Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  I spent the day amidst a sea of small superheroes, a great many witches, vampires, princesses and a few zombies.  It was a wonderful day!  We paraded through the whole school to the tune of the Monster Mash until we had gathered up all the students.  So fun!  I was pretty hot in my witch outfit by the end of it!  And let me tell you about witch hat hair.  Even worse than regular hat head hair!

I thought I would share some glimpses of fall at Mum's house.  Her back deck surrounds a huge and lovely maple tree.  It was a glorious celebration of all that is fall.  The picture just below is my new screensaver.  Think of the leaf piles?????!!!!!!

May you sample your favourite Halloween candy.  I love cheezies!  Linking with Random Thursday.

I do like wonky stars...

So I put this together the other day.  The squares started life at 2.5 inches.  Just scraps of mostly one of Basic Greys Christmas lines from a few years ago.  This might grow into a table runner but mostly it just kept me having some fun last weekend at Mum's.  I took my Featherweight along but I forgot also sorts of things like scissors and a stitch ripper.  Essentials.  I used Mum's scissors but her stitch ripper should be in museum!  I think I know what is going in her Christmas sock!

Linking up with the Needle and Thread Network and Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday.

Fall Weekend

I spent the weekend in the Okanagan visiting my Mum.  I raked  some the leaves.  Visited lots with Mum.  Ate the last grapes.  Watched the salmon spawning.   Visited a nice little quilt shop and scored some Pat Bravo Art Gallery fabrics at 50% off.

And some Sweetwater black stripe for Clothworks... Was that before Moda?  Anyway, it was 70% off.  Along with a Lecien print and the yellow/grey something or other.  Total deals!

Then I raided Mum's zipper jar.  Total score.

And Mum had some fabric for me too.  Red stripe cotton and then the blue is ticking.  Nice heavy weight and there is a lot of it.  These were thrift store finds.  Thanks, Mum!!!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2013

Name:  It Looks Like My Garden

Design: Playing with values, 6" HSTs, inspired by Katie Pedersen tutorial

Size:  approx 84" by 90"

Fabric:  assorted fabrics and scraps in light and dark values

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in light grey (2615)

I made this quilt during the summer and yes, I have posted about it already.  It is just such a favourite that I thought I would enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I was such a lot of fun to make and it was also wonderful to use up a bunch of fabric that was lingering in my stash that I may have wondered if I would ever use.  When you start focusing, not so much on the print but, more on the value, all kinds of fabric, all of sudden, becomes so much more acceptable!  I will admit that there is a fabric in this quilt that actually has turnips, asparagus and brussel sprouts.  I think it was a Martha Negley print.  It works!  If you look carefully at the picture below, you might just be able to spot a bit of turnip in a few places.

 The explosion of colours and the play of values just hit all the right notes for me.  My friend Sue saw the quilt when it was on the design wall and she said, "Hey, it looks like your garden."  And it does so that is what I am calling it.  I have wanted to make a values quilt for years.  I have drooled over the values quilts that Katie Pedersen has made and I finally just had to do it.  

The back is a collection of bits and pieces from my stash that I am trying to use and a classic text print from Stof.  Before I knew it, the back had become a quilt in itself!

The quilting was done by me on my Janome Horizon. I used a light grey Aurifil 50 wt in the rows of straight line quilting.  Two rows on either side of the seams lines in the vertical.  I love straight line quilting.

Linking up with the Blogger's quilt festival!  Bed quilts category!

Random Thursday... more pumpkin

I guess we are a little pumpkin obsessed at this time of year.  So how pretty is this pie?  Husband fancied up a pumpkin pie the other day with this snazzy web design.  Just perfect for fall.  It tasted sublime.

Last Sunday afternoon, a car pulled up in the driveway and a man got out, opened the car trunk and pulled out a nice pumpkin. It was a gift from the real estate agent  we used when we bought our place several years ago.  Clever marketing.  He had a little ribbon with his name stuck on the pumpkin.  Random pumpkin delivery.  I was a bit lost for words and I think I got out a thank you with a bemused look on my face, I am sure.

