HOSPITALS

Well this will be a short post today. My mother is in the hospital with pain in her stomach area and until midnight last night the doctors were still unable the source of her pain. Exrays, ctscan and a couple of physical exams they were still unable to find the source.
So they kept her overnight. She was a bit confused about the whole thing, so this morning, I am off to the hospital.
I cannot understand why people who are not in true need of hospitals, do not use the walk in clinics. Last night, well crazy night as I call it, there were about 65 people in the emergency area, about 8 toddlers/babies. I heard 2 of them being told by the doctor that they should be given children's tylenol and contact their doctor, or go to a walkin clinic. Imagine waiting 4 hours with all those people and then being told, that. Some people just don't have brain power moving up there.
The nurse said that if they thought a bit more of what was going to happen, they would use the clinic, but somehow it doesn't deter them.
There were so many people coming (6 ambulances) that bodies were on the stretchers waiting for beds, or rooms and it was almost impossible to move in the emergency.
As I said, what a night.
I am off to the hospital this am.

KELLY'S QUILT

This is another of the leftover pinwheels from Tory's quilt. My math has greatly inproved since this was cut out. I don't know where I made the mistake of how many reds and greens that I needed, but I still (yep believe it) have a few of these squares left in my small stash.This green with the pink dots has been a huge hit with everyone and even though I also have black with pink dots fabric, this one is everyone's favorite. Lucky for me as I had so much of it cut out.
This quilt which has a white background is used in Kelly's family room and it looks great.

This past weekend we went to Goodwood racetrack to watch our nephew Drew race go carts. He is 10 yrs old and the highlite of his day was all the relatives who came to see his final race of the season,in cold damp weather with rain threatening. I should have brought a lap quilt to wrap in as it was bonechilling indeed. Drew was a great racer and we will see much of his talent in the future.

I also received and early christmas and belated birthday present from my darling Jerry. He bought me a new Janome 6600 sewing machine and the table to put the machine on/in. I am very excited about this as I think that with the machine having the quilting feature, my stippling will improve greatly. I am practicing on my ugly quilt, which Tory thinks isn't so ugly after all.
Tory and Alex both being computer literate took no time to figure out how to use the machine.
Today is a big practice day for me. I am also getting a sewing area with shelves to be made by Jerry, which will be a huge hit by this novice quilter.

Blueberry quilt

Another day of posting and feeling more comfy doing it. I took a photo of Helen's Uki Box and it has raised a lot of interest. I am going to try to make a pdf file to send to the interested people.

Being pretty basic in computer stuff, I shall have to bring in the troups, ie the granddaughters who know how to do this stuff.

The is another strippie and when I made it I had bought the blue which is an unusual colour for me as I don't normally wear blue at all and the print which is large looked good to me at the store because of the fish. It was a simple quilt to make and the back is also blue. We use this as the lap quilt of choice at the cottage even though it really doesn't go with anything there as I like very simple one might call me boring in my colour choices.

The first photo of the great room tables is where I did all the quilting this summer. For my family looking at this photo, they know I attempted to "stage" the shot as there is no sewing stuff in site. I like this room as it is airy, the trees are all around me and the windows being weather walls, can be raised up or down depending on the weather. The room is sunny here in the afternoon with the sun filtering through the trees and I can see the lake a bit from this vantage point. Very peaceful.

I made my first quilt label for Kylie Marie yesterday and sewed it on last night. I hope my printing improves, but the quilt which I called "tutti fruitie" is being mailed to British Columbia today.

This quilt was made for Kelly, my only daughter for her family room. As usual, I am still using the pinwheels that I cut out for the second quilt that I made. I don't remember being so bad in math, but believe it or not, I still have some of this stuff left. My favorite fabric of all time has been the green with pink dots. I just love it and have a bit of binding left for a small project or top of another strippie quilt.

Yesterday I went to the quilt shop in Pickering and bought quilting gloves, bamboo fabric and was supposed to get muslin and pen for labeling, but got talking and forgot to get the last two items. I love the shop and even though I find the fabrics expensive, I do get a shop discount.

