Quilt Bee update -- July and August

For some reason all my photos always appear in reverse order in Blogger. Sometimes I can wrap my head around it, sometimes I can't. Oh well. In reverse order, here are the blocks I've made lately:

In the International Stash Busting Bee, 2nd Ave Studios sent us the centre scraps,and asked us to make scrappy stars. Here are my two, one pink:
And one blue:

And in July, Shannon asked us to make a block for a hunting lodge quilt. She supplied the bear and the forest pieces. I didn't have much fabric that worked well with this theme, but this was what I came up with:

In the Threads Together Quilting bee we were asked to make wonky log cabins for August. I loved this fabric, it was so bright and fun. I made one slightly more traditional block:

And one a little more funky one:

In July we were asked to make wonky strips with these solids. I made this one at home, while I was listening to an interview with John Cleese.

And this one on my sister in law's sewing machine in Winnipeg, so it was a bit simpler as I didn't have all my supplies with me.

And this was my other July Stash Busting bee block. Lish had asked for stars of pinwheels. I was going to make something more complicated, but then I ran out of time, so I made this simple, but still hopefully striking block. Lish sent the little birds, and the rest was leftovers from my dad's 70th birthday quilt. The pattern said it was a 12" block, and I assumed that was the finished measurement - that is was actually 12.5, but it was a 12" block, so I added the border to round it out.

Kid Picture of the Week

Kris and I have started a fun meme over at Clever Mamas -- the Kid Picture of the Week. You can add a comment here with a link to your photo. If we get enough people we'll add a Linky in a few weeks.

Since Kris put her photo up on the Clever Mamas blog, I though I'd post one here:

Familiar, but from a new perspective

Andrew is taking his first round of independent swimming lessons this week. And we went and bought him a good quality, comfortable pair of indoor school shoes today. When we were in Winnipeg I picked up some comfortable pants and long sleeve shirts for the school year.

The funny thing about these simple tasks is that I have never done them as a mother before. Yet I have such strong sensory memories of going to the little shoe store just down from Keskus mall to get my yearly Buster Browns, and the sting of chlorine in my eyes after swimming lessons, and the feel of being rubbed down roughly with a towel and hurried off to run after-lesson errands, and the smell of new clothes that were presented to me at the beginning of the school year.

Its like deja-vu, only with less polyester and patent leather this time around.

Vacation Round up

So, our vacation was a little more low key this year, because Dave and I were both so burnt out and it rained and rained and rained. We house sat in Winnipeg for two weeks for my brother. A lot of it was just us taking turns watching the boys while the other person slept / got out to civilization. Dave went on his reading retreat while I watched the boys, and when he came back he spent a lot of time with the boys. Because I actually wasn't nursing anyone this year, Dave sent me out to movies and coffees in the evenings while he put the boys to bed and enjoyed Speedvision.

None the less, we did get up to a few things. We went for a hike in the Assiniboine forest:
And took over the construction section of the Manitoba Children's Museum:

The boys enjoyed a lot of Treehouse and Retro Teletoon and PBS, since they only get an hour of DVDs fromt he library a day at home. Andrew was thrilled to get to see TransFormers, Spiderman, Superman, Bugs Bunny and (his new obsession0, Word Girl.


When the sun did peek out we visited the local schoolground which had a great park:
And of course there was always the Thomas Table in Chapters, another luxury for us. This usually lasted for a while before Aaron started getting into everything, but we enjoyed it while we could. Eventually we got so exasperated that we bought an umberella stroller to strap him into. That was after the day he took one of the kids cars they have for sale and I had to chase him around the entire store as he veered and careened around tables of books and surprised patrons' legs. I wonder where he gets his precocious driving skills from . . .


On one nice day we went to the Forks and spent about an hour watching the BMXers at the bike / skate park, and then got lovely organic cinnamin buns at the market. Before this they were doing 360s in a different part of the park, which was equally enthralling.
We went to the Winnipeg zoo, too. Andrew declared the animals too smelly, but he did really like these stepping stones:

And the prairie dogs were a big hit, too. It was funny, becuase there would be this huge empty field with a sign that said "Russian Gnu" or something similar on it. There would be three gnus hiding under a tree in the background, and about 30 prairie dogs wandering around in the foreground of the field.


