Gratitude #59

Welcome to my last gratitude post of 2021. Foof! but it's been another 'interesting' year hasn't it? Gratitude and pausing to just be thankful for what I see around me, for little happenings, discoveries, events, just regular stuff, has again been very therapeutic. I hope you will pop over to Not Afraid of Color, where you can read our host LeeAnna's weekly post, and visit several others who write these posts. Here are mine I've kept track of through December. 

1. Some good news regarding the environment in Canada. A 93-year-old man has donated the 7-acre island, called Île Ronde, which he bought in the early 1960s to the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Multiple offers came over the years from developers but he refused them all. Now he's protected it for (hopefully) good, even after he's gone. Read the fascinating article here.

Map turtles (so named due to the map-like appearance of their shells) are endangered, and so the natural shoreline provides them nesting and sunning habitat. Most of the developed areas have been shored up with concrete walls and turtles cannot climb them.

Bijoux et Bisous Finish

Yay me! This was my November OMG and it is done and dusted...with snow!

Can you spot the butterfly I FMQ-ed in the approximate centre? More as to its significance later.

This is my RSC2018 quilt. That little cutie with her Detroit Lions toque and Canada Olympic mittens behind the quilt is the recipient of the quilt, my daughter Dayna. I took her up to Traverse City, Michigan, for a mama/daughter weekend away. We had fun. This little lake was the view from our Air BnB suite.

OMG Times Three

1. OMG

One Monthly Goal

I did not get my 150 Canadian Women top to the flimsy stage last month so I am moving it on over to this month. It's a pretty huge goal, but I did move it along by getting all 150 sashing 1.5X6.5" strips attached.

Stacked all in one pile, they'd equal 8" high of blocks!

I've since realized that we are not doing a 10X15 block layout, which would have created a rather long skinny quilt, but a 12X13 block layout. That means I need 156 blocks, so I have to make six more. Kat suggests just plain red 6.5" squares, or a maple leaf... I have a few ideas, just need to get them into the fabric. I also bought a half metre of "With Glowing Hearts" from my LQS that is a plaid-looking fabric with red maple leaves that are 1" square on it! Perfect for the cornerstones.

2.  OMG

Ontario-inspired Maker who is German
Her name is Claudia, and she lives in Germany. She reads my blog, every post! Awww.  Earlier this year, in April to be exact, she was in Florida for some time. Well, she decided to do my Freefall QAL which was running on the blog around that time. She says the fabrics she chose were inspired by the previous October's trip to Toronto, which sits on Lake Ontario:

She was visiting a neighbour's daughter, who has married a Canadian and lives in Toronto.  She writes:

It was such a nice time last year in October, with all this sunshine, it was warm and all this wonderful colors around us. Great. I am sure we will be visit this area again sometimes.

I am so awed and grateful that she DID my QAL, (I have another in the works, yep, another shadow quilt! for Spring 2018 in the works), that she took the time to write to me to tell me and send me these photos, that she was in Florida (you may recall we spend a few months there in the winter), and that she was inspired by one of our Great Lakes' Fall colours. How absolutely wonderful is all that?  Wonderful, glorious, is her rendition of Freefall:

Rich lush batiks! In lush Florida too!

Look at the quilting!

Close-up of the quilting and the batiks--yum!

Thank you Claudia, from the bottom of my heart!

3. OMG

Over the Moon Girl

My daughter Dayna and her boyfriend Tyler spent American Thanksgiving weekend in Chicago. Their first day there, he dropped to one knee by Lake Michigan...

Yup, he's now her fiancé.😃 And I am One 'Maman' Grinning with happiness for them. It does my heart good to see my daughter literally brimming with joy, hear the excitement and happiness in Tyler's voice and on his face as he told us what he was going to do and asked for our blessing, and then get the call/FaceTime of utter elation and tears of happiness from her after he proposed. Next year is looking to be filled with much joy!

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts

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!

Jammies

Brady's summer jammies shorts are done!  Well they were like over two months ago; I just haven't posted about them.

Minions on the left; Ninja Turtles on the right!

