbs that I have leftover. I was able to get some 2" squares and  pieces for two lemoyne star blocks. I intend to make some of Bonnie Hunter's crumb blocks to use up the pieces.Well the top is done and I would like to sandwich it and it will be part of another challenge our guild is having for the Olympics. We are to bring in something we are going to work on during the 2 weeks and bring it to the next meeting to see how we have done. There will be medals, gold, silver and bronze for the competitors.

leftovers...yikes

Never idle hands, I have knitting on the go, a quilt to bind
and a block to applique for Monday night guild! Luckily, there is curling on this weekend.That will give me lots of time to stitch away on whatever I choose!

One year Anniversary

I knew  it but forgot to remember it!! That's right it has been one year of blogging. It has indeed gone by very quickly! It has been a year of triplets, 2 weddings on the same day, moving daughter not once but twice and numerous other events. What does the next year hold in store is anybody's guess. But I know I will still be quilting, finding UFOs to complete, and starting new projects.

Just the beginning

At guild today, our workshop was on a Ricky Tims design...Cool Kaleidoscopes! There is a bit of prep work making the strip sets, but what fun when you start cutting out the templates.This is just the beginning, but it is shaping up nicely. The finished block will be 36" square! I think I will have to add a few more darker colours to my strip sets too! There is some waste with this method but I think after you do it once you can eliminate some of the waste.You have to cut everything out before you start sewing so it is pinned to batting for now!

 I have also finished a knitted shrug for myself, just need to buy a pin to hold it closed. It was a kit from Mary Maxum. I choose the perfect day to wear it too as the temperature today was -33Celcius this morning with a windchill it was -43!!! brrrrr!!!! The sun made the day bright and sunny though! Gee I really hate pics of myself!!!

Love cameras with timers!

Rolling right along

Basement sewing room looking a little messy

Well things have been proceeding well. I got two quilt tops completed this week and another one pin basted and started machine quilting. The two tops will be going back to a friend (where they came from) to be machine quilted and then back to me to have the binding put on. They are for a charity auction in the Spring.Now to get my stuff done, I started quilting a quilt that has rested for 10 years. It is a BOM sampler that has rest long enough. Time to get it done!
But in between all this I convince DH to open my sewing room up to an adjacent bedroom and now I have almost doubled my sewing space.

Although a ping pong table mostly fills the bedroom(that use to be my daughters). I lost a little wall space in the process but gains a whole room. This is the view of the sewing room and looking in the new doorway(on the left) into my "cutting room". As you can see not all my daughter's things have left yet. I don't think I want her to take all of it!!(sentimental fool I am).









So today while it is snowing and blowing outside I will be finishing up rearranging things, cause this pic makes my sewing room look very disorganized. Then for slow stitching Sunday with Kathy I will be doing more machine quilting on my UFO. Check out what everyone else is up to also!