Catchup - Aug 31st-Sept 2nd

Aug 31st

Ohhhh it's warm out already, guess I'll wash out the kiddie pool for them just in case. Bubba went through it twice yesterday and slipped getting out. I love the sunlit dewy grasses, Bubba too, but not princess she stayed to trampled paths! LOL!!!

Good thing I did as Bubba went right in when I lifted the hose and Dahli just had a good drink?

Well yesterday Edna and I picked up her Rose sewing machine and only the initial service fee and was told it works good from E&A Sewing Machine Service on Henderson! She'd have liked to know what and why was wrong that it wouldnt sew, but tech that worked on it wasn't there to ask. As we were leaving I saw my Janome on the shelf, but couldn't take it as the invoice was not made up. Oh well we have Sylvia's and my sergers to pick up too.

Hopefully a busy sewing/quilting season ahead of us.

My KIND of summer day!  Feet up with a pumpkin spice flavored coffee to relax!

Sept 2nd

Another beautiful day in Paradise, as Lorne used to say!!! I'm tatting and the kids are scouting, resting by me or trying to go play with the neighbour's dogs!

HAPPY LABOUR DAY CANADA!!! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

Lovely evening!

Machine Servicing

Aug 27th

Hmmm interesting start to my day! Picked up Edna, then Sylvia's serger and off to E&A Sewing Machine Servicing on Henderson Hwy with all of our machines. I really like their nice, bright and roomy location compared to the one I was at mega years ago. Only they did not keep machines and cords together with manuals in their bags/box! Hmmm, I understand the manuals as they have most on hand but I pray the cords are not misplaced. 😉

Then off to Half Moon for lunch, Lockport bridge n pelicans and a drive on the west side of the Red River past Larters and back to Main Street and home. I got Edna to press my buzzer to confirm it's working, YES IT IS, so who knows what the Shaw Tech pressed yesterday but not mine!!!

Catchup - Feb 3rd-7th

Feb 3rd

First off thank you Kathy for posting this "Year of Scrappy 52 Triangle Foundation" project.  I rushed home to gather my large shopping bag of batik scraps (some donated by Linda to add to my own) as I finished off my set of 24 blocks the other day.  I'll work on these one block a day after I catch up on the first three days of February and in between my various mysteries on the go right now.  But I'll leave the large triangle for whenever I go to OMAs and use my virtual retreat grand prize gift card to get the dark green or blue batik for the triangles and a light batik for the sashing!  I've plans for a lap quilt for myself!

https://www.leilagardunia.com/blog/year-of-scrappy-triangles

I zipped over to Sylvia's to give her the "Calm" instructions, the 52 scrappy triangle foundations for her own project one day, have lunch together at the Southdale Village Family Restaurant and back to her place for a bit of cacti puzzle setting!  Then back to the dogs and plan my "Calm" MPQ Mystery fabrics for cutting alongwith the Block-A-Day Mystery Quilt Along with Melissa Marginet too!  Somewhere I have to read and practice my embroidery class stitches too!!!  YOWSERS!

Feb 4th

OK I think I did the second cuts right using Melissa's instructions plus drawing out my various blocks in two pressing directions.  Time will tell!  😉  Glad I ran home and got my various baggies!!!

Now onto reading instructions for MPQs Calm mystery and then will start sewing the scrappy parts of the daily 52 Scrappy Triangles (which I'm doing daily starting Feb 1st - a bit of catchup).

OK now Day 10 TIAS is complete!  I'm still going with a playful monkey 🐒 or chimpanzee!  We'll be working on the head next.  😉  I had an itzy bitzy idea of a clown maybe holding balloons BUT those fingers/toes say NO!!!

YEAH!  YEAH!  YEAH!

I've finished cutting out the smaller pieces of the MPQ Calm mystery on the right, longer pieces will be recut after measuring when I get to that step.  I've a bit of the black and a good 3/4s metre of the cream left over!

The brights on the left were cut earlier and HSTs sewn then recut waiting for Monday's block drop!!!

I'm relaxing for a bit then do the four batil 52 Scrappy Triangles paper pieced blocks.  Then I'll be caught up on the sewing projects!  Will be enough for today with doing my laundry too!

So I've caught up for my one-a-day paper pieced 52 Scrappy Triangles blocks starting February 1st!  I'm not sure I like my selected colours but I'm using my scraps, not going into my stash!  It may not matter once I decide what I'll use for the larger triangle and borders.  😉

Feb 5th

Today is the 5th, so here's Block 5 of the 52 Scrappy Triangles by Leila Gardunia.  Links in previous posts.

OMGG!!!!   I'm sooooooo bad!  