Easy enough to sew two at the same time.  I found the Ninja Turtles fabric when I was looking for something else...  My sister, Wendy, gave it to me years ago (if you zoom in you might see a "c"1991 in the fabric), leftovers from snazzy baggy pants she made her boys who were about Brady's age in the mid-90s...Yup, that's 20 years ago!!!! Egad. How did that happen? I had thought it would be great for stack 'n whack (but there weren't enough repeats) or maybe parts of it for colourwash (you can use both sides of fabric depending on the fabric) and then realized get a grip Sandra, ain't gonna happen; use it for an I Spy kid quilt...  And then.  I thought hey, it might work for a second pair of shorts!  Only enough for one leg out of each colour, so they are WILD! I thought he'd love them as he loves the Ninja turtles. He was trying to teach me who was who the other night: Raphael, Donatello...

btw that Ninja Turtle fabric glows in the dark!

So he modelled them earlier this summer when his grandpa was out west visiting him:

He wore them while he was here this past lovely 8 days.  He didn't bring his Minions ones but he loves those too.

As I type this part now, he has lifted off out of Toronto a few minutes ago, headed back home with his mum.  Sniff.  Listening to his almost constant chatter gives me a glimpse into his amazing brain; the depth of thought this child has is nothing short of ahhh-mazing.  Such a thoughtful, gentle, intelligent, sweet, compassionate child I have never before encountered.

Going to assuage my sadness by applying this 378" long roll of eggplant binding onto Dayna's quilt this afternoon:

Quick note that you might want to assuage your feelings of hmmm, sadness that summer is nearly over or boredom or freedom now that your kids are back in school, or no reason LOL, by picking up a class from Craftsy...I got a surprise email today that they're putting every one of their classes on sale for less than $20US ($26CA) starting tomorrow.  Wow! That's an affiliate link, as you know ;-)
Every
Single
One
Click here for my reviews of some of Angela's classes.  I should be back within a day or two with a review of the latest one of hers I snagged, which I started watching (which made my mind go about the same speed as Brady's plane, 500mph with ideas):
Machine Quilting Borders and Backgrounds
as well as Natalia Bonner's brand new class
Free-Motion Motifs for Classic Blocks 

One of my good friends from my teaching days, and a faithful blog reader, Janis, sent me a couple of photos of what she has been busy sewing up for her twin granddaughters, just a month older than my Brady!

IT'S MY PYRAMID POUCH PATTERN!  Yes I yelled that in excitement!  It's my pattern that I designed for Moda Bakeshop (see sidebar link, no affiliation)  When I saw this, I actually said, "Oh! Yay! Wow!" and immediately asked her if I could post it sometime...  Isn't her owl fabric to DIE for?? And her accompanying colours?  and LOOK at her points!!  Okay, where else can you say that phrase without sounding rather rude? LOL

How I love these!  And I love that someone else is making my little pouch. :-)  Diann of Little Penguin Quilts made one too; click here to see hers.  This has lifted my spirits today.  Thanks so much Janis for sharing this!

Over Too Soon

As always.  Brady and Brianne are winging their way back home as I type.  It was a wonderful 8 days, as every visit is.  Magical.  Yes, I'm his nana, but this child is something else.  Everyone who meets him comments on his poise, his character, his intelligence, his engagement in the moment at hand.  He told his mum he wanted Nana to give him sewing lessons.  This was what we created one of the mornings.

A Quilt for Caramel, his stuffed (but breathing!) sleeping puppy
I had a little bit of Olaf fabric scraps still left, so I said we could cut out some squares.  He wanted to put red with it.  (but of course)

I told him he needed to draw a design.

He went right to work.

So pleased with his plan

I gave him my Ziploc bag of smaller red scraps and showed him the plastic drawer of larger (quarter yard-ish) red pieces.  It didn't take long. He picked that rich red you see under the Olaf fabric.  Then he picked two more reds out of the smaller scraps Ziploc.

I pressed them, and at that point we came upstairs, away from Bella.  He is very allergic to cats.  I drew the lines with a Micron pen and he cut them out.  Boy, did he do a great job for only 7!

