Completed UFO's

I have 2 completed UFO's, Yippee, well almost..... The top of the memory quilt is together - just have to pin, quilt and bind it.



The Needlepoint called Morning Glow is finally completed and framed. This has been the most intricate needlepoint canvas I have ever worked on.

Board Book Play

Yesterday I played with a new board book. This is a Ready-to-Go Blank Board Book in the 6" x 6" size. You will find it and many other sizes and shapes available at C&T Publishing.

I am a Creative Troupe member with C&T Publishing and I've played with this product so that it can be used as an art supply store display model.

I was to use art supplies on the cover and one inside page spread. I hope they like what I did.

My First Fabric Postcard

On Friday afternoon, my first fabric postcard ever arrived in the post. Yippee. It's beautiful. I LOVE it. It is of the Canola fields new Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. See photo below.... It's a real postcard made out of fabric and sent to me with a postage stamp on through the normal post. Things don't happen like this in Africa. It's amazing.....

More Flowers and Some Stitchin'

Here are a couple more photos from my garden. I seem to have a lot of purples right now.

Aubretia

Grape Hyacinth

I've started the hand stitching on my small quilt. I must confess that I'm highly influenced right now by a marvelous fiber artist. Her name is Jude and her blog is Spirit Cloth. Perhaps you've seen her work. She does all or most of her art by hand with lots and lots of yummy stitching. She recently finished a couple of small pieces with cats on them and by the time I discovered that she sells her work on etsy, it was much too late....they were sold. Pout!


It would appear that this roll of paper towels is defective. Hmmmmm, wonder how that happened. You know, I've never had any trouble with my cats chewing up the toilet paper or other papers in the house, but one day I happened to leave a partial roll of paper towels lying on the floor and evidently it was fair game. Guess I will have to be more careful in the future.

Happy Weekend!!!!

Irma

Irma - (Old German for "Noble Person")
... (and twin sister to Alfred)


Enjoys blueberry picking and tea parties.
Likes writing short stories.
Hopes to be a librarian someday.
Wants to know what the ocean smells like.


Irma, her brother Alfred and some of their other school pals are currently available in my Silly BooDilly shop.

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Stroll In the Garden

I forgot to get photos of my red and yellow tulips this year. These purple tulips are the last ones that bloom and the crop this year was magnificent. I kept them well sprayed so the deer would not get at them and I ended up with a bumper tulip crop.


I love the touches of blue when you peer deep inside the open blooms.


And I think the remains of the tulip head, after the colorful petals have fallen away, is just as beautiful. Hmmmm, I may sketch some of these and make a stamp or something.


The last couple of days or so I haven't been able to do much in the studio. Hubby has been home and has been keeping me busy with outdoor projects. When I do find a few minutes here and there I've been sewing on the following small quilt. All my other projects require too much time commitment and so this is the only thing I've been able to work on that helps keep my creative side happy.


I used some non-traditional quilting fabrics in some of these quilt blocks. I'm only going to do the nine blocks on this as shown above and I plan to add a border yet. I want to hand quilt this one.

Sugar Wednesdays

I seem to be posting more about cakes these days than sewing. And for sure Wednesday afternoons have been all about Sugar with my friend Verdie for several years now. And this Wednesday was no exception. We are working on a cake to celebrate the various groups that meet within an organization in June. Part of decoration will be clusters of "people", and here is the beginnings of that:
We needed a couple of dozen rosebuds to decorate a "cut up" cake, and as I was preparing for that I decided to do a quick tutorial on how to make these cute little rosebuds.

1. Roll either fondant or a mixture of fondant and gumpaste out fairly thinly and cut circles. These are about 1" in diameter. You need three circles. If the fondant is very soft, leave the circles to dry out a bit before moving on to the rolling up part.
2. Use a paintbrush to moisten each circle with a little water.
3. Lay each circle overlapping the next.
4. Start rolling, fairly tightly.
5. Roll to the end.
6. Divide in half and neaten the ends. You get two rosebuds from each roll.
7. They are so quick to do. These were done in less than 20minutes.

I also worked a bit more on the fuchsias, and added the next step to the fuchsia tutorial which is further back in my postings.

Vacation and Basting

I'm going on vacation and should be back next weekend. Before leaving I wanted to get a couple of quilt tops basted for quilting. So yesterday I got out the quilt stretcher frame and started to pin bast quilts. How many quilts can I do with the pins that I have. More then I thought. I want to do this one first and I might smuggle it in to the camper with my sewing machine. My hubby won't notice. I think I can hide them in the couch it looks like a normal couch but the seat opens up like a trunk and holds lots of stuff.

This is the dear Jane block I enlarged. I used old used shirts for the fabric. I need to upgrade my digital camera and get a new one this one is 6 years old and the pictures I've been taking lately just haven't been the greatest. Or the basement is to dark and I don't have the flash set right. Sorry

When the cat wants to sit on a quilt you just can't win. Chase her off and she comes right back. I added a close up of this quilt. It has lots of issues put I finally got it together mistakes and all.
The camera does better with close ups.

