Saturday, September 22, 2012

Walker/Rollator bag for my Mom

Howdy!  Still here!   But am not very busy.  We got hit by another bit of tropical weather from way down south the last week or so and its been so humid its hard to get anything done.  We've had alot of rain and today, yikes!  It is around 20C out there right now, at almost 9 pm with a humidex of 30C.  I am NOT amused!

I still haven't put away my summer clothes and dug out my fall clothes which I will need to pack for our trip.

When my Mom was here a few weeks ago, she was complaining about this bag that she has clipped to her walker to hold things like shopping bags, comb, bus pass, etc.   You can see the bag here on my previous post.   I think she took the bag from her old walker or my Dads walker and it didn't fit properly so I took some measurements and said I would try to make her one.  Well, on top of trying to make her bag, I went through approximately 1000 photos I took when I was visiting with her earlier this summer, and then her visit here shortly afterwards, and picked 170 to put into two albums for her.   All this took me more time that I thought I would. 

This is the front of the bag I made for her walker.

I do not have any software downloaded yet that will decrease the pixels size of the photos and I can't see where I an do that in Picasa so I hate to think about how large that photo was.

In any case, this is the back.  It has three folded over flaps that are  joined together by what we commonly call "Velco" but should be called "hook and loop". 

I used an Extra Strong "Heat and Bond" to fuse the blue floral fabric to the blue demin fabric.  It made the whole thing nice and still but I hope not too stiff.  I used a lightly flowered beige fabric for the inside.   I had no pattern and so there are alot of mistakes or issues with the bag.  In any case, I feel good that it is done and it and the photos have been packaged up and are on their way by purolator to Mom.

With the summer being extra hot and humid this year, our gardens and trees and bushes have grown in this tropical weather.  Another thing that has grown is our spiders!  Good grief!  And there are so many!

The farmer is in the field across the road baling hay.  Most grain fields have been harvested and the farmers are now digging their potatoes.  The rain we've had lately is putting a damper on that but as soon as the sun comes out, they will be back at it!
Well, here it is near the end of September and it is going to be a long uncomfortably hot and humid night for sleeping.   But the cold will be here soon enough and I LOVE autumn!

Talk to you soon and have fun!


Sunday, September 16, 2012

Mary Wigham, vacation

I'm back!
I haven't really been gone, but the computer is gone!   I have had a PC or tower computer since 1994.  I have also used a tower computer at work from 1979 till about 6 or 7 years ago.  I decided to try a laptop.  HATE THE KEYBOARD!  Would have said the same thing for the mouse, but luckily, the place I got the computer at, Sites and Bytes, supplies a wireless mouse with the laptop.

So what has happened in the few weeks since I wrote last?  Well, Husband ran some races in Sydney, NS at the Canada National 55+ games and came home with 1 gold medal and 3 silver medals!   Yeah!
He also brought home a whopper of a flu!   He ended up really really sick and was not pleasant to be near.  i managed to live through the whole thing without catching the flu but ended up with pink eye in both eyes, a sore throat and left ear ache.

So needless to say, I got hardly any stitching done.  I will save this and take a photo of the Mary Wigham sampler which is the only thing that I was able to stitch. 

The sampler was on the Q-snap so I had to take it off to photograph it.  Sorry, but to get this blog done it is not pressed which in the blogging world I'm sure is gross!   This is my progress so far:

This is a close up of the upper right section:

As I've said previously, I am doing this with one thread of floss over one thread of fabric.  I am using 22 count fabric which is actually hardanger fabric.  I LOVE IT!  It is wonderful for stitching over one.

I have been using my Camedia software from my old digital Olympus camera to edit all of my photos.  With the new computer, it is no longer available to me so I have had to find other options.  I came across the site Picmonkey and I didn't find it difficult to use. 

Here are a few photos taken earlier today.

This is a field that has had the wheat harvested a week or two ago and the grass is already growing up in its place.
We stopped at Cavendish Grove, part of the Cavendish National Parks and took a little walk.   I was able to catch some reflection in a nearby pond.

We haven't had any frost yet.  Last night was the coldest so far at about 9 C.  I guess it was cold enough to get the trees motivated to start turning colour.

Well, I would love to tell you that I will be posting regularly and posting tons of new and exciting things from now on.  But, and always the big but, my husband and I are taking a vacation for the whole month of October!  That is one reason for the laptop instead of the PC.  It is portable and can come with us.  We don't have WiFi where we are going, which is a good thing, but WiFi is available about 15 to 20 miles down the road so I'm hoping to get some posts in.  Just not sure how often.

I have followed Lyric Kinard's blog since seeing her on the tv program "Quilting Arts".  She has proposed a daily reminder to take baby steps towards getting to our goal of achieving whatever it is we wish to achieve.  She is calling it taking "Baby Steps" and you can read about it here .   I LOVE IT!!!  I need to get off my duff.  One of the big things I want to do is my art journaling.  I took Sharon B's online course "Artists Studio Journal" and admit I haven't done too much with it.  We will be away at our favorite hide away and my goal to to make an entry in my art journal EVERY DAY.  I will have my camera with me so hope to post what I am doing.  I had a number of stitching projects lined up to take with me but this Mary Wigham is taking longer than I had hoped so I will take it and complete it.  I have a bottomless UFO pile so there is no shortage of what else I might be bringing with me.  No iron tho so don't expect miracles!  LOL

The girls in the Sunshine Deli have been busy so stop by for a visit!   If you want some really great fabulous stories to read, The Grumpy Goat Gallery is an absolute treat to visit! 

And of course, Judy Cooper and the Stitching Lady never disappoint!

Talk to you soon!   Happy anything!