Update or not on projects!

It has been a busy month for hubby with appointments, etc.  Still, a bit of work did get accomplished.

Meet Section B of my hexie quilt.  Can't believe that all these hexies will be assembled into a section!  These will be put on hold for a while and will be worked on later while sitting in our new gazebo and also for cottage trips.

Then, this UFO was pulled out and worked on.  After many, many years ..... a layout was finally decided upon and then pinned onto the design wall.  There will be some applique in the white border areas.  Soooooo happy to have finally made a decision!

It is hard to move or work on anything when this little guy flops down into my arms and sleeps like a baby!  What do I do?  Well, just sit back and adore him and watch some t.v. or even have a nap together.  Why not? 

A few weeks ago, when we still had snow on our back hill, five deer came for a visit.  Ridley wanted outside and he found an area with no snow and looked up at this deer for a very long time.  The deer stamped it's feet a few times but that didn't scare Ridley at all.  Can't see the deer?  It is just in front of the clump of three trees.  So very well camouflaged.  

I have also been busy hand quilting on my secret mini quilt for the Humble Quilts 2026 Challenge.  Just binding to add and a label, wash and dry and it is ready to be shipped out.  More on that quilt later once it has been received.

Cherish your day, cherish your life, cherish your freedom and cherish your country.  My country will always, always be CANADA!

Elbows up, eh!

Longing for Spring!

Oh yes,  I'm so looking forward to spring.  We are supposed to get some more snow for the next couple of days.  There is still about 2' of snow in our backyard and more where the sun doesn't shine.  But, enough about that.

My hexie project is moving along.  Since this photo was taken, all the fabrics for the next three sections have been cut and placed in their separate baggies.  My plan is to have the same fabrics in each section.  As each fabric was found and cut out, a blank hexie was pinned to the fabric and onto the next one I went.  That is why you are seeing a lot of white.  Now, the hexies can be basted for the next section.   The blue hexies for the border are all ready, so I'm thinking of pinning those on the design wall.

Since today is also Caturday .... how about a photo of Ridley.  Some mornings, he just doesn't want me to get out of bed and he just wants to cuddle and snooze.

This is the quilt he is laying on and the quilt on my bed for the month of March.  This quilt was finished back in 2022.

Cherish your day, cherish your life, cherish your freedom and cherish your country.  My country will always, always be CANADA regardless of what chaos the orange clown will create next!  After he is done with Cuba, he will go back to Greenland and then Canada.  It so saddens me to see how he and his cronies are destroying the USA from within.  Canada has moved on and so has the rest of the world and we are not going to get sucked into his madness.  Remember to cherish, cherish, cherish and cherish!

Elbows up!

A Hexie we will go ….

I’ve had a great week ….. got to work on my hexies.  I could just work constantly on this project and not do anything else, but I have a few goals to try to achieve this month.

This is 1/4 of the top.  

The top section is all sewn together as you can see by the white part showing between the sections.  Oh yes, I could easily just work on this.  This will be handy to work on while watching the Olympics next month.

Mr. Ridley is quite comfy to stay indoors these days.  It is -17C this morning and he just sniffed the air and walked away from the open door.  He remembers that was the temperature when we rescued him nearly two years ago and he doesn’t want to go back into that temperature again.  Here he is in his cat tree.  I bought a wicker basket for him to sleep in instead of the flimsy bed that came with the tree.  I had to cover the wicker because he started to chew on it.  The basket is screwed onto the tree so that it will not fall off.  Do you not think he looks like a prince surveying his territory?  He likes to watch the humans walking their dogs.  I wonder what he thinks of the coats and booties that the dogs are wearing?

Deer are back eating the leaves off of this shrub.  There were a total of four that came that day.

Freedom ….. I see the American freedom disappearing daily.  Is this what you really want?  What will you do when you are ordered to show up for an event and clap and cheer like crazy?  Wake up before it is too late.  

Cherish your day, cherish your life, cherish your freedom and cherish your country.  My country will always be CANADA!  Elbows up!

Hamster stockings

My great nieces got new hamsters this year (their old hamsters passed on) and with Xmas coming ….. well they needed new stockings.  Luckily, I kept the pattern from the previous stockings and gave them the fronts and let them design what they wanted.  

Here they are hanging up with their other stockings that I have made over the years.

In other news, my knitted leg warmers are coming along slowly, but not when this little guy is awake and alert.  He has already chewed my yarn up in two places, so they stay safely hidden until he goes for a nap in his cubby hole.

 

 The next quilt up for binding is this one.

As I’m sitting here, a snow plow just went by and plowed the street leaving a ridge at the bottom of our driveway.  I was looking at it and saw its name ….. Catch My Drift ….. we have been naming our snow plows here for a few years now.  Not sure where the tradition started but it sure made me chuckle.  LOL. I was just too slow in getting a photo.  Next time, I’ll be ready.