And a few pictures of fall at our pond.  Happy Random Thursday... linking up with Cindy!

It's growing!

Okay.  So I think this is big enough.  I added the final border on Sunday.  I used a feedsack print because I am going with a retro vibe and it had all the right greens, pinks, reds and lots of black and white.  I made this final border 5" wide... wider than the final border in the pattern because I wanted it to finish bigger.  In quilting I am all about the go big or go home.  

The other thing that just seems to grow all on it's own is the basket of scraps that I keep on the cutting table.  I throw everything in their until it overflows and then I sort it all into piles of like colours.  The piles then go into the appropriate plastic shoe box for storage.    I do keep two containers and put my itty bitty scraps in this fabric bin.  The itty bitties get used for all sorts of things.  How small a scrap do you keep?  The leftovers bits of trimmings go into another bag for pin cushion stuffing.  

Itty bitties...  these need some sorting.  I see some scraps that need to go in the stuffing bag!

Pillows for Mum

Fall Pillow for Mum.  The top one is linen and natural cotton with some quilting cotton bits and the one below is just strings.  It looks a bit wonky but it really is square.  Trust me.  There must be an illusion going on.  I think she will like them.  I do.

Sunday...

The fall colours have been quite the thing here this year.  I choose to think it because we have had such wonderful weather unlike other years.  Usually September and October are super rainy and the leaves are just... well, a little bit coloured.  This year our super dry summer was followed by more summer right into the fall.  Mum asked me to make her some fall pillows.  She sent a list of colours and an inspiration picture or two.  I made a few string blocks and I just wasn't happy. Yesterday I stitched some long strings together for one pillow but needed another one.  I started another pillow and it wasn't making me happy either so I ditched it and walked away from my sewing machine feeling like I was wasting my sewing time.  Harumph.  I think it was a good thing to just walk away and start fresh.  This morning I grabbed a bunch of linen and heavy natural cotton scraps.  I cut some strips and some squares and made something far more satisfying.

Who would think a little thing like a pillow would get me all in a sewing frump? The moral of the story is... pillows are done.  And I am happy about them.

In Progress...

It is growing.  And fluttering in the breeze on the barn wall.  I have another border or 2 to add and then we will see if it is big enough.  Fun!

And then Mum asked me to make some fall-ish pillows so I got a little stringy with those colours and put this together yesterday.  I will see if she likes it before I make into an actual cushion cover.  I have an idea for another one too but that will have to wait for the weekend.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced and the Needle and Thread Network!  What are you working on?

Today...

I braved the great outdoors to take this picture yesterday.  Husband stood guard with the air horn.  My favourite barn wall is on the bear trail.  How do you like my lovely pink cotton/linen blend tea towel designed by my quilty buddy Cynthia?  She printed them up at Spoonflower.  It is gorgeous and I cannot imagine it touching a dish.  It is hanging in the sewing room instead.  It was a door prize at quilt guild the other day and I just hoped and hoped and... I won it!  Yay!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, Marvin!

Meet Marvin, the teenager bear.  He was checking out all the pillowcases on the clothesline.  Earlier in the morning, I was looking out the window admiring all the birdies flying around in the fall sky.  I was still in my jammies and I didn't have my glasses on yet.  I was being quite lazy.  My gaze wandered over to the bird feeder which is about 10 feet from the house.  I thought, why is there a man at the bird feeder?  It was an odd thought.  I almost voiced it to husband when the "man" at the bird feeder turned slightly and I had a view of Marvin's very bear like nose as he munched some sunflower seeds from the bird feeder.  He was standing on his back legs with his front paws resting on the bird feeder.  It was then that I hollered that Marvin was at the bird feeder!  Husband sprang into action and grabbed the air horn while I yelled at Marvin from the house.  It was most exciting in a close encounter with a bear kind of way.