Then we moved on to Regina, where we set up the tent. You may remember from last year that our tent weathered a huge rain storm, and so Dave was excited to see how it would do in the three days of rain that the forecast was predicting. I told him he could do a guest post about how to select and set up a good tent if there was no water in our tent at all after days of rain. The tent survived the two and a half days of rain we got, so stay tuned for Dave's guest post soon.

Anyway, here I am catching a little more sleep while the boys play with their GI Joes.

We also visited the Royal Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History on a day when it was pouring rain, which had some fun old school museum taxidermy going on, and some dinosoar bones. In the basement they had this fun kids area full of dinos. I think Someone had put a finger on my camera lens, so sorry for the blurry photos.

We were super fortunate that the weather cleared up for the Regina Folk Music festival. This year we did a lot more reading and a lot less active watching of the music. This was partially because some of the music was similar to acts in past years, and a lot of it was stuff that's not as much to our taste as it has been in past years. We did enjoy a lot of the music on Friday and Sunday night, and we really liked a fusion band, from BC, called From Dublin to Dubai -- a fusion of electronica, traditional Irish music and Bhangra dance music. It took me back to my days teaching at Princess Margaret, where the school assemblies had performances from the Bhangra dance team and the Ballywood Dance Team. And to Abbotsford where the IndoCanadian teenagers would blast dance music with traditional Indian beats from their cars. To much of the Regina audience I would imagine this was a whole new style of music so they got a lot more interested listening than spirited dancing. We really liked seeing K-OS live, and Bohemian Soundclash, and a new group called Chic Gamine was great, too.

In any case, can you guess who was reading what?

Aaron had a lot of fun at the Children's area at the festival. Here he is doing some two-fisted mural painting, just before the volunteer kicked him out for overly rowdy painting:

Andrew was getting a bit overstimulated by Sunday afternoon, so instead of making necklaces or painting he decided to peruse a toy catalogue I had brought, and draw:

One of my favorite things about camping is the traditional baths in the laundry tub:

And the campsite we usually go to has these crazy big balls. In past years, I've never let the boys play on them, becuase they do sort of roll, but this year Andrew was old enough to climb across them all himself, so they were a lot more fun. Aaron made his way across with help, but he liked jumping off the shorter ones.

That was about our vacation. I got caught up on my sleep and am now feeling remotely human again. Dave got to spend a lot of time with the boys, and we got to go to a few cultural and city-type things we usually miss out on. We have come back refreshed, and ready to start our new year. How was your summer?

Ninjas and Superheros

Everything is about superheros around here lately. This is in part due to a big dose of Retro Teletoon and PBS Kids' Word Girl while we were on vacation. But even before that, Aaron had decided that he was Batman, and has mostly only responded to Batman for the last two months. He quite often wears his superhero cape around the house, and makes every exit by putting one hand in the air, going "pshewww!" and running out of the room at top speed. This has led to some pretty funny conversations around here, all spoken in the two year old equivalent of a deep, growl-ly voice.

At the Regina Folk Music Festival, I heard him talking to a volunteer as she helped him string beads and buttons onto a string:

V: What's your name?
A: Batman.
V: Brandon?
A: No! Batman!
V: Oh, I see. Where is your cape?
A: I left it at home.
V: I guess you wouldn't want to get it dirty or lost.

At home, when I wouldn't open the half eaten bbq chicken until it was lunch time and he went to Andrew for help:

Aaron: Ander, open the chicken.
Andrew: No, Aaron, I can't open it.
Aaron: But you're Superman!
Andrew: Yeah, but that's not one of my super powers.

And one of my favorite comments from Andrew on holidays relates to Ninjas. With the new GI Joe movie coming out, there are pictures of those two ninjas everywhere. So we were discussing why a ninja would wear all black (so you couldn't see him at night) or all white (presumably so you couldn't see him in the snow?). Andrew thought for a moment and then said:

"So, if you wanted to be a ninja in a garbage dump, you would have to be covered in garbage."

