Winter in NS.

 Today I thought I would share this collage I made as a result of our Sunday drive yesterday . It was simply a gorgeous day , the sun was shining and everything was just glistening , in my humble opinion there is nothing prettier than a sunny winters day after a fresh snowfall , simply magnificent and refreshing . My husband and I went for a drive down a few country roads , which are gravel roads and my first thought was oh how I would love to be in a sled pulled by a team of horse , now that would have made this scene perfect but I would not have been quite so snug and warm ;-)We stopped at several little brooks so I could get out and take a picture , love that look of the water flowing through the snow covered trees and shrubs .We even stopped in the middle of a couple of bridges so I could take a better picture of the river and yes once we got caught , a car came along and I am sure was wondering what in the heck I was doing out there but hey I was admiring the beautiful wonders of winter and appreciating nature at its best . I hope you enjoyed your little visit to my small part of the world on a sunny winters day . Thanks for stopping by , maybe we should have a cup of hot chocolate now to warm up;-) Sheila

TA-DA

Are you familiar with Ta -Da's ? Well I have become very familiar with them and they are a life saver but if I don't see another for a while I won't be tooo ..... disappointed either . In Sept. our quilt guild gave us the opportunity to do a mystery quilt , now I didn't have to sign up but I am an easy push over and it sounded like fun . It is now Jan. and I am still on the month of Oct. as far as my progress goes , pretty sad huh! The upper picture represents the quilt minus the borders all cut and many many half square triangles made , the last ones to be made are under the machine so you can see just what a ta-da looks like , it is continuous sewing then you cut along the solid lines and you end up with 84 (I think) half square triangles . Now this is ingenious and as I said saves a lot of work . This quilt has a lot of HST(half square triangles),one color combination you needed 240 and the other three combinations were each 160 , now that is a lot of triangles don't you think?I do have everything cut except the borders and will start now to assemble blocks , they are 16" blocks and I must make 20,quite a task when I am so far behind but it is entirely my own fault , I started too many other projects instead of keeping up each month :-(  Good thing this isn't a marathon .
You are probably wondering what became of the jumper , well I did get it constructed as far as I could , I need a zipper and didn't have one to fit so I will have to make a trip to town and I couldn't just not sew this afternoon so was a good girl and did that last Ta - Da ;-)
What were you doing today ?
 Sheila

Crazy Quilting Friday

Today's block is mostly from a small bag with the scraps from a kit I once made and the rest were in the same drawer in my little wicker storage cabinet ,before I started I decided that it had to be made from this drawer ;-) I wish it made a difference but sadly it hasn't. Then I thought I should determine just how many blocks I have made and to my surprise I have 24 blocks and even more surprising was the fact that half of them are all pretty dainty colors and the other half are all dark colors , wonder what that says about my personality. So now I feel I must make two quilts , this just won't look nice as one and obviously I till have some scraps for the making of many many more blocks and there is no hurry to have the quilts made so onward it is !

What a beautiful winter day it is , after the snowfall we had yesterday it is simply magnificent looking out over the field with the sun shining and the snow just glistening ,it is colder than yesterday but it is January so we must expect this type of weather .

I'm off now to do a little sewing , going to try something different today , I am making my granddaughter a jumper and it has been a while since I have done any garment sewing .
Enjoy your day whatever you are doing and in closing today I would like to share this quote I came across the other day , read and then really read it again , it is so powerful .
Sheila

"The true spiritual secret is this ;What you seek you already are .True success is discovering your inner divinity -it's the ability to love and have compassion , trust your intuition ,and awaken to your unlimited creative nature . "

Deepak Chopra

I'm late!

Oops , I am participating in the One Christmas item a month challenge with Narelle and I was suppose to post a picture of my finish on the 25th and here it is already the 27th , oh well I will try to be on time next month . Without further ado here are two little finishes for this month , I had both started so decided to finish them .I enjoy doing redwork and these are quick and I like that part ;-)
 It is another stormy day here on the east coast but mild , it is a mixed bag of weather with snow and rain and ice pellets , just lovely weather to stay inside and sew or read a good book! Hope your day is a good one and thanks for stopping by.
 Sheila

Crazy Quilting Friday and a Happy Dance

I have discovered by making these crazy blocks that my favorite colors are definitely earth tones , seems that is what I have the most of , I am really happy with this block even though I haven't done any embellishment as of yet. Thanks to Betsy of Quilting Fiesta for hosting this weekly event .

I'm also doing a happy dance today as I have finally finished the top for the Christmas Row by Row quilt from Fat Cat Patterns BOM  .I fell in love with this sweet quilt whenever I seen it and was doing well to keep up in the beginning (story of my life) and then I fell behind but I was determined to get it finished so here is the completed top , I know there is plenty to do yet but all that applique, and there was lots of it is now done so I can concentrate on getting it quilted , I am debating doing this myself on the machine , we'll see . You can't really see the side of the quilt but there are trees that look like boats to me as well as gingerbread men in each corner ,maybe once it is quilted I can get a better picture of the whole quilt. Funny when I started this quilt I thought this would be a good stash buster as I was determined to not buy anything except the background fabric but guess what it didn't seem to make any difference at all and these crazy blocks are suppose to do the same thing but those drawers seem to be just as full as when I started ,hmmm , could it be that I continue to buy more ;-)  Have a Happy Friday and thanks as always for stopping by .

