Kitchen Duty

When I was young and still lived with my Mother and Father and siblings, spring not only meant spring cleaning but also some new things around the house or yard.

Very often those new things were made by Mom or Dad, depending on what it was. 

Tradition is a difficult thing to shake, even if you are not purposely trying to continue a tradition!

I started to make new kitchen curtains a few days ago.  They actually have a sewing theme because those were the largest simple embroidery patterns I had!  The white is just plain bleached muslin with the added red band and hemmed on the sides and top with a slip through for the rod.  I am planning to make some crochet red flowers to string across the top part of the window, they are in progress and will be a few days til they are done.

I was also moved to make a new plastic bag holder, simple but serves the purpose just inside the closet door.  I threw out the previous one that I had been using since about 1994!  It was incredibly grubby and worn...  The fabric for the new one tho is from a thrifted vintage sheet, that is much older than 1994, more like 1974...  I am partial to daisies and this bit of fabric suits me fine.

The bag holder is simple to do.  It is a fat quarter or there abouts (18 inches x 20 inches) sewn up the long side, then fold over pocket seams at each end,  the top one is threaded with a piece of plastic strapping (my husband gets his newspaper bundles held together with this stuff so it is real handy for me to use).  The strapping helps to hold open the top to make it easy to plop in the plastic bags that come home (when we forget our reuseable bags).

  The other end is threaded with a length of elastic pulled fairly tight, but enough so you can grab and pull through a bag from the bottom.  And a piece of red ribbon to hang the holder from a big tack...

Both these projects took a total of less than 3 hours!  Alot less time than yesterday's spring project which was taking all the stuff out of my kitchen cupboards, washing the inside of the cupboards and then putting all the things back in neatly and in some sort of order. 

So, now my kitchen has got its annual spruce up and I can nag my hubby to sand down the patches on the walls in the dining room and think about what paint and colour I am wanting...

They tell me it is Friday the 13th...  So far today everything has gone quite nicely and smoothly so I didn't notice.  Hope your Friday the 13th is free of the undesireable possibilites that this day is known for!

Good - Work in Progress

THE GOOD
Quilters are generous people...  Well, so are alot of just regular people, but I mostly know crafty people in my life and even those with little cash to spare, generously give their time and talent to make quilts for a wide variety of causes.

Now, I have been quilting as a HOBBY since about 1985, but actually made a few quilts before that but I considered it part of being a homemaker.   When my children were very young I started to make quilts for their beds, quilts to haul around to picnics or to the beach, quilts to play on when they were out in the yard, quilts to use as tents and even a quilt or two to use as a table cover at christmas.  Those kind of quilts were made throughout the 1970's. (only 2 small ones still exist today)

When I first joined a quilt guild in 1986, I began to consider it a hobby and I soon discovered quilt shows and quilt challenges at quilt shows.  My very favourite part of any quilt show has always been the guilds' challenges -- I have participated in ALOT of them.

A couple of weeks ago, I was digging through my storage trunk and realized that all those challenge quilts I had made over the years, were sitting idle at the bottom of the trunk.

As I looked through them I knew that their main use was to be looked at but they certainly didn't get looked at in the bottom of a big box, now did they?   The quilts were generally square and usually about 30 inches or less on each side.   So, I thought about it for awhile.  Who could enjoy these quilts and make use of them?  Where could I 'get rid' of them but yet not personally feel that my hard work and creativity was wasted.   Yes, where could I put those quilts and give myself SATISFACTION of a good job done and be happy to know that my work was also USEFUL...

Because these quilts were as much as 20 years old, their colours were not current or modern, but they were generally pretty, and warm, and definately useful.

So, I picked out 6 of these 'challenge' quilts (yes I still have a few more that I am thinking of homes for) and because my cousin Judi works as an aide at a private care home for 'Challenged' ladies I thought "How appropriate that they have something bright and cheery but not too big."   So I sent six of my Challenge Quilts over to the 6 ladies in that care facility.