The Important Stuff First . . .

I'm back from holidays! Yesterday was the official laundry and readjustment day, and today is the back to real life day. I hope to actually post some photos of our trip this year (ha ha) but in the meantime, I thought I would start with the "important" things.

I picked up this great book on my trip:


I don't believe I haven't heard more buzz about Lotta Jansdotter's newish book, Simple Sewing for Baby. Did I miss it, or did it come out at the same time as something with a better marketing campaign? In any case, maybe I just have babies on the brain, but I love this book. The projects in it look fantastic, are super practical and utterly doable by a beginner sewer or a mom with small ones underfoot.

I want a girl now, just so I can make a whole bunch of these:


And I know what the boys are getting for Christmas:


I love the idea of these little velcro pouches:


And the super simple change pad that I didn't photograph, but which will fit nicely in this quick, functional diaper bag:


Although I'm not great at the simple, Nordic asthetic, I did grow up in Northern Ontario surrounded by Finnish immigrants with saunas in their basements and rag rugs on the bare wood floors, so I do have a taste for Lotta's style. Its also great that there are not only full patterns in the front envelope of the book, but a bunch of stencils for decorating the projects (including those monster faces - how much do I want to put one of those on a shirt for Aaron?).

So, since the diaper bag and change pads and pouches require home decor weight fabric, I decided that it was time to give in to something that had been tempting me for a few weeks: Starlit Nest's close out sale. If you like Heather Ross or some of those almost gone Free Spirit Home Decor fabrics, you should check out her store before it closes.
She is selling Nigella fabric for a really good price, so I picked up a bit:

And I picked up a scrap pack of birds that will be going out as part of my Threads Together packages:


And she does these great grab bag jelly rolls (yes, that is Heather Ross, Joel Dewberry and Heather Bailey goodness you see in there):


With the knowledge that all this goodness was coming to my front door when I got back, I hardly bought any fabric on holidays. No, really.

Ah, vacation!

Well, we are two thirds of the way through our vacation, and all is good. I will pretend that I am going to do a full vacation update with photos at the end, but I never do, so here are some photos of our drive to Winnipeg, anyway. As you can see, we only stopped for the essentials:


impromptu soccer games at rest stops


runs through the tall grass


flower picking

That could be why the 700 kms took us 11 hrs.

For Anna

We went through Wadena on our way to Winnipeg last week and stopped here for lunch:



It reminded me of visiting the Irishes, and of their cozy living room and of Andrew enjoying looking at Finn editions of Richard Scary books and Andrew's much beloved bed and desk that Anna gave us when she left Saskatchewan, and of how I'm going to pull out her folding rocking chair for quieting our new baby in a few months (and hope Aaron doesn't find a way to fold it up on himself, although I'm sure it will just be a matter of time). Hope all is well, Irishes!

To My DQS7 Partner

I know this is a little early, but I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow and may not be online for a few days, so I thought I would leave you a little note right now.

Thank you so much for making me a little quilt. I am so excited to receive whatever you make. To give you some ideas of what I like, I've made a mosaic of some of my favorite favorites.

You can look through my Flikr faves too. Some of them are inspiration ideas for the future, but many are quilts I really like. As you can see, I love all kinds of pieced and appliqued and everything in between quilts. I love simplicity with lots of white and pops of colours, and I also love super bright and busy quilts. If I were to give you a word to work from, it would be "cheerful".

You can also look through the swap quilts I've given and received in the 6 - 12" mini quilt swap over at Flikr -- I have loved all of those. And the doll quilts and coasters I've made. They've also made me happy.

Basically, I live in Saskatchewan, where it is winter for 6 months of the year, and I'm in a house that has beige carpets and beige walls, which I didn't choose and can't really change (although I do occasionally paint a wall anyway). So anything that brightens and cheers our little world is good with me. Above all, have fun. I'm sure if you enjoy making the quilt, I will enjoy receiving it. Thanks!

