Happy Birthday Canada!

July 1 is Canada Day and today we are celebrating Canada's 145th birthday. I am very blessed to live in this country; it is a beautiful place to call home.

I thought a red and white project would be in order to celebrate my country's big day so I put together another fun drawstring bag based on this tutorial. A couple weeks ago, there was a tutorial on adding pockets to this pattern, so I thought I'd give that a try, too.

This morning I discovered Lily's Quilts blog. It looks like something special is going on over there.

We get to show off projects we made in June! I don't have enough finishes to put together a mosaic, as she suggests, but I can show you my favourite (I think because it was my only!) finish:

I know, it looks pretty familiar, eh? This was the first of these bags I made, and it inspired me to make more. I decided even if the week is really hectic, there is time to make one of these and feed my creative soul with time 

in the sewing room.

Lily also has a Small Blog feature going on today, so I am linking up with 

that as well.

I wanted to start a blog so I could be part of the online quilting community in part because I haven't really found any like-minded quilters in the community where I live. The Small Blog Meet is a great way for me to get to know some other quilters, so I am looking forward to see where it goes.

Hope everyone has a great week; we have a long weekend so tomorrow stretches ahead full of lots of promise (and working on my master's defence - but the end is sight!).

e.

Summer scraps

I have started on my daughters wedding quilt but am waiting on a few bits of fabric to arrive, which leaves me in a bit of a hold pattern there. I definitely have a short attention span and have no problem at all starting something new. It isn't because I don't like what I am working on; it's usually because I see something else which causes me to say "oooooh, aaaaah!" and off I go. So, I was in that restless place a couple nights ago and started pulling fabrics to make a lap size quilt. I should probably state I have no business doing that as I have several unfinished ones I could work on, but somehow, they aren't calling to me right now. I think they take more concentration than my brain was willing to engage in.

Then I remembered a tutorial I saw over at Sew4Home and realized that was what I felt like working on. My scrap basket is pretty big and I wondered if I could pull everything I needed for the runner from there and, sure enough, I could!

It is very windy here this evening (okay, it is windy here frequently) and my efforts to catch a photo of the runner laid out flat were thwarted numerous times by a gust at just the right moment, so I laid it out on the front step. The runner is part of a series Sew4Home did recently called Kitchen Confections, which offered several tutorials for table linens and other kitchen-related projects. It was very easy to follow. The fabric in the centre reminds me of the floral tablecloths my mom used to put on our kitchen table. I think she would have liked this runner a lot.

Now I am off to make a quilt sandwich and get this ready for quilting. I have leftover pieces of batting and backing fabric just waiting for a project like this to come along!

Happy Wednesday.

e.

Late adopter?

I think I might be the last person in blogland to make one of Jeni's awesome lined drawstring bags, but I have to say, I'm so glad I finally did. I have a lot of fat quarters in my stash and at the moment, not a lot of time to sew. This project is a great fit because it lets me use some of my fabrics and it went really fast; I would say it took less than an hour from start to finish. I think I will buy her pattern, which has the directions for several more sizes. I could use something fun to put my Scrabble tiles in.

One of my girls has already laid claim to it. She is traveling overseas next month and wants to use this as a makeup/toiletry bag. She says she'll put her clear zipper bag of goods inside this prettier bag after the security people at the airport have cleared her stuff. My little drawstring bag is going to places I am still dreaming of - I'm so excited for it!

The fabric has been in my stash for awhile. The body of the bag is Meadowsweet by Sandi Henderson and the contrast band is Henna Garden in Persimmon. I really like the Henna Garden prints and this red one is probably my favourite. I lined it with Kei honeycomb dots in a yummy yellow colour and the ties are Joel Dewberry. I think they all play really nice together and they played really nice with me in my sewing room. I dashed outside after supper to get a photo; there is a "severe thunderstorm watch" for our area this evening. I learned that when it is a watch, it is just a "maybe" but when it is a warning, the storm is imminent but they just don't know how  big or long it will be. We have had quite a few evenings with thunderstorms of late; I quite enjoy them when I am safely tucked inside my home for the evening.

Next up...Tuesday! Looking forward to everything this week will bring.

e.

Off and running!

