Long Time Away

Hello there.  It has been a long time since I have been able to post in my blog, but I am back finally!

Life has been very busy here but I think things are about to settle into a nice routine in anticipation of Spring.

Christmas and New Years went well this year and thankfully quiet and uneventful.  My sister travelled home from BC and arrived safely in Ontario.  I have to say that winter driving across Canada in the winter is not the safest idea, but all went well and I am happy to have her home!

The fall was full of sewing projects, just not stuff that was for us.  As you all know I was sewing for the production of Annie that my daughter was in, which went very well.  Then our group was asked to go straight into helping the ladies who were sewing for the production of The King and I.  It was CRAZY busy and very different from sewing for Annie.  You might say from Rags To Riches!  Sewing silk and Satin are not my favourites as I don't like the "fray factor".  However, it all turned out well and the show was a great success.

On health notes, my hubby is doing remarkably well and has been able to stop Chemotherapy!  This is a huge relief and a great blessing.  He is recovering from the side effects and has been able to go back to work.  That has made him so incredibly happy, he is like a new man.
My best friend Bee also had her latest surgery and all went well.  She is home recovering.

Aside from sewing for Christmas gifts, which I really didn't get a chance to take pictures of due to the severe lack of time left after The King and I, I spent a good deal of our holiday time sewing a quilt for Bee to take to the hospital with her.  It was her birthday gift, just a little late, since her birthday is boxing day and I didn't get it done until the first week of January!  It arrived in time to go to the hospital though and that was all that mattered.

The quilt top was a "rescue" from our local Value Village and was originally intended as a practice quilt for learning free motion quilting on my new sewing machine but it was her favourite colour and she needed it in a hurry.  Since it was already in the machine and underway, I just changed what I was going to do with it to something that suited the occasion.

Her "people"!

Encouragement

I stitched the names of all her family, friends and pets into the boarders along with some words of encouragement and added die cut GO! Ribbons in the colour of the Endometriosis campaign along with an official ribbon to the centre of the quilt.  This worked great and was a total relief because before it was going to be Bee's quilt, I had NO IDEA what was going to happen in the middle of this quilt!


I wanted her to feel wrapped in the love of everyone close to her during her stay at the hospital and she loved it.  Each stitch reminded her of how much she is loved and why she needed to pull through this surgery.

She is now home safe and snuggling up with her quilt healing.

I'll be back soon to fill you in on the project that is consuming all of my time now shortly!

The quilt in Action!

It has been a busy few weeks here but I did want to show you the quilt I made for my Granddaughter in action.  We drove down to London, Ontario to see them before they left for San Francisco and brought Little E the Quilt. She put it to use right away.  She is just learning how to roll over and having her toys clipped on to the loops made it more interesting for her to be on her tummy (which she really dislikes!)  We are hoping that since the toys can't get away on her she may attempt to figure out a way to get to them and start to crawl.

She was quite happy that her toys couldn't get away, and was more happy to be on her tummy for longer periods.

It was a nice week of seeing family and we got to see all of our grandchildren in the course of one week.  That never happens since they all live so far away.  But since everyone of them is moving somewhere, we all got to meet them all in the middle!

This was our day on the beach with the kids and Grandkids.  We have been so blessed with great weather these last few weeks, so we took advantage of it!

Well I am off to search out information on a new sewing machine. Wish me luck!

Finally some finishes!

I finally have some pictures to show of the finishes I have made lately.  As the pictures loaded I realized I got more done than I thought.
First off I am finally done my granddaughters play quilt!  It is from the Quilt Almanac 2011, called "Hey Diddle Diddle".

This lighting is bad but it lets you see the loops that her toys can be clipped to.

Here is the back and label.

This is my very first free motion machine quilting attempt.  In the main block I made her initial.

In the middle shot you can see that I did make a label and it turned out really well I think!  I never used to label my quilts until I started blogging and read about how important that is. Who knew?  That was just something I was never taught.

Speaking of labelling things,  I made these:
using a tutorial by Patchwork Pottery.  I haven't
ironed them on to the twill yet but I will soon and I
have the perfect jar to store them in as well!  The
figuring out of the computer was the most challenging part of these.






I have a few more finishes to post about but I will save it for another day or else this is going to be one really long post!

I will leave you with a most wonderful parcel that arrived in the mail yesterday though.  I left a comment on Sweet P's blog on her give away day and I was the lucky winner!  Two great patterns and some lovely black and brown fabrics to start one of the projects off with!!

A stash piece to match!!

I really didn't think I had any colours even close in my stash but I took a peek anyway and look what I found!  There is only one match, but it is indeed a fabric that I can add to this quilt pattern!