The Work in Progress

And, since it is Work in Progress over at the Needle and Thread Network  I want to tell you about my newest obsession...

Yesterday, yep, just yesterday, I took a class from our quilt guild's MATH WIZARD Jane.   TESSELLATIONS... This idea has been around for awhile, but not like centuries, just a dozen decades maybe.  Anyway, I am hooked.  For Now.  Jane taught us about the different types of tessellations and how they worked and how to create them.   I really like best that every one is unique.  There are definate tessellations that have become recognized in the art world and most people recognize the name ESCHER.  Well, I am no Escher, but now I can say I am a someone original artist.  My shapes may be somewhat like others that have gone before, but apparently what I cut out is quite unlikely to be exactly like what someone else has done...  EVEN if I emulate similar cuts, mine is still likely to be my own....

The one above (can you see the halloween ghost?) was a shape that I made after the class when I got home.  It started out as an equilateral triangle and once the shape was created one point revolved to make the design...  I am going to use this as my first tessellation in fabric !  I am hoping to show you an "in progress" or finished piece next week.

In class we used playing cards cut to regular shapes (square, hexagon, triangle) to learn the basics of cut out and put back.  Simple to more complicated.

One thing that always puzzles me about the MATH in Quiltmaking is why is Math so facinating now, and when I was 14 and in grade 9, I was on the verge of failing each year of high school math that I took?  Why wasn't math at all interesting then?  How is it that my mind changed so drastically and now enjoys something I so despised before???

Now, that we here in the Pacific Northwest are finally getting sunshine and summer temperatures, I am planning to set up my outside table and draw tessellations for every hour I can find to sit in my back yard!

Hope you are out there getting a bit of that shine and enjoying everything you do!

Tiny Pom Pom Tutorial

A few days ago, the group of quilters that we call a satellite group - there are only 5 of us - got together to do what we do...  Talk about quilting and other crafty ideas that we share with each other.

Somewhere in between talking about quilts and showing off our latest projects the subject of pom-poms came up.   How do you make pom-poms?  

Ellen says she cuts out a circle and winds the yarn in and out of the centre 'donut'.  Always a successful method but can be quite tedious if you are needing to make alot of those fuzzy little balls.  

Louise or maybe it was Doris said she justs winds the yarn around a piece of cardboard, with a string held between the wound around yarn and the cardboard then pulls the string and ties it off.  One of the problems with this method is that the pom-pom doesn't always seem quite as full and puffy as one would like.

I generally use the straight piece of cardboard.

Then I was thinking, is there a way to use something that is sturdy and won't scrunch up (as cardboard often does) and yet has a slit in it so that the tie up string can be easily held in place...

I'm sure this has been thought of before, because well, we all know there is nothing new under the sun, just a slight variation of an older idea...

So.

My slight variation is,  A FORK!

Now, this does make a small - in fact rather tiny pom-pom.

Just insert a length of yarn or string, that will be your tie-up string.

go ahead and wind the yarn -- I happened to have some worsted weight yarn scrap so used that and I wound it around the fork about 40 times, being careful not to get too close to the end of the tines so that the yarn does not slip off.

 

I tied up the extra string bit, slid the whole thing off of the fork tines and proceeded to cut on each side of the tied bit.

(edited in - actually you get a tighter tie if you slip it off the fork before tying)

Once cut it did need a bit of trimming of ends but it came out nice and full and puffy!

I should have put something beside the pom-pom so you could see the finished size but then again all you have to do is look at the width of your forks in your kitchen drawer and that will tell you about how wide your pom-pom would be.

Now you could try this same process with with a Large Serving Fork and you will get a much larger pom-pom and you can still use the fork to carve your Sunday Roast (or maybe you are having an Easter Turkey Dinner).  I would think it would work best with a fork where the outside tines go straight out rather than sort of narrow towards the end.

