DREAM QUILT

This quilt is also in the new Better Homes magazine and I just love the photo, the quilt is one that would look great at the cottage.

I use duvets there for most of the beds, but if it was adults weekend and I had this for the bunkie then this would look fabulous on the bed.

It doesn't look hard to do, but it is large and quilting it would certainly be a challenge on the sewing machine. This is the photo of the bed now so I hope to do one for this place. the "new bunkie" as it is called doesn't have the character of the old one...later posting....and I have put the quilts that I have made so far in there which is adding some decorating elements.

Yesterday I did 5 nine patch squares. It was hard to do to make them the same for the quilt in progress.

It was raining and when the rain let up, I surfaced and took the dog for a long walk. Even though I do suffer from arthritis a bit and the weather being so damp, once on the road we walked for 40 minutes. No mean feat for this body.

Today was supposed to be raining again but right now the sun is shining and it looks like an early spring day not the fall. There is a 50% off sale at Goodwill, and thinking of the sale I wanted to rise and shine and go see the fabrics and sheets they have at the sale price, but am holding back . There will be another sale.

I know that most quilters use 100% cotton for quilting but for the backing I have used sheets and therefore save money on the quilts because the batting is so expensive.

Jerry has 3 shelves made and has requested pizza, homemade for tonight, so if he gets the other 2 done, he will have his pizza. I am so tough.

FIRST NINE PATCH

I couldn't believe that these were at Walmart just down the street. Under $10.00 for the pkg. I love dotted fabric anyway. So I am doing a quilt with some of the bundles .

I have a hard time doing anything more "boyish" but this one won't have pink in it. I'm going to get it tested by Kelly to see if it is suitable for a young boy nephew.

I also made my first 9 patch which is part of the quilt. It is again an easy pattern and since I had my sewing lesson at the Oshawa Sewing Centre I am hoping that I can stipple this properly. I am cutting out 12" squares to practice daily no matter what.

I bought a Better Homes and Garden quilt magazine yesterday and lucked out on some of the fat quarters at Walmart. They aren't carrying any more yard goods, but if the fat quarters above are any indication, I'm going back.

Yesterday was bridge day, so I didn't post. I went to the dermatologist in the am who said that I had a small cancerous spot on my shoulder, but not to worry too much about it as it is the kind that doesn't spread, move or otherwise, however it must be removed. I am making appt with plastic surgeon and if it takes as long as an ortopedic appt. well I won't hold my breath. The Orthopedic doctor for a bunion that I want removed will take a year before I get it done. Well I've waited this long and since I don't want to wear heels anyway, it won't be so bad. Thank god for Crocs.

I have about 5 pairs of different styles and the sandals are soooo comfy.

Wow, I managed to get a second photo in this blog. I am so pleased. Blogging is hard work. I try something different all the time and mostly have to go back and correct everything cause I can't read directions.

Anyway, this is my first 9 patch that I have ever made it is to go with the Fabric from Walmart, of which 5 of the patches come from the 5 quarter bundles that I bought. I had to take it apart already, to put the stripes in the middle.

I have 18 of these to do and am very pleased that the first one actually was square. Yeah, I have a hard time keeping things square. My friend Helen who is a hand quilter will be pleased with me as she has been trying to get me to do 9 patch for ages. I am liking this a lot.

These are the photos from the mag. We shall see if the quilt comes close to this when I finish it.

Lots of photos here and not all of them where I want them, but close enough. Whew!

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Today is Remembrance Day. this is the only wartime photo that I have on my computer.

the photo is of my mother in the white dress, my aunt Ernie on the right of both photos, and my Uncle Roland and his then wife Alice who was from England.

They took this photo in Montreal. My father was overseas at the time. My mother has many good memories of the war as a young woman growing up in this time. She lived in Montreal, had a good job and said it was a time when people were quite fatalistic because of what was happening in Europe.

