I can't WAIT no more!!!

I GOTTA show at least one off!!! LOL!!! Shoot I'm not good with waiting or keeping surprises etc. So I'm gonna give you a sneak peak at one of my newest postcards!



They aren't finished yet - but dang it - they look pretty good already if I say so myself! What you think?

Lovely FALL Day!!!

Last week was totally rough with filling in for a co-worker and getting the office ready for the movers/painters to come in Monday to start painting the office and me a pinched nerve in the neck too. So last night I didn't do anything but today WOW!!!

The weather is just AWESOME (except for the wasps) - why can't fall stay around a whole season - I'd rather fall than the 30+ summer? I've had a LOVELY day so far and hope it continues tomorrow. You won't recognize me with my mop chopped off!!! Gosh it feels like a tonne of bricks lifted off my shoulders!!! Then I zipped over to the stitching shop and picked up my two magazines I had ordered on the Kimono canvasswork patterns (cheaper than the quilting ones) and stopped at Value Village and picked up a couple more doilies in taupe and found two 4" square peuter-like frames for the 2" canvasswork scissor fob I made but want to frame instead! WOW!!! Someone's castoffs - my treasures!

Then I picked up a chicken burger (YUK!) and went to watch Byran's football game with Pat, Myrna and Amanada. It was exciting, but they lost and this larger opposition guy snagged Byran and swung him around to the ground - I wanted to go out there and give him what for but stayed in my seat and just voiced my displeasure. They were twice the size of our guys - not fair!!!

Then I came home and walked over to Safeway (LOVELY WEATHER) to get my prescriptions and even checked out some of the Village shops before coming home and played with a "design board" online with various complimentary fabrics with that snowman panel I got and still don't know which fabrics I'll pick up for borders. But it looks good! I'm not that keen on the knit-look fabric as a border so maybe good that there isn't any around here. I tried to save the design board, but it would not let me so I just printed it off.

Then I got back to my Hats Off postcards - those Victorian Hats I had planned a while ago! WELLLLL you should see these. They are turning out very well so far and I've laid the odd feather on them and WOW WOW WOW!!! Yes, I've taken step by step photos and will show you soon. I've got them all stitched and now it's the embellishing part so just about finished. Then I've the sandwiching and satin stitched edgings before mailing off! Maybe this next week finally!!!

Corner Joined Bindings

Okay I thought I had written this up but can't find it anywhere and now I don't remember the details - so hopefully you can figure out from the photos and then play with it to figure out your measurements according to the finished binding you would like. Good luck.


Sew your single or double fold binding in place on all four sides (four separate pieces with about 2-4" extra) and stop 1/4 inch from edges and back tack to secure.


Align corner bindings and draw a line up from where the stitching stopped. Then mark a 1/2 inch away from that line and line up the dot and ends of the straight line and mark and X.


Then stitch from the corner up over the dot a stitch or two and backtack. Then stitch from fold over the dot a stitch or two and backtack. Turn to check if okay, if not then adjust to fit. Once pleased, trim.

Turn.


VOILA!!! Now repeat for the other three corners and hand stitch in place.

This was something shown to me at the 2008 Western Retreat by Flossie and I thank her muchly for this as it has saved me much agony for my coasters! I love when many out there are willing to share their "knows" with others. Thank you Flossie!!!

A Sunny Day Outing!

Yahooie I convinced my sister to delay her departure home and join me at a local group's quilt show! We kinda arrived a might too early but stayed out of the setup areas and quietly viewed the quilts then came back when opened and shopped. Then we had a homemade lunch before she left for home. Hopefully you made the four-hour trip safe and sound and not too tired!!!

I took just a few pics and here they are:


I LOVE this Bargello - V Reimer and notice the small wall hanging bottom right corner!


Evening Shadows - L Ridley - this is very eye-striking and looks to me like birch tree trunks.


Flora Fantasy - D White - this was a floral panel cut up along with coordinating fabrics.


Starry, Starry Night - C Schick - talk about so cheery, I just love this one.


Jacket - J Gowron - very interesting!


Scrappy Bear Paw - H Manfield - talk about all the work on this baby!

Now the next two are the same Mexican Star pattern but using different fabrics and talk about different looks!!!
J Giesbrecht
B Price

Stars Around the Garden - L Santa - now this sampler is quite attractive.


Now this one is neato - Star in a Star - L Eisbrenner - and some are kinda hard to see as the fabrics blend in with the larger star (think my red is off as it was more cardinal or brick red in person).

