Nov 3, 2016
Whew, it’s been a week since I posted last. This is not great but in my defense I haven’t been all that well. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had hurt my hip while lifting my sewing machine to take it to a workshop. Well, it turns out I actually tore the muscle so several chiropractor sessions later and it’s finally feeling better. Today is the first day I can actually sit down for more than 30 minutes at a stretch. To top it off I was fighting a cold and then the wonderful rain we’ve been having has made life rather depressing.
However, today I seemed to have turned a corner. The sun is shining and it is beautiful and warm outside, the cold seems to have gone and as mentioned I can finally sit down at the computer without pain shooting through me. It’s amazing how many things we take for granted, like bending down to put on shoes, until you can’t do them anymore without it hurting.
I did manage to do the craft fair and it was OK, it was very slow but I managed to sell a few things so that is always a good thing.
On the cat front, Mia stopped eating so we ended up taking her to the vet today. She seems to be fine just too many changes in her life in a 30 day period. She seems to have perked up after the vet visit, and did finally eat something, after that she went and hid under the bed in the spare room. Cocoa couldn’t find her, he knew we had left with her and I had put him in the bedroom when we got home so as to keep her stress level down. Well he was going crazy looking everywhere for her when I finally let him out of the bedroom. When I realized what he was looking for I showed him where she was, he poked his head under (he can’t fit so she’s safe) saw where she was and then he was fine and left her alone. Go figure! Later in the day, he hopped up on the bed to get some sun and when Kevin came by to check on things this is what he found, Cocoa on one side and Mia came out from under the bed to join him in the sunshine.
Not exactly friends but not terrified of one another either.
On the quilting front, I managed to get all of my client quilts done and back to them. I have a new quilt that came in this week which is more modern in nature so I have it hanging over the quilting frame waiting for inspiration. I got an idea last night and managed to get a good photo of the quilt today so now I just have to draw out my idea and see if it looks as good on paper as in my head.
I also found time to do a bit of piecing. I could do that as long as I stood up to go to the ironing board, that way I was only sitting for a few minutes at a time and my hip didn’t get too sore. I started Jaybird Quilts Gravity quilt over a year ago now and got the blocks done but that was about it. Here is where it is sitting now.
I can’t wait to finish this one and start quilting it.
A good quote for me this past week.
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Oct 4, 2016
As I have mentioned in a previous post my partner and I are getting ready for a craft sale coming up at the end of this month. In preparation for that we have both been busy creating.
I found this tutorial on Shabby Fabrics for this cute boxed pouch. The only thing I changed was I used heavy weight interfacing on both the lining and the outer fabric as I wanted them to have a bit more body to them. These were really fun to make and it was great going through my scraps and finding scraps large enough to make some of these.
In preparation for starting to sell our items my partner and I decided to purchase the Dream Mobile Point of Sale Machine. What this allows us to do is to have our inventory online a
nd access it from our mobile phones and use this device to take both debit and credit card payments for just a small fee without having to pay monthly fees. Since this system won’t be used extensively the fee structure will work well for us until we grow.
We had one hitch however, the machine could only be purchased through Telus exclusively and only online or at one of their “authorized” dealers. Well, when I went to purchase the machine through the online link it proved to be broken. I phoned the support line for the device and they told me it was a Telus issue and they had heard from others looking to purchase as well. I then phoned Telus and was put on hold forever and no one seemed to be able to figure out what I was talking about. To make matters worse there was no “authorized” dealers on Vancouver Island, the support person I talked to suggested calling one of the dealers closest to me which was in Richmond BC. So I did, talk about useless, they weren’t even about to help. So I phoned the nearest outlet to me which would be at Tillicum Mall. The girl I spoke to there was even more useless as well as being completely clueless and needs to work on her customer service skills.
I finally decided to try a different location and this time called the Telus store in Uptown Mall and asked to speak to the manager. The manager’s name is Neil and he was AWESOME!! Fantastic customer service skills. Even though he had never heard of the device he took my name and number and said he’d look into it. He was good on his word, not only did he look into it he was able to order one in for me and went above and beyond.
So this is a shout out for Neil at the Telus Mobility store at Uptown Mall. If you are reading this and live in the area and would like awesome customer service or would like to order one of these machines in, Neil is your man.
On another front Cocoa and I went for our daily walk early today, as it turns out it was just as well as it was nice and sunny earlier and it has completely clouded over now. On this walk we didn’t meet any snakes but we did meet….
a frog, sunning himself in the middle of the path. Cocoa was very curious but not aggressive, however the frog stayed very still. Good thing as it it had hopped Cocoa would have lunged. Not that he would have gotten very far.
What I make with my hands, I give of my heart.
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Happy Quilting
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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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Jul 26, 2016
I’ve been working on a customer quilt this past weekend. My customer did her version of the pattern Coneflower Garden by Barbara Persing and Mary Hoover. She decided she didn’t want the whole thing so she cropped it down and just made a portion of the pattern.
This is the second pattern she has completed from these this pattern company. The first was Summer Blooms and you can find the post here. Aren’t these beautiful patterns?
I finished the secret project quilt top and now I am working on the quilting design. I have worked out about half of it still undecided about some of it. I may have to just load it on the frame and start and hope inspiration strikes as I am working through the quilting as this needs to be completed by next week.
We are finally getting a little warmer weather here in Victoria BC this week. Our backyard is small and our townhouse unit faces North so we don’t get a lot of sun at the back of the house however we do get sun in the morning until late afternoon in the back yard. Cocoa loves the sun and will find whatever patch he can get his paws on.
Here he is in the late afternoon lying in the last sliver of sunshine in the backyard.
Quilters make great comforters
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Jun 2, 2016
Well things have been busy around here this week. I have now completed making the Inspiration Journals for the upcoming Art Quest Show and Sale at my church. Here is a picture of more of the journals I have made.
They have all turned out very nicely and I have actually sold 3 of the journals before the sale has even started. These are really fun to make. The only downside is you can’t really sell them for the time involved to make them. My plan is to create a written pattern and also to post some how to videos so people can start to make their own if they want to. I will hopefully have that posted in the next month.
I have another finished quilt (yeah), one that has been sitting in my “to be quilted pile”.
This one I have simply called Asian Sampler for lack of inspiration at this moment. A few years ago I had made a Border Creek Mystery quilt and it called for making all of these small 6 inch sampler blocks. The mystery had two sizes queen and a bed runner. Well I turned the bed runner into a lap quilt but I only needed about half of these little 6 inch blocks which meant I had all of these blocks left over. What to do with these blocks? Design and make another quilt! So that is what I did, I love blocks on point so I used mostly fabrics from my stash however I did end up buying fabric for the border.
I had fun quilting this quilt although I have to be honest and am not totally happy with my choices for the border. I used a matching metallic thread and you can’t see it at all. I used the same metallic thread in the green plan squares with a stenciled quilting design and I am very happy how that turned out.
The quilt is Cocoa approved too!
I was sewing on the binding and had to get up to get something so I placed the quilt on the floor for less than 3 minutes. When I came back look who had crawled on it and made himself comfortable. What is it about quilts on the floor that dogs and cats like so much?
This afternoon I am off with my Mom to pick up my Aunt and Uncle from the airport as they are flying in from Kamloops to visit my Mom for a week. It will be good to see them. Tomorrow is helping set up the church for Art Quest and Saturday will be volunteering all day at the show.
Hope to see you at the show on Saturday June 4, 2016, 1600 Cook St, corner of Cook and Mason enter by the garden gate off Mason St. It is from 10 am until 5 pm.
