Belated Merry Christmas and a Happy 2013

Well, we survived the end of the world yet again. I don't remember so much hype about a doomsday prophesy since the Y2K thing. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to wake up and NOT find zombies but I suppose life as we know it is a better option!

I have been absent for some time due to Christmas preparations and working with Big D and his new career move. He is going to be a long haul trucker! We got his Class 1 license, have him enrolled in school for the new year and even found him a job for when school is done. I think this is going to be the best career move for us both as we will be able to afford to buy me more fabric pay off debt and buy a house!

On the quilting side of things, I have done absolutely no more work on my museum quilt, including picking a winner for the name contest. I did, however, finish a quilt for my brothers girlfriend. She was the recipient of the Jump Rope quilt. Her condo is decorated with blue and she has a blue couch too so it seemed fortuitous. I snapped a picture of the two of them snuggling under it on Christmas morning!.

I also got some fabric from Tiny T and Big R. 15 fat quarters of quilting goodness!! Tiny T said she picked the packs at random but they actually work well together and with some of the fabric from my trip.  I even found a wonderful pattern on Pinterest.  The colours are similar to what I have so I thought it would be a neat idea.  Simple yet fun!  You can see a picture of what I hope to accomplish here.

Tiny T's mom got me a new Olfa rotary cutter which is super fancy shmancy! Most of my other Christmas stuff was history or quilting related. Mom and Dad even got me a new ironing board pad and cover so I no longer have to display my hideous one!! Yay!!

The old, ugly ironing board cover...blech!

TA DA!!! New pretty goodness!

My new super heavy duty iron!

The fabric from Big R and Tiny T

 

Same as above but with stash additions to make a new quilt

And now I'm off to work on the museum quilt while we still have the table out. Big D wanted to put it away after our Christmas party but I managed to convince him to leave it out for a while so I could do some sewing! Yay!!!

It's Blogathon Day!!

A warm welcome on this blustery November day to all of you visiting via the blogathon!  For all my returning readers, I am being featured, along with other quilting bloggers from my province, for Canadian Quilters Connect Blogathon Canada hosted by Sew SistersQuilt Shop.  Our host blogger, Heather of Church Avenue Quilts, has some amazing quilts.  Her work is beautiful and often features her four legged helpers.  You all know I have a soft spot for them. I am the Crazy Crafting CAT Lady after all!

For those just joining, here is a little bit about me.  you can view my post here talking about how I got into quilting and some of my inspirations.  Basically, my skills were taught to me by my mom and my grandma. Everything past that has been self taught from various sources.  Now I just run wild with different projects I find and create.

So, on to the projects and the quilting happenings of my life!! (A.K.A. the fun stuff!)

A week ago today, now that I think about it, I went out to Stonewall to turn in my quilt block for the block of the month quilt.  I didn’t get to see the quilt shop before because my mom’s friend signed us up and my mom turned in my first block for me while I was in Mississinewa.  This place was heaven!  I picked up some double sided interfacing for the un-named quilt and a cute little mini stocking quilt project.  Here are our blocks for month two!

 My block

 My Mom's block

The block for this month features even more HST’s but my mom and I are feeling more confident about them.  I am in love with how the second block turned out.  I like it a lot more than month one.  

Now, on to the un-named quilt!  I had a lot of fun playing with the iron on transfers and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I started some of the detail stitching, although I'm still not the greatest at it.  I was using all my lovely coloured threads I picked up at Joann's in the states.  I used an almost identical blue on the birds for the smaller blocks.  When Big D saw it, he said it was good but not very visible and seemed like a lot of work for nothing.  Seeing as how these are the border pieces, I left them as is.  I picked a darker blue for the center bird and here's what I have so far.

The tail on one of the smaller birdies

Detail on the wing.

Detail on the center bird.  I want to do some more stitching to him as he is the focal point.

The original inspiration for the quilt.

I still have to do the applique stitching on the greenery.  When I quilt the entire thing, I might do some more detail on the little birds, but I want to see how it comes together first.  With any luck, I'll get the last of the applique stitching done tonight.  I have the place to myself for 4 days because Big D went hunting with his dad again.  Hopefully he can get one more deer to fill his tag and we are set for meat for the winter!!