I'm Bragging!!!

I'm really really really grateful for my "artsy" sister visiting me this week!!! I've had a GREAT time and we are finishing it off with a local small quilt show tomorrow before she goes back home.

We've had a great shopping spree today (well actually she's had I just chauffeured her around) and finished off with the guild meeting and she won the FQ draw tonight too. And I've even some show and tell for you!

See some time ago she made an Eagle wall hanging that she had cut up a horizontal panel and made it vertical and used a smaller eagle - just lovely. WELL this time she used the same panel with it's large eagle, again changing to a vertical and added in more water, trees, clouds and another smaller eagle.

Heck I don't know which I like better now!!!

YAHOOIE!!!

Phew, at the rate I'm stitching lately I just might get myself caught up this month yet!!! Yes, I can happily say that I've stitched the top of a mini quilt since Sunday, that was supposed to be mailed in July (very very late) and I am VERY VERY VERY pleased with the results so far.

It was called Star Quest, based on the Bright Star pattern, designed by Sherry Fourez found in the QUILT Magazine (sorry don't know the issue as it was a pattern I tore out and ditched the rest) with a skill level of "intermediate". Each Bright Star block is made up for four 2" blocks (YOWL) paper pieced and the borders added on in a square format which I changed. I first stitched the three borders together and then stitched each set on and mitred the corners. I thought with all the points it was more appropriate this way.



PHEW and I say it is too, as with paper piecing, I thought the seams were to match and yet the angled ones don't. Now that could be my sewing too as I see some of my points are either disappearing or falling short of the block - hmmmmm - I alway find paper piecing a challenge. AND had to redo four blocks as I did not allow enough fabric for the one corner!!! Oh well I'm still very pleased with this baby. Not sure what I'll call mine, it hasn't spoken to me yet but hope it will before I need to make the label up this weekend!!! Now to figure out how I'll quilt it tomorrow evening! HMMMM!

Now to Rest!

Phew, talk about a rushing around again! I had TWO sisters visiting yesterday and one needed me to chauffeur her around shopping and the other wanted me to meet her for supper (all three did)!!! Lucky me! :))) Well it worked out and even had a BBQ lunch with my niece's family too along with a jar of my first made garlic dills - they loved them.

Last night Sylvia helped me cut out all the pieces for the second set of spacer blocks for my Moondance quilt and that's the project I'll take with me to the retreat end of October. NOW it's to find all the cut up pieces for the first set of spacer blocks that I cut out like two years ago - they were not in the project bag so I'm very annoyed and confused as to where they are!!! This quilt has been a challenge for me right from the start but darn it I'm determined to finish it off!!! Too much money and time on my part and effort on Sylvia's part helping me figure out those blocks - gotta finish!!!

And today Sylvia and I went out for breakie and she's probably now with Dad in Dauphin and Florence has the baptismal for her granddaughter so I think I have peace and quiet to relax and plan my next stitching project. But first I spent a couple of hours coring, peeling and slicing up Florence's awesome apples that I picked a couple of weeks ago. Well they're all done and bagged and in the freezer ready for apple crisps etc this winter.

NOW I think I'm finished with "preserving" for this year - never did this much before! LOL! Okay, since it's quiet on the email front guess I'll put my feet up and read a bit then actually start on the mini quilt I need for a Christmas gift (was supposed to mail out like in July!!!).

And More Postcards

WOW if I keep this up I just might catch up on my swaps outstanding this month!!!

I finally finished off my postcard from the CQ-CA Flower Garden swap and I just love this technique and even experimented with a fancier cut window!



Here's another of the recycling of those selvedges that usually go in the garbage and I've hand embroidered each seam with a different treatment and colour of floss. Yep, I just LOVE these and this is mine finally completed from the May 2008 FAPC In Stitches swap.

And then I used this same idea for Thank You cards for the gals that finished their Mystery Project activity in the CQ-CA group I'm in. There were 13 participants signed up with five completing their blocks and three actually finishing them up into a project of their choice. Within the group we had a Viewer's Choice on the posted finished projects and I also had a competition based on checking the submitted block pictures to see if they did stitches I had posted. So hopefully this next week I can finally get the prizes off to the recipients, that is after I gather and sort out the CQ knick knacks etc and items from my stash!