My father, had not met anyone in the family before he was shipped overseas as they had eloped, so one night during an air raid in London, my dad having had too much to drink called the MPs to come and get him and his buddy out of a shelter. Low and behold, who appeared but my Uncle Roland and with the look of him being 6ft 3", and a french canadian accent, my dad asked him if he was a "Martin" and he said yes, and my dad said "Well I am your new brother in law." True story of how they met.

My Aunt Ernie went to work in Montreal for Bell and was an overseas operator as she was fully bilingual and one of the first of her kind. She never forgot how you had to behave being a bell operator and an overseas one at that. She was always very proud of her duty in those times.

My uncle, and my mother are both elderly in their late 80s and still can talk of those years of the war as being so exciting, because they were young and carefree.

My mother who learned so much about fashion living in Montreal, so for the rest of her life she has always dressed so well, and loved shopping for clothes. She said that she bought a mink coat during the war for $400.00 and when she and my Aunt Pat went home to visit my Grandmother, she would wear the coat to church. My mother said she literally wore that coat out.

So today, at the ceremony at 11 am, we remember them all.

QUINCY

This is quincy. He is 9 weeks old, part poodle part spaniel. He is our neighbours new puppy. Isn't he just the cutest thing?

Bob and Mary brought him home on Saturday night and he is so calm and has the same colour hair as Mary...well for now anyway.

I don't know if he walks yet as the only time I see him, he is in Mary's arm.

Our Wilson was pretty happy to see him although we aren't letting them bond as yet as the puppy should aclimatize to new surroundings before Wilson gets him.

I finished the Orange Sherbert quilt and washed it. Yep it did shrink a bit but still looks really good. I am going to wash the bamboo batting before I use it again. Yuck, now I gotta hang it out etc. A lesson learned for sure. My step granddaughter Kelly is learning to sew and has come over with an evening sort of dress and we are doing that this week, although I am going to buy new fabric for a new quilt today.

As the days are shorter I see people cleaning up their gardens, putting leaves in the large bags for recycling and the street seemed to be a hive of activity this past weekend. We brought home the leaf blower from the cottage and Jerry says he will blow them to a corner and pick them up for next week...

Last night I made chops in the new stove top grill that I got from President's Choice...thanks Kelly...they turned out really well. I can't get over how great this unit is and have used it a few times already for doing steaks for which I am thankful as I hate going out in the cold and dark to bbq them. For $80.00 it is an absolute gem!

ORANGE SHERBERT

I am naming my new quilt orange sherbert, thanks to Niki for giving me the idea. I have "repaired" my big mistakes by adding a piece of the backing and just redoing the binding. It looks pretty good compared to what it was. So thanks Niki.

Today, again another glorious autumn day in Ontario. We are coming to an end though and Jerry will start the shelves he has put off because the weather is so delicous. This morning I had coffee outside on our little deck and it was actually hot there at 10 am. Imagine November 7th.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain so we shall see if the weather brings me shelves to pile my fabrics on. I am practicing my quilting by machine. Boy it is hard to get the stitches even when the darning foot. But I am using my ugly quilt to do it, so it makes it worthwhile.

I have trouble with the backside of the quilt looking "stitched". It sometimes looks like it is loopy so I'm bringing it with me to sewing lessons on the new sewing machine next week. See what I am doing wrong. I love the Janome 6600.

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISTA,

This is a print that I see each day. It reminds me of my granddaughters just walking the beach.

The painter is Joaquin Sorolla y Batista of Spain and this painting was done around 1908, and I bought this print about 25 yrs ago for $10.00. It cost much more to have it framed and has remained one of my favorites after all these years.

My sewing room is all cleaned up, but the weather has been so good that I haven't started my next quilt which will be a variation of 9 patch which my friend Helen says makes a really interesting quilt when adding different elements.

I will have to go to the quilt shop to see what I can find to suit me as it has lots of bright colours with black and white 9 patch. A fons and porter design which I seem to gravitate to when seeking patterns.

The good weather is coming to an end probably by Saturday, so I shall be in shoes and socks again. Oh I don't like the thought of winter and all that goes with it.

What a Day

Well I meant to start early this morning to put my post in for today as I have promised myself to try and do it daily, but we stayed up late to watch the elections, then an early dental appt left me with hardly anytime to even get to the computer.
I have tried to make my blog look more to my liking, but since I am not very literate when it comes to the computer, being almost self-taught I have a hard time making the headings, and blogs I follow, the colours and putting it all together. I am sure others have a hard time making their blogs individual too.
I went to the dentist to discuss a bridge, implant or leave alone small tooth area that was removed last year. I just didn't like the $3,000.00 figure for the implant, and almost the same for a bridge that my dentist said would cost, so I asked for a second opinion from my oral surgeon dentist where I have teeth cleaned, and he said if it didn't bother me to leave it alone for a while and see how I am next year, well that is better because the economy isn't exactly up these days and investments aren't doing well as everyone knows.
I took my Janome circa 1990 or thereabouts to get a facelift and it will be returned on Tuesday. I asked after 10 yrs for the needle threader to be replaced. My eyes just aren't what they used to be and I have been placing a piece of white paper behind the needle and praying that I was able to thread the bloody thing in the first 20 tries. I have even removed the needle, inserted one of those threaders through the needle, put the needle back in the machine. Talk about being cheap.
The quilt shoppe where I bought the Janome 6600 has great fabrics, but so expensive compared to Fabricland. The price with my discount is about $10.00 per metre. I have some fabric in my stash, but not enough to make some more "male" type of quilts.
I wish there were lots of fabric stores here in Canada, but it is very limited. I may use online buying.
Obama is going to be president of the US. What an historical event. I remember when John Kennedy was elected the first catholic president. That was also an historical event.
As I said earlier.....what a day.

YELLOW QUILT TO BE NAMED

So here is my last quilt that I finished last night I really enjoyed doing this one. I tried a wavy stitch from the new machine and I don't know whether this is considered "quilting" or not but I did it anyways. Sometimes I look at these creations of mine and they are just my own, so why can't I do what I want to finish them.

There is a bit of a booboo at the finishing on the back. the fabric didn't quite meet the edge so I am going to put my patch there. Yes, I am posting my mistakes. I can't figure out how that happened because I thought I had lots of edges left over. I am not going to do that mistake again.

Yesterday we cleaned up junk from the basement and took it to the dump. Jerry, wanting to go to Port Perry dump because it is "cleaner" than the Pickering one, first drove us to Goodwill for donations, then on up to Port Perry, the scenic route because we weren't in a hurry. Well we arrived there and the sign said "Closed Mondays", so we then drove past our house to Pickering and dumped the load for $8.00, not bad at all. But we took 2hrs 15 minutes to do this and another 15 minutes of driving we would have been at the cottage in all the time it took us to drive around. We had Wilson with us, so when we arrived home, it was like we had been on a long trip. lol. We are not returning to Port Perry to dump again I can tell you.

I have not decided what my next project will be, so today I am going to try to get inspired. Yeah right, Jerry is starting to build the shelves now that we have cleaned up enough to make more mess.

It is going to be a lovely fall day, probably one of the last days of Indian summer that we will have. Nature has a way of lulling us, only to descend with storms when we least expect it.

And Kelly, I know that was you that posted on my Wilson blog, I did laugh as you did too.

Wilson the Wonder Dog

This is our 3 yr old westie, who rules the roost and as Kelly says, "the child we never had" Jerry being my second husband and no children but many dogs over the years.

However as we say to Kelly, that if she treated us like Wilson we would do the same to her as we do to him.....lol to Kelly.

He is a great dog and is very patient when I am sewing at the cottage. He will wait for a long time before he makes me crazy to play with him. At the cottage we can't go for walks like we do in Whitby. He and I will walk a few cottages over then back, which is enough for him to get a good run. He still likes his toys and specially any toy that has a squeek in it. He doesn't destroy them and just loves to play catch.

I am finishing up a quilt which is another lap quilt and last night while hand sewing the binding, Wilson wasn't happy because he couldn't get on my lap. Tough, quilting comes first. I haven't named it yet, but tomorrow when I post the photo of it, hopefully someone will suggest a good name, knowing I like ice cream names, or fruit names.

I am going to call for my sewing lessons on the new machine this week. I am getting the hang of it and am loving it very much. I am also taking in the old Janome to get cleaned etc. It seems to be a tension problem.

Oh,, I hate a day such as this, the rain came in last night, blew leaves all over the back yard, about 200 of them since our trees are so new that there is hardly anything, but it means that the weather will get colder and then the snow will come. We are expecting a few warm sunny days this week, so it will be hard to go to the basement and sew. But today, dark and rainy, I am going to sort through more "stuff" as I am decluttering.

SUNDAY MORNING

This photo was taken of a granddaughter, Courtney and her friend Doug doing crazy dives at the cottage 2 weeks before we closed in mid October.

The water was about 60 degrees, which is really cold and they jumped in and out for ages doing this kind of stuff. I took this with a telephoto lense from the deck.

These two along with Jeremy also water-skied most of the day. They did wear wet suits for skiing because the breeze at 22 mph was kind of cool.

Ah the young, they feel nothing but joy and doing wild stuff.

Today, the change of time "fall back" I am going to wake up at 5:45 for ages until my body clock gets used to it and then we will return to daylight saving time. I wish it stayed daylight saving all year round. So for the next few weeks I shall be up so early that even the birds won't be up.

Today, being sunday, we are going to go to the basement and work on the new area for my sewing area such as it will be. Jerry is not going to get fancy with this. I just want to be able to put my fabric etc on some shelves to keep the area neat. I am sick of the bins and they are always so messy looking.

MY DECK

This is where I do all my hand sewing in the summer. On the deck at the cottage. It is always peaceful there and swarming with the hummingbirds that I feed from 4 feeders. Although I must say with the weather this summer being so wet and all, my little hummers were a bit scarce compared to other years.

This sitting place is where all our gang and guests love to sit in the morning have coffee, eat cereal and play cottage game of "Madd" which is a variation of Sorry I think but with more agressive moves. This is the place and we can all enjoy the magnificent views from this deck.

Now that winter is coming, with this place being on an island, we have left it for nature to do its thing for the winter. The water drops about 4 ft, and the winds will howl, and the winter birds take over. We could hear wolves howling the week before we left. It was very eerie but we were blessed to hear them. There is no one there now, all the cottagers have closed their cottages for the winter, and as the water slowly rises again, the ice will come and with it winter.

THE FUNICULAR, DESIGNED BY JERRY

The "funicular" called "the lift" by those of us who are in awe of Jerry's design and building of same this summer has saved us so much of the lifting and carrying of our supplies up the 32 steps to the cottage landing.

Jerry designed this over the past winter, and for weeks he would say "look at this" and show me this scale drawing of the lift.

He had it built in pieces locally, designed the motor etc, don't ask, and then we transported it to the cottage and he built it over the summer, between the rain storms we had during the months of July and August.

It carries about 1500 lbs and the whole project was designed so that we can stay at the cottage longer as we age.

There has been so much interest in it on our lake and maybe he will build a couple more. It made the carrying of my stash which was in a big bin much easier to load in the boat to take back to Whitby.

My new sewing machine weighs about 30 lbs, so carrying it up next summer will be a charm.

THE UGLY QUILT

First, my mother is fine. She probably just had severe cramps, and at 89 yrs old, well she became fearful that she was dying. Anyway they kept her overnight at the hospital and sent her home yesterday afternoon. she was glad to go too.

The first image is my "ugly" quilt which isn't finished being quilted as yet. I think it's ugly, but the kids think it looks "different Nana". I will practice the stithes for stippling on this quilt and then bind it.

The first time I saw this pattern in a magazine, I thought oh that should be quick and easy. 12 " squares are pretty simple. It is the colour combinations that I put together that just didn't do it for me, but after putting the quilt together, there was enough money in it to try and finish it.

Quilt tops are sometimes cheaper than what goes between the fabrics, so being very frugal with my quilting dollars I am going to finish it on the new machine.

I am going to go to lessons tomorrow and see what I can do with the fanciness of this machine.

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.