Seeing as how this quilt is still un-named, aside from my unofficial "Museum Quilt" title when referencing it to friends and here, I'm offering a contest.  Comment below with suggestions for names, and the winner will receive a free copy of the pattern once I have it finished.  This will be my first full sized design of my own making and I can't wait to have it up for sale in my shop.  So let the naming begin!!

Keep warm and cozy everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and readers!

The still untitled quilt

Welcome back everyone!

A little while back, I talked about a painting I had seen on a wall in one of our local museums.  I found fabric on my trip to make a quilt inspired by this and I have finally come up with a design.  Right now its just a sketch on graph paper and a few squares of fabric sewn together, but in my head it is AMAZING!!

 The design.  The blocks are plain except for the few that are applique.  I want the fabric to be the focus in this quilt, and any detail put in to the quilting.and applique

The quilt so far.  I have the middle applique block, border around it and side panels. Also, my edges are not that wonky, the iPhone jumps a bit when taking panoramic pictures

I want to applique the birds and leaves onto the quilt, which will require some super awesome iron on interfacing.  I didn’t use any with “Home at Last” and some of the houses are coming away from the quilt.  I’ve heard great things about a product called Steam a Seam and I really want to try some.  If any of you Manitoba quilters know where it can be purchased locally, or a similar product, I would love to hear from you. 

My brain subconsciously altered the design with a miscalculation in number of pieces I had cut, so the border around the center design changed just slightly.  I’m not sad at all about this change.  Nothing was set in stone, I had lots of fabric to play with and I like the outcome anyway!

I’m hoping I can get the two top rows done tonight, and maybe even cut out the birds and leaves.  I want to pin them in place and get a feel for the whole thing.

Our snow storm from this past weekend seems to be that brought the snow that’s going to stay.  I’m not entirely sad, it’s perfect sewing weather!!  It will be cold this weekend though when Big D and I head back out to the farm for riffle season.  He still needs to fill his tag, and is determined to get a bigger buck than last time.  I think his feelings and bragging rights took a bit of a hit with that deer.

Keep warm and have fun with your winter craft projects!

Scottish Symphony: A Selkirk Settlers Celebration

I had an absolutely WONDERFUL evening out last night with the MLHS at the symphony.  They were premiering a new work by Sid Robinovitch called "Red River" which was commissioned by the Seven Oaks Historical Society to commemorate the Selkirk Settlers bicentennial.  MLHS was invited to hand out programs in costume and be general ambiance.  Myself and three other ladies were present and we received free tickets to the symphony.  Not only did we get to experience the world premier of this beautiful work, but two other pieces.  Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra in C major by Beethoven and Symphony No. 3 in A minor by Mendelssohn.
 

 

I took this photo during Beethoven's Concerto.  The pianist, Beatrice Rana, was phenomenal.  She couldn't have been more than 22 and played all three movements from memory with intense passion.  When I played piano, many years ago and never this good, Beethoven was one of my favourites to play.  He didn't show up very often in my curriculum, but when he did I would endeavor to play his pieces.  I even sought out a few to learn for fun and played "Moonlight Sonata" for my high school production of Dracula.  Anyway, Beatrice's performance was amazing beyond words.  I would go again to the symphony, if only to hear her play.

I finished my spencer jacket just in time to wear it to this event.  I managed to trim the cuffs with fur but not the collar.  We all had so much fun going to the symphony in costume.  We were looking for someone to take a photo of us all when two ladies came up and asked to have their picture taken with us.  We agreed if they would take one of us.  It worked out to be a good trade.

L-R Myself, Kira-Lyn, Zaley and Debbie

Debbie took a few poses, but I like this one.  She asked me to "look off into the distance remembering your homeland".  She's such a riot!!

  
I had parked underground, not wanting to ruin my dress anymore.  It had been snowing all day and we were supposed to get this horrible winter storm.  When I left the concert hall last night, it looks like it had kicked in full swing.  We were promised 20-30cm (8-12 inches) of snow.  This is what it looked like as I drove past the concert hall, which is actually on the same street my work is!

I was sure glad Big D had put the winter tires on the car!  The plows have been out now, but not when I was traveling home last night.  It was so slow going I didn't even get out of first gear, but other than that it was fine.  When I talked to my mom this morning, she said their property looks like a winter wonderland.  I told her to take some pictures so maybe I will get to show you what a beautiful place my parents have.