It's 5 yeearrrs and I still haven't tried sewing on her yet!  Another have to do so and sooner than later!

Ohhhhhh boy practicing my dimensional embroidery before working on my class piece is draining!  At least the "crew" left me alone until I packed up and moved to the couch. 😆  This was a simple task, but it was difficult to keep the two core threads parallel, not twisting and wrap another thread around!  Yeah, right!  Then to try and make the cord thickness even too!  I think if I do couch my class piece down, I'll use thinner thread so it's not so visible.  ƁUT I'm very leary to work on my class piece as that's twice as long and gold thread not perle cotton!!!  YIKES!!!

Okay the crew were out for longer even chasing around before coming in!  NOT Wheels who refused and roamed the yard, chewed brush branches and laid in the snow.  Since it warmed up I let him frolic!

Today is the 6th, so here's Block 6 of the 52 Scrappy Triangles by Leila Gardunia.  I knew I'd revert to some first paper piecing mistakes!!!  So far I like this the best!  Links in previous posts.

Okay Block 1 instructions (actually 2 same blocks but one dark and one light for the small quilt) for the Block-A-Day Mystery Quilt Along with Melissa Marginet are finally complete.  And like my 52 Scrappy Triangles project I again did an incorrect cut and had to redo one for each block!  Then my sewing machine does not like going over the thicker seams, so the red block I pressed open the seams and lots better, so rippit the blue, resewed and pressed open those seams too!  DUH!!!  Just lucky I had extra of these fabrics!  Hope that's it for cutting mistakes!

Feb 7th

Lovely day weather-wise and personally!  I picked up the girls and headed to Polo Park for a walk and lunch.  I was hoping to find a dressier parka but no dice, but Sylvia found a lovely one.  Then we finished the walk and stopped at Fergies for fish and chips - YUMMY!!!  Stopped for a few groceries before dropping Edna off then to my apartment to assist Sylvia to register online some of her quilted items for the upcoming Quilt Reflections Show.  Then took Sylvia home before heading back to the dogs!  I headed outside to watch their shenanigans and playfulness!  Back inside to feed the crew.

Afterwards I practiced the gold braid and don't like that process, but will persevere for the test class project.

Today is the 7th, so here's Block 7 of the 52 Scrappy Triangles by Leila Gardunia.  I knew I'd revert to some first paper piecing mistakes!!!  So far I like this the best!  Links in previous posts.

Here is Day 11 TIAS complete, a small step but she got us to wind lots of thread so it's not close to finishing yet!  We're working on the head and I'm guessing maybe glasses or large rimmed eyeballs to this creature!  😉

After running errands, then outside with the dogs, here's Block 2 (actually 2 same blocks but one dark and one light for the small quilt) for the Block-A-Day Mystery Quilt Along with Melissa Marginet finally complete.  Again I had to redo one for each block!  But this time the sewing up went smoothly!  I like this block!

Piece Meal Kind of Day - April 16th

Ohhhhhh so beautiful!!!!  Thank you for the picture Michelle!

These are the Easter Paskas made by Michelle with her daughter Cathy and grandson Owen!  Apparently he was right into the whole process this year!  Way to go Owen!!!  P.S. I love the bunny egg holders!

Yeah I had a lovely shopping visit with Nancy and then briefly saw Sylvia and Edna for pick up/drop offs. Then home as Audrey from SewPerks was coming over to trim down the insert she'd made me and now it fits! 

As a reward I picked up Edna on off to Jo Black's for coffee and shared AppleJack!  

After a bit of housecleaning I finished off the three fabric postcards so either Monday or Tuesday they'll be mailed off!

I decided I wanted to assist Monika Kinner with her fundraiser of donated fabric postcards for Ukrainian refugees support.

Here's snippets of her blurb!

" 💙💛OK! It's official. 👏👏👏The Ukrainian Museum of Canada will make the Yellow&Blue and Sunflower themed quilted postcards available in their Museum Gift Shop.

...

No individual will make money from these. 100% of proceeds will go to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. They oversee Ukranian refugees coming to Canada. The Museum Gift Shop will take care of handling donations to them.

...

$20 will be the minimum suggested donation price that people will be asked to give in order to be able to chose a postcard to gift to someone. They can either take it home and mail it to someone they know, or they can leave a supportive message on it and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress / UMC will ensure it goes direct to a Ukrainian refugee family.

ISNT THAT FANTASITC!? "

Here are the first two I've made using FPP and machine embroidered seam embellishments. 

Their backs!

Also today I finished off my PFA Swap postcard and can post it here but not on the FB group.  