So next time you are thinking you need some pom-poms think of your dinner fork!

Hope everyone is having a nice LONG weekend. 

PS.  Notice a slight difference in the photos above? There are new options on Picasa which is the program I use to edit my photos...  rounded corners, borders, different colour choices for borders.   I am just experimenting so things may be a bit of a circus with the pictures on the blog until I settle on something I like and that is worth the fussing over...

 

Waste Paper

With the Eco - movement, is there such a thing as waste paper?  If you are old enough -- and that means if you went to school in the 1960's or the decade earlier, there was such a thing as a waste paper basket in every class room.  It was simply called a waste paper basket as a nice version of garbage pail...  Everything went into that pail, apple cores, broken pencils and reams and reams of paper.  There was not a recycyle bin in those days.  Those were very rich and wasteful years, because before that, in the 1930's and 40's my mother told me  that if you wrote a letter to someone you would write it in pencil so that the receiver could erase what you wrote and write a letter on the same paper and send it back to you or onto someone else.  The Depression Years taught alot of people how to reuse and recycle.  Then we promptly forgot it in the 50's and 60's and even into the 70's...

Something clicked into our psyche in the 80's and the movement to save our enviroment began to gain some steam.   Now, we don't think we HAVE to recycle or remake, or reuse things, but many of us choose to do that sort of thing because we don't want to waste what we have, just in case we run out of the raw materials, or at least to prolong the time until we do run out...

Now, that is alot of deep thinking for my latest project...

My hubby delivers daily newspapers every single night, he goes to pick up his stacks of papers at 1am and is home around 5am, having delivered some 200 or so papers in time for the subscribers to read their morning paper along with sipping their first cup of coffee of the day...

Those newspapers come in a variety of bundles wrapped in brown craft paper -- he gets 2 or 3 sheets of this brown paper every single night.   It has been weighing on my mind that this paper goes into the recycle bin once he has opened up his bundles...

So, I have been formulating an idea of what I can use this paper for...
I cut the sections of brown paper into 4 inch wide strips that are about 15 inches long.  I have been getting 6 of these strips from each piece of brown paper.   I even take the time to iron the pieces of 4" x 15" sections so they are nice and flat and not too wrinkledy...
I works quite well.   Some of the brown paper gets smudges -- which is what it is supposed to do, to protected the daily newspaper (who wants wet or ripped newspapers?)

Then once the pieces I have cut are nice and smooth, I stack 4 together and sew, using a heavier type thread down the middle and fold over to make "Pages".   I find that I can do 4 sets of these and I even sew the last page of one set to the first page of the next set.   You can only to 4 sets together because the foot I have doesn't do too well when one side of the seam is quite "high" while trying to sew two pieces of paper together...

I also use big stitches, if the stitches are too small, they just cut the paper.  

So, Now I am into making these little booklets, that have become great list making booklets.   We use them for grocery lists, mostly, but also for what needs to be cleaned lists...  Lists of marks to keep track of knitting rows, decreases and increases.  Lists of quilt block pieces, and lists of things in my etsy store. 

Then I had one of those "LIGHT BULB" moments.... I had  the idea because I found for only 50 cents at the second hand store that fusible stuff for fabric, that doesn't come with paper backing -- I think one of the brand names for it is Misty Fuse.  So, the bright idea was to iron this fusing stuff onto scraps of fabric --- and I do have quite a big bin of scrappy fabrics.  Then once the fusing stuff is nicely on the properly cut piece of fabric, I fuse it to the first and last pages of my brown paper note pads...

Now, I can feel slightly superior (we all need that even if we don't admit it out loud) that I am using this craft paper for a very useful purpose, and not only do my little booklets save buying dollar store note pads -- that maybe are not made from recycled paper -- but also they look pretty too, and make use of my fabric scraps all in one go...