For the other pattern though, I made a quick trip to the LQS for a couple of charm packs that I have had my eye on but didn't have a project for....

Now I am all set!  Thank you Paulette!!  I love my new projects.

Have a good night everyone.

Work In Progress!!

Well, here are the early views of the quilt I am making for my Granddaughter.  It has been a long time since I have made a quilt and it is nice to have a way to track its' progress.

It is interesting how much of a difference a 1/4" foot makes!

I love the "twists" that will allow her Mamma to hook toys to them.

I am also getting the hang of quilting in a progression.  It saves so much time!

See?  All lined up and ready to go!

I was also trolling around in blog land today and found a great blog called Ruby Slipperz. She has some great ideas and give aways going on.

I was particularly excited to find this:

   

       

   

on her blog!  I am not sure if Mac brought the image over with the link or not but if you click on "blog"  it will take you there.  I so need to be finishing some of my projects that a little "challenge" may be in order!  Go have a peek!

Have a great Wednesday!

Happy Easter!

We had the cutest little bunny at our house this year!  Better than any eggs or chocolate!! We loved finally getting to see our newest grandchild.

The quilt looks so much better with a beautiful baby on it!  Her Mamma loved it and we think she liked it too. Bean is shaping up to be a great Uncle, he was quite smitten with his niece!

 I quickly whipped up some burp pads to accommodate a fussy tummy that came with the long car ride.

The best thing that came from this visit was the lift to my hubbies spirits.  Just having his baby here, with her baby was the best medicine.
It is going to be a long journey for us with chemotherapy and radiation treatments so he really needed this boost.  There is just something magical about a baby that makes you realize how special life is.

I hope every one is having a great Easter!

I thought it was spring!?

Well, last week we had beautiful spring weather.  The kids and I went for a lovely walk and took lots of great pictures of the arrival of spring.  These two are my favourites:

This is a pond near our house and we love feeding the ducks here all summer.

These are winter berries covering a grate with run off water rushing underneath it.

                                    
Now however......we are completely covered in about 6 inches of snow which is covered with a sheet of frozen rain and another dusting of snow is falling as we speak!  So much for my daffodils that we peaking through the ground!

On the other hand, the nasty storm had me held up inside so at least I got somethings done.  Most importantly of course was my granddaughters quilt.  It was waiting for a label and a wash.  This is my first rag quilt and the first time using my new Accuquilt GO! fabric cutter.  It was cut using the 8" rag die which made it much simpler than using snips to cut it afterwards.  I had no idea how it would turn out but everyone loves it in my house so I hope that she loves it too! Figuring out the label was the hardest part but now that it is done I love it! I labelled it this morning and my hubby took it to the laundry mat this afternoon to wash it..... he wanted to have some part in this gift!

This is the front

This is the back.  Can you see my little mistake? One of the heart squares is the wrong way!  I  was sooooo cautious with this part of the quilt....yet a square is still side ways!  So, I am leaving it because obviously that is how it was supposed to be!  Quilts are not "supposed" to be perfect. 

This is the label before the wash.

This is after the wash!

I love the border behind the label!

Look at how fluffy!! I love it!

Well, that is it for the baby quilt until there is a baby on or under it!  Thanks for sharing it with me.

Have a great week!

Penny

Some fun things I have been up to.

Well, Hubby is home from the hospital and although the recovery is slow, it is steady.  I haven't been able to do a lot of sewing while he was in the hospital but now that he is home I am back at it.

 This is my first attempt at using my new GO! fabric cutter. Over all it was great for cutting the rag squares and clipping all at one time.  The downside of course is that threads get caught in the cutter and they have to be picked out.  I'll just say that picking is easier on my hands than clipping!

These are some of the squares that I have cut out and I am working on an arrangement (2 sided).  Let's just say after midnight is not the time to be assessing for placement! I am almost done and I will post a picture of the final project.

While hubby was in the hospital I have to say that I did a little retail therapy to reduce the stress.  I tried to be cautious with money so I hit Value Village between visiting hours.  Some times they have fabric or  other sewing gadgets.  This particular day I got really lucky....

This is a 1968 Kenmore.  It is beautiful and the machine itself is in pristine condition.  I took it in for servicing and a cleaning and it purrs like a kitten!  Just straight stitch and zig zag but the feed dogs drop with the turn of a button and I found a free motion foot that fits it so I can practice free motion quilting on it easily.  I am so excited about this because it was only $5.99!  Technically I bought it for Bean because his sewing machine is a little off balance since he sewed through his finger.  This one is so smooth he is not scared of it at all and besides, it is green, his favourite colour.

Well, I better get back to that quilt or my granddaughter is going to be an adult before she gets it!
Happy Monday!