A little progress

This seems to have been a slow month for me , but I am plugging away behind the scenes and have two small accomplishments to share . First off the March Bom from Bunnyhill Designs which are meant to be ornaments but I chose to make a mini quilt instead .

I love my sheep , it is wool as well as the snowman , the heart is a homespun as well as the border both from my scrap bag , yeah !
Next I finished the mystery BOM by Buttermilk Basin for March , these are such fun to make , quick and easy , wool on cotton .

The colours are a bit off , the beehive is much darker than it appears here . Wonder what the April block will be ? Thanks to Stacey for providing these blocks each month .
 I am working away on my Charming stars quilt when I get a minute , I can honestly say that machine quilting a large quilt is not my favorite thing to do , quite a challenge . I am making progress so I guess that is good news and I also have quite a bit done on my sampler that I am hand quilting , just one full row to go now , happy, happy !
 Well that is all from me today , hope the world is treating you right , have a wonderful day and thanks ever so much for stopping by.
 hugs Sheila

Spring !!

Spring has officially arrived but we need to tell Mother Nature , she seems to think we should still be having winter weather , it is mighty cold out there today with strong winds blowing around that snow  . However ,the mailman has brightened my day with not one but two Spring postcards . The first one is from my partner in the exchange  Jo  .

Jo is new to making postcards and did a fabulous job , isn't it just adorable . The wording and the line from the bee have been hand embroidered . You would certainly never know you weren't familiar with making postcards , really great job!! Thanks so much Jo ,I love it .
 Next is my friend Judy who sent along this lovely rose , I am quite intrigued as to how she made it . I love all the quilting she has done as well .

Isn't it gorgeous , she painted the fabric for the rose with textile paints , so pretty . It will be a LONG time before we see any roses here , first we must melt about 6' of snow . Thanks so much Judy I love it !!
 I have one little finish to share , I had been following along with the spring  blog hop on Buttermilk Basin and printed off a few of the patterns provided but this one really spoke to my heart so I immediately started stitching .

My hubby laughed when he seen this , he said , "Do you think that will work lol"!  I can hope . This was a free pattern from Gail Pan , I think it is quite cute and was fun to stitch up while sitting wrapped up in my quilt :-)
 I also have been making a few postcards , I can only share one right now and that one has been sent off to my Mom who celebrates her birthday this week .

Similar to one I have in my new header  , I just had to get rid of that snow picture , thought it might be jinxing us .
 I am off now to get some supper on the stove so I thank you for stopping by today and hope you have a really nice day .
Hugs Sheila

Meet and Greet

I am a little late to the party but today we are celebrating the first day of Spring with Madame Samm in our Meet and Greet Stitchers  Around the World  . Years ago I did lots of cross stitching and absolutely loved the process , very relaxing and fun to do . Here are two projects I did early on ,

This is my favorite cross stitch project I have ever done , it speaks of many things I love , it hangs in my kitchen on my hutch .

Sorry for the glare on this picture , this one has glass over it and I tried various angles but always that spot. However I like this one too , the quote is so true . These are the only cross stitch projects I have any others I did were given away many years ago .

I also love to embroider and this sewing machine cover was a kit I bought while visiting PEI a few years back , I do love this too :-)
Finally I will share a Christmas wall hanging that I did a few years back from a pattern called Christmas Wishes by Gail Pan I believe , it was a free BOM at that time .

Sorry I was late , the day just crept up on me . Thanks for stopping by today and hope this first day of Spring brings lovely weather and sunshine .
 Hugs Sheila

Some fun mail

The weather outside is frightful to say the least , we had over 40 cm. of snow over the weekend and today we are getting a further 40cm. with winds gusting to 80 km. and hour , how is that for dreadful just a couple of days away from the official date for Spring .
                                
It won't be long before we can't see out this at all , pretty close now .
All bad things aside I did receive some yummy mail lately , first was this wonderful package from Annette of In Stitches and Seams  , I was the lucky winner of her blogaversary giveaway .

It was like Christmas with so many great gifts , some really beautiful charm squares in just the colours I love , that dandy cloth tote , scissors and measuring tape , a double ended needle threader and some chopsticks that will be perfect for turning out those corners or stuffing something . Oh there is also some very yummy tea , cinnamon flavored it smells divine and tastes wonderful too :-) Thanks so much Annette for making my day .
 Yesterday a little package arrived from Vicki Welsh , I had been randomly picked as a follower of her newsletter to win a FQ of her gorgeous handdyed fabric . If you are not familiar with Vicki you should take some time to check her out here . Thanks so much Vicki .

