FAVOURITE THINGS FRIDAY...THE PEOPLE OF JAPAN

 It's a compelling photo, it's horrific, it's an unbelievable event!

The people of Japan have been hit by the biggest catastrophe of our life time.  Yet...

The era we live in gives us a glimpse into what happens as it happens, therefore we saw this on live tv...

 To see the remains of a village, the loss of life, the  photo of a couple looking through the debris of what had been their home for anything to remind them of a life before last week!

 This damage to a reactor is not to be believed except that we saw it explode right before our eyes.  Even after this, the people of Japan showed what they are made of.

 Here we see rescue workers, searching for life amongst the ruins, most of them carry red flags to denote the dead in this rubble.  They also have relatives underneath the rubble, yet even after this, they carry on.

 Can we even imagine living through this?  Can we imagine where one begins after being witness to a 40ft high wave destroying all that was in  its path?  And yet here is the coping of the Japanese people.

And here is the  power of a culture.  I see this photo and weep for the enormity of grief of these people!

After it all, the people lined up in orderly fashion to enter a grocery store.  Not a one was thinking of hoarding, of not entering the queue in the right spot of not being polite to each other. 

In this store, because of rolling blackouts the cash stopped working. What did the people do?  They started putting their items back on the shelves in orderly fashion and went out to join the line ups again!

They bowed to the clerks as they left.  Not one incident of looting has been reported in this country.  Yes, the people of Japan deserve to be our favourite people this week.

WHAT'S IN A STUDIO?

 Do you dream of having the most fabulous sewing area?

Do you do your sewing from a kitchen table, or even use the dining room table which isn't used all that much except for special occasions?

I found these few rooms in the Better Homes Quilting site.  I did tag the names when I first copied the photos, but now of course that I am

blogging, their names escape me and

for fear of erasing this post, suffice to say, I am not naming names but  these are pretty dreamy rooms.

One of the rooms appears to be in a basement with a walk out,  the other in a loft of sorts,  so I thought I would show you what is an actual unstaged place where I do my

creative work in the winter months.

 This is probably the most basic "studio"......

Oh I have lots of shelving, lots of room, lots of light, the floor is easy to sweep, but it doesn't look like the studios of some.


Whenever we talk of moving to another house, the first thing my sweetie says is that I am going to have a room with large picture windows to bring in daylight.

This photo is more to my liking of a room with lots of light.  It's bright, there is a working area that says it is practical, not too big to make too big of a mess.

I do like yellow, so I want a room like this.  I'd have my machine built into a different size table as I think I'd need more room at the back, but basically this is pretty nice.

What's your space like?  At the cottage I have a small corner, my sewing is all in a bin, but I do have large and lovely views.  Can't wait to get back there.

  Helen's sewing area is about the size of mine at her cottage.  We get so much more done in the summer months where the fresh air inspires us to just do it.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's day.  My youngest son met his wife on that day....they both had green tongues from drinking green beer....we are going to my SIL to have a boiled dinner...can't wait.

I'M BACK IN THE GROOVE!

 I  havent' been good about quilting or

blogging lately.  I've just not felt like it for some reason.

I actually haven't been doing much actually.

What you ask have I been doing?

 Well last week for example, I watched "chess on ice" otherwise known as Curling.  The Canadian
championships were on tv for most of the afternoons and the evenings.  So there went days.  I knit while watching the above.  When it got exciting, I knit faster.  Of course it was very exciting so I did knit socks and more socks and fingerless gloves to go with same.

I wish I could say that the quilt top was my doing, but alas, my friend
Penny...aka Harmony Hopes who lives in Ottawa had commented last year that she wanted a quilt done in free motion, but for the life of her she just didn't have the knack of doing this.  So I said that she should send it to me.

It arrived around the first of January, (I did say I've been in a bit of a funk)  and Penny did say "no rush".  Well here it is.  I can't tell you enough about the hand pieced letters on the back.  They are perfection!  My blogging hand quilters, Crispy and Karen, adding of course Helen would just love this work of art.  And she wanted this free motion quilted!

It's fabulous dahlings!  I've finished it and it's going out in the mail tomorrow.

My granddaughter Tory is a natural at sewing seams, so she is sewing her first dress this week!  Being a size 8 isn't too hard to cut out.  And while she is doing that, I should be trying to put some semblance of order to my sewing area.

I've  been reading a lot of blogs that have included their "spring" cleanup of sewing areas.  So I must follow suit and do mine.

Cheers everyone...hopefully I am back to blogging.