I must go back to purchase the label stuff. I also bought fusible web to try some application techniques.

ANOTHER QUILT

My granddaughter suggested I change the blog to "NanaQuilts" because of who I am. So today is my first day of blogging with my simple new name.

We had snow here in Whitby yesterday and it was so cold for this time of year. My darling Westie, Wilson just doesn't like walking in rain or snow, so I put his coat on him. Alex walked him before the snow fall, and it was raining then, he doesn't like any of that.

This quilt is called "Lime Sherbet" because of the lovely lime colour that sets it off. It is another strippie quilt, not yet destined for anyone. I have a cousin that has a new baby girl named Sophia and I may get this to her.

Jerry has moved all the quilting stuff to my "sewing room" in the basement. I hope I can last there this winter. It does get chilly there, but since we will be in Florida for the month of January and also part of February, well it won't be a long stay down there.

THE BLACK QUILT

This quilt was made at the cottage this summer. Being black I thought that it would be good to use invisible thread...god it was hard to do as this thread is not the easiest to work with and also putting this together on the diagonal was a challenge for me. Jerry helped me with it a lot as for some reason I couldn't see the patterns on the quilt.

It worked out in the end and I am pleased with it, but was very frustrated doing it.

I haven't labeled it yet, but will do all of them before sending them off as gifts.

This is the quilt that I made for Kylie Marie, my new niece. She was born Sept. 7th. I'm so glad it was a girl because I didn't make a gender neutral quilt.

I loved the pink in this quilt and again, it was all those left over pinwheels that I had left from Tory's quilt. It is a variation of a "strippie" and the backside is a pink sheet with tiny checks.

I made this in a couple of days at the cottage, when the weather was really terrible. We had so much rain this summer that I didn't get a tan. On the other hand, I made quilts.

My granddaughter Courtney, would love a quilt too, but she is colour specific. She must realize that all my quilts are "creative" challenges, challenges being the operative here.

Tory took her quilt to her bedroom yesterday and she has been waiting for months for it. I wish her happiness with her "Raspberry sherbet" quilt.

Happy Birthday to my Jerry, he is 58 yrs old today.

My First Quilt.

This is my first quilt. I made it too small for my granddaughter's bed and I had to add another half to it. I simply removed the binding, then added a whole new top etc to this. It looks amazing and you can't tell where I added the other half.

I bought two orange queen size sheets, and a white sheet. I didn't know if I would like quilting very much (hard to imagine) and so I decided to try this one. I also found the fish sheet that I used for the back.

This looks so amazing on her bed. Alex loves orange and since I had a bit left over, she has a pillowcase the same as the back side.

It isn't too square, but the finished edges are so good, but I machine finished it, not knowing that the binding should be hand sewn on the backside. But it still looks good.

Since then I haven't been so lucky finishishing the corners and have opted for a different method which was shown to me by a friend who hand quilts, although Helen says that there isn't many more that her hands can do. She is an amazing quilter and has been my mentor in my endeavours.

More to come.

QUILTS

Well I have been quilting like mad, but haven't any quilts to post as yet. I made a black quilt this summer and hope to have it ready next time I am home from the cottage.

I am posting this as my blog is about to be removed.

I can't even seem to take photos of the quilts to satisfaction, so am posting my new kitchen at the cottage. The addition of the dishwasher has made all the grandkids happy, as this was the year that they were going to do dishes!

I just love it and I now have drawers that slide out so easily. My darling Jerry installed the kitchen in only a few days. The other side has the stove and fridge, and pot drawers too.

I am so lucky.

See you in October. We await the birth of new baby in this family, Delaine and Josh's first.

Somehow, the photos are reversed. However you can see tha this little box becomes this wonderful surprise when you open it. My friend Helen from the cottage is making these this summer. She gave me this one and said she would teach me how to make this over the summer.

