Friday Furrball – Christmas prezzies

While I was at my sewing machine yesterday, I picked up an old scrap off the floor that the cats had been batting around. I sewed it into a bag, stuffed it with catnip that I went out to the garden to get, sewed it shut and voila! Instant gratification. Of course, Rusty took it right away. I had to make another one for Ginger. Rusty took that one, too. We finally got it sorted out.

The start of something small

It really is 2015. I had to create new photo files today before I could store some pictures. I use the year as a sub-folder for several different categories – for example, in the folder Quilt, I have 2010, 2011… and now I have 2015.

And these three-inch stars are my first quilt photo – and project of 2015. They are from a free paper piecing block at Forest Quilting called Crooked Star, and they are going to be part of a small wall hanging that I’m making as a Christmas present.

Yeah, Christmas 2014. I didn’t get anything done last year, and all of my friends basically got “IOU’s” for their presents. Many people I know just weren’t in the mood this year for Christmas – including me.

Actually, I did get one present made, a few weeks ago. I just haven’t mailed it yet.

  I’m hoping for a much more productive year for quilts and bags this year. Just have to quit letting work crowd out everything else. January means new Quiltalongs, and there are at least a couple I’d like to join. I’ll let you know about them in a few weeks if I decide to join them.

This is one of my favourite photos of Rusty and Ginger, taken this day in 2910, just a few days after they came to live with us. Adorable. Moreso in those days than they are now.

Until next time,

Early Christmas present

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It’s been a crazy year and I won’t be sad to put it behind me. Just not enough hours in the day to do the things that need to be done AND have a life. My life gets crammed in here and there, whenever I have a few minutes to spare. I took Tuesday off, and spent the entire day searching every nook and cranny for birds during our annual Christmas Bird Count. There didn’t seem to be as many birds this year as in previous years, but seeing an enormous flock of about 400 Canada Geese on the wing was pretty awesome, as was the huge flock of Bohemian waxwings. And I love the black capped chickadees – they are so adorable. And for the first time in the 10 years I’ve been doing this, there was no snow on the ground and the weather was above 0 (0 C = 32 F)!

Finished my Poinsettia corsage. I planned to make 10 more and give them out as gifts, but my sewing machine had other ideas. Without changing a thing, the tension went out of whack after I’d finished sewing 25 out of the 30 pieces I needed. I spent a while trying to readjust it and then realized the bobbin was making a lot of noise. I replaced it with another and everything was fine again. Weird. But I was out of time by then, so I put everything in a ziplock bag and put it away for another day.

And I haven’t done a whole lot of sewing since then. Too busy at work. I still have some presents to finish up.

This is an early present that I bought for myself – a Bernina 830 Record. The owner posted a For Sale notice on the bulletin board at the Post Office. They were asking $150 for it and I just couldn’t pass up that one. It’s missing the carry case, extension table and knee lift lever, but it came with a drop-in sewing cabinet (for an extra $25) and a million feet. And two million bobbins! And the sewing machine itself is in excellent condition. (Ginger confirms that.)  I’m looking forward to playing with it. And maybe some day I’ll be able to pass it on to my granddaughter.

Hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas and relaxing holidays.

Until next time,

Sea turtles and poinsettias

Lately, every time I sit down at my computer to write a blog post, I glance at the clock on my screen and find out that I'm out of time. Again. Like yesterday morning. It wasn't my blog, but I'd just finished sewing the veins on my "poinsettia" pin and I was going to start exercising when I realized I had an appointment in a nearby town to get my winter tires put on. I hate being late. Most times, being late is not even an option. The weeks between Labour Day and Christmas are a blur where I work. Summer is dead as everyone takes time off. Once September rolls around, everyone makes up for the lost time. Then January comes and the place is dead again.

I've been making a few Christmas presents in the spare minutes I collect here and there. I made this wallet for a co-worker I've only met a couple of times, even though we've worked together for about three years now. She works in a town about three hours from here, but we connect just about every day by internet. I know that she's an outdoorsy type - she tells me about her weekends on the ski hills and hiking, and shows me pictures of her backpacking vacations. She says she loves sea turtles, so when I began looking through my drawers of fabric for something suitable, this gorgeous Robert Kaufman pattern screamed "Pick me! Pick me!"

As I attempted to make it as perfect as possible, I proceeded to make more mistakes than usual. See the cool looking clamshell? It covers a hole from the metallic clasp which I put in the wrong place. And the little red stitches at the edge of the wallet? That was my attempt to tack down the fabric edge using "decorative" embroidery stitches because I cut the corners off the wrong end. The zipper opens at the wrong end, too, but hopefully that won't be a big issue. I couldn't fix that without taking too much apart. And then, I was trimming the excess fabric inside the wallet that was part of the D-ring tab - I turned my head to hear what Mr. ZQ was asking me just as I made the cut, and cut through one of the inside pockets. I just some stiff interfacing and glue to reconnect the pieces, and fortunately you can't really see it since it was inconveniently located next to the seam!
I'm becoming rather adept at fix-its. Just have to practice those "decorative" embroidery stitches.

