A COTTAGE TALE...

Do you know how hard it is to find a photo that

is a "laughing" photo? It's hard, so I found

this shot.





It's time to tell a lake story of the new neighbours. The family has two girls aged 9 and 15 yrs old, wife and husband with lots of extended family that visits...and friends of each of this family.



The story begins with the family plus a mother of wife, and a friend of oldest daughter. There are many females born in this family, so the husband is used to female stuff.



So, when we all leave the cottage, garbage is the prime factor of leaving. If it's hot, we make sure it's in the shaded place for storage, the recycling is usually ,..note, the word here.... usually put into plastic bags and the garbage garbage is put into bins to deter the critters.



So, there was a bit of mix up of the garbage and recycling and the recycle stuff went into the bin and the other stuff into a bag.The male of the family has the garbage responsibility I think.



The story begins with the 5 females, one male in a covered boat 5 miles out in the lake and the wife notices a mouse on the shoulder of said male. She says to her mother not to panic the girls but says to the man of the hour...."Kent there's a mouse on your shoulder, don't startle the girls" So Kent stood up opened the hatch of the boat and flicked the little sucker into the lake and they continued on their trip to the marina, loaded the rest of the garbage, and headed to the dump which is about 3 miles from the marina.



Now, on the way one of the girls sees a mouse in the SUV and it's as they are arriving at the dump, well , within about 3 minutes of the lone male in the vehicle driving up and stopping said vehicle.



As soon as he stopped, out exits 5 screaming and the operative word here is 5 screaming females who made so much noise that it even attracted the bears ,( this is true as the wife related the tale to me in addition of stories we heard)...... , who never come to the dump anymore. The bears arrived at the electric fence, looking at the humans doing their thing....



The other people who are at the dump are stunned to see this spectacle of bodies flying out of the car, running around and yelling for said lone male to "do something!"



As it turns out the male doesn't like the mouse thing any more than the females so he gets a big stick and tries to see if the mouse is under a seat, in the back and is poking around the car.

Now, the dump manager is seeing bears for the first time in about three years, because since the dump was electrified with the fencing, the bears just didn't bother anymore and the manager didn't even have a gun on the property any more....get the picture?

The females are refusing to get in the SUV to drive for three hours with the possibility of the mouse being in the car and poor Kent (dh) is telling them that it is probably gone and to get in the damn car people! It's raining, of course, and every one is getting wet and the vehicle is blocking traffic coming in!

Finally, Mary, the youngest of this crowd says that if they leave a chip in the car, stop at Canadian Tire and buy a trap, put peanut butter on the trap maybe they can catch the mouse or at least with the potato chip if the mouse is there.

Long story short....I hear a week later that the trap is still set in the car, the chip still uneaten and that for the past week none of the females of this family would drive in the car for fear of seeing the poor mouse that probably went out the door screaming after the poking that was given to him....5 doors open ....would you stay in that car?

I am sure as the summer wears on that there will be more stories of these new neighbours...I hope you enjoyed the story...I am still laughing when each of the family members tells the story as they saw it unfold.

On the quilting front, the Parade is in full swing and thanks to so many that entered and it's filling up with lots of interesting quilting stories...

I am finishing my nine patch and it's been spray basted on the table which now has some glue on it and I am awaiting my sweetie giving me varsol I think that will remove the bit I just couldn't remove from the over spraying for some reason. I should have it finished this weekend as we are expecting rain....what else.

Enjoy your weekend and don't forget to go and see the Parade of Quilts...

THESE OLD QUILTS...

My new neighbour here at the cottage has some interesting quilts. The Maple Leaf was done by the owner's grandmother and has had some repairs to it over the years. It fits the single bed so perfectly being displayed with love by its new owners. I am glad that they are using it too as some of these are sometimes stored away and never seen. Hand quilted of course...


The next two were given to them also by Kent's mother who made them with the nine patches being made of scraps from old dresses and even a pair of Kent's pyjas put in for good memories of a past life. Both of these are single size also, and fit
the beds that they are on so well that it looks
like they were made for the guest room that
they adorne. Kathleen (wife of) has decorated
the room around these two beautiful quilts.

The pale yellow sashings really set the quilts off and just make them look so "40s" in their colours and the softness of them.

The two yellows were hand sewn, hand quilted in a very simple design that I could probably almost duplicate with a long meadering stitch with the new machine.

It's rare to find two identical quilts and they are
very happy to have them at their cottage where
Kathleen proudly shows them off and the decor
of the room around these two quilts is quite
eclectic.

Now what is weird is that there is a patch in them that
I found the identical fabric in my grandmother's stash
of goodies...yes really and the fact that these two women
were 400 miles from each other is really something.

Kath also made some cute clothes hangers with flowers from the dollar store finds and for $6.00 she has these amazing decor items on the wall which make the room so cozy. I'll post these at another time...also what she did with the old golf clubs is unique!



I'm making a quilt like these two and the very old fashioned look of them is very cute too. It's Walmart fabric with a few of my little stash that I brought here. I hope I can find a large flat spot to put the quilt together. It's difficult here as my sweetie doesn't have the large work table for me to work on and since I want to spray baste it, I better find a spot without wind and flat enough for me to put the quilt
together.