Marvin went off into the woods and we thought that would be that.  It wasn't.  The whole time I was hanging the pillowcases on the line, I could hear crashing and stick crunching in the woods.  I went into the bedroom for something only to see Marvin in the back yard.  I insisted that Husband let me take some pictures before he blasted him with the air horn again.  The really scary thing is that when Husband went out into the yard with  air horn, he saw Marvin but he also saw Edwina, Marvin's mother, at the compost.  She is a MUCH bigger bear and was MUCH more frightened of the air horn.  Thank goodness!!!

...after the air horn, all you can see is a black blob in the flower bed.    He was actually peeking at Husband from the shelter of the shrubs before he took off through the woods.

Oh my goodness.  Happy Thanksgiving, Marvin and Edwina.

Warp and Weft challenge.. done!

I finished my Warp and Weft Challenge.  It isn't due until November!  Yay! Warp and Weft has put together custom bundles of fat quarters for our guild and those that wish buy the bundle and make something.  How much fun is that?  Esmari put together a really lovely bundle and with a bit of other fabric I went to town.   I made a pair of cushion covers for the living room.  I really love them.    They are about 24" square with slightly rounded corners for fun and simple lapped zipper back.  I ordered extra Robert Kaufman linen for the back.  I needed more than the fat quarter that was in the bundle.  I used some Anna Maria Horner Hand-drawn Garden Social Climber fabric for the centre plus in the Japanese Cross/Plus blocks and added a bit of text fabric too for fun.  The Social Climber print is the perfect zing with the other fabrics.  I added a bit of cordless piping around the edges of the pillow in the same Essex linen as the pillow backs.  Theses just make me happy!

The quilting is the kicker!  I quilted a fairly dense grid with Aurifil 30 wt in a lovely gold-beige(2314).  It is a lovely more than just beige thread that added the perfect gilding to the pillow covers.

What more can I say?  I used the tutorial from Badskirt for the blocks.

Linking up with Amanda Jean for finish it up Friday.

Random and more

We have had a great grape harvest this year.  I love grapes.  You know who else loves grapes?  Marvin.  Who is Marvin?  He is our resident black bear.  How do I know he likes grapes?  Because he keeps leaving giant piles of... well, you get it, all over the yard.  This also answers the question, "Do bears poop in the woods?"  And I can answer, possibly but not always.  

It is pumpkin pie season and I have to say that my husband makes the bet pumpkin pie in the world.  It was so good that we actually just had pumpkin pie for dinner the other night.  It was good.  Really good.

Then he made these giant pumpkin cookies with white chocolate bits.  So yummy.  Daughter's recipe!  Yay!

More good news.  I won a give away from Teresa at Twistfully Yours.    So awesome!  6 lovely fat quarters from Michael Miller's Bella Butterflies and Blossoms line and a Sweetwater pattern arrived in the mail yesterday.  Nice!!!  Thank you, Teresa!!!

Then we have to talk about this plant.  It is obviously a Canadian Thanksgiving cactus not a Christmas cactus or an Easter cactus.  Canadian Thanksgiving is this weekend.  This plant is huge. This is only part of it and it is covered in  flowers.  I am not the person responsible.  I cannot be trusted with house plants.  Husband takes the credit.

Linking up with Cindy for Random Thursday because we have talked about grapes, bears, pumpkin pie, cookies, fabric and a plant all in one post.  Random for sure.  Happy Thursday!

Progress..

This past weekend, I took care of business.  Bee blocks for That Stash Bee... Katey asked for Rugby Striped blocks in 2 different colour ways to help her out with some boy quilts.  Seriously fun and boy, did they go together fast.  These are already in the mail.  Just today.  Taking care of business!


I also worked on Marcelle but I am waiting for some fabric for the next border.

And I mailed this off to my partner in the Simple and Sweet Swap.  I actually mailed this a few days ago.  It is just so satisfying to check things off the list!

Somehow the list keeps growing.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced and the Needle and Thread Network.