The “Live in the Sunshine” graphic I got off the internet somewhere and printed it onto a bit of cotton fabric with my inkjet. It’s a bit tricky to get fabric moving evenly through a printer – you have to reinforce it with something – in this case, I ironed it to freezer paper, taped a sheet of paper to it and watched carefully that it fed correctly. It worked the second time.

Been also working on some bags that others have requested. Cats and music are the popular themes. And speaking of music, my recorder is back in action. My musical partner and myself have six Christmas concerts booked this year. We play with other acts, so we only actually play for less than half an hour at each one. Still, six is more than usual. I just love the sound of Christmas music being played by recorders. We’re talking about video-ing ourselves playing one of these days and posting it to the internet. I’ll let you know if that (ever) happens!

Until next time,

Friday Furball – Sun Lover

Been busy

I'm thinking of renaming this blog. Something like, The Blog of Good Intentions. Or maybe, The Road to Hell is Paved with Blog Intentions.

I just can't juggle like I used to. The good part of that is when I'm not blogging, it's because I'm busy at my sewing machine. Yessiree, I was sewing up a storm this summer, making and selling bags at the local Farmers Market. I didn't make a bundle of money - didn't come even close to covering my time, but I made enough to be able to afford a few more zippers and remnant bundles. Life is good.

Or was. Now my sewing machine needs an infusion. Honestly, it's never been quite the same since the needle hammered the needleplate apart earlier this year. The stitches after that were less than crisp, and in the past two weeks they've turned downright ugly. The tension is whacked, and no amount of fiddling will make it right. So it's into the repair shop on Saturday when we go to the big city. One nice thing about spending most of my Saturdays this year at the Market selling bags is that a few people asked me for custom orders, and I'm still working on a couple. So I need my baby back in top form.

The stitching has gotten so bad that I was sewing together two pieces of material a few days ago, in an area that was going to be covered by lining, and the stitches looked so awful that I ripped them out and did it again. And I'm not usually that fussy!

The other thing that consumed my time this past month was the vegetable garden! Tons and tons of tomatoes. And a bumper crop of hot peppers - de Arbol chilis, Jalapenos and Habaneros. Thanks to that huge mound of dirt next to the garden, left there when the paving blocks were put down last summer, the pepper plants were warm and happy all year. My husband learned how to can from one of our neighbours, and has turned several tons of tomatoes into tomato sauce - a fantastic addition to our Friday night home made pizzas. I've also made a few jars of tomato chutney and some salsa. And there are still more tomatoes.

I highly recommend the Amish Paste heirloom tomato as a tasty and highly prolific sauce tomato. The Super Italian Paste isn't bad, either. And I entered my Brandywine beefsteak tomatoes in our Fall Fair in September and won First prize! (Yes, I still have the ribbon.) They are the BEST eating tomato I've ever tasted.

I grew dozens of tomato (and pepper) plants from seed this Spring and sold them at the Market. What I didn't sell, I planted in my garden, but I sold a lot. Several customers came by my table at the Market later in the year to let me know that the plants they bought from me out grew and out produced the plants they bought from the local nurseries. I'm already making plans for next year's plants.

If you want to try any of these bags, here are the patterns that I based them on: you can find the wristlet here, the wallet here, and the Halloween Treat Bags here.

Until next time,

It’s all about the candy

It’s getting dark earlier around here, getting cooler at night. October will be here soon enough and with it the risk of frost. I have my fingers crossed that all of those green tomatoes and green chili peppers will turn red long before that happens. Of course, October is also notable for three other things! – my birthday, Thanksgiving (this is Canada, eh?) and Hallowe’en! I made myself wait until September before I started making any Hallowe’en things, even though I was itching to start. I love Hallowe’en.

I found these cute little bags on Fishsticks' blog. She has a free tutorial there for them. I made a little change, though. She calls for fusible fleece on both the outer fabric and the lining. Being the thrifty person I am, I cut back the fleece to just the lining. I realize that fusible fleece is usually attached to the outer fabric, but since the lining overlaps the outer fabric, I attached it to the lining. You have to work both pieces a little more once you’ve sewn them together to get the seams to match up, but it’s not a big problem. Just trim the corners of the lining piece a quarter to half an inch less than called for because the lack of fleece on the outer piece changes the dimensions slightly. I also used less fleece on the handles, cutting 1 and a quarter inches to cover one quarter of the handle fabric. Someone who saw one of my bags last week asked me to make one for her to take to bingos! Coming right up!

Until next time,