There's not much going on here...

I've been working on my Bunny Hill February block. It's coming along and I just have the embroidery to do, which is not my forte at all. When I have some quiet time, I'll do the hand work and then I'll post a picture of the finished block. It's a really cute design (of course - it's from Bunny Hill!), but I think I liked January's design better because I love snowmen!

I also finished the pine tree blocks for my "Let it snow" quilt. I now have all 18 blocks finished - 14 dark and 4 light. Here are a couple of the light blocks. They are made using the same pattern as the dark blocks, with many different fabrics. Oops, looks like I still need to trim.

Next on the to-do list is the three appliqued skiers. I'm still pondering those. In the pattern, fabrics such as lycra are suggested. What? I think I'll just use plain old cotton. The pieces are small and picky, though, so I'm wondering what method of applique to use. I don't like to do it by hand but buttonhole stitch might be too bulky for the little bits. Can I use fusible web and do a tiny little straight stitch around each piece? Has anyone ever tried that, and did it work? I've seen it done for wall hangings, but this is a quilt that will be used and washed.

I won't have a whole lot of time to work on this project in the next couple of weeks anyway. My school has its open house March 2 and the theme this year is "The Greatest School on Earth" - a kind of circus/carnival setting. My job is costume coordinator, so I have to design, create and probably cobble together about 20 costumes for our "performers". The purpose of an open house is to sell the school to prospective students and their parents. Now, you might think only private schools do this. Nope. There is such fierce competition even among the publicly funded schools that we all have to expend a ton of energy advertising and drawing in new students. The principle of that bothers me, but I do like the fun and creativity that goes into planning the open house. We have a wonderful art teacher who comes up with these ideas and puts everything in motion. I volunteered to do costumes because they are my favourite thing to make/sew, although I doubt I'll be making any complete costumes. It's more likely we'll use what we have in the drama department and accessorize.

Here's the basket of Valentine lollipops that I made for my high school students. I think they'll get a kick out of receiving a Valentine from their teacher. I simplified the BH&G pattern found here.

It's still cold and snowy here. Oh, how I envy you gals who live in the southern parts of the continent. California is sounding really good right now! Can you send some sunshine and warm temps my way, please?

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Please go over to visit Jeanne at A Bushel and a Peck. She is having the most wonderful giveaway to celebrate one year of business at her Etsy store. She has a lovely blog, too, that is definitely worth adding to your favourites!

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It's Loser Monday

Yikes! I forgot to weigh myself in the traditional way - bucknaked, before breakfast - and now the scale says I'm up half a pound. I'm going to take that to mean the numbers should have stayed the same. C'mon, oatmeal and tea must weigh that, right? Or is that just wishful thinking, girls?

My tree building expedition went well this weekend. I finished all the X and Y blocks and now just need to do the Z blocks (all light fabrics). Here are a few samples of the pine tree blocks:

I am well aware that some of my seams don't match perfectly. I don't care; in fact, I may have done that on purpose. hehe. For so long, I have been told that I am a perfectionist, anal-retentive, A-type personality, control freak. Therefore, I have decided to become more human and allow some little mistakes in my work. I will not rip out stitches (and my hair) unless it is a glaring error. After all, the small glitches show that the item was handmade. Right?

Yeah, yeah, I am a master of justification. But, really, I pinned the heck out of these blocks when I was sewing the pieces together. They should have matched up exactly. I love the scrappy look of this quilt. To me, it's interesting to see how all the fabrics combine. Some of them are, maybe, kind of weird to be sewn into trees, but somehow they all work together. This is definitely a stash-buster; with the exception of the borders and the outside triangles, I didn't have to buy any new fabric to make this.

I think I'm over the blue funk. I had such a great time out Saturday night. The show we saw was Three Mo' Tenors. It was fantastic! If you ever get a chance to see these fellas, you should go. Even Mr. P enjoyed himself immensely. After the show, we went to get a bite to eat and had a couple of drinks. The drink special was a blueberry margarita. How fitting. I had two. Mmmmm. Yep, I'm cured of the blues. And now, for some strange reason, craving blueberries.

While we were out, the OnlyChild decided to do some experimental cooking. She phoned me to let me know that she had used my pasta cookbook (that I've only ever made one recipe from) to create All-American Mac and Cheese. She said it was so beautiful that she had to take photos. It really was good, too; we got the leftovers yesterday morning. And wonder of wonders, she cleaned up the kitchen.

A good weekend, after all. And, listen girls, I'm done dabbling in the weight loss challenge. I commit to being more committed because if I don't do something about this tummy bulge, I will need to be committed. Remind me of this promise later in the week, would you? I need to be accountable!

