Thank you, thank you, thank you

First of all I'd like to thank all those who took the time to comment on my posts or send me an email, it means a lot to me and well, I don't feel like I'm just sitting in my living room 'talking' to myself anymore (haha)!!

Here is my third fall/winter container. I think it still needs some dressing up as there is an empty space between the upright cedar and the lower evergreen. That's my project for the day after work, to pick up a few pumpkins and see what I can find to fill in the gap in the container. Maybe Michaels will have something fun (and inexpensive). Here's a link to a wonderful garden center in Black Diamond, just southwest of Calgary http://www.valesgreenhouse.com/ . There are some lovely photos of their containers in the 'Displays' section. If you check out their 'Products' section they have a number of shots of their hanging baskets and their kinetic wind art, which is pretty cool. It reminds me of the wind art seen in the movie Twister....remember that? Anyway, that's where I bought the plant material for my first three containers. I picked up a few more at the Home Depot (because the prices were awesome) and will make my last container this weekend.

Enjoy your day!

The repairman cometh....

Blueberry Peach Pie

But he did not fix anything! This is day 12 without an oven. That means no cookies, no banana-chocolate chip muffins, no apple crisps, no chicken pot pies, nada, zip, zero. He did suggest two other places I could call, which was nice of him, but they don't repair GE gas stoves either. Fortunately, I was able to find someone, but they can only come Monday at the earliest. Even though I can't make any Banana-chocolate chip muffins, doesn't mean you can't - so here's the recipe.



Mom's Banana Chocolate-Chip Muffins


2 bananas, mashed
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1- 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips



Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips in large bowl; mix well. Add chocolate chips, mix then spoon into greased muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes. Yield: 12 servings.




If you prefer, you can omit the chocolate chips and put in 1 tablespoon of poppy seeds to make banana poppy seed muffins instead.







Enjoy!

Cool blues are coming together

Mmm, I love when a project starts to come together - I cut all my fabric in August, I made 96 hourglass blocks and 192 flying geese blocks the first two weeks of September and now that I'm ready to put it all together, some of my blocks are up to 1/8th of an inch smaller than they should be. Oohh the horror (I watched Glee last night, so you have to imagine Sue Sylvester saying that last sentence - LOL). So the question is, do I make all the blocks 1/8th of an inch smaller or do I just keep all the smaller blocks together and make a complete unit with them?


Here's a shot of all the blocks, ready to be put together.

Here's what the final block looks like, I will have twelve of them once I'm finished putting them together. The pattern is from the February 2010 issue of BH & G's American Patchwork Quilting Magazine. It's on the cover, but they did theirs in red and white. I had planned on switching up how the quilt blocks go together anyway, so the different sized blocks might not be too big a deal. This is just another opportunity to play and see what I can come up with as far as design goes. Maybe this is why I'm drawn to liberated quilting...there are no mistakes, only opportunities. :)

Happy Wednesday everyone

It's bloomin' Tuesday...

Here's a work in progress. A small wall hanging that I hope to have done for Thanksgiving (which is October 11th in Canada). I've never done machine applique before, so will post another photo once I've actually finished the whole thing. The pattern is from a magazine I purchased last year. The pumpkin on the bottom is my favorite - too cute!


It's bloomin' Tuesday over at http://www.msgreenthumbjean.blogspot.com/ so I thought I'd join the party - better late than never I guess.

This is one of my fall/winter containers. I just planted it on Sunday. I've never done this before, I've only done the winter containers at Christmas with Cedar and Pine boughs. So, hopefully, the evergreens will remain green until at least March and the grass at the back will turn a lovely shade of red and the perennial will remain green until the first really, really hard frost hits it, then it is supposed to turn white. We'll see. This is on my back deck, I thought it would be nice to look out and see something nice during our long winter here in Calgary.

This is my front container by the garage. As you can see I've dressed it up for fall.

Here's a close-up of the scarecrow in the container.


Enjoy your day everyone!

New Beginnings

A few months back I happened upon a colorful book entitled 'Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again' at my local library. To say that my view of what quilting could be was forever changed would be an understatement. I had never heard of 'liberated' quilting or of anyone describing themselves as a liberated quilter. Had I heard that particular phrase a year ago, I would have been baffled as to what exactly was meant (are they newly divorced hence liberated? have they been released from prison hence liberated? are they nudists hence liberated???LOL). Fortunately for us all, I now understand the concept of the liberated quilter, someone who frees themselves from the 'rules' (the musts and shoulds of the quilt world) and allows themselves to play and design outside the line. I can't call myself a liberated quilter yet, but, I'm certainly having fun trying. So thank you Freddy & Gwen, the Gees Bend quilters and all the bloggers out there who celebrate the creative process and joy of quilting.

Here's a photo of my DD with my string quilt displayed at the Quilt Festival at Heritage Park this past May. I modified a pattern found in the 'Stratavarious quilts' book by Barbara Persing & Mary Hoover. I had no idea this type of quilt is known as a string quilt. I used scraps from a quilt I made for my mother to make this particular lap quilt. The fabrics are 1930's reproduction. The quilting is a typical meader done in a medium purple thread. I don't have any photos that show the quilting in detail, sorry.