Hope all of you caught in this storm are keeping warm and safe and everyone have a great day!

Canadian Quilters Connect: Blogathon Canada

I have some exciting news to share with all of you!  I'm going to be featured, along with other quilt/craft bloggers from my province, in a Blogathon hosted by Sew Sisters Quilt Shop who are based out of Toronto, Ontario.  On Thursday November 22, another quilt blogger from my area, Heather of Church Avenue Quilts, will be posting all about her craft, linking to other blogs (including mine) from our province and hosting a few give a ways from the Sew Sisters Quilt Shop.

If you're interested in free crafting stuff, check out all the host blogs each day from November 19 until November 24.  There will be two give a ways a day and the last day will have three give a ways!  Even if you don't win, connecting with other crafters from across the country and seeing their work may inspire you to finish what you've got or start something new an amazing.  I'm very excited to read about everyone and how we all came to be in the same place.

Also, check out the Sew Sisters Quilt Shop and Blog! Click on the picture below to check our their site.  Hope to see you all on November 22nd! (if not sooner of course)

While poking around at a few different quilting blogs, I found this.  Quilting Blogger's, another site I am featured on, is doing a quilt block drive for those affected by hurricane Sandy.  If you are a quilter, or know a quilter who can help, please take the time to make a few blocks and send them off.  Click on the picture below to link up to the quilt block drive.  We're getting close to the holiday season, so lets start giving!!

Keep well everyone and have a great day!!  I will post progress pictures of my spencer jacket tonight or tomorrow.

I GOT ONE!!!

It's been a few days but rather busy ones.  I have great news!!

Panaramic shot of where we were sitting! Gotta love iOS 6!!

Sunday morning, Big D and i went back to the same spot in the south end of the third field where all the action was.  We got there early, thanks to the time change, and sat and waited.  Big D was getting discouraged and thought that maybe we weren't going to see anything as the deer were "late" from the last two mornings.  No sooner had he expressed this, one lonely buck moseyed out into the field.  He was snacking on winter wheat and making his way south down the field.  We watched with baited breath, fearful that he would turn east into the bush.  Big D tried his buck call several times but the deer didn't even twitch an ear to it.  He turned and started slowly towards us.  I had my muzzle loader cocked and ready to fire, all I had to do was lift my gun, aim and fire.

He was about 90-100 yards away and then it hit me, buck fever.  My heart started pounding so loud I was certain that the deer was going to hear it and run.  My arms were shaking as I raised my gun and Big D whisper yelled at me to shoot.  A tense split second that felt like several years and BOOM!  I fired but I was so focused on the deer through my scope I didn't even hear my shot, feel the recoil of the gun or notice him stumble.  He didn't run at all or drop, he simply started doing a quick walk past us.  Big D whistled to get him to stop and fired another shot.  I heard the shot hit but again he didn't drop and he didn't run, he just kept going on his way.  We both reloaded as fast as we could and Big D jumped out of the bush where we were sitting, saw the deer down the field on the bush line and fired a third time.  Big D's dad was sitting  in his tree stand and said he never heard an impact from the third shot, so the deer just walked into the bush.

We did some tracking but couldn't find any evidence of him having been hit.  Thankfully, Mr E came out to the farm to help us track it and after two hours of bush walking, we found him!!  He was about 2-3 years old, about 200lbs on the hoof and I believe 4 points.  Given that not everyone is a fan of seeing icky things, click here to see a picture of Big D and I with our harvest.  We decided to share the glory because there were two impact points, both from each of our first shots.

He's now packaged up in our freezer and hopefully we can fill the other tag during riffle season.  If we do, then we're set for the year!

On the sewing side of things, JM came over tonight to help me lay out the pattern for my spencer jacket.  I need it for an event Saturday night.  There was a symphony composed in honour of the Selkirk Settler Bicentennial and the MLHS has been asked to be present in costume.  I'm going to wear my peach day dress, as its the only fancy one I have right now.  The jacket is going to be chocolate brown velvet with a brown silk lining.  I have an old fur coat that i'm going to remove the collar from to put on the spencer, as well as trim the cuffs with fur.  It's going to be super fancy and I hope I get some nice pictures of me in it.