Hasn't the parade of quilts been great to see? I looked at some of them from my favorite blogs I visit and their firsts look like my last. Sometimes that taking a course thing is very tempting.




The last photo is of my Walmart block. I have run out of the striped fabric. I don't know if any of you go to Walmart often, but we have visited 3 here in the area with no luck in finding the fat quarters that this striped fabric came in. I am short about 14 little squares. You know the math thing...Anyway, I wonder if anyone out there could find this and I will send the monies required to forward it to me. Otherwise, I may make the black block plain and use these as the outside of the quilt. It's not a huge problem for me, but it would be nice to match it.


We are having a perfect day at the cottage...just a light breeze, the lake is calm, we saw a blue heron doing a low fly by this morning looking for a fish near the surface of the water. The hanging baskets have taken a real kicking from the rains and are kind of drooping a bit, but with the sunshine today, they will look great just in time for more rain on the weekend...Oh yeah more rain coming, just what we need.

Thanks for visiting me again...it completes my day.

PARADE OF QUILTS....WHAT FUN!

Camille at camilleroskelley.typepad.com is having a parade of quilts for the summer. What you do is show your first quilt and then your most recent. Go to her blog and post your blog. Doesn't that sound fun?

The orange quilt is the first one that I did. It was made with and orange sheet, a white sheet and this little fun sheet for the backing.

I haven't changed it at all even though, It's a bit wonky and the binding was something of a mess to put together. I just couldn't figure out how it was supposed to go on the for the life of me..

I also cut this whole quilt out on a 9 x 12 mat and a 12" ruler with what I thought would be all I'd ever need to do quilting.

Of course I have enough of this orange and white to do another quilt, as I cut so many out. I also had no idea how to do free motion quilting so I zigged and zagged my way down the quilt. My granddaughter Alex who loves orange called this orange crush and still has it on her bed.

The last quilt I made is the dots of all colours. I love dots (right Helen?) and I found the pattern to do the quilt in the Better Homes and Garden quilting magazine in the winter and ajusted it to fit my fabrics. What a difference a dozen quilts make to one's accomplishments...I don't do complicated quilts I think, but mostly just see something that I think would help me create a quilt for the cottage.

Remember the quilt show we had in the winter? I think this one is to help us get through the summer blahs we are having as the weather isn't helping us at all. So go and get on the float for the parade and have fun looking at other people's quilts.

I am putting together my nine patch that has taken me so much time. It's the weather. It's been raining, cold and damp and no fun to just do my sewing in the sun room with the rain pelting on the roof and it being dark because of the weather.

Thanks for commenting on my mom's birthday on Monday. I am printing it off for her to read your comments. Very much appreciated...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM!

Today is my mother's 90th birthday. Because I am at the cottage, the only photo I have of her as a young woman is this of her in a row boat when she was about 18 yrs old. I have many at home but none at the cottage. So if you clik on the photo it will enlarge and you can see how truly pretty she was.


When my mother was born in 1919, the family were farmers as most rural people were. She lived on a farm near Grand Falls New Brunswick and had many brothers and sisters. As she was the oldest girl, she had many responsibilities of which, looking after the younger sibblings was a primary one.


She never went beyond grade 8 and at the age of 14, being french and thinking that there was much to life outside of the small community where she lived, she was hired as a "nanny" to 3 children whose father was a banker and when he was transferred to Montreal, she went with the family thinking that she would be treated as part of the family, but in fact they treated her like she was....hired help...and didn't want to even give her a day off at all.


So, she was supposed to learn yiddish, when she said she could barely speak english, and since french was her language, it was impossible for this catholic girl to learn such a difficult language...so after a time she sought employment elsewhere. After two years doing domestic work she realized that she had had enough and as she now could speak english as well as french, she went looking for a job.


She saw a sign in a window of a silk shop. In those days, she said, there were shops where silk of all kinds was imported, from stocking to scarfs, to dresses and this little shop in Montreal was looking for sales help. I asked her if she thought that because she was so pretty if that helped her get her job and she said that it helped, but she had to be able to do the sales too. She was hired for two weeks without pay and if at the end of that time she could do the work, she would be paid half wages for her time learning and then full wage if hired. My mother said that the women in the shop were very helpful and they helped her with making out the sales slips for customers and my mother proved that she had a knack for figures even then. She worked for them for a while till the war broke out in Europe.

She then went to work in a war plant and I can't remember exactly what she did, but she described it as the time of her life. She said even though there were rations, she always managed to secure stockings because of her silk connections. Silk was in great demand to make parachutes.

She met my dad, married and life moved on. She had 3 children, two boys and me.


In the late 1960s, she had a friend who moved to the British Virgin Islands and my mother went to visit her and came back saying that she was moving there and was going to open a bar. Jill's Beach Bar was in operation for 20 years and she entertained the likes of Jimmy Buffet, Andy Williams and a lot of celebreties who used to sail down from Miami to the islands. Since my mom served excellent food so she was well known for her excellent lobster sandwiches which she invented and said that it was the beginning of her success....well that and her well stocked bar to make those drinks and pina coladas....


She played bridge until a couple of years ago, entertained until a couple of years ago, but with the developing of parkinson's disease it has left her quite dibilitated and hence she is in a nursing home and when I can, we reminice of her days as a young woman, her life in the BVI and share so many of life's memories.




Happy Birthday Mother!