Lollipop Quilt - Week 5

I have the three middle panels all machine quilted and they are hanging over my upstairs railing until I'm ready to sew the panels together.  It's so good to be able to move on to the borders.  They are really different than the center panels and I just love that each of the two border panels features a pair of cats. 

I'm not quite ready to layer and pin baste yet, but I'm going to continue to put the push on to get it done in the next 10 days.   I have two quilt guild Christmas meetings to go to, and I really would like to bring this Lollipop quilt for show and tell.

A "Get-Well" Gift Idea for a crafty friend.

I was searching my brain for a low-cost non-food gifty something that I could give/make for a crafty quilty friend who was in the hospital for surgery.   I came up with this idea.

I traced a stitching pattern on a doubled piece of white fabric, included an embroidery needle and a skein of red floss. I made a long home made envelope so I wouldn't have to put too many creases in the fabric. I put lots of Get Well writing on the envelope and dropped it off to her daughter to bring to her in the hospital. That was a week ago.

I just got word back that she loved it and is working on it 15 or 20 minutes at a time. It is a nice distraction from her medical stuff. She shows everyone who comes to visit!.. I'm so pleased that she is enjoying it.

The photo shows the faint marked stitching lines of the Meg Hawley 2002 pattern called "Snow"..

The Triplets meet their triplet cousins...

Well, cow cousins, that is.   Did you read in the Daily Gleaner about the rare triplet calves that were born down the road on the Bourque farm?  Here is is a short video interview too......Well, it's certainly a rarity.  They say chances are one in 8 million.  It turns out that this farm is owned by relatives of  our triplets other grandmother, so I say, they're triplet cousins...

The kids had a day off school today so as a mystery day, we picked up the kids and took them to lunch at the Blue Canoe.  

Then we went off to the Bourque Dairy Farm, for the main event.     Meeting the 4-week old triplet calves. They are all girl calves, and are named Faith, Hope and Love.    The calves were receptive and loved to supple on the kids fingers.  It was scary for the kids, but once they caught on, they were not shy about it at all.  The kids took personal interest in each of the calves that were the same birth order as them.

Third born Hope supples on third born Caitlin's fingers.

Second born Mitchell gives gentle pats on second born Faith's head!

First born Love, has a rest while first born Grace talks gently to her.

 

Group Photo, Faith, Mitchell, Hope, Caitlin, Love and Grace

Thanks so much to the Bourques for letting us come for a visit.  We all certainly have a better appreciation of how busy running a dairy farm is.  

My Sister's Oatmeal Cookies

I've been looking for a good oatmeal cookie recipe for some time now. And now I have one.   It's my sisters recipe.  I should have  known.  I make lots of her recipes, and they are all good.  

I know she won't mind if I share with you.    It makes 2 pans of cookies.   Approx. 50 cookies.

Oatmeal Cookies.

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup butter
3/4  cup coconut
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup oatmeal
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda

Cream sugars, eggs, butter and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Take spoonfuls about the size of a walnut, and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 or 11 minutes.

Friday Fun making Looping Scarves

I look forward to Fridays.  See, that's when I get together with the other Friday girls for coffee.  We all sew, but don't usually sew at our coffee breaks.  But today was sort of a different coffee break.  Linda G. hosted and we had arranged for her to purchase lots of fabrics to make loop scarves.  So, in addition to having a coffee and coffee break treats, we tore the fabric into strips, and Linda G. demonstrated on her serger, how she makes her loop scarves.   We all left with a variety of fabrics to make our scarves.

I'm so pleased with the variety of fabrics that she purchased.  I came home with these seven pieces of fabric (about 15" x 80").  Not that I rushed my coffee break, but I couldn't wait to come home to sew them.   Within 5 minutes of getting home, I was in my sewing room serging one up. 

Easy Peasy.   Do you like it?  This one that I'm wearing is a bit of a shorter version (15" x 60") and only does two loops around the neck.   I'll make up the others later this evening and see how I like the three-loop longer version. 

