Saturday, September 29, 2018

DrEAMi! #20

Twenty parties. Twenty celebrations of chasing shiny baubles that distract us from our quilty path. Such fun we have had! And continue to have. In case this is your first time to the party, it's a DrEAMi! (Drop Everything And Make it!) party where we celebrate GETTING distracted, and show off what we've just had to make.
Have you stored some of the squirrelly nuts or nuggets away that we've seen over the past 20 posts for future chasing? I know I have. I know our squirrels have been doing it too...

What is a picture of our SUV doing as the lead photo? Look closely. At the wheel. Not the tire, the wheel. Notice anything odd? Something green? Looks a bit like a tennis ball? Yup. Not a tennis ball, though nearly as big. It's a black walnut. They're encased in those chartreuse, similar to a very thick orange peel, coverings, inside of which is the walnut. My daughter Brianne, who is here visiting us with her son, our grandson, Brady, noticed that our squirrels have been storing nuts (and even a small green tomato off my plant!) in rather ingenious places! This is one of the best ones yet.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

I Like/Love #20 and Giveaway Winners

First of all, thank you to all who left such kind, thoughtful comments on my blog-iversary post for the giveaway. Here are the winners of the five prizes as chosen by Rafflecopter:
1. Five times 2 = 10 2.5" strips of Alpine Jingle by Island Batik: Nancy A. in America
2. Fifth published pattern of mine in Modern Patchwork magazine Sept/Oct issue: Miriam in America
3. 5-item bundle of Captiva plus pattern: Michele T. in Canada
4. Five fat quarters of Wonderlust by Benartex: Dione in Australia
5. 1.25 total yards of Acorn Park by Connecting Threads: Kathy E. in America
Winners have been emailed for addresses!

Second of all, I suddenly have become a no-reply-blogger on blogger blogs with embedded comments. I have spent a couple of hours trying to fix, using the link on my own blog, here, using more recent 'fixes', and even though my profile is blogger, not Google+, and I have checked the 'show my email' box in my profile, I am still a no-reply. If anyone out there know what has happened, and perhaps how to fix it, please let me know in the comments box. I seem to be okay on my phone however. So bizarre. All right grumpiness out, on with the good. I also tried the sign out on my iPhone, went on the laptop, signed out, then signed back in on the laptop. Nope. My comment disappears into the ether; the Google box stays grey.

1. I love dogs, big dogs especially. Pibbles and Rotties are two of the top big breeds I love. Ergo, I love this photo, taken by Lindsay who writes a terrific food blog, Pinch of Yum:
She actually saw that a few weeks ago, in St. Paul, MN. Bahaha! I like that she has recently become the mama of a baby girl.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Two Take-Along Bags

Check! Another one of this quarter's goals have been accomplished. My list is here.

First though, if you haven't visited my Happy 5th Blog-iversary post where there is not one but five giveaways up for grabs, be sure to do so. You have until midnight tomorrow night to enter.

Both daughters requested I make them another makeup bag using Lazy Girl Designs Take-Along bag. When I was finishing up Dayna's, I did a mental count and I do believe these two are number 7 and 8 using this pattern!

Here is Brianne's:

And here is Dayna's:


Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Happy 5th Blog-iversary mmm! quilts

Five years ago today, after waffling for months, I finally wrote a blog post and published it. I still recall that vulnerable feeling of having sent something out into the world, where any and all eyes could see it... However, I have never yet not learned, not grown from facing a fear, so that was partly why I decided to just jump into the Quilting Blogland pool... and found the water warm and welcoming indeed. Here's the quilt I was working on at the time of that first post, still one of my all-time favourite makes:
Seaside Rose
I think five years is rather auspicious, so I decided to celebrate in fine form this year, with a blog post that has five sections of five points each:

  • Five Favourite Quilting Tips
  • Five Favourite Blogging Tips
  • Five most popular/favourite Blog Posts
  • Five Favourite QBL Activities
  • Five Prizes Giveaway
Sounds like fun? Come on in and let's party!