This was a "Using Batiks" theme and I decided to do a landscape, machine stitched raw edge appliquing the strips in place and finished off with a few tatted embellishments. I used Jane Eborall's Sun pattern and J&P Coats 70 thread but it was 2.25" - too big for this postcard - I've plans for it though! So I reduced the number of starting rings and stitches in all steps plus left out a row of rings and produced a 1.5" sun which worked!  

Well ahead of deadline and I'm very pleased. Now I can concentrate on quilting my mystery quilt between some fun stuff too!

Catchup - April 9th-14th

April 9th

A short trip with Sylvia and Edna shopping.

April 10th

Hmmmmm, seems I've either forgot to post this or I just could not find it for my MPQ Show n Tell submission.

"Lakeside Beauty" my Colourways workshop with Brandy Maslowski, Quilter on Fire, through Cedar House Quilting, November 6, 2018.  We all raided her class stash to supplement our fabrics that were raw edge layered and embellished with trims and yarns then fancy stitches to anchor in place.  This was then trimmed and glued onto a canvas with edges painted  -  ready for hanging!  

This was an awesome workshop with a very talented fabric artist, thank you Brandy.  I had every intention to make this in every season but time has just escaped me.

WOW!!! It's been awhile from my last window pictures! But this caught my eye tonight!

Dang it, neither I nor my ticket buyers were lucky this year!

April 11th

Honestly I just don't see a spring blizzard coming tomorrow night etc! But then it was so calm when I met Nancy and with my walking sticks totally enjoyed our walking visit. Even had time for a Latte and cinnamon knot outside in this lovely morning. But noonish the winds sure picked up!!!

Nancy's view towards the Forks.

Well I just got home from a busy morning and finished off grocery shopping too. Lots of bare spots on shelves - I just got a few things.

Dang if this spring blizzard does happen we may have by Friday 30-50 cm or 12-20" of snow again with chances of 80 cm or 31" and high wind gusts too - YIKES!!!!! DAMN, I'd rather have had winter longer than the teasing of early spring, then winter returning again!!!

April 12th

Well I had a nice pre-storm visit with Sylvia. First off I took most of my electronic odds n ends to Equal Opportunities West for dismantling and proper recycling.

http://www.equalopportunitieswest.com/en/recycling

Then headed off to Marshall's to find backing for my ABCs quilts and Sylvia three fabrics for her new bed quilt. Afterwards I asked her if she'd like to go the Olive Garden for lunch as we were close and her reply was - "Oh yes I'd love to!" 😘 We both had one of our favorite choices!  

After dropping Sylvia off I rushed straight home to put my insert into my sewing table and start quilting my mystery quilt! ALAS it does not fit! 😒 Well I'll try and do my quilting this week and hopefully return it for correcting. But to disappointed to tackle my quilting so onto a fun project - batiks postcard! Stay tuned for updates!

April 13th

OH BOY, was up 8ish, cancelled my outing, back to bed, up 10ish and YOWSERS spring blizzard is landing!!!!!

Even my new windows are crying, not liking the abrupt change in the weather! At least the overly warm inside temperatures have decreased!!!

Guess it'll be a stay put sewing day till it lifts!

OMGG I don't believe this! A FIRST in all the years since this stupid bike lane (since a good third of the cyclists either are on the road most times the wrong way or on the sidewalk being a menace to pedestrians) was installed taking away part of the actual street! See after a major snowfall the actual pedestrian walkway and the roadway is being cleared! Honest I am totally amazed! The last two heavier snowfalls the bike lane was cleared 2-3 days BEFORE the sidewalk or the roadway! WOW!!!!

April 14th

Hmmmm still warnings of a spring storm but so far nothing like what they forecasted!

Anyways yesterday I needed a sun for one of my projects and found a tatting pattern by Jane Eborall using size 20 thread measuring 3.5 inches - way too big. But hey I've some of the finer tatting cotton J&P Coats 70, I've not tried so that's what I used, a first time that thin. It turned out 2.25 inches - still too big! 🤔 So I got an idea of reducing the pattern in size and that produced a 1.5 inch sun, a bit bigger than I wanted but usable! I've not buried the ends as they will be sewn onto items! Thank you Jane for your patterns you so generously share with tatters!

Jane's Sun pattern.

My reduced version!

The two together and to dazzle!

WOW!!!!

Well today I finished off the PFA swap postcard top for Batiks theme, just waiting to know who to send to so I can finish off and print off the backs to send out. 🤔

Also I finished off two tops for Monika Kinner's blue, yellow and sunflowers postcard donations for Ukraine refugees support. I'm thinking I might make some more, maybe same, maybe different, will see how my time goes! I just read Monika's post and the 20 she'd delivered have all been sold and $400 raised so far! 💞💞💞

Pictures will follow soon, unless swap recipient is my FB friend, then will be posted once received. 😉