These boots are made for walking ......

Well maybe not , but they are darn cute ,I am taking part in a postcard exchange with a yahoo group and this months theme that I signed up for was boots or shoes so I found an illustration of a boot that I liked and these are the three boots that I will mail out .

Strange photo I know but I lined them up on my design wall and all you could see was loose threads so I cropped the photo . This is about as close as I will ever come to even owning a pair of boots like this , wearing them would be out of the question with my knees but hey I think they are cool ;-)

I also wanted to share this photo that my granddaughter Caitlin took with her phone camera , it kind of blew me away , see if you can see the image I see . Pretty neat photo I thought.

What do you think , Caitlin really loves to take photos and does a great job , she is very artistic .
Thanks for the visit and hope you are having a terrific day , I am off to have some lunch then back to the sewing room .
hugs Sheila

WIP Wednesday and you know how it goes

It is a raining day here on the east coast , seems I am always saying that lately but we actually have had some incredible warm weather lately with beautiful sunny skies and today we are making up for it ;-) I don't have a lot to report on progress this week , I have been otherwise preoccupied but I did a little landscape postcard for a 5th anniversary for the Val Hearder landscape group on yahoo .

This was made using hand dyed fabrics I purchased in Mabou ,kind of fun to do. I also did a few more Christmas postcards but did not take a photo so you will have to take my word for it.
 Now for the rest of my title , "you know how it goes" well I have many favorite blogs I love to visit and recently I was visiting with Raewyn  and she was showing us her delightful little quilt which she had displayed for a little mini quilt show over at Taryn's blog and you just know I had to check this out as I love mini quilts . Well I discovered a lovely blog , had never been there before and now I am a happy follower so thanks Raewyn for introducing me . I am going to enter this little quilt into her mini quilt show as it is one of my all time favorite mini quilts I have made so far .The basket quilt was a free pattern on Temecula Quilt company ,it was a really fun quilt along project.

The little quilt is now in my childs cradle that I had as a small child along with a rag doll I made some years ago . You should head on over and see all the wonderful little quilts that have joined in on the mini quilt tour so far.
I am linking up today to the Needle and Thread Network ,thanks for stopping by and have yourself a wonderful day .
 hugs Sheila

It might be raining outside but the sun is shining in here

Yes it is a dreary wet day here on the east coast but this morning a package arrived in the mail from my friend Judy of Knit,Quilt , Spin and Weave (Fundamentally Fiber) ,what a lovely way to brighten my day just look at what she kindly sent to me .

 This gorgeous wall hanging , so well done with a pieced star /sun in the center and quilted rays to finish it off,oh and I must mention her pretty hand dyed fabrics she used for the sky , wow ,such talent . Thank you so much Judy for thinking of me it truly did brighten my day and will find a spot in my sewing corner so I will always have the sun shining no matter the weather outside. As you can see by her blog title Judy is a multi talented lady who happens to love to ski and is probably praying for snow ;-)

 My  friend Annette of In Stitches and Seams also was sweet enough to send me on some of her patterns she designed , you will remember this bag that she gave me when we met in Saskatoon in August , well she sent me the pattern so I can make more of these wonderful bags,two in fact so one to share  .

 This is the bag she gave me in August and I use this all the time , it is large and sturdy and holds all my quilting supplies when I go quilting on Tuesdays .So now I have these patterns to make more if I so desire .Thanks so much Annette you are a sweet friend .

 Annette is an amazing designer and recently took part in the McCall's Design challenge and made it all the way to the finals , way to go Annette !!
I have to tell you what I have been doing , you all know that it was Halloween recently and that means pumpkins , well I don't carve the pumpkins anymore but still like to have one or more on display and for my eating enjoyment later on .I had Bill help carve up the pumpkin for me and I cooked it and pureed it and then had all this pumpkin ,so what to do .I searched the internet for recipes and came across a pumpkin bread I had to try and I have to say this is the best pumpkin bread I have ever eaten and I think Bill will second that .

