Monday 26 July 2010

Over the weekend . . .

there was a bit of progress in my sewing room.

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A few more swirlies and what-nots were prepped . . .

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cottage roses and buds were almost completed (still need a yo-yo in the center) and . . .

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some more tulips were stitched in place.  (These are two different projects just in case you were wondering about the colors.)

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There was also a little bit of relaxing time.  Everything was so very quiet this weekend . . . no barking dogs, no screaming kids or cars . . . so peaceful.  Even the mosquitoes have decided to ease off a bit.

DSC00696 Did you find your weekend to be a half-full or a half-empty kind of weekend?  Mine was on the fuller side and I really liked that :)

Have a great week everyone.

Saturday 24 July 2010

Ah! It’s Saturday . . .

and I’m in my sewing room for the day (I hope!).

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My newest favorite book arrived in the mail yesterday – I really LOVE a lot of the designs in this book and just like the title says – you get two quilts from one jelly roll – how fun is that!

Unfortunately I won’t have a chance to test out any of these patterns for a while as I have other things on the go here . . .

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A little bit of Bunny Hill block 7 preparation is under way, and . . .

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some more designing and sewing on my Fresh Cottons project.

I’ll be back tomorrow to show some more progress.

Sunday 18 July 2010

Sunny, Yellow . . .

days of Summer . . .

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My garden is just a mass of overgrown beautiful blooms right now.  Of course I’m always worried about the weeds that just never quite get tamed all year but I had that all put into perspective the other day.  Two little kids from next door came running over when I was out in the garden - the boy was maybe six and the little girl was four or five.  They bounded up to the flower beds and started smelling all the flowers they could and then they looked up at me and said “we just LOVE your garden - it’s so pretty and there are SO many flowers!”

I think I’m going to try and stop more often and just enjoy all that is here – weeds included!

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Something I always enjoy is continuing on with a project - and sunny yellow, pretty pink, dilly green and grassy green spools of thread will allow me to do that.  Shopping trip completed for that – and that’s all I bought - thread!

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This pretty package showed up in the mail – needs to find a spot in the stash somewhere. 

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This is one of my flower pots near the driveway . . . a little bit of July 1st still remains mixed in with the “pretty in pink” Communities in Bloom display.  This is so much nicer to look at than the snow banks that are there the other six months of the year!

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Monday 12 July 2010

Honey Bees and Lilies

   I’m still having fun playing with my Fresh Cottons . . .

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little appliquéd petals are finding new, permanent homes.  I love these blocks!  They will go with the ones that I was working on earlier in the week . . . the pile is growing.

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Now I’ll need to make a trip to the thread store and get some more matching thread for this project.  This seems to be a regular occurrence lately – I start a new appliqué project and end up not having the right tones of thread.  Oh, well – another shopping trip to a fabric store . . . hard times!

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The deer have been visiting our garden over the weekend and we’ve lost all of our lettuce and Swiss chard . . . so far they have left the romaine lettuce and the lilies behind.  Someone mentioned that they do love to eat the lilies and that was the first thing I checked when we got back to the yard.  About three years ago I bought three special lilies from the Lily Nook in Neepawa, Manitoba and I just remembered that it is usually about this time of year (July 23-25) that Neepawa hosts the Lily Festival.  I love the three lilies that I bought – the pink one is just coming into bloom and the yellow one is seriously ready to burst forth in the next day – the orange ones shown here have been in bloom for a couple of days – not your normal tiger lilies are they?  Of course the yellow one is the one I can’t wait to see bloom – I sure hope the deer leave all of them alone!

Oh, by the way, Neepawa also has a quilt show as part of the Festival.  Might be worth a trip – lilies and quilts!

Thursday 8 July 2010

Little bits of happy mail . . .

Parcels in the mail are always so much fun to open up!

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and when they are all wrapped up and needing to be ripped open, just like a birthday present – it is even more fun.

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Little Lady Patchwork drew my name out of the hat (out of 259 others) for this little bundle of fantastic goodies back on June 12th.

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And everything is now sitting on my sewing table just looking so adorable . . . 

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excuse me while I head over to let Stefanie know that the parcel has now landed – 25 days later.

So glad it is here!

Monday 5 July 2010

My Views . . .

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Ah . . . my afternoon walks . . .

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lots of scenery . . .

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no mosquitoes – only the odd bird . . .

 

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lots of time to contemplate “things” . . .

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remembering not to take a side-ways stumble into one of these . . .

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taking time to smell the roses . . .

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and then return to work, refreshed and ready for the next four hours.

Tonight I hope to find some time to take a closer look at this wonderful website that I haven’t visited for a while -

Connecting Threads

Stop over and take a look at their 50% off section, their tutorials (always a great resource!) and some of the fantastic deals on books also.

 

Have a great Wednesday!

Fresh Cottons on Monday

I’m really loving this new line from Fig Tree – YUMMY is all that I can say!

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I kinda had lost my get-up-and-sew there for a while . . .

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until I cut into these beautiful prints.

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I’ve got some zig zags, tulips, windmills . . .

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baskets . . .

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and even some pointy things!

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So very, very pretty!

 

Hope your Monday is going good,

Thursday 1 July 2010