Vicki also included a little notepad . I am not sure just yet where this fabric will be used but it sure is interesting .
 On the sewing front , not a lot happening , I have been preparing my charming stars quilt for machine quilting and did get a couple of seams done but not enough to share . I also made and sent off my postcards , which reminds me we are getting very close to the date all postcards in the exchange should be mailed out , March 23 which is Monday . I hope everyone is making progess in that area . Once your postcards arrive please post a picture on your blog as well as on the flicker page, can someone tell me how I can put that link on my sidebar,I have no clue how to do that . I am not computer savvy for sure . For now here is the link  https://www.flickr.com/groups/2785330@N22/
 I have been doing a little secret sewing too but can't share that for obvious reasons , someday I will share but not for a while . One of those projects is for our guild challenge which this year involves our birthday , I had fun choosing a design for this one , I was a little lost in the beginning but am quite pleased with what I have come up with , you won't see that one until May .
 Well I must go enjoy the storm , watch those snowflakes fall from the sky and make things lovely and white AGAIN .  Hey before you know it I will be complaining about the heat , not this year I won't lol!!
 Have a super day and thanks for stopping by and if you happen to be having wonderful sunny and warm weather do you thing you could spare just a little for us , I would be forever grateful .
 hugs Sheila

Charming Stars top

I finally finished the Charming Stars quilt top , a SAL with Terry of Terry's Treasures . I am a little slow but at least it is now in the ready to be quilted category .

It is 74" square so a decent size lap quilt for my grandson Christopher , he saw it on my design wall and fell in love with it . I was going to go find fabric for the border but decided I would be thrifty and use up the rest of those shirts and just pieced random pieces , I could have done better with that but I still think it looks ok and I don't think Christopher will complain . Now to piece a backing , I do have fabric that will do that job nicely so I won't have to visit the fabric shop afterall ;-)
 What a gorgeous day here , spring is in the air and I think I will get dressed now and head on out for a little walk in the fresh air I think I earned it after finishing this up .
 Hope you have a wonderful day , thanks for stopping by .
 hugs Sheila

FNWF

                                                         


Friday the 6th was the first Friday of the month which means FNWF hosted by Cheryll  , thanks so much Cheryll. I decided it was the perfect time to get my little wool ornament made for this month , this is part of an OOM on FB on the wool applique page .

These are such fun to make . I also finished off an embroidery piece I found in my bag still in a hoop , and who knows how long it has been there , so long I have no idea who the designer is but I think it might be Jenny of Elephantz.

Here it is when I first finished it and I took this picture after I had begun to do some coloring in the flowers so I could show you the before and after . Here is the after ...

I used water colour pencils and I love how this looks , this will make a sweet pocket on a purse for summer don't you think ?
Now I just have to share what my granddaughter left here on her last visit . Elise is very creative and loves to do Art as she calls it .

This is their dog  who is a huge dog with large brown patches and she made him laying down in the grass , this is not the best picture but it really does look like their dog . I am sure she will be looking for this so I will take good care of it until she comes again ;-)
 One more thing I want to share , we have a little visitor since the bad weather moved in , a cute little squirrel ,Oh I know they can be a nuisance but they are so cute and I know it will head on back to the woods once the warm weather comes .  We have been watching its antics for a week now , so cute.

Do you see him sitting there on the railing , can you see the apples it has set up on the railing one by the post to the left and the other next to a bird feeder to the right of him , he thinks he has hidden them haha. I wish I could have seen him do it and gotten a video of him as he actually has taken those apples and deposited them into the little open feeder to the left of him , he carried them up that post and somehow managed to get them in there , I can see them from my kitchen window but due to the amount of snow on the deck I can't get a picture . Bill had thrown the apples out as they were less than desirable but to him I am sure a real delicacy . You know the other thing that is amazing , the crows came to pick up apples from the field and that little squirrel chased them away . He took some pieces of apples the other day into the pine trees and the crows tried to get them from him but he actually jumped on them , yep , hard to believe if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes . I need to get some of this on video lol!!
 Well thanks for stopping by today , hope you had a wonderful day , we sure did , the sun was shining and the temperatures rose over the zero mark , yippeeee .
 Hugs Sheila

Who wants to be my partner ?

I have sent out all the partners for the postcard swap , if you have not received an email from me with your partners name and address please let me know asap . I had just enough names to give everyone a partner except me , is anyone interested in being my partner , I would love to challenge a newbie to make a postcard so if you are willing email me your information and we can get started . You can find a link in the previous post for a tutorial I did a few years back , you will learn the basics and see this is not difficult and so... much fun .
 This week I have finally gotten back to my quilt that has been on the frame since last year , for those new to my blog , I fell last April and broke my wrist so no stitching of any kind for many months and then I just let this sit and wait for me to be inspired to finish it . This quilt has a story behind it as it is made with blocks that I received in exchanges way back in 1999-2000 on a now defunk website called SewingWorld ,this was an 18 month exchange and each month someone new would choose the block we were to make and send to our partner for that month , in the end we were to end up with 18 blocks to make our quilt . Unfortunately that did not happen ,many blocks never did arrive and I decided that I would incorporate some blocks I had made as practice blocks before I made the 'Real' block to send to my partners , I was after all a very new quilter and wanted to send the best blocks I could therefore  many blocks in this quilt are these practise blocks and for the most part I used unbleached cotton as my background . I made a turn yesterday so progress is being made .