Instead of Packing, We Did This Yesyerday . . .

It started innocently enough . . .



But soon enough things got messy . . .



And it ended with me stripping the boys down and soaking them with the hose before I would let them in the house (although they still had to have a bath to get the mud out of their hair -- Saskatchewan mud is black and thick and sticky . . .perfect for wheat and canola. Not so perfect for getting out of white carpet and fine blond hair).

Stash Sunday

Due to my lack of a camera, or of new fabric, I haven't posted a Stash Sunday in a long time. But just recently, since I sold a quilt last week, I bought this fabric to fill in its spot (um, what's that? Was I supposed to be stash busting? Ooops.)

Presently I am planning to use it to add some different fabric to Aaron's I-spy quilt when I get to it, unless we have a boy, then it will be the new baby's quilt, and some extra patches will go into Aaron's I-spy quilt as well.

This is "Oh Boy" by David Walker. I picked it up in a fat quarter pack from Pink Chalk Studios. Kathy must have an extra in with Canada Post or something, because this fabric arrived super fast.



Since I was paying for shipping anyway, and I am thinking of making some storage containers of some kind for the boys, I picked up these cute cars, too:


As always, you can see what other Stashers are playing along on Tamara's blog, 1/4 of an inch .

Now I should get to my cleaning and packing, since we're leaving on summer holidays in two days.

PSST! Sign ups are open for DQS7!

dqs7 button.
Originally uploaded by rachelgriffith

There might still be room! They are cutting off entries at 200, which should be sometime later today.

If you don't know what this is, its a really great swap. Everyone is given a person to send a doll quilt to, like lots of swaps. But the fun part is that it is not reciprocal (as in,your person is sending to someone different) so you don't know who is sending you a quilt. You just sort of leave "hints" around the internet about things you would like, and your partner decides what to make you based on those hints. Meanwhile all the members post photos and blog about what they are making, and you never know if its for you or not until you receive your quilt in the mail. How great is that?

I have never had the courage to enter this amazing swap, but I decided I had to do it this round, and that I had the time in August to make something suitably amazing, after the flurry that was June and is July.

Anyway, you can go here to sign up, if there's still room.

What have I been stitching up?

I'm glad you asked!
First, my June Threads Together blocks are done, but not sent yet. Alison asked us to make cross blocks, with as many or few crosses as we wanted. She sent a fun collection of reds and some tone on tone whites and solid white to work with.


Next my Craft Hope quilt. You will remember I was making a quilt to send to an orphanage in India. This is the quilt I'm working on for that. It just needs the binding wrapped around from the back to the front and attached and its ready to go, which is good because it needs to be in Texas in 11 days. I used lots of big, elaborate prints, which sort of reminded me of Indian sari fabric. And since I have two boys, I decided to make something pretty and girly, but hopefully something that won't show dirt too badly.



I really liked the simple design I used for the Craft Hope quilt. So much so that I've decided to use the same design for a quilt for my friend Lisa's baby that is due around the same time as mine. I started one really crazy, complicated quilt in all reds and black and white polka dots and dark blues. Then I remembered that Lisa likes more muted colours than I do, and that I wanted to finish the quilt before she goes back to Bogata in Sept, so I decided to cut into my Heather Ross stash instead to make something soft, sweet and simple. For you other fabric junkies out there, I picked up 2m of green West Hill horses for the back.


I also have three blocks to work on for my two quilting bees. The blue and grey solids are for July for Threads Together, the tone-on-tones are for Lish for the Stash Busting Bee, and the forest animals are for Shannon, who is making a hunting lodge quilt for her nefew. I need to have these all finished before I go on holidays in a week, so after art camp is done, you can know that as well as packing and cleaning, I'll be stitching up a storm.

And this is a sneak peek at something I'm working on now and then when I get the chance -- a quilt for me. These are my Pop Garden scraps from this picnic quilt where I used up almost my whole stash of these fabrics. I've added some of my favorite browns, as well as some fantastic greens I've been generously given in assorted swaps. I made the first block when I was doing a test block for this star block . I'm making 15 more, and then I'll figure out what to do with them once they're done. This one is just to pull out and work on when I don't have anything else with a deadline to sew. Although I might like to finish it in time for the new baby, since I tend to do a lot of couch snuggling and nursing with new babies while everyone older plays around us.