So, my current project (really I can only make one of these books each day with the amount of brown paper, hubby brings back home from his newspaper bundles) gives me something to occupy myself, even if I don't feel like sewing or knitting or crocheting or walking the dog or even cleaning toilets!

Now, I can say I am saving the world -- just a little bit, anyway...

Whimsy

This little lady is a self portrait of sorts...    She is kinda chunky in the body and not too concerned about wearing matching  tops, slacks or sweaters.  Sometimes she finds a funky necklace or broach or ring at the second hand store and wears them every day for a month  then puts them away and forgets them.

Most mornings she forgets to brush her hair and it goes a bit wild when she takes the dog for a walk before anyone else in the neighbourhood is awake.   She likes to sit on the balcony of her townhouse and look down on her little piece of land where her daisies and hostas, and peppermint are just peeking through the soil and pine for the days, soon to come, when she can get out and plant some geraniums (she plants red geraniums every year in memory of her Mom) and tries to grow some beans or tomatos or spinach.

There's not much more in life that a little lady like this could ask for and she finds herself to be happy most of the time...

Well, now, the dog Pearl, is anxiously waiting for her walk in the park, so away we go....

Check out the Needle and Thread Network today for links to blogs all across Canada.  Stop in and visit and say hello -- everyone loves it when you leave a comment -- remember if you visit someone in real life, you do say something so just cause it is the virtual world, you shouldn't visit without telling them that you enjoyed coming by...

PS.  I should say that this post was somewhat inspired after reading this blog...  http://maryanntate.blogspot.ca/  - a cloth doll maker's diary (also on the needle and thread network)

Undun

"She's come undun
She didn't know what she was headed for
And when I found what she was headed for
It was too late..."

That bit of lyric from the Guess Who song, UNDUN seems to pop into my head whenever I have to redo something or undo a project that has not worked out. 

Now as I understand it, Randy Bachman wrote the song about a girl at a party who took LSD that did not agree with her, and then of course, It was too late...

Now when I start a project (back a day or two to WIP Wednesday Granny Poncho) then get to a point where it has progressed some distance, I think of that song and wonder if it is too late.  And of course it is NOT!  Even though I had decided to make a poncho and had crocheted almost two full balls of yarn, I decided, it wasn't working or looking like it would suit me at all, so I started pulling the yarn and soon it all came undun!

Rerolled into a nice ball, and my crochet hook sitting idle by the ball of yarn, I started to look through my books and magazines for something else to begin work on.

I haven't yet decided.

Collections

This week I have been busy looking at my STUFF...

Did you ever hear what George Carlin had to say about Stuff?  Life is trying to find a place to keep your Stuff -- that's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff... (check out You Tube for a video of George talking about Stuff)

Well, some of my Stuff, though it is not really in the way seems to be spending its time in boxes being forgotten  about and even though these pretty things once made me happy to just look at I don't seem to have enough shelves so I can look at my THINGS...

So some of the things in these cardboard boxes in closets or the basement has just been sitting for too long.  I have come to the conclusion that these pretty things have worn out their welcome in my house...

It seems like I have been in front of the computer for hours every day this week!  I have been adding things to my ETSY (just click on the word etsy if you are curious to see more) store.  

Sometime in the late eighties I began collecting evening bags.  They just caught my eye and in those days, I really did go out to evening 'bashes' and had occassion to wear something pretty!  So a collection developed.  Then as with some collections, family and friends notice, so when they see something that would go with your collection they pick them up where every they find them and you get additions to your collection for birthdays or christmas or even just cause they thought of you (and isn't that always nice?)

But, I don't go out much anymore and I thought these evening bags could be made useful again.   One thing I will tell you, in researching them, I was somewhat surprised that My particular favourites were not particularly sought after...   See that gold bag up there?   Similar bags, same brand name, were listing on various collectible sites for as much as $99.00!   I can't remember where, or how much I paid for it, but certainly not that much. 

But I am selling in my shop, I don't price it quite that high, cause I do want to sell it and make someone else happy to wear it and show it off... 

