Waiting for Winter.....

What a busy summer!

We didn't go too far, but then why go anywhere when you live on an island that most people from "away" come to for their vacations!

It was a long very hot summer and most days were spent in the shade or by the water.

There was stitching done and all sorts of things, but, I will have to post them another day, hopefully soon.

To my friend in Spain, I never cease to be amazed by your lovely hand work! You are an inspiration!

See you soon!

No Time for Stitching or Quilting

Hello!

As usual, its been a while. We've had a very cool and rainy spring, but even so, I still had to get out and clean out my many gardens. There has been little time for stitching or quilting. I thought I would show the results of my labours. For some people, who need to use more than one tape measure, I am giving measurements in both feet and meters.

This is our front garden, about 15 + feet or over 4 1/2 meters wide. There are still tulips blooming in the garden, so our spring is quite late this year.

This next garden is under the kitchen window (and solar heater). It is "L" shaped and probably about 16 + feet in total, or almost 5 meters.

This next garden is also "L" shaped and at the west side of the house. Each side is probably 15 + feet or over 4 meters long. I have most of my lilies in this garden as well as some beautiful fuschia coloured peonies, poppies and lupins which will be blooming soon.

This is my back garden. It is "U" shaped so in total, it is about 40 feet of flower beds, or 12 meters. I have morning glory growing up the poles in the centre and there is a fire pit for evening teas by the fire.

The final garden is the vegetable garden. Probably because of all the rain we've had, its an excellent year for rhubarb and we have tons of it, as you can see. We've planted beets, carrots, tomatoes and green pole beans. This garden is about 15 X 30 feet or 4 1/2 X 9 meters.

As you can see, the photos have been taken in between rain on a cloudy day. Today, we are enjoying our second day or sunshine, with no rain, for the first time in over a month! So what am I doing inside on the computer instead of outside???

Hopefully, I will have something a little more interesting to show soon... (Yeah, i've said that before!)...

Take care and talk to you soon!

Wonky Eyeglass Case

Well, my mother is going to think I hate her when she sees the eyeglass case! What a mess!

If you ever want to make an eyeglass case and think you don't need a pattern, like I did, because, hey, how hard can it be!!!? TAKE NOTE, YOU NEED A PATTERN! There is alot to be said about the words "PLAN, PLAN, PLAN"!!!!!! And I didn't plan. sigh....... hence the wonky eyeglass case. Anyways, it is done and pictures, taken from as far away as possible, are here:

She better have a really small pair of glasses because I think that is all that is going to fit inside there!

To take your mind off the eyeglass case, I am hoping to interest you with some pictures. Unfortunately, our allotted 12 minutes of sunshine today came when I did not have my camera for photos, so we have our usual drab cloudy pictures. The first one shows the vastness of the farm fields, all starting to get plowed in preparation for potato and wheat planting.

I was able to walk the beach in North Rustico this morning before breakfast and came across a tiny little shell with stuff growing on it.

And after breakfast, we went to the Cavendish National Park Campground for a walk in the trees. Hard not to find peace when the winds are whispering in the spruce trees and the birds are singing!

Well, I better get started stitching another eyeglass case for my mother to make up for the mess I made with this one! Have a great day!

Playing Catch Up!

Hello!

It's been a while! Well, in the midst of my quilting and stitching, my mother, who is 85 years old, decides to visit for Easter. (She lives almost 2000 kms away) While she was here, I showed her all the lovely stitching I have been doing. She looked at them all, said yes, they were nice and then asked me to stitch something "useful" like an eyeglass case for her! LOL Yes, she is back at home and I am finally off my nerve pills!

I have her eye glass case stitched by the way, though I don't have it made into an eye glass case yet. She wanted a Ukrainian design from her area of Ukraine so hopefully she will be happy with my choice of pattern and colours.

Anyways, for anyone who posts to their blog regularly, I applaud you! But I ask... Where on earth do you find the time! The nice weather has finally come and I find myself outside weeding the garden, pruning trees, riding my bike and yes, evenings, when I am too tired to move, I stitch. So, no time to blog!!! And even though I beat my friend from Spain in our SAL of the Black Sheep Sampler (do I sound like I'm whining?), she posted hers to her blog first! Here is my completed stitching:

In the time that I waited for her to finish the Black Sheep Sampler, I started and finished The Green Old Garden Sampler. Boy did I ever love stitching this one!

And when I finished this one, well, I had to start another! Quite a while ago, I bought a book by Jane Greenoff which was pictured in a Cross Stitch and Needlework magazine. Wow!!!!! Great book and it has some wonderful samplers in it! There are some samplers at the back with drawn or pulled thread that I will keep in mind for the future! Anyways, I fell in love with the Wild Hedgerow House Sampler and so started it. Its progress was delayed by the "useful" eyeglass case! This is where I am now:

Close up, upper right corner

Spring is actually a bit early here on our island and we did have some nice weather but we have also had alot of rain which I am not thrilled with. It does make everything green though! Today is a special day on parts of the island. Lobster season opens up tomorrow, so the fishermen are allowed to go out today and set their traps and tomorrow they can pull in the first catch! So there is lobster on the menu in our near future! YUMMMMM!!!!!
This is a picture of the boats as they are laiden with traps ready to go out, and be thrown into the water.

Enjoy your spring and may summer find its way to you early!

Happy stitching!

Bargello Quilt Wallhanging and other happenings....

Hello!

Well, I got a project completed that has been vexing me for quite some time. I took an evening class in bargello and have finished the top of the wallhanging, but I just didn't know how I wanted to quilt it. Other than "stitching in the ditch" I haven't done any other machine quilting. And so the wallhanging sat.