I was being pretty disciplined about doing one major quilting project at a time, but I've found that with the boys at the stages they're at, there are only certain parts of a quilt I can do during the day when they are awake. So if I'm at a spot that requires some thought and concentration and possibly math or a lot of ironing, I can't do it when they're awake. So if I have several projects going, there's always something I can mess around with at any given moment. Hopefully this isn't the beginning of the end of sanity.

Obligatory Belly Photo

So here I am, at 20 weeks pregnant. Half way there!

Yeah, and I have bangs. I don't think I've had bangs since I was in highschool. I"m trying to decide if I like them, or if they're too girly. I think its that the rest of my hair has really heavy layers, so I feel like its too much of a mom cut, or conversely, like what my hair was like in grade 11. Any thoughts?

Thanks, Donna, for getting my camera back to me! Lots of crafty things to post in the next day or so (or just check my Flikr, they're already up there).

I Was Totally THAT Mother Yesterday.

You know. The one you pity if you have small children and swear you'll never be like if you don't yet have children and never remember being if you're children are 25 or older. Yep, that was me. But what did I expect, going into the city (a 2 hr drive) with a 4 and 2 yr old in tow, at 20 weeks pregnant with a still slightly sprained ankle (no crutches, thank goodness), to buy enough craft supplies for a 4 day Art-based day camp with 25 kids already registered? Well let me tell you, this trip exceeded my worst expectations.

First, we had to stop at the only gas station / resteraunt on the way there for lunch, because we did not get out of town until eleven o-clock. Add Friday afternoon vacationers line ups and a two year old who insists on doing everything HIMSELF and can't make up his mind about whether he wants ham or turkey on his sub with a LONG line-up behind him.

Second, we "had" to stop at the quilt shop in town (the only one I've found this side of Edmonton that carries Free Spirit fabrics -- and I'm just assuming someone in Edmonton does because its just a cool city). Since our local quilt shop has a toy table, the boys insisted that they DID NOT need to bring toys into the store, because fabric stores always have toys. This one had a bin of little legos. Which Aaron dumped all over the floor. And then they started fighting over the legos. And then Aaron discovered, as we were trying to pick up said legos (which included 15 or so lego guys that they had completely taken apart -- like, even removed the tiny arms) that there was a twirling display of needles and pins above his head . . . and I got out to the car to discover that he had exploded his diaper . .

Third, was the actual trip to Michaels to buy craft supplies. Which included many, many reminders that we were only buying things for ART CAMP and that no, I would not buy a volcano kit, or a worm-making kit or a crystal growing kit or a Spiderman colouring book and sticker set or . . . you get the idea. Andrew was finally sated when I told him that we would go to Burger King after this to get supper and hopefully transformer toys. After this the boys decided that the best way to amuse themselves while Mom tried to figure out what quantity of foam to buy was to head butt each other. Then the cart got too full of craft supplies to happily hold Aaron as well (and although he thought it was amusing to jump on the four margerine-like containers of clay, I didn't want clay bursting all over the store). This meant releasing Aaron into a store with long, open aisles and lots of interesting, brightly coloured things at perfect grabbing height. After this came the debacle of Aaron getting a hold of a crayola marker I was using to mark things off my list, lying down in the middle of the aisle in front of our cart and drawing all over his legs. Finally, we were done shopping and came to the check out . . . where only one till was open. And they had bins and bins of shiny plastic toy-like candy dispensers. Fortunately, I had a box of raisins in my bag, and managed to coax him into sitting in the top of the cart while we went through the check out line.

