Good Morning Everyone!

It looks like it's trying to be sunny here on the Pacific West Coast today, I sure hope it succeeds. I haven't been doing a lot of sewing lately due to work. I've been spending a lot of time down at the gift shop helping to get it ready for cruise ship season, which is now underway. It's a huge job, boxes and boxes of items to price and place on shelves.

I was watching American Idol last night and wow! what a show. I think each of the top 13 contestants got to sing with their idols. They sure know how to put on a good show and I was so happy to see Steven Tyler hit the stage with Dream On. Congratulations to Scotty McCreary for winning the title; and congratulations to Lauren Alaina for coming in second. I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear from either of them.

I have a busy weekend at work - hopefully it'll be the last busy one now that the ships have finished with their repositioning cruises. Next week, we'll be on our usual schedule and I'll have more time to work on my quilting, knitting and planting some much needed flowers outside.

I hope everyone is enjoying this lovely spring weather and managing to get some quilting and knitting done. I'll be taking some stuff with me in the car to work on during my breaks, but I'm really looking forward to my two days off next week and getting some much needed things done around the house.

Happy Quilting and Knitting!

TGIF

Happy Friday to everyone who is reading my blog. In the Pacific Northwest, we've had all kinds of weather this week from snow, hail, sunshine, hurricane force winds - you name it, we've probably had it.

I've been working at the borders of my disappearing 9 patch quilt, in between meetings and other stuff that gets in the way of sewing. So far, I have a 4" white border, a 1" patched border using the fabrics I have in the quilt and will be adding a 2" white border today. Then, I'll be adding some applique to the 4" border in the form of 3D butterflies (I hope they work out the way I picture them). I'm loving this quilt - the colours are gorgeous together and it'll look so pretty in my livingroom on my burgundy leather couch.

I have a wool batt that I'm going to try. I bought this at a wool producing company in Alberta a few years ago. This quilt, I'm going to tie and add little buttons to it. It'll make a nice quilt to cuddle under on cold evenings when watching television.

I'm also going through a lot of my patterns for items to make for craft fairs in the fall. I used to do the craft fair circuit and haven't done it for a few years, but this year, I plan to get back into it again. I love meeting new people and knowing that my products are good enough to purchase.

I have some adorable decorator doll-type patterns I want to try too. The last time I made a doll was when my kids were little and I used to make baby dolls and clothes for my daughter and niece. I'm ready for a challenge now and have a few doll patterns just waiting for me to tackle them.

Have a fantastic weekend - I'm going to spend it sewing up a storm!

Back to Quilting!

Well, the book has been put on hold until more research has been done on it. In the meantime, we've been snowed in for the last week. This is what happens when you live in a city that doesn't get snow, one snowfall and the whole city shuts down. The one snowfall dropped over a foot of snow last Wednesday and we've had snow off and on since then.

With being stuck in the house (I don't own winter clothes because we don't have 'winter' in our piece of paradise), I decided to go through my stash of fabrics. Gee, I didn't realize I had so much. I started quilting about 30 years ago and I have at least that many years of a fabric collection. In 1999, I stopped quilting when my cousin and quilting buddy died. I returned home from her funeral with several quilts in various forms of completion. They've been tucked away since then - I couldn't even look at them, let alone do any quilting or sewing for myself. I used to work the craft sale circuit every winter to make extra $$$ but even stopped that. A lot of things have gone on in my life since then but last week, with the snowfall, I suddenly had an urge to start creating again.

I've been reading a lot of quilting blogs and getting lots of inspiration. In my stash, I found a couple of charm packets that I'd bought years ago. After some searching on the internet, I found a pattern for a disappearing 9 patch, which I put together in an afternoon. I loved it and had so much fun with it. The charm squares I had were both Moda, one was all pinks and the other was 'Poetry' - they look gorgeous together. Today, I"ll be adding borders and 3D butterflies to them.

Yesterday, we had rain all day and the roads were clear, so I ventured out to my favourite quilt shop and spent way more money than I should have but I was loving every minute of it and came home with some wonderful pieces of fabrics - I call them my 'shabby chic' collection - they have that old fashioned look in the lovely soft colour - love them.

Have patience with me on this blog - I'm really getting into trying to set it up nicely and will run into some bumps along the way, I"m sure. Happy Quilting!