Hello Cayman Islands

We are browsing the streets of George Town which is the main city in the Cayman Islands. It is a very beautiful and nice place to visit. Actually I could live here. It's so relaxing.

It's a self picture on my new little camera.

With all the hububb at the Fort Lauderdale cruise port, I thought Grampie had the camera case with my 2 cameras. And he thought I had it. No cameras. Well, it turns out that neither of us had it so guess what our big purchase in the Cayman Islands is.

Yep, a new camera.

This is the Crown Princess. It's a lovely ship that holds 3000 passengers.

Lemoyne Star Quilt - Week 2

Last Friday, I was whining about all the Y seams in these Lemoyne Star blocks. In my post I had struggled to put one block together.

With a bit of encouragement, some studying of different techniques on "Y" seams, re-reading my pattern, I was all set to tackle the job.

So, this week, I'm pleased to say that I have all 16 blocks done. And I'm glad they are done. Again, the hardest part was just starting.

I'm quite pleased with how the points meet on the centers of the stars. I never ripped out one seam. Pinning and managing that center seam is the key. The rest of the quilt will be easy to put together, and I'll do that back in Freddy Beach, where I can stretch out in my own sewing room.

I've put away my sewing projects and today we are heading to Florida for a week to do some touristy stuff and to attend a quilt show. I'll be off-line for a bit, but when I come back in a week, I'll be sure to show you my picks at the quilt show and tell you about the big quilt shop that I'm going to visit. Stay tuned!

Happy Friday to my very best Friday Girlfriends!!

Batik Beauty Black Background

Talk about alliteration. I got stumped on what background I was going to use behind the paper pieced points on my Batik Beauty. So I went to the local quilt shop to audition various backgrounds. I fully intended to get a light background, but I came away with this beautiful and rich almost black background.

I'm all set to stitch this beauty together when I get back in 2 weeks.

Crazy Quilting Wednesday - Week 3

I'm pleased with my progress on the 3 Christmas socks. Last week I intended to do more stitching while watching all the Olympics, but it was too stressful. I did some stitching this week and I pleased that 95% of the seams have at least one line of stitching on them. I started adding some lazy daisy stitches and some french knots here and there.

I ordered some mini buttons and I can't wait to get them. I hope they will make nice flower heads to go on some lines of stems that are headless right now.

Stitching on a monochromatic palate is slick. I load up 4 needles with different threads and stitch until I'm done. I now load my needles with threads so that it's easy to sit and stitch when I have a few minutes.

When I don't have enough thread to do a full line of stitching, I use up shorter pieces of threads and make a feather stitch bouquet.

I'll not be stitching in the next 10 days because I'm going away. So no stitch update next Wednesday, but there will be one the Wednesday after that.

Maritime Batik Beauty - Ready to Sew

I brought my entire stash of batik fabrics with me. I don't have many. Mainly the ones I have left over from making my house table runners.

Using Karen Neary's Maritime Beauty pattern, I'm going to make a Beauty out of these batiks. I have all the pieces cut out and the papers ready to paper piece the points. BUT, I have no light background fabric that will be used behind the spokes. Eek... I guess I better go fabric shopping on Monday.

Do you want to see my prototype Maritime Beauty that I completed last summer? I made this one out of old scrappy fabric because I signed up for the class at the last minute. I love how this scrappy beauty turned out and it stays at the cottage. I can't wait to see it again in April or May.

Check back in a couple of weeks, and I'll show you the the completed beauty top. I'll just machine quilt it when I get home.

Lemoyne Star Quilt

My sinus problem is clearing up and I'm itchy to sew. In between Olympic games, I'm pawing through my mini-stash that I brought with me. I finally decide to open the Lemoyne Star kit that I brought with me. I've been dragging that box around for 3 years now. As I start to drag out the rhombus pieces, and the triangles and squares, every inch of me wants to close the box. But it's time to get into it.