Cherish your day, cherish your life and cherish your country.  My country will always be CANADA!  Elbows up!

Binding time

It is snowing outside and binding this quilt is keeping me nice and warm and Ridley is keeping me company.  He is anchoring me to my chair to make sure this quilt gets finished for December display.  This quilt will be shown soon!

Cherish your day, cherish your life and cherish your country.  My country will always be CANADA!  Elbows up!

August and September Goals

Summer has been very busy here buy so enjoyable.  The heat lingered far longer than appreciated .... at least we had heat.   We are having a false fall right now.  Temps at night got a tad cool last week and at our cottage, we were under frost warning.  It didn't happen, but had to put an extra blanket on me in the early hours of the morning.

Cottage season is slowing down and next month we will be closing it for the season.  How time flies when we are having such fun.

A lot more sewing got done this month.

This is how my sides are being finished off. Seams will show here but only slightly.  There are no seams anywhere on the top, except on the edges.

When a circle gets joined to the rest of the top, there are a lot of pins holding the circle to the background fabric and then the hand sewing commences.  To make sure the circles don't get turned around (has already happened), little tags are now pinned onto the completed section and to the circle.  It is so much easier then to place the circle in the right spot and pin, pin, pin away.

This is where my Joseph's Coat top is currently at.  See the bright green square at the bottom.  Only that circle and a half circle beneath are all that remains to be appliqued and then the joining happens next.  Borders and then I can cross this project off my list.

Ridley always had a way of just plopping himself down onto my handwork when it was nearing his bed time.  So, no more work gets done when that happens.  You know, I would have finished this project sooner!  LOL

A quilt did get its' binding sewn on and that will be shown in my next post.

My September goal for Chookshed Stitchers 2025 Challenge will be to finish the Joseph's Coat UFO and to maybe get binding onto these two quilts.  Days and nights are cooling down and they will be warm on my legs and feet.

I've shown before how one niece really loves her quilts.  On any road trips for hockey or soccer tournaments, she brings a bit of home with her.  This is in a hotel room with her special pillow and her quilt that seems to be making the rounds lately whenever she goes anywhere.

That in a nutshell was my August.  

Cherish your day, cherish your life and cherish your country.  My country will always be CANADA

Tulip Time

Not up here where I live, but tulips in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.  My sister, her youngest daughter and I took a quick trip down (about 5 hour drive south) to see the tulips and the magnolia trees in bloom.  

We went to a tulip farm and what a pleasant time we had there.  We were each allowed to take 10 tulips from any row we wanted to and we did.  It was a beautiful day and the temps were not too hot for us to stroll along the rows of tulips.  We went at the right time as most of the tulips were in mid bloom.  Another week and the petals would be dropping.  Same with the magnolia trees as some were already dropping in places.

I took a selfie of myself among the rows of tulips.  I used to take selfie's of myself when I was in my 20's, but had to wait until the film was developed to see how they turned out.  Nowadays, it is instant.  How times and technology have changed how we live today.

From our hotel room, we had views of the falls.  This one is the American falls.

There was often mist shrouding the Canadian falls.

We had great meals throughout our stay.  We did a bit of shopping and donated money to the casino and then it was time to go home.

Back home, this little guy was happy to see me.  He snuggled in and slept like a baby in my arms.  

Fifteen minutes here and there on this project has progressed to a few rows sewn together.  This project has all Xmas fabrics and it looks like Xmas wrapping paper.  Love it.

Two quilts came back from the LAer and this quilt in being trimmed and soon binding will go on.  It will be gifted later this month.

I will be taking half an hour of time to clean in my studio before heading to bed each night.  So far, it has been working and I can see some progress in the scrap piles.  Scraps are getting sorted, cut down and ready to be sewn into blocks.  Happy about that.

Cherish your day, cherish your life and cherish your country!  My country will always be CANADA .... glorious and free and we stand on guard for thee!

February and March Goals

What did I accomplish this month for the Chookshed 2025 Stitchers Challenge?  

Well, two tops.  Yeah me!

This one was shown a few weeks ago.

This one was finished last week.  Looking at the bottom section, it sort of goes too light compared to the top section.  How did I miss that?  No matter .... this will be perfect for the cottage or donation.  

A bunch of luggage tags (sorry, no photo) got made for my niece and her family for their upcoming trip to Mexico.  They would have gone to Florida, but not this year.  My niece asked me if I could find fabric that had red maple leafs on white background.  Yep, found it and I bought extra in case her friends want some too.  She wants the Mexicans to know that she and her family are Canadian ... not American.

For my Chevron Log Cabin, only 7-1/2 blocks got made and sewn onto the quilt-as-you-go quilt.  I wasn't quite as ambitious with this.  My goal for March will be to complete those blocks and get a start on Row 10.