The block on the end here is a practise block , all the rest in this row are from the exchange . It feels great to be handquilting this , I love to hand quilt but do prefer handquilting at the church like the old fashion quilting bees , we have so much fun together . Oh that reminds me we put my spool block quilt on the frames this week and a few stitches were made , so happy about that .

 Here you can see my tools of the trade , love my little heart shaped holder for my thread needles and thimble, a gift from my friend Lynda  and my little yellow grabber , an invaluable tool given to me by my friend Linda of Scrapmaster . There is a lot of quilting to do in this block , all those tiny triangles to stitch around but I am enjoying the process . 

 Today is a sunny but very cold day , we were fortunate to escape the storm that hit many of the eastern states , that large system just brushed by our province without leaving us any of the snow , so thankful for that we really do not need more snow ;-) It is a great day to stay inside and either do some stitching on my quilt or head to the sewing room and do some sewing on my charming stars quilt , I should have had that done long ago but you know me I get sidetracked and find something interesting to start but that is what makes life wonderful isn't it .

 Enjoy your day and thanks so much for stopping by .

 Hugs Sheila 

A little fun with a shirt

I was visiting Fiona's blog a few days ago and she talked about the fact she had joined in a little SAL to make an apron from a shirt , well I have been wanting to do this for ages so I proceeded on over to this blog  where I asked Jane if I could join in the fun . My first step was to find a shirt I was willing to cut up and I had a few of Bill's shirts I could choose but I thought I would check at Frenchies , a local thrift type store and I found this really cute little ladies shirt .

Those little frills just caught my eye but when I got it home I realized it was rather small and would not cover me very well but eventually I will make one for one of my granddaughters as it is too small even for me to wear . So on  to plan" B" , one of Bill's shirts and I happen to love linen so I chose this very plain linen shirt , he didn't like the wrinkes .It is plenty big and will definitely cover me and then some ;-)

I had already done some cutting at this point and today I finished the apron .

I had to dress it up some so I added this hexie to the pocket . Pretty simple project and fun too :-)

I am in the process of assigning names for the postcard exchange , if you haven't received a partner yet don't panic I will get to you but you can always start stitching while you wait ;-). Is there anyone else interested in taking part , for those who have never made a postcard before don't be shy , they are not difficult and I have a tutorial here on my blog that can possibly help with the construction . The finished  size is 4"x6" and they are made entirely of fabric with a stiffener such as timetex between the layers to make them stiff enough to mail . Now it is up to you whether you mail them as is or in an envelope , if you have any embellishments that might get caught in the machines I would strongly suggest using an envelope .  So here is the link for the tutorial , lets have a few more particpants .
 Thanks for stopping by and have a great day .
 Hugs Sheila

Are you ready for another postcard swap ??

Good morning , a snowy one here in Nova Scotia but what is new huh , we have so much snow it seems to always be the topic of conversation . As you know Easter and Spring are just around the corner and I am wondering if there is enough interest to have another postcard swap with the theme of either spring or Easter , since Easter is just a month away I will be giving you just three weeks to make and send that postcard , so the due date is March 23  , that gives you three full weeks and I think you can handle one little postcard in that time frame , what do you think ?? I must have the names , addresses , blogs as well as email information as soon as possible by email , please send it even if you have taken part in other swaps , it just makes my life so much easier .

Here is one I made last spring for an exchange . Think pretty flowers or bunnies or whatever Spring and Easter may mean to you  . Lets make this fun :-) 

 I have my first finish for March , my mini quilt , I only had to finish the embroidery and quilt it but at least it is done .

Thanks to Bunnyhill Designs for this sweet little pattern . 

On Thursday we had  visitors for supper and it just so happens it was a few days before Nila's birthday , Nila turned 10 on Saturday so I decided I needed to bake her a cake . I had asked her a long time ago what her favorite cake was so I made a marble cake . It turned out to be somewhat of a challenge as I was missing some of the ingredients and had to do some substitutions and had very little icing sugar so a thin covering was all I could muster up but it was delicious all the same and I think she was pretty pleased .

I didn't have any candles either , that is what happens when you don't know they are coming until the last minute ;-) 

 Time to run , my tummy is rumbling so time to eat . Have yourself a wonderful day and thanks so much for the stopping by .

 Hugs Sheila