Well, my head is getting a bit clogged up this week checking out stuff on the internet.  Now that I have achieved one goal this week, my other goal still looms -- it is getting late to be doing income taxes, so that is what is on my agenda now.

Just have to give myself a bit of a kick in the butt, load the tax prep program and get with it.   Once I get going it never takes as long as I thought it would, so....

I think I will have a cuppa tea first....

WIP Wednesday - Granny Poncho

Yesterday I joined a Crochet-A-Long on Le monde de Sucrette  I received a few balls of Vanna's Choice Yarn for Christmas/Birthday gifts and was planning to start another granny square afghan, but when I saw Angie's post about this Granny Poncho it seemed to fit perfectly what I wanted.

Sometimes I get up really early, like 4:30 am but there is often a bit of a chill in the house and I drag around a quilt wrapped around my shoulders -- seems I can never find a sweater - but there is always a quilt on the back of one of the chairs in the computering room... 

So I figured a granny square poncho can as easily be laid on the back of my computer chair and once it is over my head and on my shoulders, it will stay in place unlike a quilt that keeps sliding off.

So this is the start to my poncho.  I haven't really planned out the colours for it as my other Vanna's Choice Yarns are green and a grey tweed, which won't go with this burgundy.  I am thinking that I would like to "progress" the colours of yarn in wide bands from this burgundy through a even deeper red to a middle then dark brown and onto a black -- I think that is called ombre, when the colours progress from light to dark or the other way around.

I am also linking up to The Needle and Thread Network  and Freshly Pieced.

Today, is a day at home, so I will be working on my granny poncho and doing some furniture organizing in my sewing room.  I am planning to  build/create a ironing surface on top of a old dresser (a project I saw somewhere on the internet).   This hopefully will eliminate an old rickedy ironing board that I found about 10 years ago sitting by a neighbourhood garbage bin...  Yeah, if its a good enough find, I do take home other people's junk!

PS.  and if you have found me through the two WIP links, check back in my blog to the previous post about my adventure to the Fibre Fest here in Abbotsford last weekend and the project that I created after learning a bit about rug hooking.

Fibre Fest - Rug Hooking

Ah....

Something a bit different, but not too different.  It still has to do with fabric and I actually had all I needed right here in my stash because I was making alot of wool quilts and wool applique pieces for a while.

So I have a small box of felted wool and even had a piece of burlap that i had got at the second hand store (where else?) just before christmas because I was thinking of doing a burlap wrapped christmas wreath, that I never did get around to.  Good thing, turns out.

So using my small hand quilting frame (which has been on a shelf for a couple of years waiting to be used) I first cut some strips of the felted wool from my stash.  I used a regular crochet hook to pull through the 1/4 inch strips and here are three test patches.

At the first booth at the show, was a lady who was selling roving and felted and hand dyed wools and she was demonstrating the rug hooking technique by making these cool Cone Flowers...

I thought a kit with instructions would be just the thing but she said no she had no kits and was quite happy to show me the process.  Not at all difficult, well, except when it came to the double petals, I had a Hellava time getting them to sit right without making the flower look too bulky.   Took a couple of tries and a couple of re cutting the petals (she had not pattern) because figuring out the proportion to the center.

Well, it was a fun little project -- not sure if I will do more, but they would make a good, hand work in front of the tv project.

Definately the easiest part was making the round rug hooking flower centre.

And here is the flower broach that I made this morning.  I'd say about 2 hours, including gathering together the various elements to put the project together, finding the pin back thingys for the broach which took opening and closing afew drawers!

And the back of the broach -- no one sees it except you -- while it is being worn, but I do know it is a bit messy.  Next one, if there is a next one, hopefully will be a bit neater.

That was a pretty good start to a Sunday, and now I really should go do real WORK, like sweeping a floor or dusting a shelf or petting a cat...

Enjoy your Sunday!

