Sunrise

I was up very early one morning last week and saw something I don't see all that often.  It was a spectacular sunrise and I had to take a picture.

November

What a busy   month November was!  I knitted hats, tie dyed some socks, finished off a very old project and took part in a post card swap.

   This is my very old project .  I did this little quilt in a colour class that I did at least 14 years ago.  I was'nt to fussy on it.  I had a chance to use it as a teaching tool when I went to Michael's class to do a little lecture on quilting by the pioneers.  I let the kids practice hand quilting on it.  I was quite surprised that the boys in the class were much more interested in trying quilting than the girls.  One child that enjoyed quilting was a little girl that had some learning problems.  The little girl died in a house fire shortly after that.  I never wanted to take out all the big stitches that the kids had done because they were precious to me, so the unfinished quilt languished on the quilt  rack for  10 years.  I finally decided to just machine quilt all over the top, which also holds down the large stitches that the kids did.  I am so glad that it is finally done, all be it back on the quilt rack.   

     Hats,  I have been knitting like crazy.   I have knitted 7 hats in October and November and I am half way through number 8.  Then I have 2 more of the ribbed touques and I am finished.

Some tie dyed socks.  They are so much fun to make, I might get some more done before Christmas.

Autumn themed postcards. Mine is the oak leaf and acorn.  It is done with wool and wool felt.  The leaves one is done with a print background and silk leaves and the tree one is done on an embroidery machine.  Boy I would like to have one of those!

       This card swap was paint.  I used the setacolour paint and sun painted it and stamped with ink.  The other card's flowers are dimensional,  she used some interfacing and painted it until it was stiff.  I don't know if the flowers were cut out before or after.                                                                                                         

Halloween at my House

This is some of my Halloween decorations.  I decorated my sideboard fancy for Halloween and Thanksgiving.

This is a stitchery that I did last year.  I have it hanging in the hall all year long.
And my table runner, "The 3 Amigos"







A wall hanging that I did about 10 years ago.












Lastly, a wall hanging that I did when Michael was a newborn, the first year I did quilting.

Here are the afters

Everytime I have something figured out, they go and change it.  So here are the afters. Sheesh.

Sun Painting

In mid September I did some sun painting. You take Setacolour fabric paint and dilute it about 3 - 4 parts water to 1 part paint. You paint your fabric and then place various objects on it and leave it to dry in the sun. You get the outline image of your object. You can scrunch it, fold it, put epsom salt on it and you get wonderful effects. Here are my before and afters.

Thanksgiving

We sure missed Michael and Briar this Thanksgiving. It just wasn't the same. Michael and Briar both brought a sense of life and warmth to any occasion. However we did have a lovely lamb roast. I did Greek style potatoes with it and roasted carrots. We also had salads and buns and Pumpkin pie made by my mom. I hope Michael and Briar each send me some pictures soon so I can blog them.

baby quilt

I started this baby quilt over a year ago. When my friend saw it she said it looked like halloween. That was no good. So I put the blocks away figuring I would never use them. Now Nicole's friends are expecting a baby a couple of days before Halloween. This is a perfect quilt for that new baby.

Retreat 2009

Kathy, Susan, Denise, Kim, Bev, Me, Wanda
Sarah calling Bingo
Bev
Attentively listening to Wanda
Me with postcards
We could not have asked for a better weekend for the quilting retreat. It was sunny and hot all weekend with temperatures of about 30 - 32C. I had 20 ladies attend, and 4 first timers. We all had a great time. We had a couple of little workshops and demonstrations and we presented our friend Denise with a quilt with bras all over it as she has recently gone through a double mastectomy. Everybody loved the door prizes I chose and the goody bags with thread and scissors and tape measures etc. were well received. At the end of the retreat the ladies present me with a lovely hanging candle holder.