Thanks to a "UFO Challenge" put on by the local quilt guild that i belong to, I got prodded into finishing this project and if it wasn't finished by next months meeting, I would have to pay the guild $25! Where there's money involved, there is always ambition!


Here is my Bargello wallhanging, the colours chosen because my kitchen is lime green and I wanted something to go in the kitchen!

I don't think it shows up very well, but I chose to do was a sun and sun ray theme in quilting the wallhanging. In the lower left corner are 3 quarter circles and then there are 5 rays coming out from it going to the border of the quilt. I am not taking close ups of this wallhanging as I don't want you to see the mistakes! I got some pretty good puckers along the top of the quilt unfortunately.

And, for my friend the slow poke (who in reality has probably finished this sampler), I'm sorry but I just can't help myself!!!! I am back to working my hardanger, but every once in a while, I just have to do a few more stitches on our Black Sheep Sampler!
















I am also working on a quilt. Fabric below! I have 9 shades of rose colours, dark to light, and 9 shades of greens, dark to light. You cut 9 squares from all the fabrics and sew them together. In other words, each of 9 squares of one shade of rose, is sewn to one shade of all nine shades of green. THAT IS ALOT OF SQUARES! You can see that to sew them together, you draw a diagonal line on the back of one of the squares, sew 1/4 inch away from that line, on either side of that line, cut the line after you do the sewing, you end up with 2 squares and then, you press open the squares. You then take 2 squares again, and match them up and do the whole thing again, draw the diagonal line, sew on either side of it and cut them apart. You end up with one square with 4 different colours in it. I am in the process of doing the second sewing. The squares on the right side of the pile and the fabric left over is on the left side!

Well, i'm sure you figured out by now that i love taking nature photos, but don't spend too much time prettying up my photos for the blog. No time!

Enjoy your day and hopefully, i'll be back a bit sooner next time!

Well, back from a few days at our favorite place, a cottage in Economy, Nova Scotia. No TV, sitting near the front window stitching, watching the highest tidal changes in the world, by the Bay of Funday. Getting up early in the morning meant you were in for a treat! Sunrises were especially glorious!





Well, my trusty friend from across the pond raised a few issues, and i think that more need to be raised. Unfortunately, i got myself into a little bit of a pickle and refuse to make fun of her super slowness in fear of being ridiculed myself! I think her mascot should be a turtle and not a cow!

I was ready to start stitching the alphabet of our sampler at the cottage when i realized that the pattern was directing me to use a blue thread for the alphabet and i felt that a green was more appropriate. Well, seeing as we were going to be staying at the cottage for only 4 days, i brought only 7 stitching projects with me (a girl has to be prepared!) and so my green choices were limited. But, choose a green i did and so the stitching of the alphabet began. Well, i got A to L completed and started stitching the little green and yellow floral design below it when i decided that the green alphabet was going to be wayyyyyyyyy too much green in the sampler and i didn't like it. I'm sure the designer figured that out and that is why she chose blue! So guess what? Yes, i am taking out the upper alphabet letters one by one, as i stitching along, and doing them in blue... sigh... Can someone please come and knock some sense in to me??? I will even lend you the shovel to do it with!














Anyways, i had a wonderful time at the cottage stitching, enjoyed walking in the -30C temperatures, took only 500 photographs, and you will be ever so thankful because i won't be posting them here!!














Back to the old grind.. sigh... Life is good! And friend, GET STITCHING!

The Almost Inside Out Bag!

and Slow Motion Stitch-along

Well, my friend the Rabbit emailed me from Florida to say that she made a quilted bag out of black and white fabrics. Not be outdone, I decided I had to make one too. First step, go out into our tiny town to the fabric store and try to find a variety of black and white fabrics! Little did I know that this was mission impossible! I didn't quite find what Iwas looking for but found some fabrics that I could live with. I had with me a "Quilts illustrated" bag pattern ps016 Charm Party Tote and almost feel like I shouldn't mention the pattern in case the designer decides to sue me! What a mess I made! Other than buying the black and white fabric, I did not want to buy anything else and so, I did not buy the Pellon fusible fleece asked for in the pattern, but decided to use some padding that I had which is similar to Timtex, a very firm padding that would be suitable for making bowls and boxes. Well, I obviously had to amend the pattern because of my choice because instead of making the inside and outside of the bag separately and then sewing them together, I just ironed the outside of the bag to one side of my padding and then ironed the inside of the bag to the other side of the padding. I then sewed the 3 sides together and all I had to do was turn the bag inside out! HA! Have you ever tried to turn cement inside out?

This is what I thought my bag was going to end up looking like as I tried to turn it inside out! I needed the help of my husband, the dog and the neighbours!

The bag finally got turned right side out and I was able to put some binding along the top and then some handles on it. One thing I did not like was the pocket I put on it. I should mention that I had problems understanding how to made the outside pocket so made up my own, but seeing that there are many women in my quilting guild who had no problems at all with the pocket, I will assume it is a problem with me and not the pattern. In any case, I did not like my pocket and could not remove it as it was ironed onto my padding so I made a separate square and hand stitched it ontop of the pocket that was there. The completed bag is shown below!

Pocket before change:

Pocket with the square hand sewn over it:

Back of bag:

And finally, I might mention that I am doing a Stitch Along with my friend Didi in Spain. We are doing the Black Sheep Sampler by Elizabeth Designs. We just started this project and I think that as of yesterday, we were both around the same place, just starting the border vine. But, I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I got up and stitched. This is what I have done so far! I think you might have some catching up to do Didi!

Hopefully, it won't take me 6 months to make my next posting!