Blog Stuff -- Statistics Counter

I posted about a year ago that on this blog I have a little tool that runs in the background, but I did not go into detail about how this works.

It doesn't just count how many visits that this blog has had, it does so very much more.  It tells me things about the visitors who come to read my page.  It does not tell me your name or your address or your phone number or what size dress you wear.

Do you watch the TV show Criminal Minds?  Well, if you do, you know Penelope.  Penelope is the computer geek.  She finds out things and does searches and follows where cell phones go.  Well, with the StatCounter that runs in the background on my blog I can not only count how many visits my blog receives but I can also know where those visits come from.   Say you do a google search and find my blog.  My stat counter can tell me that is how you found my blog.  Perhaps you clicked on the link that I leave at the Needle and Thread Network on WIP Wednesday, my stat counter tells me that is how you or rather how your computer came to my blog.  If I  leave a comment on someone elses blog and you clik on my name and it brings you here, I can check my stat counter and be able to tell exactly who's blog you found me at.  

Not only can I tell where and how you found me, I can also see where you go next.  If you click on a link on my sidebar, my stat counter will tell me that you went to another blog and exactly who's blog that is.  If you leave a comment, whether or not you leave it as anonymous (whatever your reasons for that are) I can tell when you left the comment and I can tell where you were when you left the comment.  The stat counter records your IP and your location.  If you are on a desktop or lap top in a specific city, my stat counter can tell me which city.  It cannot tell me which street or even neighbourhood, just your city or area.

Many Many blogs use this type of tool, because we are then aware of where our audience is and we can also see if a particular computer visits the blog on a regular basis.  Sometimes, and I have found that this almost always is true for government or large business, there is a 'signature' left that names the Owner of a particular network or even can name the owner along with the site of the particular network.  I suspect that government and some business 'signature' their computers so that from their end if ever need be, they can track WHERE their employees have used the computer on the internet.

I love to check my stat counter not only because i can count how many visitors I have had, but interesting things such as how long you were on my page, what operating system your computer uses, if you are viewing or commenting from a cell phone or ipad or itouch.

I can also look back for a 90 day period (or I can pay a monthly fee) and have all the stats kept for as long as i want, which can tell me if a visitor comes to my blog one time and never again, or visits my blog daily or even more than once a day. 

One of the features I find quite useful is that the stat counter will tell which blog post is more popular and even which day of the week, on average gets a larger audience.  So with that information I can choose to post on a particular day or days each week and I can stick to what proves to be the most popular subject...

If you have a blog, you might consider a more thorough counter than something that just clicks off numbers.   I am always amazed at some of the locations of computers.  This past week, I had visits from Victoria, BC, Winnipeg, MB, Toronto, ON, Sydney Australia, Phenom Penn, Vietnam,  Tokyo, Japan, and practically every state in the USA.  I can tell if you are on a home computer or if you are using your employer's computer and there have been a couple of government or business computers used to visit my blog (which I would not encourage, because if you are surfing the internet on your boss's time you are technically stealing from your employer).

Now unlike Penelope on Criminal Minds, I cannot connect your ip address with your home or work address (if you employer has placed a signature on the work computer, I am able to tell who you work for and your employer places a number letter combination in that signature that can tell the company techie which computer at what office is surfin the net )

Every computer leaves its ip address where ever it goes, whether it is recorded by a stat counter or not.  That is how criminal activity is tracked by the police and used to figure out if  someone is downloading illegal materials.

So, just to keep you, my reader informed on some of the computer stuff that is not commonly known.  There is a use for parental controls on your home computer and certain tracking or blocking devices that your employer may use that you might be unaware of. 
Play it Smart!

Getting close to the weekend -- and I have a few promises to keep today so I am off on my little Cosmic Wave to follow through on those obligations --- and a bit of fun stuff - I am going to buy myself a Colin James CD today...

