Simple Gifts

 

Here’s a small quilt project that was a gift to my dear online friend Roxanne in an exchange we did recently.  I used the February block of the Bunny Hill  A Tisket A Tasket 2009 BOM with a bit of floral embellishment. 

This first picture shows one of my favourite quilting tools. The Clover Hera Marker.  You run it along your ruler and it scores the fabric like I did the centre grid lines above.   The scored lines stay in the fabric and are easy to see when sewing and there is nothing to wash out when your done!  It works great on large or small projects.  You can see the lines in the photo.

For machine quilting small projects I use flat pins not safety pins.  Moving them around as needed and not sewing over them.

There machine quilting done, binding on and in the mail.

Tip of the Day:  Wipe the smuggies off your camera lens before taking a photo of something your going to send away forever.

Now I can show what the talented Roxanne made me and sent along with a sweet little container of pins.   A beautiful needle keep designed by Diana Gallagher.  It is made with the softest wool and her stitching is divine.  This is extra special because I have never worked with wool and  admire it so much.  Thank you Roxanne!

Back view.

It is wonderful to give and receive simple gifts merely for the pure pleasure of doing so.  May you open your hearts today to be blessed by the gift of giving, receiving or for the best one of all – the making of a new friend.  

Diane

A Little of This & That

  A little stitchin’

A little sewin’

A little hotcross bread bakin’

A little bunny teapot thriftin’

And a little sign in my garden.

Happy Spring to all of you,

Diane

Bon Voyage!

Alas, not me. My sister and her DH are going with my parents on a cruise. So I’ve been helping mom get prepared so we took a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things.

On the list was a bag to carry to the pool. We looked at the ‘beach bags’ and they were huge! Now mom is 83 (sorry mom) and about the size of a button. She didn’t need to fit into the bag just use it for her sunscreen lotion, book, tissues and the like. It also has to fit into her luggage without taking up too much room. We couldn’t find anything suitable.

So it looked like we had failed on our mission. Until we approached the check-outs and what did I see? Only a rack of the latest in spring fashion pool side bags! For a mere 97 cents and with a few modifications that is.

I removed the handles and unpicked the seam binding down the sides. Cropped the side and end panels by a few inches removing the ‘Wal-Mart’ logo (sorry Wal-Mart).  Saved a couple of inches of top pieces that I had cut off and ironed on some interfacing to stiffen them up.  Stitched them back on inside the top of each side with some yellow seam binding (that I had on hand, yeah!).  Added a small strip of Velcro for a closure.  Then sewed the seam bindings back up on the four corners and sewed the handles back on spreading them out a bit.

Voila! Presenting the latest in pool side bag fashion. It is super light weight and folds flat as a file folder. Women will be scrambling to find them in fashion boutiques for their cruise wear accessories -  don’t you think?

I hope some of you are lucky enough to get away for March break,

DIANE

Come On Spring!

I'm getting ready! Last year I spent stitching and quilting three of the Gail Pan Christmas Wish BOM quilts and one of her smaller wall hangings. The embroidery of twenty seven blocks plus the hanger took up a major part of my crafting time. So I'm busy now getting a jump on all the gifts I have wanted to make and to getting the satisfaction that comes with completing fun and fast projects.

You will see on my blog that I take full advantage of all the wonderful tutorials and free patterns that other bloggers and companies provide. What's the point of spending hours surfing the net and coming away not having something to show for it. Here are a couple of project's I just whipped up.


The cute embroidered strawberry pattern is a freebie along with many others on one of my favourite sites:
http://www.birdbraindesigns.net/

And the origami bag tutorial is available here:

http://quiltsalott.blogspot.com/2009/01/origami-pouch-tutorial.html (great blog!)

Also here's a little angel I stitched up to watch over my niece. The embroidered angel pattern is a freebie from
http://www.sewusefuldesigns.blogspot.com/ (another great blog!)

The most important thing I want to say today is a heartfelt thank you. The immediate "opening of arms" from all of you has been overwhelming. The welcoming words, best wishes and offers of assistance has blown me away. A special thank you to dear Kaaren who immediately took me under her wing and shared her wisdom and saved me from hours of floundering. To all of those who I may not have returned your comments because of my computer meltdown I apologize. Please stay with me on this journey. I welcome all of you and am proud to be included in this amazing community of woman.

Diane

Quilter's Connection

I'm back! I was only able to squeeze in my last post before our computer took it's final nosedive. It meant many hours spent on the phone with the nice folks at Microsoft going round and round until I finally got off that ride. So Saturday it was a quick trip to Best Buy. DH proudly figured out how to install a new hard drive and with years worth of updates downloaded we are up and running.

Here in Canada we have a lovely new quilting magazine called Quilter's

Connection.

www.quiltersconnection.ca

In this months issue of their email newsletter there is a great free pattern for a travelling ironing pad that I thought may be of interest to some of you. It looks like a great super easy idea.

www.quiltersconnection.ca/images/IroningPadPattern.pdf

Check out their website for other free patterns and information and get signed up for their newsletter.

Here's hoping this week will be filled with only good things on the computer and even better things on the sewing machine...

Diane

March 1st

The March 1st picture on my calendar is a garden full of flowers. Only twenty days until the first day of spring! We've had a very little amount of snow this winter with most of it arriving last week so winter will be over before we know it. I tried to get this post done yesterday but I'm still getting to know blogger and was interrupted by a little hockey game that was on TV. Great game Teams USA & Canada!

Sunday around here always means bread day. I do the prep work the evening before so it's a quick mix together, knead done by DH and in the oven to rise in the morning. DH and I work as a well oiled machine since we've been doing this for about twenty years. We always make five loaves as that's how many fit in the oven to rise and then bake at the same time. Five loaves last the week keeping the lunch bucket filled and enough for buttery toast every morning.

A while back a purchased a number of clearance kits from Connecting Threads. The price is right and regardless of if I use their patterns or not it's a nice bundle of co-ordinated fabrics to have on hand. I just finished the above runner for a birthday gift with lots of fabric leftover.

"Oh oh, What is she up to now Marcie?"

"I don't know Jake. What's a blog?"

Jake, Marcie and I wish you a creative start to March.

Diane