Gratitude #73

Hello, and welcome to my monthly post of things I've noticed the past month for which I'm grateful. I also note simple things I just like or love. You can find more of these uplifting posts at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

1. I like no, I love animal sanctuaries. They do so much good. One that I particularly enjoy is @totes.the.goat on Instagram. They are Black Goat Farm Sanctuary in the Hamilton, Ontario area. The photos of little blind lamb Paisley’s "first adventure outside" enjoying the warm spring sun was a much-needed boost to my heart today.

Rainbow Neighbourhood Quilt Along Announcement

Welcome to the seventh annual quilt along here at mmmquilts! I am so glad you are here, and I do hope you will join in with us for yet another year of fun sewing and prizes galore! If you are new to the blog, welcome! I hope you'll peruse the tabs up top, check out some of the activities and makes of mine. Be sure to follow me (see the follow it buttons for the blog and Instagram on my sidebar) to be notified of new posts over the next few months of the quilt along.

This is the main page where you will find the schedule and sponsors of the QAL. If you are participating, be sure to grab the graphic below and paste it on your sidebar or in your Instagram feed, on Pinterest, wherever you are on social media! I thank you for spreading the word.

Here is the html code:

<div style="width:100%;text-align:center;"><span style='margin:5px;padding:5px;border-radius: 5px;border:1px solid lightgrey;display:inline-block;'><a  rel=_nofollow href='https://www.mmmquilts.com/2023/03/rainbow-neighbourhood-quilt-along.html'>           <img style='border: 1px solid gray;width:200px;height:200px;' src='https://www.homesewnbyus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rainbow_Neighbourhood_QAL.png' alt='mmmQuilts'></a></span></div>

Just copy and paste that code into your sidebar on your blog and when others see it, they'll be bounced here where all the information is! Thank you so much Roseanne of Home Sewn by Us for offering to code the graphic for me. The way I used to do it doesn't work...

What quilt are we making this year?

Rainbow Neighbourhood!

You have two options, a throw that uses just the houses, and a twin. This one is the twin size made by my lovely and soooo very much appreciated pattern tester, Michelle in Scotland. This is option number one, ten houses with some setting blocks of trees, flowers and hearts.

DrEAMi #71

Welcome to another Drop Everything And Make it! post, where we celebrate those projects that distract us from our 'supposed-to-be-making' projects, aka as squirrels. We've all been bitten/smitten with a project we see somewhere, be it online, at a guild meeting, in a magazine, and we stop sewing our current project because we 

just

have

to make

this thing

right

NOW!

I don't know about you, but these things usually hit me at the worst of times. I'm making a quilt for a reason, a person, and wham! out of left field comes this attractive bauble. Quilter ADD I also call it.

Project Quilting 14.6 Conquer a Fear

After quilting for some 25 years, there isn't anything in quilting that I fear. Avoid/hesitate? Yes. As in life, there are certain things we love to do, and certain things we ... do not! Over the course of the first couple of days following the release of the challenge, an idea was forming, to symbolize fear in a mini quilt, from the debilitating 'darkness' of feeling fear to the release, the blossoming and lightness that happens when you work through it and have such a sense of accomplishment. I wish I'd had more time. I had another deadline, the SAHRR, and so I devoted the majority of my week to that, since Cuba had 'robbed me' 😉 of a week's work on it. In the end, I pulled this together in a few hours. I do love it, and have used it every day since Sunday!

This is my new favourite mug rug.

Wild and Wonderful SAHRR Quilt

It's been some time since I wrote a post; I really didn't intend to take more than three weeks off blogging. Hope you check in on me on Instagram because I do post fairly regularly there. If you don't, I'll catch you up with Rounds 5 and 6 for the SAHRR, as well as what I was up to during one of the weeks:

Looks fake doesn’t it, but I assure you it is real, taken with my iPhone, and not photoshopped or colour enhanced.

Ahh, as on our previous two trips to the idyllic island of Cuba, I found several sources of inspiration for colour and design. It felt good to do something normal as well, though I did and will always wear an N95 mask on an airplane. All was well, and we've returned healthy and didn't catch anything, but that is thanks to masking on the airplane and in close quarters in the airports, as well as lots of outdoor time, even eating en plein air, which I love any day!

DrEAMi #70

Well typing that number, 70, gave me a bit of a pause. Wow. So I looked back to see just when I started this linky party where we celebrate everything squirrel and shiny and distracting...

January 28, 2017

Six years ago! Somehow it seems longer than that. Not only was it the first DrEAMi, but apparently it was the first time I hosted a linkup! Here is a graphic I used in that post that I just love.

The DrEAMi I talked about in that first post was none other than my house pattern, (see sidebar) which became a cushion cover. If you want to take a little peek back at that post, click here.

Gratitude #72

As I write this, I am grateful for my snug house. It is blowing and raining something fierce, and has been nasty almost all day. We had freezing rain and then tiny snow pellets, then more freezing rain mixed with regular rain. The trees looked like something out of Frozen, encased in ice. The power has been flickering and a fire engine made its way down the lane behind us, lights flashing but no sirens. We think maybe a tree or a large branch fell on a power line. Again, I ask myself, why when they upgrade the power poles, which they have been doing over the past several years, do they not just use that money for the new poles, and bury the damn lines. It's not like it's hard digging here; it's sand. We used to be an ocean bed.

Yay for hardy, early spring flowers, like winter aconite that has been blooming for a week now. I am also grateful for the snowdrops I spied at the beginning of this week. They really give a person's spirits a lift.