Hunting weekend

Hello everyone! I'm attempting an update from the blogger iPhone app so we will see how this goes.

Big D and I are out with his dad at Mr E's old farm house for a weekend of hunting. Big D and I saw a lot of action yesterday morning and the south end of what we call the third field. We decided to be smart and sit in the south end today. Sure enough, the same eight deer came out and were running, jumping and playing about 250 yards from us. Big D said that would be a descent shot for riffle but not muzzle loader. We were watching them for a while and they had begun to come closer to us when *CRASH* behind us in the bush. Three took off towards where we had been yesterday morning. The big buck stopped in the middle of the field and two does behind him. Big D thought this was the perfect time to use his new deer calls. Turns out there IS an app for that! He played a fawn in distress call and the two does came right towards us and stopped about 70 yards out. Big D took aim and fired. *POP* *fizzle* nothing! His gun miss fired!! He was so sore about it as the two does ran off. We went back to the same field tonight but nothing came out. Tomorrow morning we are going to try our luck there again.

This sure is a different hunting season for me. Usually I spend it in the house with C and we do all kinds of crafting and cooking.

Hopefully tomorrow morning will be more profitable!

Happy Halloween!

It will probably come as no surprise to my loyal readers that I pulled one of my historic outfits to wear to work today for Halloween.  Why would I go buy something cheap from Walmart when I have all these lovely outfits to wear!  I got a co-worker to take a picture of me.  This is the outfit I wore to the dance in Mississinewa.  Seeing as how I didn't get any pictures of JM and I at the dance, I figured this would be a nice substitue.  You can also see, that once my dress dried, the stains on the bottom were a lot less noticeable.  You can see them faintly if you're looking for them, but I feel its fine to wear.  This will just have to be my less fancy dress.

I was also checking out the Mississinewa 1812 website and noticed that they had pictures up from this past year.  I didn't make it into any of them, but JM and Claire got in two at her clothing workshop, and I found one of Barb playing the harp.  I figured I would upload them so you could take a peak. 

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!!

Working on my PhD

I have been SUPER busy in the last couple of days getting some quilt tops done.  I saw a picture on my Mom's Facebook page that really made me think, I had better get some sewing done before I start any more quilts.

With that being said, I cracked down and not only finished the Jump Rope quilt, but I have made a ton of progress on the Gryffindor quilt I've been designing.

I found this pin on Pinterest which gave me the inspiration to pick up the Gryffindor quilt again.  For those of you new to my blog, I drafted this pattern from a knitting project I did.  I turned each stitch into a 1" square of fabric.  The end result was 600+ tiny squares I need to assemble for the centre crest on the quilt.  I was doing them one at a time, block by block and I was really dreading my decision to make this quilt.  Not only was I pleased with the ease of assembling the centre crest now, but it makes the piecing more even.  Check out this section I re-did after seeing the results from the iron on interfacing.

I'm a little ashamed of my piecing, but I think you can see how much better the result is.  If you are ever considering doing a quilt with this many small pieces, I 100% recommend this method for constructing it!

On that note, I've been up far too late sewing and I need to get some sleep.  I have to be up early to hem my day dress if I want to wear it to work for Halloween tomorrow.  Some people go in store bought or scary costumes, history nerds go in period costume. :D

Quilt-A-Long block 2

Big D and I went to visit my parents tonight.  I hadn't seen them since I left for my trip to Mississinewa.  I had to return their GPS "dirty Gertie" to them, tell them all the stories about my trip and I wanted to see about washing my dress.  The machine here at our apartment building has been known to eat clothes and my 1810 day dress was the last thing I wanted to find chewed in the laundry.  I put some spray and wash on it and we ran two cycles through my mom's machine with every fancy dancy wash mode possible and this is what I ended up with

Oh wait...that wasn't the dirty part.  Lets check the bottom of the dress.

Okay, so it was a fail.  Honestly though, I'm not too heart broken.  The dress is a little too long and people are forever stepping on it causing me to have to repair it almost every time I wear it.  I think if I hem it up, not only will I get rid of most of the dirt stains but I'll never have to worry about fixing it again.  Worse comes to worse, if I don't get the stains out with the re-hemming, then it will just be my muddy Mississinewa dress that I won't have to worry about when the hem gets dirty.  My mom said I should think about making a new dress anyway.  I love how she feeds my costuming addictions!!