My other goal for March will be to get a start on this new project.  It is for my young niece, Charlotte for her birthday in May.  A year after she was born, this pattern appeared in McCall's magazine.  I just had to get the fabric.  She has looked at the pattern and fabric and loves it.  Recently, my lovely LAer also bought a machine quilting design called .... guess what ..... Charlotte.  This is all meant to be!

It has been a while since you have seen my little guy.  It will be almost a year since he came into our lives.  He is warming up in front of the fire.  See the yellow flooring tile behind him?  That is his scratch pad.  We have other scratching posts scattered around the house, but he likes this one.  Better that than my furniture.

It is a blustery, snowy day outside.  Nice to be sitting by the fire.

Politics:

I heard something really crazy the other day at the grocery store.  There were two middle aged men talking about how Trump wants to rename the USA to Trumpland.  I thought to myself, what crazy black hole on the internet did those guys spiral down into?  Seriously?  Thinking again, it just might have a tiny bit of truth to it as we all know that he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico, he wants Canada to become 51 state, he wants Greenland, he wants the Panama Canal, and his image on Mount Rushmore .... so ... it could be true.  You know how he loves to have his name on buildings, golf courses, food, alcohol, sneakers, clothing, etc., etc., etc.  Mind you, Trumpland just doesn't have the same oomp when a crowd starts shouting USA,USA,USA and instead shout Trumpland,Trumpland,Trumpland.  You know, it just doesn't sound right.  Crazy times, eh!

Cherish your day, cherish your life, cherish your country and Canada is and always will be my choice!

Christmas is over!

What a busy month and Christmas day.  Chalk that day up for being done and enjoyed by family.

I was busy this month putting bindings on quilts.  It was a hard go with this guy plunking himself down on top of what I was trying to do.  I did get three quilts done this month.  Yeah me!

 Two almost identical quilts.  The borders are different blue fabrics. So, why two?  Read on.

Quilt Info:

Pattern name:  "Berry Smoothie" by Villa Rosa Designs

Size:  61" x 78"

Batting:  Polyester

Machine quilted by:  Kathy Wareham

So .... why two?  My grand nephews will be two and three at the end of January.  They fight over toys, so we end up buying two of some toys.  I just knew there would be a lot of crying if they didn't each get the same quilt.

Christmas morning and this little guy was opening up his sack.  He is thrilled with his new quilt.

When the oldest nephew saw his brother's quilt, he said "I want that" twice.  Oh dear.  A young niece was helping him open his sack and told him he had the same quilt.  Whew .... all was well again!

The oldest loves his new quilt!

I was busy making this pillowcase for a young niece who is going to summer hockey camp.

After the quilts were opened up, I was reminded again by a niece that she needs a quilt for her new bed.  She has moved from a single to a double and none of her quilts fit.  There is a reason why I make quilts.  They are enjoyed and wanted!  LOL

We have had lots of snow and cold weather this month.  A new snowblower was purchased for me.  A machine that I can handle.  It is battery operated and so easy to operate.  When I went to the store, I asked for a machine that I can handle and not jolt me off my feet once it gets started.  We had a snowblower that did exactly that.   The sales rep. showed me a machine and said that it was the easiest and least complicated one to run.  Sold!  I'm happy.

As the month and year closes down, I still would like to finish up two projects.  We'll see if time allows.  I'm not spending as much time in my studio lately.  It shows with the lack of posts on this blog.

Oh, and nine years ago today, our family made a trip to our cottage on Boxing Day.  That was such an enjoyable day.  You can read about that day here.

Cherish your day, cherish the rest of this year, cherish your life!

Happy New Year!  2025 ... Bring it on!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back!

Well, here I was sitting quite smug with myself.  Row 7 of my Chevron Log Cabin was ready to be sewn onto the quilt.  Wait a minute .... something wasn't quite right!

See the column on the right?  See those white squares?  The backing for those two blocks were the wrong fabric.  How in the world did this happen?  I was so frustrated that the quilt sat for almost two weeks before it was pulled out, those offending blocks ripped off the row and then the deconstructing happened.  All the hand quilting removed.   All the hand stitching removed.  Then the correct fabric pieces were pulled out and the hand stitching and hand quilting resumed.

Finally, Row 7 has been sewn on and Row 8 has been started.  Four rows left to do.

Then .... a squirrel came to play here.  I ignored it and even threw snowballs at it.  It kept dodging those snowballs and kept taunting me ..... until ..... I caved and started a new project.  A Xmas tree project.  It is a free pattern by corianderquilts.com called "Scrappy Tree Quilt".

I try to get one block laid out at night so that it can be sewn up in the morning.  The red hst's need to be made up, so this block is not quite ready.  At least it is a start.

It looks like winter has arrived here.  Snow is on the ground and it has stayed this time.

Ridley is finding it cold in our home and likes to cuddle for warmth or sit in front of the fireplace.  When he has enough of my hand sewing, he is not shy about putting out a paw to halt me in my stitches.  LOL

Late at night, we are both looking for warmth while I watch t.v.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!