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I won, I won!

Remember when I told you about this giveaway from Above All Fabric? And I said I'd entered, even though I never win anything?

Well... guess what! I won! I won a $50 gift certificate, so I ordered a Moda jelly roll and charm squares. How exciting. Isn't that a great feeling, just to be chosen as the winner! Thanks Melanie!

It's Saturday. Hurray! I supervised a dance at school last night, which wasn't quite as bad as I had anticipated. I was on the early shift, so the kids were still pretty mellow. Today I moped around the house for the morning, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, before I decided to kick myself in the butt and NOT waste the day. I've put together the other halves of my trees, so now I just have to sew the two halves together and ~ voila! ~ trees! It will be nice to see something formed out of all these scraps. This is the pattern:

It's from an older issue of Quilt it for Christmas. I was having some problems getting my pieces to match and seams to line up, so I emailed the company. After more than three weeks, I hadn't received a reply so I emailed again. Yesterday I got a rather rude response, basically telling me to "chill out" and that there weren't any mistakes with the pattern. Ouch! I had already figured out the problem was my mistake, but I still don't think such an answer was warranted. Oh well, it's still a cute quilt so I'll finish it... but I will likely not buy another one of their magazines.

I have a date with Mr. P tonight. We're going to see a play and then we're going to stay in a hotel for the night. Yes, I did just say that. We do this about once a year, just to get away. The OnlyChild watches the fort (and the dogs) for the night. No doubt she will sleep in our bed with both puppies. We'll be 10 minutes from home, but it's still nice to do something out of the ordinary. I have to shake off this blue funk or I'll be horrible company. Perhaps I'll open a bottle of wine; I have a nice Reisling in the fridge that's probably been there since before Christmas. Things are looking up already.

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I hope your weekend is shaping up nicely. I'm off to build some trees!

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Draggin' my tail

Oh, I'm not having a very good week. I've been feeling blue and crabby and intolerant, and I can't even blame it on PMS because I know that's not it. Sigh. The kids at school have been hard on the head, I'm just so tired, and I feel like I'm not going anywhere. Have you ever had days like that? When everything you do seems to be a waste of time and you start to question your purpose in life? Sigh again. I sure hope this goes away soon. It's very annoying.

On the upside, I did manage to hide away in my little sewing room the other night and work on the "Let it Snow" quilt I started a while back. Here's a peek at what I've done:

You may not see this, but they are half-trees. I haven't put the other halves together yet. But I will soon. And I will show you my progress, when I've made some. I rushed home from work today and cleaned the house so that I don't have to do it tomorrow morning. I can sew instead.

Well, that ought to cheer me up a bit.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Valentiney Things

I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. I think it comes from all those lonely V Days during junior high and high school when my friends had boyfriends and I didn't. My mum used to try to make up for it by packing little treats and cards in my lunch, but I still felt left out when the other girls got gifts from their boys. I was the ultimate wallflower in school - I still am in some ways. I'm fine around people I know, but new people find me a bit standoffish, I think, because I'm a little shy. In the tradition of my lovely mummy, I'm putting together a Valentine's basket for the OnlyChild. She doesn't have a boyfriend, either. God knows, she doesn't need one - and neither did I back then - but she thinks she does.

I made her a basket from the Pink Penguin Tutorial and I will stuff it with some goodies, such as the lollipops (I made some for the kids at school, too) and Purdy's chocolate lips. I'll also put in some non-food items (don't know what yet). And I made a little card for her.

I made Mr. P a card, too (on the right). He maybe wouldn't appreciate a Valentine's basket but a card is nice. We don't usually exchange presents because we both consider Valentine's Day to be a "Hallmark" holiday. Can you say BAH HUMBUG?

I don't decorate for Valentine's Day either. I have a quilted wall hanging called "Open Hearts" (pattern by Laura Heine) on the wall going up the stairs. It stays up nearly all year, except for Christmas, so it's not really a V Day decoration. You can see it on the blog header until about the end of February - then I'll change the layout again to reflect the next season/holiday... Spring?

I'm very impatient for Spring to arrive. Always at this time of year, I find myself simply SICK of the snow and cold. We have about 5 solid months of winter here. Brrrr and Bleah! The only good thing about winter (besides Christmas) is that I don't feel guilty for spending so much time up in my sewing room. It's too bloody cold to be outside!

Barb at Bejewelled Quilts by Barb is having an "Ugly Quilt" giveaway. The quilt is not in the least bit ugly but, hey, if Barb wants to give it away, who am I to complain? Go take a peek and enter her giveaway. Tell her Rachel sent you!