While I was away, Mom picked up my fabric for the second block of our block of the month quilt.  It's more half square triangles, which kind of scare me, but not as much as they did for the first block.  I'm still going to make a test block.  It can't hurt to practice plus I get two quilts for the price of one!! Who doesn't love extra quilting right?

My Mom and Dad also got me a fancy little Christmas ornament.  I have a love for shoes, the higher the better.  After the two falls I took this summer I've been in flats and hesitant about wearing some of the bigger shoes I own.  That, and Big D and I are hoping to own a house before we turn 90 so indulging in shoes has been at the bottom of my priority list.  None the less, this will make a wonderful addition to the tree once Christmas throws up all over the apartment again.  Big D thinks it will just end up another toy for the babies. He's probably not wrong!

In addition to the ornament, a friend of my Mom's gave her more purses.  I managed to get a like new purse before that's Chinese Laundry.  I was shocked to find out the value of the purse, so when Mom said she had more purses for me to look through, I couldn't say no.  Here's what I got!

Yes, that is real Gucci!!  I now own a Gucci purse.  It's just a flimsy little bag, but the label on it is all I care about!  Big D just rolled his eyes and said "like you need any more purses".  I told him I would throw some out to make room for the new ones so I had better get on that tomorrow!

I'm off to bed now.  I have an early day tomorrow lugging all my stuff to the new office.  I'm so excited to have my own desk again and not to have to share with a whole bunch of other people.  That, and I'll get to use one of my new purses tomorrow.

**UPDATE** After my dress dried, the stain faded and if significantly less noticeable.  I wore it to work today for Halloween and you wouldn't be able to tell it had been muddy unless you were looking for it .

Back to Quilting

After I got home from work last night, I sat down and did some sewing.  I finally felt a little better from my cold and decided to make use of my time.  I was so in the zone I forgot my phone was in my purse on silent and missed a call from my mom...oops! I finally finished assembling the rows for the Jump Rope quilt!

I originally wanted to try to have no like colours touching in the rows or columns, but it seems kind of hard to avoid.  I don't think the few that are look bad so I'm going to leave it like that.  I did get three rows sewn together last night and pressed before I decided it was bedtime.  I'm hoping that I can finish it soon.  I have a blue plaid I wanted to use for the back but now I'm not sure if I want to use it anymore.  It doesn't seem to go with the top as much as I thought it would.  Time to go bed sheet shopping!!  Now I need to come up with a fun way to quilt this one.  I think I want to look for stencils and do a fancy design on this one.  Something other than just straight lines and swirls that I've done before.  If any of you out there have resources for that, let me know

And, for your viewing pleasure, my little "helper" Kokanee demonstrating the cat rule "if I fits, I sits"!

Mississinewa 1812 (part 3)

I haven't gotten this post up as quickly as I wanted due to a busy few days and trying to fight off a cold.  I think I'm winning the battle but I won't call it won yet.

We greeted Saturday morning refreshed and renewed after our hot butter rum tottie slumber.  Our wonderful neighbours had an enormous pot of coffee on the fire which was amazing.  I'm very much a coffee girl in the morning, especially Tim Horton's coffee.  Given that there are none in the USA, or at least in the parts that we were travelling through, I had been making due with whatever truck stop gas station coffee we came across.  I drank the campfire coffee black which is very out of the ordinary for me, but at that point I didn't care.  It was liquid gold as far as I was concerned.

JM had a bit of a head start on me in the morning, which anyone who knows me won't be terribly shocked to hear.  I met up with him and the large event tent at the middle of the site where one of our fellow MLHS members, Claire, was giving a workshop on how to properly tailor garments.  It was incredibly informative!  I knew she was a genius when it came to making clothes but this was unbelievable!

After the presentation, we decided to hit the town and burn a hole in our haversacks buying up any and every historic trinket we could find.  That and we needed to get some breakfast and what a tasty meal we found.  Enter the epic giant baked potato!

....................... Now that I've given you all a moment to drool over that wonderful tasty mess of potato, butter, sour cream and chives, I'll continue my tale.