Scribbled Adaptation

Quite often when I see something that I have not seen before I become very exited about HOW DO YOU DO THAT?  I suspect that many craft people whether they sew, or quilt or knit or even build things with wood or metal are much like that.  We want to know! We want to learn!  And we want to do it for our self.

Two days ago, my friend Doris dropped into my place to show me the latest item that she had made...  She was excited about it and saw it on http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/scribbling-the-basic-recipe and had to try it out.  (the ravelry page tho refers you to a book or magazine called Mason Dixon Knitting for the actual instructions...

You know how things are -- you inspect the item -- a scarf - and study the stitching, but there were a couple of things that I did not have in order to make a scarf like the one Doris made.   But the look and feel of it fermented in my mind....  All afternoon and all night...

Finally I decided to change what I saw in the pictures on the ravelry web page to what I had on hand -- a large size crochet hook, a cotton sock yarn and one ball of 10 years ago eyelash specialty yarn...

I came out as close to what was in my imagination as anything I have ever made before! 

Now, as I understand the concept with knitting you need to use a large size circular needle -- Doris used a 12mm.   You knit your fine yarn or string and introduce a specialty yarn or ribbon or whatever you choose at intervals along the way.

Not a completely new concept but since I liked the feel of what Doris created I determined to make a test piece and then proceeded to make a full scarf, not knitted but crochet...

I somehow got into my head a name for this scarf -- not often do I name scarves!  But this one begged to be named the Jump for Joy Scarf!  It makes me happy...

Isn't it great when simplicity can make your heart sing?

Now onto the next thing... I am working on putting together a large quilt using a method I learned about yesterday at quilt guild meeting.   In a few days I hope to show you the details or a bit of a tutorial of this "new to me" technique.

I am linking today to the Needle and Thread Work In Progress Wednesday -- just clik on the link on my sidebar and you will be taken to the site where you can then go on a blog tour of a dozen or so Canadian Blogs...



Family

The last few days, seem to be centred around my family...

My brother Mike, who is one of the funniest people I know, sent me an email that I just have to share -- but keep in mind that we have a sister who has pretty much disowned both me and Mike.  She has her reasons, tho I don't come close to understanding them.

So, it is my sister's birthday and even tho she doesn't talk to us we still remember her on her important days...

Mike said in his email to me.   " We decided to have a birthday party for Kathleen, we had cake and ice cream and balloons and then we all went bowling.  The best part of the party was we forgot to invite Kathleen!

Now, we don't have any hard feelings for our little lost sister, but we do have our fun when just the right event comes along!  And as you can see she was our special little project, way back when!

The past couple of days are not all sunshine and roses as we did go through a bit of a traumatic event.  It made my heart pound and my stomache churn...

My younger son was in a car accident on his way to work early Saturday morning.  Without going into details, even though it was an accident at high speed on a major freeway, he is walking around and sore and has sustained a couple of injuries that will keep him off work for a bit.   One thing that really surprised me, is that he phoned me first!  Before 911, before anyone!  He said he couldn't even think what to do other than phone his mom!  (I do have to say tho that his main injury was that he had a concussion)  I am so thankful that only the car -- his first car at that, took all the damage and my son is still here to deal with the problems that such an accident causes...

Now, to get on with the week and one thing else I am so very thankful for - a sewing room to go into to relax my mind and let the little difficulties of life disapate while sewing bright happy fabric pieces together!

And of course, the obligatory cat photos... This time Archie is wanting to take centre stage and insists you see him at his best...

And I have to say, here he is too, hugging my shoulder and only as a cat can, he clearly shows the ecstacy of the moment, being held by his 'mom'....

Wishing everyone the happiest of Birthdays and if you can, perhaps go talk to the Mad Hatter and he may arrange a Happy UnBirthday for you if you are needing one.

Now, I am off to make a birthday cake too!  Seems to be the thing to do!  Oh and my cousin Karen is having her birthday too -- and my nieces in Victoria on Thursday, and my friend Gordie had his birthday a week or so ago!  Definately a day for Birthday Cake, don't you think?