She's nuttier than a Fruitcake

I wonder if that's what my kids say when they hear us talking about how much we enjoy our fruitcake.  We enjoy buying the stuff at our bulk store, Scoop and Save.   Such a fun store.  And we like preparing the recipe and baking them together.  Well, he chops the cherries and dates, I do the mixing and preparing of the baking pans and he does the dishes.   But most of all, we love to eat our fruitcakes, some months after we make it. 

I was looking on my blog to see if I had put the recipes on before, and yep, I had.  The recipes for the light and the dark fruitcakes, can be found in my 2008 blogpost here. 

Next year, we might be up for a change.  My friend Linda H. makes a layered dark fruitcake.   Next year, I am going to try her recipe.   I just need to remind myself in October of that so I don't forget... like I forgot this year.

Lollipop Quilt - Week 4

Well, I am pleased with my first panel.  It took longer than I expected.   I don't know what I was thinking, when I thought I could get three panels done this past week.   

Now that I know how much time this panel took I am going to try hard to get the other two panels done in this next week.    I don't have any big commitments this week, so I'm determined to stitch on the two panels two hours a day.   In addition to completing the free motion quilting on the next two panels, I need to have the outer two panels prepared and ready to stitch in the following week.    

A Spicy Spiral - it's so hot, there's flames!

I had a great teaching day in Saint John this past weekend.  I was with members of the Marco Polo Guild guiding them through their first Spicy Spiral  table runner.   Carol A. sent me some photos of her finished runner.  She free motioned flames in the wedges of her Spiral.  I think it's so hot hot hot!!     Have a look at the details.... Great Job Carol!

Lollipop Quilt - Week 3

I'm into week three of making my lollipop quilt.  I will be quilting this in five sections and then connecting them together after all five are machine quilted.    I've taped the backing and batting to the floor and carefully laid out 3 of the sections to be pinned.  I find this the most difficult part of making a large quilt.  I use a pad to kneel on, and pin for 10 minutes at a time.  Getting up is hard.. tee hee...   The next step is to cut the three layered sections apart, and machine quilt.

 But first, I need to warm up... test my threads, etc.  My strategy is to quilt the white parts first, then do the colored part after.

With my warm up done, the next step for me, is to machine quilt, quilt, and more quilting..  By next Wednesday, I want to have all three sections quilted.  Do you think I can do it?

Spicy Spiral - SImple quilting

I'm teaching a Spicy Spiral workshop this coming Saturday.  I thought I'd finish up one of the samples that I had partially done to show how this runner can be very simply machine quilted with straight/curved lines.    I like it.   After the workshop, this runner will go to my sister's house, just in time for the holidays.

How about some Cranberry Marmalade!

When my sister visited last week, she brought me some great Nova Scotia vegetables and some local cranberries.  I've never done much with cranberries, but when I saw Karen's Cranberry Marmalade, I knew I wanted to make some with my sisters cranberries.   Karen shared her recipe with me, and it was so easy to make.  It was like making jam.   A great Sunday afternoon project.

We can't wait to give it a try... we're having roasted chicken for supper this evening... with a side of cranberry marmalade! 

Caitlin's Stitching

Caitlin spent the night here last night but her sister went home last night.  She already had two sleep overs this weekend.  She needs her beauty rest, so she will continue to stitch on her practice piece at home.   

After we went to bed, I told Caitlin it would be OK if she stayed awake and stitched in bed for a bit before lights out.    Well, she wanted to get her practice piece done, and guess what... she did.  I have no idea what time she went to sleep, but here is her entire practice piece done. 

So today we prepared a real piece of work for her to take home and stitch.  This sleepy little kitty, will be the perfect  little project for her to do this week.  Next week I told her she will learn to do some french knots.  Mainly so she can dot the "i"s in her name.   This kitty came from an old Better Homes and Garden Christmas crafts book.