June and July Challenge Update

June was a good month for me for the Chookshed 2025 Challenge.

Good progress on this project called "Simply Serene".  I scrapped the brown out and replaced with floral looking fabrics.  This will be perfect for a donation quilt now.  My goal for July will be to assemble all those blocks and add borders.

Now, for this UFO .... as you can see much progress has been made on "Joseph's Coat".  The 'before' on the left vs the 'after' on the right.  My goal for July will be to move this project along more.  Seems my mojo is back!

My sister and I have been spending a few nights at the cottage lately.  On one of our trips, this flock of geese came and spent the day on our lake.  This is so unusual, but we think it was because of the air quality from forest fires up north and they came south for fresher air.  The flock has since gone back north.

Canada Day is July 1 and we are celebrating our freedom and as the country of CANADA.  To Taco Man ..... well, you will just have to get over it and move on and create another crisis (as in 24/7 chaos mode) of your making.  

To all my fellow Canadians .... Happy Canada Day!

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

A Quilt Finish and Eagles are back!

It's been a slow go, but so glad this old UFO is now a completed quilt and gifted to my BIL.

For some strange reason, there are few particulars about this quilt.  Like, I have no idea when this was first started and the pattern name.  I probably saw this on Pinterest and was able to figure out the block and drafted up the quilt pattern in EQ.  Usually, I'm much more organized than this with important details and give credit to the original designer.  Oh dear, I sure slipped on this one.

Block:  Blockbase pattern #2022 Light & Shadows and 4 patch

Block Size:  10" finished

Size:  96-1/2" x 97"

Batting:  Hobbs polyester

Machine quilted by:  Kathy Wareham

Cottage season has started and my sister and I made a day trip to the cottage to bring out more supplies and to do a few chores before the onset of black flies (which are not in full force and biting).  We got them done and were sitting on our porch to have our lunch when we heard a screech.  "That's an eagle", I said.  We both grabbed our phones to take photos.  This is the first time we have seen two Canadian Bald Eagles together.  This is the third year we have seen an eagle in our area and I'm guessing they are here to stay.

So beautiful and majestic.  Canadian Bald Eagles, indeed!  

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

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!

A Pile of Quilts

This is the aftermath of changing out the quilts each month ..... a huge pile of quilts to roll up or fold.

Help is always appreciated when doing this job ...... but this fella kept getting in the way!  He really liked the rolling bit and the string tying.  Play time!  LOL

Sister and I went to the cottage for an overnight stay.  We saw a momma partridge and four babies.  Momma just sauntered slowly across the road in front of my car and her four babies flew across the road.  If you look closely to the left side of the road, you can barely see a baby there.

We've been seeing this deer carcass for a while now.  It has been picked clean.  A pack of wolves or a bear must have brought down this deer.  There were actually two carcasses ..... a doe and a baby deer.  The rest of the bones were plowed off the road by a truck, but something dragged out this carcass.   Sad yes, but that is Mother Nature.

Change of topic from sad to beautiful.  

I don't get many comments for my posts and wonder about those that do not comment.  Do they like what I write about?  Do they like my photos of quilts?  Regardless, I just write anyway and hope that I strike a cord of interest with my followers/readers.

Then out of the blue, I do get wonderful comments and I'm taken aback by their lovely words to me.  Thank you Ruth F for your comment .... it sure made my day!  I couldn't reply back to you as your email is set up as no-reply, but I just wanted to acknowledge you here.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Almost there!

Well, my plan to try to get at least two blocks done per day is working.  Not many more to go now.  Just 16 full blocks ......

.... and 8 half blocks on both ends.

My sister and I went to the cottage a couple of weeks ago.  We saw autumn colours on the trees.  Say it isn't so!!!!  No, it was the setting sun casting a glow on the trees across the lake.  Whew.

Then, we saw something in the middle of the lake.  What in the world was it.  Was it a bird?  No, this thing was odd looking and moving way too quickly for a bird.  My sister got the binoculars and looked and .... holy cow .... it is a moose, she said.  We grabbed our cameras and went flying out the door.  By the time we got to the front of our property, the moose had already moved away down the lake.  We had to hurry to be able to catch it as it was coming ashore.

Off into the bush it went.  This was a young moose.  How excited we both were!  We nearly missed seeing this moose.  We were on the porch facing the lake.  I was reading a book and my sister was doing a crossword.  She got stuck and looked up to think and that is when she saw something funny in the water.  Karma.

Mr. Ridley is quite the contented kitty.  His meds hopefully are working.  He will have bloodwork done in a month and we will see then how he is doing.  He was buy looking out the window at some work being done in front of our home and stayed like this for a good 15-20 minutes.

He still drags this rope to his water bowl; drops it in and then drags it back to the living room or dining room.

Of all his toys, this seems to be his favourite and we find it in different places around our home.  One end is usually wet.  LOL

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Oh hexie, hexie, hexie

The left hand side of this section has been added .... now onto the right side.

.... and, before I knew it ..... just like that ..... this section is done.  Three rows added to the top and bottom!  Just need to do the remaining three sections.

I needed to clear up my design wall to get this UFO up and running.  More on this for a later post.

In order to clear the design wall, all my hexies for the other sections were carefully removed and pinned and labelled onto this fabric.  Don't these hexies look wonderful on that dark fabric?  This is giving me ideas for my next EPP project .... because after this one is done, there are no EPP projects to do.  Mind you, I do have a quilt-as-you-go hexie project .... but why not have another one to fall back on?!  LOL

My sister and I went back to the cottage to set up a bucket mouse trap.  No photos taken, but we are hoping that this will work.  We also caught a mouse in the garage a few weeks ago.  They are looking for warmth and food and any opportunity they come in.  We have had mice in our garage and also our home, but a simple mouse trap is easy to set up and maintain and check on.  Our cottage is closed until next May and if mice do get in, they make a bit of a mess and smell.  So, that bucket is our next option to try out.  In the past, we have set up mouse seed and they do work somewhat, but the mice still make a mess.

