Saturday, September 16, 2017

The Best of Times

Another title of a post where I sat, screen blank, mind flitting, heart full. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen why it's been over a week since I posted.
Brady was here with Brianne, of course, for their annual September visit. Every one of the eight days was chock full of activities. He and Grandpa Rocco (named for one of our dogs; his other Grandpa is Grandpa Hague) did manage to squeeze in a few bike rides, this one along the riverfront in Windsor. For those of you geography buffs, yup, that is the GM Renaissance Centre in downtown Detroit, and it is north of Brady, who is yup, in Canada. The teacher in me just had to show you a part of Canada that is south of a whole lot of the USA. We are down on the 42nd parallel of latitude; the border between our countries is mainly on the 49th. Moving on....

One of the highlights of this trip was a day trip to the Toledo Zoo. We three adults are not enamoured of zoos, for a variety of reasons, although I do see their importance in saving orphans, and saving species.  Well, all four of us loved and raved about this zoo.  Brady was the very best guide we could have, no lie.  Because of his love of the show "Wild Kratts" on PBS, he was a wealth of knowledge, often telling us, ahead of seeing the sign, what animals we were looking at, or interesting facts about them. The red panda and the sloth bear were just two of the many he told us about in the collage above.

One of the reasons Brianne likes to come in September is to catch a Lions game. The season opener is always extra-special.
Brady was PUMPED that 'his' cheerleaders were there and that he got to pose with some of them for a photo. The last time he posed with the cheerleaders was at his first game when he was 5, and they weren't official cheerleaders back then. He got right into the game at many points, this one when the Lions scored yet another touchdown. Go Matthew! (as in Stafford--QB, we love him) Yup, they won.

Pre-game, we took in the Meijer kids area where there were loads and loads of activities. Along with getting his face painted, he did the high jump, and got his photo in USA Today!
Can you spot his nana....


Grandpa and Brady got one-on-one time, and so did Nana and Brady:
He sewed like a champ again, this time on the 1947 Featherweight (ya ya, I haven't written her story yet, sorry). He wanted to make a mask this time, not a quilt. He drew a pattern, and we used some leftover fabric (I still have a ton of that navy Essentials by Moda ha) from his Fractured Pieces quilt, and some Spiderman fabric I got at Fat Quarter Shop last year to make him....something! Still have enough for a pillowcase I believe. You get a bonus look at the granite and cupboards there, no backsplash yet, and another peek at Aidan's 'Radiance' quilt, which I still have to package up and mail off, but I'm taking this weekend to spread it on my bed and enjoy it as much as I can.

My non-quilts WIP is my selvages rug, which is coming along...
I started it while cruising around over the course of their visit, sitting in the backseat with Brady. He knitted several stitches of it too; the child is a natural whether it's brains, sports or arts. I videoed him, but it's too long to insert here; you'll have to take my word for it. He loves knitting, by the way. This is a project I saw by Amanda of Crazy Mom Quilts. That link will take you to her tutorial. It is fun and man, does it eat up those selvages! You knot them on the go, but some of the shorter ones I am stitching together, forwards and then going back over the stitching to reinforce it, and it is working well.  It is getting heavy!

I've been quilting a little bit, sneaking time after Brady went to bed to work with these pretties:
That is a sneak peek of a project for my stop on a blog hop later this week. Watch Benartex's blog, Sew in Love With Fabric, for the hop schedule.

Meanwhile, today and probably a bit of tomorrow, since today is half over, egad, I am going to participate in the National Sew A Jelly Roll day, which you can read about here. This link: Fat Quarter Shop will take you to their page (no affiliation, just pure love for their shop) where they have a special on jelly rolls, as well as a link to a video tutorial for a cool quilt. Connecting Threads also has some great jelly rolls at terrific prices (they do not charge a cutting fee; you pay the same price per yard as you would yardage). Here (affiliate link) is one I particularly like, Starlight Garden. There are two jelly roll black and white quilts I have on my to-do list; here is one from McCalls Quick Quilts:
Oh how I love that one of my librarians is a budding new quilter; she ordered a subscription to this magazine which just started this Spring.

And if you'd like more jelly roll quilt ideas, there are lots on Moda Bakeshop. This one, Hometown Christmas, by my friend Rose, at somethingrosemade is the one I plan to work on. Jasmine of Quilt Kisses has some great jelly roll tutorials: here and here. Remember you do not HAVE to have a jellyroll! Look how many strips the pattern requires, and cut 2.5" strips from your own stash! I may just be doing that in my corner of QBL.

Okay, I'm off to the races, ha!


12 comments:

  1. Sounds like it was definitely the best of times. He is such a cute! I love the picture of the jump. I do love jelly roll race quilts!

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  2. I'm glad that your visit was full of so many great memories. Have fun this weekend with the jelly rolls!

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  3. I love that mask! Great that you had so much fun with Brady, Sandra. Grand kids are the best.

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  4. Always fun when Brady is around, stock pile those memory and take them out when you need a lift. No jelly rolling happened over here, fact is I don't even own a jelly roll.

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  5. It's nice you indulged Brady with a Zoo trip-me I love zoo's especially if they have giraffes! My DH is not a big fan of zoo's either.

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  6. Glad you had a great time with Brady and still snuck in a little sewing.

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  7. Brady is so handsome and so playful. May he always be this way. So glad that you got to spend fun time with him. Yes, the blogging can wait. Thanks for the links :-)

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  8. Brady looks like a great kid! Glad you were able to enjoy some time with him!

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  9. Good moment!! my sons love the time passed with their grandmother too!

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  10. Wow, what a fun visit! Looks like everyone had a blast. Looking forward to checking out your new jelly roll project.

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  11. What a great mask, though I imagine it gets rather warm under there! It was a lovely time you had to together, and I look forward to lovely times in the future with our own grandson. The jelly roll sounds fun, I didnt participate, I just shook my jelly belly.

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