Planning the design

I showed him the checkerboard pattern with the Olaf squares, all of which he'd cut. I cut the red ones.  He made the pattern: two reds in each column.  I'd showed him to spread them out, and had the first two reds randomly placed, but he rearranged them to be in columns!  "This is how I want it, Nana."  We stitched them together, me "steering", he on the gas.  This is my old Elna I brought upstairs for him.  She still sews like a dream, although she doesn't want to zigzag anymore, despite 3 weeks at the "spa".

We did the pillowcase turn method.  For the backing I sewed together some scraps from the pajama bottoms he's wearing that I made him along with some scraps of the Cat in the Hat fabric from his I Spy quilt.  Scraps of Warm 'n Natural was the batting.  I "steered" while he pushed the gas to sew the three layers together, leaving an opening for turning...

Excited to turn it right side out

We poked out the corners, I stitched the opening closed, but not before I picked it apart so that I could sew on a label!!  Then we started on the quilting.  I started steering while he did the gas, 1/4" from the seams, and then he wanted to steer.  And he took to sewing like a pro.

Here he's doing the wavy, aka "craggly" (his term) lines down the centre of each square

I was so impressed with how well he managed to keep the 1/4" seam!  I tried to teach both of my daughters to sew...with limited success... Dayna actually did fairly well, but Brianne, Brady's mummy, did not enjoy it.  I took a video of him, too, for the DVD I always make of his trips.  Such coordination he has:  operating the foot control, guiding, whether it's following the seam line with the edge of the walking foot, or trying to remain centred, doing the wavy lines.

"When I grow up, I want to work in a sewing shop, Nana."

Along with playing football in the NFL.

All done!  It fits Caramel perfectly.

Once that was done, he got back to being a boy-boy, lol:

One of his favourite presents, a plastic hockey stick and puck he bought with a gift card to Dollarama from Santa!  The J.J. Watt jersey from Auntie Dayna is of course, #1.

The back

It washed up so lovely!  I just love the red with the Olaf fabric!  I would not have thought to put the two together, much as I love aqua and red...

So simple, but so effective.  Hours that I will treasure forever.  Linking up with Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework.

Quilt Stats:
Size:  11 X 14.5"
Fabric:  cotton scraps
Batting:  Warm 'n Natural scraps
Quilted: on my Elna, with a walking foot
Threads:  Pieced with Mettler cotton; quilted with Isacord in deep turquoise

Christmas Stocking #2

This one couldn't go on the blog ahead of time, as Dayna reads the blog!  It comes with a story.  The best part was her reaction when she saw it:  "Mum! I didn't know you made quilted stockings!"  Those kind of moments one cannot put a pricetag on.

This is a scrappy stocking extraordinaire.  There are scraps from Dayna's grad quilt (which, no, is not done, but I do have a pretty solid idea of the quilting plan ... 3 days, well, yeah, more than that, of planning), the letters are made from Laurel Burch fabric scraps from a bag I made for a very good friend several years ago, and the cuff is more of the white and silver fabric I used for the Snowalong snowflakes and for Brady's stocking cuff.  There are two Christmas motif squares from the fabric on the back of my Snowflake tea cosy.

Santa's Still Throwing Up Christmas All Over the House

With 3 days to go, I am pretty much as ready as I'm going to get...Christmas dinner groceries yet to shop for, one last set of squares for which to make the marshmallow topping, an old family favourite recipe, Marshmallow Fantasies.  Oh.  And a queen-sized quilt to quilt.  The flimsy was finished on Saturday, the backing got assembled Sunday and Monday amid other life requirements, which, as you may recall include having Santa throw up Christmas all over my house (Dayna says she did not say "barf up") as both daughters, grandson, MacGyver and me are all here in Kingsville for Christmas for the first time (small squeal of excitement)...and so it goes, sewing and decorating slowly.

The quilt is a guild retreat mystery from 2006. Love how the blocks poke into the border, and that there are 3 layers of stars.