Of course, we stopped at the bridge again to take a look at the dam.  What a difference a few days make.  The ice has really taken hold and doesn't the fall of water look interesting with the ice forming at the base.  

The lake has now frozen over with a layer of snow on top.  The ice is not safe to venture onto until we have had a few weeks of very cold temps.

I've been busy making pillowcases for toddler pillows.  No photos.  I just made them and passed them on.

My two grandnieces wanted stockings for their hamsters for Xmas.  One is called 'cow' and the other is 'hammy'.  What do you think of their drawings so far?  I just drew the stocking outline onto the fabric and told them not to draw beyond the solid lines.

Here are the finished stockings.  They had tremendous fun drawing and colouring their designs onto the fronts of the stockings.  The hamster names will be written at the top onto the headers.  They are so thrilled with their stockings and I'm quite proud of them!

On my hubby front .... he is getting help with his speech.  His stuttering is what twigged me to get him diagnosed for Parkinson's.  He does have frozen moments and words just can't come out of him.  I'm glad he will get some help.  It must be so frustrating for him, but he deals with it best he can.

So, that was my life during these past few days!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Just a hexing away!

Not much got done on this UFO ..... busy doing more chores for the winter here at home and at the cottage.

As you can see, just a few hexies were added to the left side of this section with the right hand side still to be done.  This is a good take along project for this winter and I will work on it here and there.

These are the bits that will be added and they are grouped in sections so that I don't get confused.  They are just pinned onto an old machine quilting mat that I've hung onto just for this purpose.  Doesn't my quilting look good?  That was way back when I was going to do my own quilting on my domestic sewing machine.  Scrap that idea but hang onto the mats to be used for whatever.

This past weekend, members of the family went back to the cottage to do a burn of brush that were in piles along our cottage road.  No photos were taken, but a good deed has been taken care of.  A burning permit was obtained and the fire dept. called for permission before starting the burn.  The pile burned into the night but snow fell to help keep the embers contained.

A few of us stayed the night and once the temperature gets below freezing, it is a quilt and a blanket kind of sleep.

My sister and I stopped at the bridge to see the progress of the be.a.v.er dam.  This dam has been flowing like this for over three weeks now and it is still flowing.  It is times like this when we wish we had a drone to fly back to the beyond to see what and how many dams are back there.

Ice is starting to form along the edges of the pond.

While looking down at the footing of the bridge, I spied a fish skeleton.

Here is a closer look.  Odd place for that and we wondered what animal had a meal.  We did see an eagle this summer, so maybe it caught the fish and ate it at the bridge.  Who knows.  Just a wonder of nature.

There is a slight depression just at the entrance to the bridge and water that accumulated there has frozen.  Our tires broke up the ice as we drove over it.

At the cottage, ice is starting to form on the lake.  Here you can see the ice at the lake shore and also out towards the center of the lake.  Wherever you don't see any ripples on the surface of the water, that is where ice is forming.

I could hear a motor running and what sounded like ice being broken up in a bucket.  What in the world?  I walked to the edge of the lake and took this photo of a boat (that blob in the water) breaking up the ice in the bay.

My sister and I need to take one more run to the cottage.  We seem to have a mice problem and want to try a bucket trap.  We have heard it is quite effective.

As I write this post, it is snowing outside.  Will it stay or melt?  

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Binding Challenge and a Bit of This and That

October was a good month for me and no-blog Mary.

Mary finished her quilt as well as adding some big stitch quilting to it.  I'm so glad the heat of the summer is over and Mary was able to resume her binding challenge with me.

Mary reached into a bag and viola .... this is her quilt to bind for November.

My October binding challenge quilt will be shown in a later post ..... so stay tuned for that reveal.

But, for November, these are the quilts that I will be doing.  For sure, the first two (they are for donation) and then possibly my log cabin.  Hubby really likes that quilt, so it just may get done and hung up on the wall this month.  All these quilts went to the LAer and were all back a week later.  I love that.  Instant gratification!

October saw me quite busy finishing up a few more tops.  I don't know where I found the time to do these, but they got done and off to the LAer they went.  In fact, this top is now one of the above quilts that will get done this month.

Remember this pile of blocks that was shown in a post last month?

Well, here they are in a top!  This is the second top that I have made using this pattern by Villa Rosa called "Berry Smoothie" and I will be making more of them.

Now, onto the topic of our cottage.  It is now closed for the season.  During our driving in and out of the cottage road all summer long, my sister and I always stopped at this bridge to look at the be.a.ve.r dam.  This last trip, we stopped and just had to take these photos.  It was overflowing big time all along the rim and we actually think that it has broken naturally because of the amount of rainfall we have had recently.

The stream on the other side of the bridge was flowing quite a lot!  All summer, it has just been a slow fall of water, but with the breakdown of the dam, it is flowing wildly now.

Back in the city, below are a couple of deer spotted just a few days ago on our neighbours lawn.  They were munching on all the fallen crab apples and they had a feast.

Halloween night .... it snowed big time.  Still, 32 brave kids came and picked up their treats from us.  The next morning, this is what we woke up to.  Four inches of snow had fallen.  Most of it is gone now, but there is still snow on the ground.  This snow fall is quite early for us.  So glad that my winter tires are already installed on the car.

So, that is me all caught up now.  Whew ..... October was quite a busy month!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!