Granny Square Quilt Block! Really?

I have been seeing this quilt block on various other blogs around the internet and since I have that 'shoe box" full of 2 1/2 inch squares, I thought well here's a chance to use up some of those squares...

This box of squares never seems to diminish!  Which is of course my own fault, because whenever there is less than a fat quarter of any of my fabrics I tend to spend a few minutes and cut that piece down to either 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch squares -- so you know, somewhere in the background is ANOTHER shoe box full of 3.5 inch square...

It really doesn't take long to do a batch of these "Granny Square Blocks"  which I think may also be called, Many Trips Around the World (but you will have to go google that to verify it if you want)

Instead of doing these blocks (as suggested on another site) in rows, I found it to be easier to make a stack of nine patch blocks to start with.   Then I made the 'frame' which was a print fabric and 3 plain white squares and sewed that piece (I shoulda taken a picture but forgot) onto the nine patch. Pressed the whole thing and trimmed it up square...

I managed 20 blocks in about 4 -5 hours...  Kept me occupied and made a dent in the shoe box of 2.5 inch squares.  That is until I checked around the sewing room and discovered a half dozen scrap ends of other projects and proceeded to cut them into squares which I'm sure added more to the box than I started with!

Well, maybe tomorrow I will work on another stack of these blocks, because this set is going into my ETSY shop.

Now for a change of pace, I am going to go into the kitchen and see about creating a batch of cookies... Its been a couple of months since this house has seen home made cookies....

Knit Mitts and Crochet Sweater

Whew!  My sewing machine has been sitting idle this past week, but I have kept my hands busy, and my bum in a comfortable chair -- its favourite place, actually!

Well, truthfully, the organizational and clean-up bug came to visit so everyday this past week, I was pulling things out of corners and drawers and shelves and piling them in the middle of whatever room I happened to get the urge to work on... The main bedroom, the kitchen, the upstairs bath and the 'linen' closet...   I am most impressed by my progress in my bedroom, tho.  But I am not showing you a picture, cause it is just a bedroom...

In between these frenzied bouts of organizing, I sat quietly and either finished up those grey mittens I dreamed about last week...

Which, I just might send to my brother Joe in Winnipeg, even though winter is coming to an end, there are still some cold days ahead, I'm sure...

And also crocheting two short sleeve cardigans, which I am hoping will suit my twin great neices in Victoria, BC, Greta and Lucy who are soon to be celebrating another birthday. It is hard to keep track of kids in the family who live in a different city, so these two cardi's are a guess at about a childs size 6/7... They were fun and easy to make up - well, the green one, which I finished up on Saturday was easy and now I am about half way on the pink one

I used a baby sweater free instruction I found on the internet and instead of baby yarn, I used a fairly new yarn, Waverly by Bernat which is almost a chunky, but is really soft and I am hoping the girls  will like it.  I increased the number of stitches by about 20%, added a button tab to the front for a three button closure instead of a neck ribbon as on the original, and used a "V" stitch for the lower body of the cardigan.  I am quite pleased with my adjustments but of course the ultimate test will be once the girls get these, if they fit properly and if they like them...

 And of course, Walter must make his appearance in the blog story, so here he sits, overseeing the progress, so far made on the pink short sleeve cardi.   Walter does like to help with any unnecessary unravelling of crocheted rows, which he tends to do unsupervised and without any care as to how far back he undoes the crocheted work that I just did.  

I am thinking, I will work a bit in the sewing room, it seems there is a "thing" going around quilting blogland of a "granny square" quilt block, so I am going to play around with making a few blocks -- even tho I have no particular project in mind.... Remember the shoe box full of 2 1/2 inch squares?  That is the box I am going to pull out again for a couple of hours of play...

Enjoy your Monday!  and if you just can't, think about Saturday, it is coming!! (and so is Christmas)