I pinned this to my Pinterest page for house decorating ideas probably 2 years ago.  I decided to try to recreate it.  I'm pretty pleased with the result!  Dollar Store fake twigs (which, by the way, I discovered on my walk with Rocco the other day, are exactly what Burning Bushes look like right now!), Dollar Store craft paint, wine bottles (the most enjoyable part of the process, ha) and some gold ribbon.

From left to right: first coat of paint to cover, the second sponge-blobbed on (technical term right), still wet, the third end dried product.

I made my own stencils, just printed out a J and a Y from an Old English-style font, and cut it out with an Exacto-knife.  For the snowflake, I made a beautiful one out of paper and then realized I needed it in stencil form, like the reverse image.....nvm I know what I mean!  So using a pencil, I drew the outline of a simple snowflake very lightly, and then, holding my breath, trying to be steady, I went over it with red paint and a very fine paintbrush.

Front foyer at night. Dayna gave us some of her decorations she didn't use this year.  The vast majority of my stuff is in Florida.

I bought a red towel at the Dollar Store, $1 as opposed to $3 or more for a fancy Christmas one, and used a leftover strip from Brady's stocking to decorate the towel.  I had the red tea towel with an appliqué project in mind...didn't happen yet, so I used up more of the leftover strips from his stocking and the cushion cover I made and decorated the tea towel.

Did a decorative stitch and other top-stitching in Sulky metallic on the towel.  Red Isacord on the tea towel, which hasn't been washed yet, as you can see.

The weather is not cooperating, as anyone who lives in the northern US and Canada knows.  El Niño is to blame, and I am totally okay with that!  Outside of one day where this happened:

On the Greenway in Kingsville, Dec. 19.  The "snow shower" lasted half a day with the temperature hovering around freezing.

One week earlier, we had a high of 16C/61F!!  And this happened:

December 12, dogs and MacGyver catching some rays--I even had an Osteospermum blooming still at that point in the pot you see by the patio door

Yesterday it was 10C/50F again and tomorrow we are supposed to go to 14C/58F!  Crazy.  Love it.

I won't be posting again until, well, not sure exactly when.  On Christmas Day evening, we are FaceTiming with Brianne and Brady, and that is when we are going to tell Brady that he is coming here for 8 days!!!!  This is the conversation I'm imagining:

Me:  Oh Brady, I so wish you could come to Nana and Grandpa's house for Christmas...We miss you so much.
Brady:  Yeah, me too, Nana. I wish I could dive through my iPad and land in your house. (he will probably mime diving through his iPad, as he has done in the past on more than one occasion)
Me:  Wouldn't it be cool if you could hop on a plane tomorrow morning and fly here?
Brady:  Uh huh...I would like that very much.
Me: Well, Nana and Grandpa have done that!  You and your mummy are going to get on a plane at the airport tomorrow morning and fly here!!  For 8 whole days!!
Brady:  HUH?!!  Really??
Me:  Surprise!
Then we all will be laughing and cheering and jumping around...well not MacGyver, man of restrained emotions...but Dayna and her boyfriend will be here when we FaceTime and Brianne and MacGyver and I have been DYING with excitement to tell Brady for a couple of months now, almost spilling the beans on several occasions...it's going to be an awesome Christmas!

I've been meaning to get a photo of this little sticker in the yoga studio bathroom, but I don't usually have my phone on me.  I did the other day.  It is very appropriate at this busy, busy, often-stressful season:

Merry Christmas everyone, and remember to be kind to yourself as well. :-)

Jack and Friends for Brady

Brianne and Brady left us three days ago, and both MacGyver and I are still feeling pretty down.  It was a wonderful 10 days.  I did get his Halloween "commissioned" quilt done in time with one day to spare!

Perfect size for snuggling on the couch or taking to bed as an extra blankie

Remember it was one he'd seen last November when I was out west visiting him and my daughter.  He is such an incredible child in so many ways, but especially in the genuine interest he takes in his surroundings and in people around him.  He had been studying my American Patchwork & Quilting magazine and spotted this photo in an ad for their website: