Sep 30, 2016
Well, it looks like fall is here. The weather here in Victoria has been beautiful and sunny however the temperature is dipping down at night these days. I awoke early this morning to the smell of something burning, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the smell was coming from until I happened to glance at the heat register. I had it down low but not off and obviously the temperature dipped low enough that the register actually came on. What I was smelling was the dust burning off the baseboard element. Oh joy winter is on it’s way.
The complex where I live has a creek, park and trails right behind it so I take Cocoa for a walk back there most days. As the weather is getting cooler what we are finding is a lot of garter snakes are coming out of the grass to sun themselves. Cocoa has figured this out so he is always on the look out for them. Sometimes he sees them before me and it’s a good thing I keep him on a leash or he’d be gone.
Not sure if you can tell from the picture at left. I had to grab the camera fast so it’s not the best picture and you can just see Cocoa starting to lunge for the poor snake.
I took this picture yesterday however Cocoa and I saw at least 3 snakes on our walk today as well.
Every year the complex where I live has a craft sale in the clubhouse and this year it is happening on Oct 29, 2016. My partner and I decided we would go in it so we have both been creating things to sell at it.
Here are some of the things I have been working on. I saw this tutorial on the Crafty Gemini and thought I would give it a try. I have made 8 of these and will need to make more as they are so cute. They are fun to make too.
Another thing I have been working on is my church’s 2016 raffle quilt. I have finished sewing the binding on so all that’s left is a label. I am printing up the raffle tickets and will also need to create a postcard for this as well.
This quilt turned out much larger than I had anticipated as it measures 70 x 90 or thereabouts. Not quite a full queen size but as you can see in the above photo it does pretty much fit onto a queen size bed.
I was going to do some fancy quilting on this one for practice if nothing else, however I decided against it as for one it was for a raffle and for two you really couldn’t see the quilting at all. I used Superior Threads Sew Fine Thread in a neutral colour and believe me it was hard enough trying to see where I was going with just an easy overall quilting design I would have driven myself crazy trying to do anything else. In the end I decided to just quilt around the applique “pumpkin seeds” as well as just echo inside them and do an overall seed design over the rest of the quilt. I thought the seed design was fitting.
A quilt is a treasure which follows its owner everywhere.
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Happy Quilting
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Sep 26, 2016
Saturday was a busy day. My church the Open Door Spiritualist Sanctuary had their “Vintage and Treasures” sale. It was a long day but a lot of fun. We even had a line up of people waiting to come in at 9:00 am Saturday morning for the event. Here are a couple of pictures of how things looked before the rush happened.
I was at the “cash register” all day and we had so many people come through telling us how much fun they had. It didn’t matter if they were only spending $10.00 or $110.00 they all said what a great time they had checking out all of the treasures we had around. It was fun even if it was just a chance to walk down memory lane.
I mentioned on my last post that I had lost my driver’s licence while taking the dog for a walk along Esquimalt lagoon last week. Well, I had a very strange thing happen that is somewhat related to that incident. For two years I have been missing a fairly large medallion that I had received from a retreat I had taken 4 years back now. I had looked everywhere for this item. I knew it had to be in this one drawer and I had taken everything out of this drawer on numerous occasions looking for this item. Finally I had given up as I never did find it. Now this drawer is small and I had completely emptied it not once but, as mentioned, several times. On Thursday I went into that drawer looking for my passport as I needed picture ID to take to the Motor License office and there guess what I found! The long lost item! Now really I had emptied that drawer and had actually assumed it got lost in the last move and that I would never see it again, and here it was sitting in the drawer right where it should be. How odd! This wasn’t a small item either and actually has some weight to it so it is not something that would just get overlooked. Has anyone ever had this happen to them?
So I lost something and found something that I thought was lost. Life is like that sometimes.
I want to thank everyone who has signed up for my newsletter. I am getting close to completing the pattern for the Light Within Quilt and will share that with you all shortly.
Remember to sign up for my newsletter. I am currently writing about colour and how to use it in your quilts.
Happy Quilting
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Sep 23, 2016
Things have been busy around here. I have completed my Inspiration Journals for the craft sale and now on to the next item I have on my list. In the meantime I had been quilting using templates and my needle hit the template and threw the timing off of the machine so I had to have someone come in to repair it. Got that fixed and so I was able to finish quilting a client quilt.
She wanted an overall design so I did a playful heart design which worked very well for this quilt. The fabrics are quite busy so you can’t really see the quilting design very well. It was raining early today so I had to take the pictures inside. I am still working on where the best location is to take pictures of finished quilts. I see lots of quilters taking the pictures with the quilt draped over the frame however I can’t do that as there isn’t enough room to back up far enough to get a good shot.
On this quilt I used Superior Threads Rainbows thread number 805. It’s called Inca Pink. I got this thread through a special promotion and when I looked at it I thought where am I ever going to be able to use this. Well this quilt was perfect for it.
See what I mean. The thread had the same colours as the quilt had. I used Bottom Line in the bobbin colour 606 Dark Purple.
Yesterday was a beautiful day so my partner and I decided to take Cocoa for a walk along the beach at Esquimalt Lagoon. It was beautiful.
Somewhere along the way though I lost my drivers licence which I had stuffed into my pocket. We went back and searched for it but to no avail so down to the motor vehicle office I went today to get a replacement. Luckily it was fairly painless and I only had a 30 minute wait.
So now I’m off to help with the setup of the church’s Vintage and Treasures sale. If you are in Victoria tomorrow, Saturday check it out at 1600 Cook Street. It should be a lot of fun.
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Happy Quilting
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Sep 20, 2016
It’s close to the first day of Fall or Autumn and the weather here in Victoria BC has defiantly turned Fall like. It feels like it was early this year but then again maybe not.Summer and Fall are my two favourite seasons. I love summer because of the warm weather, the temperature has to really rise way up there before you hear me complaining it’s too hot unlike the vast amount of the people who live in Victoria who start complaining if the temp hits 23 (73) which I find barely comfortable.
I love Fall because to me it means new beginnings. Now I know that should be spring but I guess I associate Fall with new clothes, new shoes, new books and pencils and of course the new school year hence new beginnings. How many of you out there remember waiting for the first day of school with both excitement and dread? Finally being able to get out that new dress and shoes purchased a few weeks back and being allowed to finally wear them. I do. I can still remember my very first day attending Victoria High School for the very fist time. I was one of a few Grade 10 students that were admitted into the school at that time and I didn’t know a soul. Talk about terrified and excited all at the same time! It turns out I did know someone though. I knew her through church and we reconnected on that first day of school and we became fast friends. I haven’t seen her for awhile but we are still Facebook friends even after all these years.
Now that summer is over and the children are back to school it’s time to turn our attention to…. Christmas Craft Fairs!
OK maybe not for everyone but for my partner and I it is. Well, one for sure being held at the end of October. I will have more details as the time gets closer however because of this any spare time I have has been spent planning out what items I am going to make to sell and then start to make them.
Here are some Inspirational journal covers I have made. I have a lot more to go and of
course I still have to get the papers together and bind the journals which is one of today’s tasks.
To bind the edges of the journal covers I have been using extra-wide double fold bias tape and up to yesterday I have just been getting it from Fabricland when they have it on sale. Well yesterday I used some Wright’s purchased through a mail order company and I couldn’t believe the difference.
The cover on the bottom has the Fabricland no name bias tape and the one on the top has the Wright’s. The one on the bottom has wrinkles (they do eventually disappear but it is most disconcerting when sewing the tape on) and the Wright’s doesn’t! The Wright’s sews like a dream and I was able to sew it on in half the time it took to wrestle with the no name stuff.
Really who would have thought there was that much difference in bias tape!! I know which type I will be only using from now on!! Oh and by the way, the price was the same! So for all of you out there needing to use bias tape for whatever reason try to avoid the Fabricland no name stuff! You’ll be happy you did.
The other project I have been working on is this years church raffle quilt.
I am still sewing the binding on, the quilt is a good double bed size which is a lot bigger than I had anticipated. I will give more details on this quilt once it is completely finished and is ready to be raffled off.
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Happy Quilting
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Sep 16, 2016
At the townhouse complex where I live we have a clubhouse that can be rented out. This clubhouse has a very large space perfect for good sized gatherings. It has enough space and tables available so that we can comfortably accommodate 14 quilters with machines. There are at least 3 quilters living in this complex and two of us are part of a group that gets together and sews one Saturday a month.
This past weekend I volunteered to put on a Judy Niemeyer mini sewing retreat at the clubhouse. A lot of the group were on holidays so there ended up being only 7 of us but we had a great time. Some of the group had made several of Judy Niemeyer patterns before and were raring to just get to sewing and others in the group had never done one of her patterns before. I am not a certified Judy Niemeyer teacher however I have done enough of her patterns and have attended a class with Judy herself so am not a novice to her techniques.
It is so much fun doing more difficult projects with others. The amount of laughter and shared knowledge was fantastic. One of our group had purchased a fabric and pattern many years ago when Judy Niemeyer came to Victoria to teach but hadn’t looked at the “kit” since then. There was 5 of us around the table trying to figure out which fabric was for which part of the pattern and get it all labeled. In doing this it was a unanimous decision that one of the fabrics that had been picked so long ago just wasn’t going to work and so off our friend went to an impromptu fabric shopping spree to get a better fit. She was back in under an hour purchase in hand. I can’t wait to see that quilt finished it is going to be beautiful.
We had all day Saturday and most of Sunday sewing and I can’t think of a better way to spend the weekend than sharing it with friends. Everyone got their project cut out and in “baggies” on Saturday and we all started sewing on Sunday. Some got further than others. I now have another WIP (work in progress) that I will have to put aside for now as I have signed up for a craft fair at the end of October so will need to start making things to sell for that.
Here are pictures of what was going on last weekend.
My WIP this is a pattern I picked up 9 years ago called Raindrops not sure if it is even sold any more.
I can’t remember which pattern this is however it is going to be beautiful.
Here are the start of two others as well.
For some of us we are going to have to have a second mini retreat weekend just so we can take out these projects and get them finished.
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Happy Quilting
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