I love the big black paper clip thinggys I bought to hold the back and batting to the boards. I makes it so much easier then pinning. Thanks.... to whose ever blog I seen them on. They even had a tutorial. I wish I could find it back to share.

Okay how could I not notice that square until I see it on a picture and the quilt top is already basted. How could I sew a solid 9 patch in there instead of a muslin and print one. That's not going to be fun fixing.
Yes that mistake is still there.
I've tried to take pictures of this quilt before and they never turn out. It really is a neat quilt. Maybe a new camera can do it.

And if you counted that's 6 basted quilts. I was hoping for 3 or 4.

And now I'm off for a week of vacation.

Vacation and Basting

I'm going on vacation and should be back next weekend. Before leaving I wanted to get a couple of quilt tops basted for quilting. So yesterday I got out the quilt stretcher frame and started to pin bast quilts. How many quilts can I do with the pins that I have. More then I thought. I want to do this one first and I might smuggle it in to the camper with my sewing machine. My hubby won't notice. I think I can hide them in the couch it looks like a normal couch but the seat opens up like a trunk and holds lots of stuff.

This is the dear Jane block I enlarged. I used old used shirts for the fabric. I need to upgrade my digital camera and get a new one this one is 6 years old and the pictures I've been taking lately just haven't been the greatest. Or the basement is to dark and I don't have the flash set right. Sorry

When the cat wants to sit on a quilt you just can't win. Chase her off and she comes right back. I added a close up of this quilt. It has lots of issues put I finally got it together mistakes and all.
The camera does better with close ups.

I love the big black paper clip thinggys I bought to hold the back and batting to the boards. I makes it so much easier then pinning. Thanks.... to whose ever blog I seen them on. They even had a tutorial. I wish I could find it back to share.

Okay how could I not notice that square until I see it on a picture and the quilt top is already basted. How could I sew a solid 9 patch in there instead of a muslin and print one. That's not going to be fun fixing.
Yes that mistake is still there.
I've tried to take pictures of this quilt before and they never turn out. It really is a neat quilt. Maybe a new camera can do it.

And if you counted that's 6 basted quilts. I was hoping for 3 or 4.

And now I'm off for a week of vacation.

Cabin Fever

If it's this time of the year, it means the opening of Lakeview Cottages is just around the corner. Which means that getting all the cottages ready for our rental guests is a lot of work for our owner group. I mean, these cabins were were built in 1914 to 1917 for the workers building the dam at Huntington Lake. And when you see the sign that says "modern cabins," it really means that somewhere in the 1940s, plumbing was added. Hey, I am NOT complaining about any kind of plumbing that brings me hot water for my shower and a toilet that works. Even if my shower is made of galvanized tin with a cement floor.

Here we go with some of the best things of Lakeview Cottages.

The view. We are 50 yards from the water. So this is the view I had all weekend from my front deck.

Cabin G. Okay, I'm a bit prejudiced in this regard, shower and all. Although as an owner group we own shares in all of Lakeview Cottages, when we are here on working weekends and in the off season, Cabin G "belongs" to Mark and me. And we've become really attached to it. Since we want to keep the rustic feel of the beautiful knotty pine walls, most of us are adding little things to "our" cabin that will make it feel more homey when we are there, and will enhance our guests' stay throughout the summer, like more shelving and lots of hooks for hanging things.

I love my happy little bear on the end of a chain that turns on the light in the front bedroom (sorry for the blurry picture--he wouldn't stop swinging).

Our cozy kitchen. Okay, so we have a full-sized refrigerator, and we do bring up a microwave...we also cook on what basically amounts to a three-burner camp stove. With more galvanized tin for safety...

Oh, and this is the view out of our kitchen window, Cabin F. Nice.

The denim quilt that covers our bed. I made this for Aaron, thinking he would take it to college with him. It was too big, too heavy, whatever. So now it's on the bed in Cabin G whenever we are staying there.

See this big round log? My friends, Maggie and Sue, actually rolled it uphill from the waterfront where our boats are docked, all the way up the terraced steps, to the road, where Mark and Maggie's husband, Mike, took pity on them (after questioning what they were doing??), loaded it in the back of the pickup and drove it to Cabin G. For some reason, this old smooth and weathered log just makes me happy.When the Forest Service mandated that we cut down some trees, they were turned into benches, so now each cabin has one by the firepit, and this one is ours.

And a few things that are changing at Cabin G.

The skirting around the outside front of the cabin was looking pretty trashed. So it got ripped off, and in the process of putting new skirting up, our cabin was leveled. Turns out, one of the front corners was being held up by this boulder. Yikes!

Which is now part of the new landscaping...

Although perhaps there needs to be some more thought given as to location...

Cabin G seems pretty happy with her new skirting, which has now been painted brown.

And the shower. We keep this thing scrubbed and cleaned. But honestly, as far as the ick factor--these pictures really don't do it justice.
but when we left on Monday, this is what it looked like. Out with the old and....

....well, all I can say is stay tuned!

And the best part of Lakeview Cottages--sitting out in the sun with friends.