JM accepted an invitation from Sally at the American Military camp for us to take tea with her at 2pm that afternoon.  Click here to read about taking tea.  The only variation from this website to what Sally explained at the tea, was the end of the tea was signaled by passing around the cake platter.  But before I get ahead of myself, back to the fun.  JM and I had almost 3 hours to kill walking around the market area known as Rivertown or Merchants Row.  We bought everything from a walking cane for JM, teas, fabric, books, ear rings for the dance that night, EVERYTHING!!  Here are a few pictures of the things I bought and of the tea that afternoon!

My new burgundy hat, beeswax candles, cutlery set, teas, lantern, fingerless gloves, fan, ear rings, lip balm, tea ball, french reproduction coins, silk fan and broom!

Modeling my new hat!! I love it, although Big D claims I look goofy in it.

JM dressed in his afternoon best ready for tea

At tea in Sally's tent.  JM sitting next to Millie in the gorgeous blue spencer jacket! (I wanted to snatch it off her so bad!!) Next to her is the amazing Claire who gave the workshop.

After tea, JM and I did a bit of reading from his Jane Austen manners book to make sure we were nice and proper for the dance that evening.  I scoffed at a few of the instructions, including her insistence on pinning up your train when going to a dance.  I figured with my dress only having a small 3" train that I would be fine.  Yeah, right!!  Tell that to my muddy hem after JM stepped on it at the dance!!  Boy did he have fun giving me a  hard time over that one!  At Jane's suggestion, he decided tot ake a nap as "one should be well rested when not accustomed to dancing til 5 in the morning".  I decided against it since our dance had an end time of 9pm.  I went to visit Barb and Dennis for a bit and enjoyed some of their music and company.

A little before the dance was to begin, I woke JM and we drove into town for dinner.  The vendors had closed but we found a "McDonald's Inn" to have dinner.  Classy, I know but that's how we roll.  We returned in just enough time to dress for the dance.  I unfortunately don't have ANY pictures of us at the dance.  The lighting wasn't very good for pictures and we were having such a good time that it didn't even cross our minds.

After the dance, Debbie, another one of our MLHS members, stopped by our tent for a drink or two of Kraken.  We walked her back to the British Military camp where the rest of our group was staying and got a first hand look at their marquee tent.  It was slightly more glamorous than our tent, with two bedrooms and a dining area.  JM went back to bed but I decided to stay and enjoy the festivities with the rest of our group and some of the American friends we made.  Boy was it ever a wild night!

The large, elegant table inside the marquee tent

Me and Jane.  Her and I go way back, long before our MLHS days.

Alex, one of our MLHS gentlemen on the far right, with a few of the others in the British military

It was a rough morning the next morning, but JM and I found the perfect solution to get going on a very rainy Sunday...more of the giant baked potatoes and a smoked turkey leg!  This thing was massive!  JM had suggested we each get one, but sharing one seemed like a better idea.  Good thing we decided to do that because we hardly put a dent in it.  Here are a few goofy pictures to give you a good laugh.

We wandered around, picked up the last couple of trinkets we just couldn't live without and took some pictures with our friends.

JM and me with Barb and Dennis.  We look a little like drowned rats because there was a torrential downpour 5 minutes before this picture was taken.

Sadly, our time at Mississinewa 1812 was coming to an end.  We packed up our camp, said goodbye to our friends, wished a safe trip to our other MLHS members and headed out on the road.  We managed to find a route that did NOT take us through Chicago and it was a much nicer drive home.  We laugh, sang, plotted and schemed over costumes for next year and craft ideas for all of the wonderful fabrics we picked up on our trip.  All in all, it was an amazing experience and I can't wait to go again next year.  In the meantime, I have adjusted back to modern life quite well, although I drink a little more tea than before and read a little more Jane Austen.  

JM and I couldn't have done it without the help of all our family and friends though.  My mom and dad for giving me the gift of spending cash and their GPS which we named Gertrude Patricia Sutherland....or Dirty Gertie when she decided to act up.  Mr E and C for lending us their tent and vehicle and Meeko and Kokanee, my fur babies, for putting up with a very bored and antsy Big D for 5 days, lol.  Now all I have to do is wait until next year!!!

**UPDATE**

One of our fellow MLHS members just shared this video.  Our members from the British Military camp are now famous!! Check it out and see what all the fun is about!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1pnlwpZhnc&feature=share