Sheila

Finished

These are the last two rows I recieved in theRow by Row Round Robin in 2008 , I love these two rows together , they look perfect and my husband asked if I would make them into a wall hanging for his office so that is what I did and I am really pleased with the outcome and so is he . The scene on the top called Resting by the Waters was done by my friend Wilma and the lower row with the log cabin blocks and the canoe with fish hanging over the side was done by my friend Marilyn both such unique rows that they deserved to be together ,I hope Wilma and Marilyn will be pleased .
Thanks for stopping by . Sheila

A finish and a sneak peak

I completed this cushion in late Dec. but didn't post it because it was a gift for my friend Linda and I didn't want to spoil the surprise so now that I know she has it I can show you . The redwork is a pattern by Bronwyn Hayes , the rest of the cushion I used a pattern by Sally Giblins and in an earlier post you will see that I made the original redwork that came with that pattern "Sunshine in my Heart" .It is a fun cushion to make and the pattern can be found in Australian Country Threads Vol 9 No.7 .
I little sneak peak at what I am doing now , I should have this finished in a day or two so I will post the finished project at that time.
We had a little snow today but overall it was a beautiful day ,I hope all is well where ever you are and thanks for stopping by .
Sheila

Wednesdays Flowers and a Finish

It has been a long time since I posted any flowers for Wednesday and I only have two to show but it is a start in the right direction . Also this Row by Row wallhanging that is the result of a round robin with some friends is now complete . The top row was made by myself and the Theme for this round robin for me was "Some of my Favorite Things" ,well one thing I love to do is hang out clothes , I absolutely love the smell of clothes that have dried by the sun and wind , the aprons were done by Toni , no blog, the sewing room was done by my very good friend Dianne and she just started a new blog so please go on over and welcome her to blogland .Dianne has lots of talent to share with us so give her a little time and she will be up and running with lots of beautiful things to show us , to find her head on over here .The spools were done by my friend Lynda , no blog which is too bad as she is also extremely talented so come on Lynda time to start that blog and share with everyone . The beautiful redwork embroidery was done by my friend Jeanette who can make the smallest neatest stitches of anyone I know ,to visit with Jeanette head on over here . Then the final row was made by Annette who I don't believe has a blog either but these ladies have done an amazing job of my favorite things , the aprons for the cooking and baking , the sewing room my favorite room in the house , the spools of thread that I need to do that sewing , the redwork of a cat(I love cats) , a teapot and cup (everyone knows I love my tea , a plant I love gardening and flowers and of course my home , always my favorite place to be and the books well I also love to read so this little hanging says it all and I love it and it will hang in my sewing room to enjoy and be a reminder of my wonderful friends .
Thanks for stopping by and to see more of Wednesdays flowers stop by to visit Karen here .

Winter Wonderland

This is what it looks like outside my kitchen window right now , lots of snow and lots of birds trying to get some seeds to keep their little bodies warm .The snow on the top of this bird feeder fell yesterday and today , and it is still snowing . The little feeder to the left with the odd shaped pole has several holes drilled in it so we can fill it each morning with a mixture of sunflower seeds , nuts and peanut butter and the frequent visits we have from woodpeckers tells us it is a diners delight .We do have to keep an eye open for the larger birds like the starlings as they will clean this out in no time ,I know they have to eat too BUT I like to help out the little ones as much as possible during these winter months . I love watching the birds , a real delight!

Here is what I am working on .

My New Years resolution is to finish some UFO's that still linger in my sewing space . I believe the year was 2009 when I took part in a Row by Row round robin with some friends ,yesterday I was making a list of what needs to be completed and this one jumped out at me to please finish me . My friend Lynda had made the two rows of spools with a narrow brown strip of fabric between them and I really like that look so I  went into my stash to find some fabric as close to that fabric as possible and started to cut the narrow strips needed to sew between each row .I also felt I should make a narrow strip around the whole unit to make it complete and then came the real dilema , what was I going to use for a border , I put the new wall hanging on my design wall and tried different fabrics and finally decided on this floral print but now that it is sewn on I am not so sure , what do you think?? It does have all the same colors that are in the different rows but is it too busy?
 I have joined up with the Sew Its Finished blog so I will be accountable for my UFO's .I must make the list and publish it on this blog so I will have something to look at and remind me of things that need to be completed BEFORE I start something new , Now I am not saying I won't do anything new this year but I will try my best to stay focused on my list . Thanks for stopping by . Sheila

Crazy Quilting Friday

This weeks block uses one of the stitcheries I had done for the Christmas Wishes BOM by Gail Pan . Great to be back to these blocks , thanks to Betsy of Quilting Fiesta for hosting this weekly event .
It is snowing today , rather pretty outside , looks like a snowglobe;-) Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.
Sheila

My first finish for 2011

In 2007 I took part in the One Day Mystery with Planet Patchwork , it was my first time ever doing this type of thing so choosing fabrics was a real challenge for me and following the list of fabrics they suggested this is what I came up with . Now I will tell you when I finished this quilt I was really disappointed as I just didn't like how certain fabrics were together so ...... I decided I had to do something to jazz it up and take the focus off of what was bothering me so I commenced to add the basket and flower applique , let me tell you  that it took much longer to do the applique than it did to put the whole quilt top together but when I finished which was not exactly in a hurry I was pleased with the results , at least now I could live with my choices and finish the quilt .The quilt top has been in my UFO pile since that time and recently I took it out to our little church group the Holy Name Quilters and we hand quilted it and I love how the quilting looks .It sure does feel good to have this completed , I came home yesterday and cut the binding and sewed it on last evening so other than a label it is done !! Thanks for stopping by and I hope the sun is shining where ever you are .
Sheila