My Sweet Garden

Last fall my husband and brother in law built this sweet garden for me in our back yard.  It's about 10 x 12' and is U shaped.  The little walkway in the center will give me access to the three sides of the garden.  The mesh fencing is intended to keep out most of the big critters, like deer and raccoons that we have visiting on a regular basis.  

We've been working at it for the past few weeks to get the soil prepared and planted.  First came flower planters that flank the gate.   Then came the veggies.  There's yellow and green pole beans and regular bush beans, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, beets and a zucchini.  My husband bought me a new set of small gardening tools and put a hook right on the rail so the tools are there when I need them.   I've visited every garden center looking for seeds, set plants, flowers, fertilizer and nice plant pots.  Sometimes successful, sometimes not.

Now that it's done, every morning I visit to see if anything is up yet.   So far, the swollen green and yellow beans are starting to peek through.   Also the romaine is coming up.     I can see that those will have to be thinned.   And I pulled my first weed.  

I know that I'm just going to love spending the summer with my garden.   

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This Land is Your Land

Earlier this week I finished a Row by Row for Diane at Country Crafts and Curtains.   This is her third year participating in the Row by Row Experience.   

This summer's theme is "On The Go".   Since it is Canada's 150 year, Diane wanted to incorporate the Canada theme.  

I took this picture as I was about half done machine quilting the row.  Quilting sure makes a difference, don't you think.   I loved doing this row and I'm looking forward to seeing the row in many RxR quilts.  

To look at the finished row, read out Diane's blog here..

Come for Tea!

Well, if you are coming to my house anytime soon, I'll be insisting on serving you tea.    Not because I like tea, which I do, but because I want to show off my cute garden tea cozy!  

I finished this tea cozy to take as a sample of what what else you can do with the flowers technique in my Secret Garden bag class at Quilt Canada.  

I know this is an odd shape for a tea cozy, but it fits my favorite Paderno teapot, which is kind of a different shape.   More taller than stout if you know what I mean.  

And while I was at it, I made a couple of pouches using the same techniques.   You have seen these before.   So quick and easy to make using up your colorful scraps.   

Love Cookies

For a family wedding shower this past weekend, I made these cookies without the help of my grandkids.  I had fun just the same..

I start out with a great sugar cookie recipe and cut out square cookies.  Bake and Cool.   Then using royal icing, I make a square around each cookie.  

Then add the word love.  

After the first few cookies, the need for perfect lettering fades away.  

And how about a few wedding dress cookies.  

These were wrapped these in cello bags so so the bridal party kids could take them home.    

After the shower, not one cookie left, except for the bride cookies.

Rainy days bring spring flowers

How about all these spring flowers.  The rain brought them...  Sorta...

This weeks rainy weather gave me some extra time in the sewing room.  It was a great chance to cut out fusible flowers for a class next month.  They will be the flowers for the Secret Garden Bag.    I'm just itching to make a few class samples using them.  Watch for them next week.  

Getting ready for Quilt Canada

I'm getting excited about teaching at quilt Canada next month.    I'm almost already.    I am thinking of all the extra things I might need while away.   One thing that came to mind is that I will have classroom assistants for each of my four classes.   I'll make little "Canada" themed pouches to use as thank you gifts.  

The pouches start out with piecing scraps together to make a strip.    Add a strip of plain fabric on top.    Then stitch curves on the plain fabric.  On my older Pfaff sewing machine, I have a cute maple leaf stitch that is just perfect for the 150 Canada celebrations..  The red thread is used to stitch a few maple leaves.  Then I add my label and finish off the zipped pouch.    I just love them....

What are these pouches good for, you ask.    Well, anything small I guess.    

Your rotary cutter, or your good collection of special pens..

Corked!!

I've been preparing to go to Nova Scotia for a week.   I didn't want to start anything new until after I got home.  

With it being a drizzly day, and not much planned, I thought I'd cut out a project so I could work on it when I get home.     Well, one thing lead to another, and I am almost finished.

It's cork fabric.    I bought it while in the states over the winter.  It's quite expensive so I thought I'd try a small project with it.    It's a bit difficult to work with since you are not supposed to iron it or pin it.   I used wonderclips ...

And here it is.     It's not quite done.   I haven't figured out how to make the strap.  I'm thinking on it.

I'm Home

You know the saying, there's nothing like your own bed after travelling.   Well, that is so true, but even more, There's nothing like your own sewing room and your stash.

