Two Double Nine Patches

The double nine patch is one of the easiest patterns to make but it looks complex depending on the way you arrange the colours.  You start off with your regular nine patch and split it in half diagonally and vertically.  The patch in the middle is going to be the smallest, the ones in the corner will remain intact and ones in the center sides will end up rectangles.  Clear as mud?  There are lots of good  instructions for doing this on the internet.  My purple and red was the very first one I did and I only used 3 large blocks .  I was just trying out the pattern.  The green and red one is a charity quilt and the fabrics were given to me to make the quilt.  I wasn't crazy about the colours but I think it turned out well.  I have made several baby quilts with this pattern, it makes up fast and looks great.

Mike come's home

Michael came all the way from snowy St. Catherans for a 10 day visit.  I didn't realize how much I actually missed him until he got here.  He and his friend Chris stayed until Monday and then stayed in Richmond for 3 days so that Michael could visit friends and his Granney in Vancouver.  Then they went on a speedy road trip to Prince George and back in two days and back to Maple Ridge for a day before going back to Ontario.  It was too short a visit but Chris got to see a lot of scenery so it was nice for him as it was his first trip here since he was a child.                               

New Camera

My old Canon gave up the ghost.  I received it for a Birthday gift from my mom almost 5 years ago and when I took it in to have it fixed the fellow said that it wasn't worth fixing because it was old.  Technology moves too fast these days.  It cost me less to buy a new camera, that is way better than the old one.  My Mom has had her camera for years.  It is a film camera and it is getting harder for her to find places to develope the film.  She refuses to get a new digital camera because it is just too difficult for her to get use to the new technology.  She likes the old way of doing things.  When I show her pictures that I have taken on the computor, she says they are very nice, but she would rather have a copy in her hand.  I think that any of us over the age of 40 have had to get use to a new way of picture storage.  I have boxes of albums and pictures, they could take up a room of their own, but over the last five years I have just 5 cd's of pictures, and they take up little space.  My mother-in-law decided that she just didn't have room anymore for all her photo albums so she gave them Arnie to take care of.  What happens to all these old pictures when you're gone.  Your kids don't want all those old pictures of the family cat and dog.  If they can take a handfull of cd's or what ever the future holds and in a matter of minutes pick and chose what they want it's a lot more efficient and propably a treat for them rather than a big job.  My new camera is a Nikon Cool Pix and it is Pink!

Ballet Jorgen

Nicole and I went to the Ballet Jorgen last Thursday
to see a preformance of Cinderella.  It was wonderful!

We had such a good time. This picture is a scene from the Ball.

And the other one is Cinderella dancing.   It was a simple set decoration that didn't detract from the dancing.  The costumes were gorgeous, especially the fairies.  It wasn't Disney's Cinderella, more the classical story.  I would definitly go to see another ballet put on by this dance company.

Christmas at my house

It was a small gang for Christmas dinner this year, just 7 of us.  Other years we have had up to 15 people so I was able to cook one of those breast only, cook from frozen turkeys.  You take it out of the plastic package,  stick it in the roaster, cover it with aluminum foil and cook it for 3 hours.  When the little thermometer pops up, its done.  No muss, no fuss, no bones and not a pile of left overs, which is good because I am too busy usually during Christmas to deal with the left overs.  .  It was just a coincidence that both Nicole and I were wearing leopard.  We gave my mom the jacket for Christmas and then all of us were wearing leopard.  Yikes!

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.