She is also an avid quilter and is working on a hand pieced quilt. Oh yeah, makes me feel really infantile when I see what she is doing. However, she has be working on the quilt piecing for a few years, and has quilted since 1970, so I don't feel bad and she can certainly give me pointers if I take my little stash to the cottage.

I won't be posting too much as I am not on dial up at the cottage as it take forever to even get online, so will be posting every couple of weeks.

Isn't that box lovely? It really is for sewing materials, like needles, pins, thinbles etc. I am going to the dollar store to fill it up.

MY STASH

Well, quilters have a say that who ever has the most stash wins at quilting. I am definitely a loser at this point in time. However I do have ambitions, not a room full though but plan to get more when I am on the road to and from the cottage this summer if I can find a shop in a couple of towns we pass through.

Yesterday I gave my mother a quilt that her dear friend in the British Virgin Islands made for her from the material from her little shop that she had for about 30 years which included many handmade items. It filled her with joy as she has dementia and just looking at the quilt made by Miss Dina just brought back many memories. I left her with a look at fond memories as she touched her little quilt made by her friend of so many years who was 85 years old when she made it. It is the only quilt that Miss Dina made and she gave it to my mother when we last visited Tortola. It isn't fancy, but it was made with much love and we cherish it because of that.

Wasn't that lovely? And it made my mother so happy.

We are off to the cottage for a couple of weeks and I am taking my "stash" sewing machine and other stuff that I might start to quilt.

Bye for now.

Well here it is the 12th of May and we returned from the cottage. I am posting the back side of tory's quilt as I didn't show the green before. It is posted this month as part of the block of the month as it turns out, so that makes me happy to see it on the web.

Yesterday was Courtney's birthday, turning 16 years old for a granddaughter was quite a celebration in her life. She had a big party with close friends at her dad's house.

We are back for a few days and will be returning to the cottage for the long weekend. I hope we will be there for a couple of weeks, so will not be posting I think as the dial up at the cottage is so slow that I could get a quilt done in the time it uploads.

Kelly and the kids are coming along with Tory and Alex for their first weekend at the cottage also.

Life is good and I have great ambitions for this summer to quilt while we also finish putting up kitchen cupboards and painting and decorating.

A new Ikea sectional will finish the livingroom so that I can drape quilt on it.

Well here is Tory's quilt finished. I did the binding in the green with pink polka dots and it looks amazing. I did finish the binding by hand as I didn't want any seams in the binding. I am off to the cottage this weekend and will take it for a few weeks there before it goes to its final destination, Tory's bed. She is awaiting this with baited breath.

I am already thinking of the next one to do, but for the next week we are opening our cottage, and I shall be kept busy working and cleaning and getting ready for the family to come for the long weekend.

I am very pleased with this result, but the next one will be a bit different and a lot easier I think as this was a lot harder than the second one as the squares were smaller.

This quilt was done by my grandmother in the early 1960 s and it is hand quilted. It is quite thin and we have used it for years as a lap quilt I suppose. I know where I got my love of triangles now. I think this is very simple to make and may try to reproduce this later this year.

I am going to try to finish Tory's quilt again today as I am finding it hard to do. I must work on it as Kelly gave me pant's of Jeremy's to fix and just wanted it done before we are off to the cottage.

We await the return of spring before we leave.

So, here is a photo of my first darling westie, who was wrapped in this lovely butterfly quilt. I can see that it is embroidered, but for the life of me I have no idea what happened to it. The front side was white with of course the butterflies, but the back was in yellows, oranges (who knew) in strips of these colours in variations.

I am looking for it in the family, but want to know if anyone has this. It really was lovely.

It is raining here in Whitby today, cold and damp, so I am going to try to finish the third quilt which is taking so long to quilt.

I also finished taking apart the strippie quilt that looked awful when I attempted to stipple quilt it. So I think I shall do it in "v s" or waves. Don't know which, but I need practice at quilting part.

My brother in law and his wife showed up yesterday and raved about my quilts. He thinks that they will be passed down to generations. Wow. I felt so good.

I am off to quilt.