I've been home almost two weeks, and believe it or not, I've been sewing up a storm.   I made new curtains for my living room.   I've been sorting through my stash to make samples for the classes I have coming up this spring.

And on the quilty side,  I've made a couple of wallets this week.   The dark one will be going to the Miramichi quilt guild later this week.  My friend Geraldine will pick it up to take to guild.  Their class is full, but it'll be nice if they get to see what they are going to make.    

And you might recognize the busy print on the lower wallet..  It's one of the fabrics in the CQA Trend-Tex Challenge.    Since I was on a wallet making kick this week, I decided to make a wallet out of my challenge fabrics.  That will be going to Toronto for the annual fund-raising Auction.

Ahh, it's good to be home.

But before I Go..I needed to Sew

Just thinking about packing up my sewing machine this week gave me the heebee jeebees.  I've made the mistake of packing up too soon before.  So  I thought, I should get one or two of my small projects on my to-do list done.

The first project was simply to add a zipper to a large wide-open bag.  It was started a few weeks ago and was waiting until I found the right color purse zipper.  So that was a quick finish.     This is a gift for my friend Brenda and I'll give it to her when I get home later next week.

Next, are a batch of pencil cases.  To make the fronts of the pouches, I used up batik scraps, added some simple stitching to a plain light fabric, and then added my label.  When the fronts were done, I put them together using my standard simple pencil case pattern.    All they need now are  cute little beaded zipper pulls.

It was fun to sew the continuous random lines on the long
plain strip.  

When it's time to go, it's time to go.

The weather in Florida has been exceptional this winter.  We have had so much fun here in the community and it seems like we were busier than ever.  

We loved having some visitors this year.  The best was having my grand kids were here for March break. Besides suntanning and swimming, we played shuffle board, went for dance lessons, went bowling with the big balls, and we can't forget the afternoon milkshakes.  They loved having their own transportation around the community.   Everyone here has a golf cart.  It's a large community.   It would take 30 minutes to walk to the pool.  So the carts are a must here.

They also loved just going on the lanai in the mornings with their breakfast.  Feeling the warm morning sun on their face was so welcome.  The kids want to live here, but it's too bad for them.  To live here, you need to be of a certain age.  But you can visit all you want..  

Well the kids are gone now and the countdown is on. Most everyone's visitors are gone too and the conversations around the community are about who is leaving when and how long their drives are.  Now not everyone leaves, the majority of our friends are leaving.   Each year, my circle of friends gets a bit wider.   Most are sewers or quilters and I haven't even left year and can't wait to see them next year again.

Even with all that fun and community, I am now looking forward to coming home. I have a busy spring planned and I'm chomping at the it to get back in my sewing room.  I have all kinds of projects swimming around in my head.  I think I should start making some lists.  That way, I won't wake up in the middle of the night with things to add to my virtual list.

See you all in a few weeks.

  

Bunnies, Bunnies, Bunnies

I finished a medium size Open Wide bag yesterday. I thought it would be a good bag to tote my bunnies for show and tell at quilting tomorrow afternoon.   But I guess I should have made the larger bag.   Seven sets of floppy ears are just to many for the medium size bag.   teehee..

Also, I love it when I can re-use something that I have done before.   Here's the story... See, I plan to give a bunny as a gift to the girl who organized the quilt show here in the community.   For weeks now, she just goes gaga every time she sees my bunnies.   She really wants one for her adult daughter who has all kinds of quirky things.

I haven't told her that I'm giving her a bunny yet.   I wanted to make sure I had enough yarn to  make extras.  And I now know that I do.  So it will be a surprise for her.  I will give it to her in the last few days that I'm here, before heading north.   Now, how will I present it to her.   I need a gift box.  I know, I can make one...

I tried a bunny in my wallet box for size and Voila..it fit's perfectly. No adjustment to the size is needed at all.   Yippee.  All I need is a nice piece of tissue to wrap the bunny in and a ribbon for the outside.

So, if you want to make your own box for a bunny, you can use my wallet box tutorial which can be found here...

It's a Blue Binding

The blue binding won out.   Thanks to everyone who offered up their opinion.  

After watching a Bethony Nemish video about machine quilting little sprays of feathers, puff balls and swirleys.   i decided I had to try.  She made it look so easy.  I thought I can do that.   For my practice,  I whipped up this simple runner.    She made it look so easy.  It's not as easy as she made it look.  😀  Maybe with a little practice I will get the hang of it.