This weekend, I got started on the wedding quilt for my oldest (by all of six minutes!) daughter. She is getting married two months from today, and we are all very excited for them both. My daughter is a little bit, ahem...particular, about her likes and dislikes, so I asked her for ideas about the colours she wanted to use and the type of design she wants. She chose a palette of blue-greens, green, brown, and grey. A few of the prints she chose contained a bit of yellow, so there is a little bit of that as well. I used the red Henna Garden print to bind a quilt with a similar palette not long ago, so I threw it alongside the pieces to see if she might like it, which she does. These 2-patch units will become the 344 four-patches required in this quilt. I was short a few lights, but they are in the mail and will be here this week.I threw what I had done so far into a plastic bin so as not to lose them amongst all the other pieces and projects in my sewing room.

The sun has been playing hooky a lot around here lately but it burst through the clouds just before supper and the sky was a glorious shade of blue. I was so excited to grab my camera and zip outside to take this photo.

I have worked on another couple of projects this week. I am slowly but surely piecing blocks out of charm squares for another quilt, and I put together some placemats and got the binding on them this week. I am finished hand sewing the binding down on one, just three more to go. I hope to bring them outside for a photo shoot a little later this week.

It was a restful, enjoyable weekend. Next weekend is a long weekend here in Canada - July 1 is Canada's birthday but a lot of us will get Monday the 2nd off in lieu. I am looking forward to it!

e.

At the garden centre...

I am so excited for this weekend to have come (and nearly gone, at this point!) because it has been a very busy couple of months. I really like the work I do and am very blessed to have the opportunities I do and the amount of work I have had, but I have to say, I am really thankful to have a few major projects and deadlines behind me as of Friday evening!

The first order of business, after cleaning my house, was to make a trip to the garden centre. The general rule of thumb around here is plants should not be put out (nor gardens planted) until after May 24. Well, the week of May 24 around here was cold and unpleasant and we still had a couple overnight frost warnings to be mindful of. So between the cool temps and the big pile of work, I held off visiting the greenhouse.

I think going to the garden centre is a lot like visiting a quilt shop. I tend to spend some time ahead of going to plan out what I'd like to get. I think about the plants I would like to combine in containers and I think about what worked well last year. We live in a condo so my gardening happens in pots and containers. I have not explored perennials, so each year, I replant my little garden with new bedding out plants. This year, I decided to consult Pinterest for some new ideas; it is a great resource, but I have to warn you, it's very easy to spend a long time looking at all the different garden and container ideas!

The containers are a great hit of colour out on our front steps. I'm hoping we get some nice growing conditions and that my planters fill in over the next couple of weeks, but just having them out there in their newly planted "sparseness" makes me smile.

My other chore this weekend has been to tidy up my sewing room. My space is 5' wide by 8' deep and I share it with the washer and dryer. The really cool thing is my husband is a finish carpenter and cabinet maker, so even though the space is fairly small, he's been great about building in counter tops and shelving which helps me maximize what I have. I decided to organize my stash using Jenny's method and it's coming along really well but wow, it is taking FOREVER! I suppose I only have myself to blame, after all, how else did all that fabric get there? I am still undecided about incorporating my older stash, such as my Thimbleberries, Kansas Troubles, and my 30's fabrics. It looks neat to see everything stacked up. I have sewn a few blocks as well and hope to post some progress later this week.

What a lovely, almost summer weekend here on the prairie!

e.

Happy Mother's Day

Wishing everyone a Happy Mother's Day. My kids treated me royally; 

I am blessed!

It's been hard finding time to blog, well, no, it's been hard having any time at all to sew and therefore, have something to blog about! A few projects will be done soon - so glad to have lots of work, but looking forward to a bit more time for fun!

Have a great week.

e.

Hibernating...

That seems to be what I have been doing with my neglected blog, and it is what I wish I were doing today. Here is the view outside my window a 

few moments ago:

That doesn't really look like the 5th of May out there, does it? Such is life when you live in our neck of the woods; we always say if you don't like the weather, just wait fifteen minutes.

Yesterday was the last day of my master's course; I'm always so happy to get another one done. I have a single, one-credit course left in the fall and I defend in July and then...I will be finished! Woo hoo! As much as I enjoy learning, this last, intensive (short) course kept me out of the sewing room, so I am anxious to get back working on a few things. Amanda Jean posted the other day about making a list of smaller projects to finish for the Small Projects Quilt-Along. So, in no particular order (and with no delusions that I can finish them all), here is my list:

1. Placemats (from the Sew, Mama, Sew Sew-Along)
2. Zipper bags for my daughters and daughter-in-law
3. Table runner for my dining room table
4. Pillowcase dress (for Little Dresses for Africa project)
5. Pillow using HST's leftover from my Swoon quilt top

One of these projects might just be perfect for a snowy afternoon in May!

See you soon.

e.