I now realize why I didn't want to start it. Those darn "Y" seams. I hate them. I lost hours of thinking time on the church quilt I did in January. I was trying to re-think the pattern to avoid a dozen small Y seams. If I had a just got to it, I would have had them done in less than an hour.

So, I resist the urge to close up this boxed kit and commit to myself to at least do a few blocks. That's all I needed and I'm into it now. I'm following the directions very carefully. I have the first block almost finished. It's in two parts. I don't have the courage to sew them together today, but I will tomorrow.

I'm hoping to have all 16 blocks done by next Friday. If I can do that, then the rest will be a breeze to put together at a later time.

Stay tuned next Friday. I'll let you know if I get them done or not!

Hey there Friday Girls. Have a great Coffee Break. I miss you all!!

Crazy Quilting Wednesday - Week 2

I've really enjoyed my stitching efforts this second week of stitching. I can't believe how easy my monochrome color scheme is. Since the color choices are limited, not a lot of time is spent deciding on thread colors to use. When I want a change, I stitch with a bit of silk ribbon.

I have about half the seams covered on the three socks. I'm hoping by next week all the seams will be covered and I'll have lots of silk ribbon done. I may even start adding a few beads next week. We'll see.

Do you see the little buttons that I added? I love those. I only added these three to see what they would look like but I will add more to the other socks this week.

A Figgy Pudding Find

In the past couple of days, I've been looking at numerous online fabric stores. I've been looking for a fabric collection by Moda called Figgy Pudding. Well, it just so happens that I was in TJ Max yesterday and with figgy pudding being on my mind, I came across this deluxe professional pudding steamer in the discount aisle.

When I was at a quilt conference in Newfoundland in 2008, one of the local deserts they served us was a delicious moist cake -like pudding called Figgy Duff. It was deliciously spicy and tasted somewhat like a Christmas desert.

After the conference we did a bit of touring around Newfoundland in the Trinity and Bonavista areas and stayed at a couple of bed and breakfasts. At one of these BnB's, the kitchen counter was lined with well used cookbooks, so I took the liberty to flip through the pages of one of these books and look what I found. A local recipe for Figgy Duff.

I have the recipe, and I have the special pudding steamer. So now when I get home in the spring I'm going to make this and have my niece, Michelle and her new husband Scott over for a nice Sunday supper. I'll serve Figgy Duff for desert since Scott has some Newfie roots and likes Figgy pudding.

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Actually, now that I think of it, he was going to get me his secret family recipe for Figgy Duff. I must remind him.

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Do you have a favorite recipe for Figgy Pudding?

My Sister is a Lazy Girl

Last week, I was featured on the Lazy Girl Designs blog. Well, this week, Joan has featured the work of my sister who lives in Nova Scotia. Joan refers to us as Lazy Sisters. Isn't that cute.

Donna has done something that I've never done, but I think I will give it a try when I get home. She personalized the Lazy Girl Take-Along bags with embroidery. They are really nice and would make a perfectly unique gift.

Go have a visit and be sure to leave a comment on the Lazy Girl Blog.

Figgy Pudding

On cool and windy days, we take an "off the beach" walk and we have a couple of routes that we take to get our 50 minutes in. I always stop and admire this bush when we walk by. I know I showed this last year, but a whole hedge of holly in darn impressive. This year, the holly is full of berries.

I should have been out last week when it was snowing, just to get a picture of the holly with snow on it. I missed the opportunity. It hasn't snowed here in 11 years, and heaven knows when it will snow again. When it does, I'll be a little more prepared to run out and take a picture.

The hedge is so tall that I can't even see the house that is behind it. I thought, if I see somebody there, I would ask if I could come and snip some branches for a decoration to enjoy at the condo. But we never saw anyone.

This is a great segway into the pattern that I've chosen to buy fabric online for. I have admired this pattern online and have seen it in a few places.

I decided for my little experiment, to make a Christmasy quilt. I spent what seems like hours looking at patterns in online shops and I found a few that I really liked. The problem I found out is that project requirements are not given when you want to buy a pattern and fabric online.