Toronto Bound

My dear youngest son Michael has decided to become a Torontonian. I hope he likes it there. I'm sure it will be a very exciting place for him, but I hope he will remember all the good things that Vancouver has to offer and will decide eventually that he is a B.C.er. We had a family dinner for him on Sunday to wish him a bon voyage. This is a picture of Jim, Mike and Mom

Wedding

Last Saturday was the wedding of the son of my best friend of 41 years Sandra. She has a beautiful house and wooded acreage and the wedding was held in her back yard. They had big white tents with strings of lights and japanese lanterns throughout for the reception. A creek runs through the back of the property with a footbridge over it and the ceremony was held there. At the part where the question "doe's anyone object" a voice came around the side of the house "now just hold on" It was Nearly Neil a Neil Diamond impersonator. He sang a verse of a song and then said he would be back later. The guests were cracking up. It had been an emotional ceremony up to then with the parents welcoming the bride and groom into their respective families and this was a needed comic relief. The ceremony was concluded and then after a little while we had a wonderful dinner of pasta's and salads made by Sandra and her helpers. After the speeches we had Nearly Neil back to sing for almost 2 hours and then danced the night away. It was so much fun.

Won a prize

A few weeks ago our little town had a Carribean festival. It was great fun with Carribean style food and dancing and music and crafts. My hubby and I went to the ice cream shop and instead of my usual anything with chocolate I decided to try whisky cream flavour. Oh man! It tasted like whiskey, but in a really good way. It's always good to try something different. They had a booth for Avon (cosmetics) and they had a prize draw that you could enter. It was a gorgeous case with tons of different things in it. Well, I won. Even a watch!

Hot, Hot, Hot

Oh my god it has been so hot. We are not used to this heat on the west coast of Canada. 33c in Vancouver yesterday. Ha, I wish it was 33 in Maple Ridge, it went up to 38 here yesterday. It is supposed to start cooling down now, but when I checked my thermometer at 10am it was already 28c. Thats what it should be in the middle of a hot day! Not in the morning. I bought a small air conditioner on Tuesday. It is my new best friend. It doesn't make my house cold, because its just a small unit, but it makes it tolerable. It would have been unbearable yesterday.

House dress wall hanging

This was the block of the month about 4 years ago at our guild. I won these blocks and turned them into individual wall hangings. I think I have done three so far, I can't remember. Anyway this is the latest one.

Birthday 54

I had my 54th birthday on June 9. We had a party on the Sunday and had the usual crowd, kids, aunt, mom, mil. etc . It was fun, we barbequed chicken and had some nice salads. A lovely angel food cake made by my mom. Briar was the photographer and he took some really crappy pictures of me. I've lost 25 pounds in the last year, but in the pictures, I look like I've gained it. My mom always looks great in her pictures, you would never guess that she's 78. And of course the kids are always gorgeous. Pictures top to bottom: Briar and me, my new birthday shoes, Nikki and Grandma, Michael and me, my mom.

Bra quilt

This is my creation for a quilt a group of friends is making for a dear friend who has recently had surgery.

My Birthday

Well my 54th Birthday was rather uneventful. I received a lovely bouquet of flowers from Michael and Briar. I did do quilting most of the day. I was trying to get a table runner finished that was a guild challenge. Tuesday was the last day to show it and get my card stamped. I was planning to go to guild that night, but half way through the day I realized that I was stressing out over this thing and that a possibility of winning a prize wasn't worth the stress. So I decided to skip the meeting and go out for dinner with Arnie. We had a very nice Chinese dinner at a little greasy spoon. Schezwan beef and rice and spring rolls. It was delicious. After dinner we went home and Jimmy came over with a nice Starbucks gift card for me.

Runners Club

This is the second runner in our guild runners club. It was fun to do, but I had a devil of a time putting on the binding. The outside corners were easy, but I had never done any binding on inside corners before. I am not to happy about the binding but if I do anything else with inside corners, I now know how to do it. I am now working on runner # 3.

Michaels Birthday

My dear youngest son turned 20 on April 28th. We had a birthday party for him in May. Usual family party, grandmas, great aunt, sister (no big brother, he had to work). It was a gorgeous day and we were able to sit in the back yard for the afternoon, but we went inside to eat our bbq'ed hamburgers because it was still a little chilly in the evenings. Briar made us mojitos that we all enjoyed. Rum with simple syrup, lime, club soda and lots of crushed mint leaves. They were delicious. Mike got lots of clothes and money, his two favourite things.