And Holee at Bea's Hive is also having a great giveaway to celebrate her 100th post. It's not like I seek these out, folks, but giveaways are EVERYWHERE lately! All the better for those of us who love to enter (and hope to win)!

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Another Monday, Another Silly Diet Cartoon

There's just something about Sharon's Diet Challenge that brings out the smart ass in me. I guess it's because it really is a challenge for me and that's how I deal with failure. Okay, not total failure; the scale says I'm down 1 lb. Ooohhhh one whole pound. How many weeks have we been going at this? I think I can, I think I can...

How can you tell it's Monday? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. We ALL know what Monday feels like. After the usual sleepless Sunday night, I drag my tired body out of bed and crawl to work. Doesn't that sound pathetic. But...today is the first day of the new semester at school - so new students, new classes, new piles of marking. Yippeeee. Actually, I am pretty excited, except about the marking (it's going to cut into my sewing time, I just know it).

Here are a couple of the pages I did on Saturday at scrapbooking. These pictures of my daughter were taken when she was just over a year-and-a-half old... so fifteen years ago. I love black and white pictures and I love the red paper I picked for the background. Obviously, I have a little more work to do on the pages, but I get such pleasure out of looking at these photos that I wanted to share them with you.



I'm heading to the post office after work today to mail Shirley's package. Shirley was the winner of my Birthday Giveaway last week. I hope she likes her goodies because I had such fun putting the box together!

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And one last message to add to this hodge-podge post today: Sweet Cottage Dreams is having a giveaway - so many red and white lovelies to be won. I hope I win, but you should enter too!

Have a wonderful day!

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I name inanimate objects

The OnlyChild and I have an odd habit, one that Mr. P just doesn't get. We name inanimate objects. Anything that means something to us gets a name, and is henceforth referred to by that name.

My computer is Lucille; she is a fiery redhead, like Lucille Ball.

The vacuum cleaner is Cherry (as in Cherry Valance from The Outsiders - my daughter was reading that novel when we got the vacuum).

This is my new car, Bettie. As you can see, we've had some strange weather lately - freeze, thaw, freeze - resulting in a very messy vehicle. The old car was named Suzy. Poor Suzy; I sure hope her new owners will love her as much as I did. We named Mr. P's truck Xavier, but he will never call it that.

Carlos is my camera. I think he's the only object of mine to have a masculine name.

The fridge is Bianca Nevada (Snow White). Yes, we have magnetic poetry and most of the so-called poems people compose end up being... ummm... irreverant.

The stove is Callie (short for Caliente).

The dishwasher is Wanda. Her name came about in an odd way. Silly me - I call things by weird names and the dishwasher is often referred to as the "fishsquasher" in our house. Remember that old movie, A Fish Called Wanda? Well, we started calling the dishwasher a "Fishsquasher called Wanda." Hmmm... strange family...?


My phone is Ruby Tuesday.


And finally, one of my most prized possessions, my sewing machine Bernice. We are very close. ♥

Bernice and I haven't spent very much time together this weekend. I went to a scrapbooking day with some friends yesterday instead of sewing. I don't scrapbook much (Mr. P. once referred to it as an old-lady hobby and I took great offense to that), but I'd like to finish the OnlyChild's baby book - she is sixteen, after all.

Plus, we went on a great (but too short) trip to New York last summer, so I'm doing a little book up to commemorate that wonderful adventure. And I am heading to France and Italy for spring break, so I will definitely create another book to showcase those memories. It looks like I will have more scrapbooking in my future whether I want to or not. When I got home tonight, I had the "bug" so I made a couple of cards. They're quick and easy to do and who doesn't love a handmade card?
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Today, I'm either going to finish embellishing the pages I did yesterday or put all the stuff away and do some sewing. (My sewing room is so small that I can only do one project at a time.) I'd like to make another Pink Penguin basket. I made one for Mum for her Christmas stocking presents and I think I'll do one for the OnlyChild for Valentine's Day. Wouldn't one of those baskets be cute in pink, red, and white stuffed with little heart-themed gifts? She'll love it, but the snoopy little thing already found the chocolate lips I bought to put in it. She's not getting them until February 14, though.

Since I'm feeling ambitious, I think I'll also make some of these for my students: (click on the picture to go to the instructions)

This post that I started with no idea what I would write about has gotten quite long. Time to let you go, my friends. I'm sure you have lives to live and quilts to make. But before I go, I will point you in the direction of Christine, who is having a lovely giveaway on her blog. Take a look; you will be glad you did!

Have a wonderful Sunday.

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