Now doesn't that look yummy, I suppose you would like to know where I got the recipe , ok I will share that because something this good should be shared .By the way the white part is a cream cheese filling , yeah that could explain why this is so good . The only change I made was I left out the nuts but I am sure they would be a lovely addition .http://www.joyofbaking.com/breakfast/PumpkinBread.html
I also made some banana pumpkin muffins which were good but nothing compared to this bread . Now there is plenty in the freezer for when the need for more yumminess arises ;-)
 Well I am off now to do a little sewing in my now sunny corner so thanks for stopping by and have yourself a wonderful day .
hugs Sheila

WIP Wednesday

I can't believe a week has gone by , where does the time go anyway ? My dear little granddaughters Nila and Elise spent the weekend with us so I was busy playing checkers and monopoly and no sewing took place but that is just fine , I had a delightful weekend . Elise who is just four asked me if it was hard to sew , I told her no and that when she got a little older I would be happy to teach her to which she replied " Oh good Gammie because I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up" ,how precious is that :-)
 So what did I work on you are asking , well I did get a few small things done since last week , first off I came across a pile of Christmas strings so proceeded to make mug rugs and I even had some left over bindings to use to finish them off.

 Then I came across some sample pieces from a class I had taught with permission using a pattern by  Annette of In Stitches and Seams for a sweet little candle mat , To make the original pattern I needed six sections , well I had only four left so I did a little thinking and decided to reduce the pattern by 60% and voila here is my little version of Annette's pattern.

 If I was smart I would have taken a picture of the large one next to the reduced size , ok just wait and I will go do that .

There you go , there is quite a difference but the smaller one is ideal for a mug rug or even a candle , just so cute.
I also finished off a little wool pincushion I had started ,this is a free pattern by Terri of Whimsical Quilts

And finally for today I am in the process of adding borders to one of the red work projects I showed last week, it was a little challenging trying to figure out the width of the inner border so I could use these pieced strips I had left over from another project, see I hate to waste anything and try to find uses for even the smallest pieces of fabric . Shelley helped me figure out the necessary changes to make this work and it looks great .

 Thanks so much for stopping by , I am linking up today to the Needle and Thread Network , be sure to hop on over and take a boo at what everyone is doing this week .
 hugs Sheila

WIP Wednesday on Thursday

A day late but better late than never I guess . In the evenings I like to sit and stitch ,sometimes it is redwork and sometimes it is just sewing on a binding but my hands do not care much for being idle . I recently finished off these two redwork projects , now to make them into something .

This one has been in the works for a long time actually , I kept setting it aside and doing something else but decided it was time to get this completed , this was a free pattern but I do not remember where I got it from and I can't locate my print out right now,if someone recognizes it please let me know the designer so I can give credit.Thanks to Kate I have an answer to the designer for this cute pattern, you can get the pattern here  and the designer is Jan Wilde .

This next one is  Gail Pan design called Red Robins at Christmas , isn't it a sweet design. This one I remembered to iron on some interfacing on the back so you can't see my threads traveling :-)

 This little project was a delight to make , a sweet little pattern by Anni Downs of Hatched and Patched ,I just love it!

This stitchery has been done for months and finally I got around to adding borders , this is a This and That pattern and another favorite of mine.

I had made nine patch blocks for an exchange and had some strips left over so rather than toss them I looked to see what I could use with them to make some mug rugs , I made two of these .The Santa fabric I have had for years and years and since I had just small scraps of that fabric too I used it and really love how they turned out.
I showed you some postcards I made using vintage Christmas cards in an earlier post , well I also made these two using fabric scraps just for the fun of it .

 Now that may seem like a lot to show but this didn't happen overnight , it represents quite a few days of sewing over the past while . I am linking up to the Needle and Thread Network ,thanks for stopping by today and do yourself a favor and head on over and check out what others have done this week.
 hugs Sheila