Friday, September 14, 2018

Knitted Selvages Rug - A Finish!

Yay for another item to cross off my Q3FAL List which is here. I started this exactly a year ago (knitters extraordinaire like Helen in Ireland and Sue in England may roll their eyes at my tortoise pace) and I've just picked away at it here and there, as my selvages stock grew, (that was my first excuse) and then as I accumulated lots and lots of them, my excuse was, well, nothing.


Tuesday, September 11, 2018

A Quilt for a Little Boy

This was a DrEAMi! project. For those of you who are not familiar with that term, it stands for those projects where you just have to Drop Everything And Make it! They are also known as squirrels. All squirrels are urgent; some are fun; others are desperately needed. This quilt falls into the latter category; it had to get made because of a tragic event...
Back in the first of my final 15 years of my teaching career, at a Junior High in Sherwood Park, I taught a beautiful girl named Shannon. I soon learned that her dad also taught at the school, but little did I know he and I would become very good friends. This quilt is for his grandson, Shannon's son, who is just 6 years old.
The wind and the rain hung around all weekend; the quilt is not that friendly... 😄

Friday, September 7, 2018

Wildflower Pinwheel Placemats Published!

I am published again.😁 This makes five publications, (the number five is an auspicious number of late!) four digital and one print. Six if you count the Moda Bakeshop one I guess! A new edition of Modern By the Yard is out as of today, woot! woot! and I am super-excited to let you know of more secret sewing that was done a few months back, June to be exact.

You can click the ezine cover which will take you to Benartex Fabrics' blog, Sew in Love With Fabric. I hope you are on their email list so you never miss a post; there's always lots of new fabric lines information, designer interviews, blog hops, and giveaways from time to time too! Here is my project in this issue:
See one's own work professionally photographed never ceases to thrill!

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Throwback Thursday #9 Windy Day Fun

It's Thursday, right?! The first Thursday of the month...yikes! It's Throwback Thursday, aka TBT!

I did not forget about it, honestly I did not. I just didn't write the post ahead of time, and then, yeah, right about 8:15 am when I finished my Yin yoga practice, zing! When I did my Yin on Monday, I thought I'd do this month's post on this quilt, because I often use it when I do Yin through the summer months. This is called Windy Day Fun. I love all the secondary patterns you see from simple squares, triangles, and rectangles.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Update on Projects and OMG

As you know by now, I really enjoy sharing with you 'the process', and reading about that very thing on others' blogs. Here are some of my ongoing projects, as well as my OMG for September, which is this quilt in progress:
Please note: these are all reds: shades, tints, hues, so they go from bright red, to burgundies to pinks, corals
...which I hope to have the centre section complete (that's 156 6" blocks with sashing and cornerstones) by the end of the month. I'm putting them together in the order in which they were released, with my six blocks interspersed. I'll highlight those once the quilt centre is complete. Yes, there are borders! It may very well end up being my biggest quilt to date. I may have to do a final piece count...

This is my 150 Canadian Women quilt, a quilt along I did with Kat of Next Step Quilt Designs from December 2016 through October 2017. My first post is here, December 6, 2016, and my last is here, January 3, 2018. Canada celebrated her sesquicentennial July 1, 2017, and this was the project, three blocks per week for a total of 150. For this layout you needed to make six more, which I did, for a total of 156 (12 X 13 blocks layout). I have the first six rows sewn together, and row 7 is done as well, and pinned on the design wall. I found sewing the rows into groups of three worked well, and then I sewed the group of three rows to make the group of six. This is what I plan to do for the bottom half. Whether row 7 will get sewn to rows 1-6 or start the bottom section of rows 7-13, I haven't decided! The bulk of the quilt has been sewn on my Featherweights, 1951 Tillie, and 1947 Billie. I am in LOVE, mad crazy effervescing love with this quilt. It's huge. Can you see the tiny cornerstones that finish at 1"?! It's a plaid-type print from the 'With Glowing Hearts' line by Moda. Perfection!