So once I realized that, I went looking for a free pattern that would have the fabric requirements for me. I found this "Free Pattern" page at Aunt Bea's Fabric store helpful and I came across this free pattern by Moda - designed for their Figgy Pudding line of fabrics. I have seen this fabric featured on the bakeshop website. It has caught my eye before.

I also saw this pattern made recently a light blue background. It happened to be on the wall in the background of a video tutorial by the Missouri Quilt Co. Don't get distracted by the table runner demonstration. Just look at the back wall. :) I love these cool wintery colors of the sample shown on the wall in the video.

Sew, my online fabric search began. I've spent more than a few hours in some online fabric shops. At first I was going to try to pick my own similar colors out and do it like the Missouri Quilt Co., but after a few attempts at working the online carts, color matching etc, I decided that I would just buy the Moda Figgy Pudding fabrics that are shown in the Free Moda pattern that you can find here.

And the search continues and more problems. It's hard to find a quilt shop that has the entire collection or even half the collection of fabrics, so now I'm looking for a shop that at least the 4 or 5 main figgy fabrics, with trees, with swirls and with presents. I'll get the solids as close as I can. That's not easy to find either.

I had a bright thought that I'd try eBay. There is a dealer there that has 4 of the fabrics but she sells them in 1 yard cuts. I need only 1/3 yard cuts. I may work up the nerve to contact her to see if she will sell me small cuts.

So I'm slowly coming to the decision that buying fabric online is not as easy as it seams. If you are looking for a small number of fabrics, it's probably easier. If you are looking for beautiful batiks to build your stash, it's probably easier.

It'll take me a little more time to buy the fabric for this project. I may end up looking for another pattern with fewer fabric choices.

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Tomorrow, a figgy find that is not fabric related. Stay tuned.

Online fabric shopping

I have never shopped online for fabrics before, have you? Since I live in Canada most of the time, shopping from US online stores can be prohibitive because of international shipping. So, while I'm snowbirding in the US, I thought I'd give it a try.

Here's what I've learned so far:

• To get the most from your shipping dollar, you should try to buy between 7 and 9 yards of fabric.
• Most stores have a clearance section.
• If you don't want to spend any money on shipping, if you order over $50 some online stores don't charge you shipping. I found one highly recommended will ship free for over purchases over $35.
• Get a couple of references as to service, quality of fabrics and promptness. I have references from an online board that I look at every day.
• Not all online stores carry everything in the way of notions and threads. I'm looking for non-nylon invisible thread, and that is a problem.

So, I am going to pick out a pattern on the internet and buy the fabric online as a little experiment. I'm not sure what else I should look for in an online dealer, but I'm quite excited to do this little experiment. I'll let you know about my decision as to dealer, pattern, fabrics on Sunday, after I place the order. It'll be interesting to see when it will arrive. I hear that it only takes 2 or 3 days to get an order. We'll see.

Crazy Quilting Wednesday - Week 1

I brought 3 pieced crazy Quilt foundations with me. I'm hoping to get lots of stitching done so that I'll have a really good head start to have these done before Christmas this year.

So, this week, aside from getting started which can be a hurdle for me, I have applied some lace trims to each of the socks, and and I've started to do some basic stitching. I had to look at my notes and books again for a little refresher on how to stitch the blanket stitch.

As you can tell, These are going to be very monochromatic socks compared to my last three socks that were very pink. The white, cream and taupes are very classic and will look nice when hung together on the mantel. I may add a bit of color when I do the beading, buttons and other embellishments.

I was brave and cut into a doily to use as the heel on two of the socks. The other sock will have some lace placed in a curve to suggest a heel.

In the past I have followed the regimen to stitch with flosses first, then do silk ribbon, then bead and embellish. This time, I'm definitely going to do flosses and ribbons interchangeably. I may even decide to put some beads on before the end.

But my first two or three weeks will be concentrating on covering most the seams with at least basic stitches.