More Postcards

Okay I'm a little late on posting this one as the results were posted this week and NO I did not win the "Back to School" competition within one of my postcard groups. Oh well I gave it my best shot but it was not as amusing as the one that did win! Here's my card, all hand appliqued and then machine embellished slightly and a fabric marker for the text titles.



Then this week I finished off the birthday PCs for this same group and they were mailed off today to the gals, hope they like them.

Fall Harvest

PHEW now I remember why I don't do any canning anymore! LOL!

Yep, I used to get zucchini and do up some pickles and then make my own salsa too! Actually probably still have some jars back in the cupboards from gosh knows when - should check and pitch them me thinks!!! LOL!

ANYWAYS, September long weekend I visited my sister Elsie and came back to the city with a Safeway bag full of beet leaves for my oh so favourite beet buns, another bag of young cucs and dillweed to make up my own sandwich dills and if that was not enough she got me working and packed up 13 jars of garlic dills for myself to take home. Now I've never made these on my own and I think the last time I made them with Mom was some 35 years ago - now should I remember how to make them? LOL! Yep she expected me to know what to do so it was hit and miss if they actually got done correctly. And off I went with instructions to do these up ASAP!!! Yeah right!

Well that Wednesday I made up all the beet leaf buns and didn't finish until 2:00 am and then up for work the next morning. Needless to say I was to darn tired to stitch never mind to do up dills yet too so they sat in the fridge - I also needed a couple of spices that I hoped to borrow instead of buying finally today. Them garlic dills got their daily shake ups and figures they started leaking but guess that's normal if overpacked like I did them so into the fridge they went and on Sunday I tested a jar and YUMMY!!!

Oh - today I took in one of the leaking jars (I tasted them at home first) to the office today and picked up some garlic sausage and my coworkers (about 15 of us) polished the works off. There were many compliments so guess I passed mustard with the preserves!!! Yep, my first time too!!!

So yep today finally I got going and three hours later had the cucs sliced, jars sterilized and brine cooking - YUK what a stink in this apartment - wonder what the neighbours are thinking!!! Oh well I've now got 6 medium sized jars of sandwich dills and if they turn out as YUMMY as my sister's were I'll be enjoying my lunches for a while that is for sure!!!

Now considering my apartment is so warm I have to keep these in the fridge and thankfully I have a large fridge and not much in there! LOL!

AND that's it I've had enough of canning and I think I realize why now! It's always everything all at once and it's all time consuming and WORK!!! I'd rather be stitching!!!

What a Weekend!

Okay, I'm back from Dauphin and have 199 messages (hope they're not all important) - YIKES!

Now considering that a dear friend's daughter-in-law (and mother of very young children) last week lost her will for life - I'm sure leaving all devastated - including me and I barely knew her; I think I have much to be grateful for!

1. for the chance to visit with my Dad and hope to continue such
2. for a car that has delivered me there and back safely in my many travels
3. for siblings that were very generous this weekend: Florence/Wayne for their hospitality; Elsie (yes you're reading right) for inviting me out to pick some beet leaves for my favourite Ukrainian dish and Erlene for showing up too and helping me out; also Elsie for assisting me in making my FIRST batch of garlic dill pickles (I have to wait 4-6 days before opening and tasting - but those at Florence's were very good); and Elsie again for packing up tomatoes and more cucs so I can make up my own sandwich pickles that she made for Dad and were super delicious and he's asked for more to come (chuckling)!!!
4. and an unexpected little something from Dad which I put towards the gas home
5. and very very very thankful to the Lord for keeping me safe through this couple of days of THUNDERSTORMS (which I totally HATE) that rattled Florence's house (curtains/doors all closed and cats a cowering too) and the four hour drive back in a continuous heavy downpour!!!
6. AND especially Dale Anne for urging me to read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (actually listened to the CDs while driving) and now 2/3's of the way through the second time and hopefully this will make some changes to my life soon! There is nothing like having my special family members and friends in my life to share LIFE with! Thank you!

Ohhhh and then last week I was overjoyed for renewed contact from two precious niece/nephew who are busy with their own lives. I received an email preinvite from my niece asking for me to attend her university graduation - I've made a note and hope to enjoy that date with her and family/friends. Then also my nephew stopped into work for a visit and update me on his tumultuous house saga which hopefully after two years of trials and tribulations is now sorted out and their lives are hopefully more relaxed. Even an invite to come out and visit one day along with a map on how to get there!!!

Yes, I'm more than thankful!