Fourth, we arrived at Burger King right at 5 pm and had to wait in a long lineup that was filtered through one of those maze-like contraptions that just happened to have three bars running along it that were perfect for Aaron to climb up and down on. We got to the counter to discover that there were NO toys at all, never mind transformer toys, and Andrew started wailing. To try to distract him and get him away from the poor workers who were just starting their supper rush and really didn't need to hear his howling, I grabbed our cups and we went to get drinks. Aaron grabbed his drink before I could put a lid on it and spilled it all over the floor. So there I am, pregnant, with one child wailing "WHY DON'T THEY HAVE TRANSFORMER TOYS? MY PLAN IS RUINED!", and a second child, covered in blue marker that I still haven't wiped off, now soaked in red Fruitopia, cheerfully wiping the floor with paper napkins. Fortunately this Burger King had a play place with a glassed in room and some seating, so we sat in there, I got Andrew calmed down eventually (after a stern, "I know you are disappointed and you had a cool plan that is ruined. You have had a chance to express that. Now eat your food and enjoy the play station.") and we did manage to eat with minimal hassle (aside from Andrew's inevitable "Why are there seeds on my bun? Who is going to swap their bun bottom with my bun top?" panic), and they did eventually play, and Andrew even made a friend.

When his new friend left, he sat down, discouraged and said, "We can leave now. My friend is gone." I suggested that he could meet some of the kids who had just entered the play area and he said, "No, mom. I can only make one friend in a day. That is enough."

Finally I got them bundled into the car and we could drive home.

On the bright side, I did find a copy of the Spring/Summer edition of Stitch magazine , and I just might have picked up a lovely bundle of bright, hand-dyed felted wool and a few fat quarters . . . but let's just keep that between friends, shall we?

Craft Blog Linky

Alison at cluck, cluck sew is hosting a linky to all the craft bloggers that want to join up and "meet".

If you are here from that linky, I would like to say welcome, and please scroll down a bit. My blog is usually full of lovely photos of things I have made, but right now my camera is MIA (well, more accurately MIW - Missing in Winnipeg), so my blog has been sadly mainly photo-less for the last two months. I am almost finished a roll of film, so there should be some quilty goodness soon.

Anyway, welcome, and I look forward to meeting you all. Feel free to drop me a note somewhere and say hi.

I miss my camera.

Its been two months now since I left my camera in Winnipeg. I'm feeling a big lonely without it. No Flikr photos, no pretty pictures for my blog, no photos of boys in just underwear and superhero capes, or of their cute new matching swimmers (Aaron had to have the same shorts as Andrew). No photos of my new bathmat, or the progress on my Craft Hope quilt or my new scrap quilt or . . . sigh.

Well, in two weeks I'll be back in Winnipeg and I shall pick up my camera. Sorry for the lame blog of late, but its just not the same without my camera. Who knew an inanimate object would become such a big part of my day to day life, or that I would become so used to telling stories with pictures as the punchlines.

Ah well, I've almost got another roll of film finished, then there will be a few photos before I go on vacation. That is, when my foot heals, and I can sew and drive again . .

New Workout

Anyone want to join me in a great workout that will totally tone your upper body and core? I've only been doing it for two days and I can feel the results already.

Its called CRUTCHES

Yes, that's right. I sprained my ankle. At 19 weeks pregnant. Thank goodness I'm not at 29 or 39 weeks pregnant. It was the loosening ligaments thing that got me.

You see, I'm naturally loose jointed to begin with. So much so that I used to have problems with my wrists spontaneously slipping slightly out of joint when I was a teenager. Not so much that I would be in a lot of pain, just enough that I couldn't carry anything in that hand. My cousins are all gymnasts, but I only inherited the flexibility, not the co-ordination, of that side of the family.

I digress. Anyway, my hips started to loosen up at the beginning of this week, which means I'm a bit off balance. Then I took the boys for a long walk and wore out my leg muscles. Then I got in an argument with my son about pickles and he wouldn't go to his room, and as I marched him down the hall our feet got tangled . . . and next thing I knew I was propped up on the couch with a bag of frozen peas on my ankle.

Yesterday I thought it wasn't too bad, so I kept walking on it. But because I did it kept getting worse, so this morning I crawled everywhere until the drug store opened and Dave could get me crutches. Fortunately its feeling better today.

So send fast healing vibes my way.