Family Tree Quilt

December 2011 marked the 55th anniversary for my Grandparents. I was very excited for them, and wanted to do something special for them, so I decided to make them a quilt. I ended up making them a Family Tree quilt with all their kids (medallions), grand kids (leaves) and great grandchildren (leaves) at the time of their anniversary on it.

Sadly I was unable to finish it for their actual anniversary, but I did show them the top which was finished. They loved it.



Now I have it quilted (I love how the tree shows on the back with the quilting), bound and sent off. It arrived yesterday just in time for the snowstorm! I hope it is keeping them warm in all the snow.



I would like to thank my very talented friend Iza for drawing the tree for me - it was perfect.

A Mini Bookshelf Quilt

I finally got a project finished! I started this weeks ago, and had it all made, waiting for the binding. Apparently that was a big obstacle as it sat there for week, with the binding waiting to be sewed on. I got it all finished finally, and I think it looks great. Now I just have to decide were I am going to put it - it will most likely end up hanging on the wall by my bookshelf.

This was a great quick project (except for my stalling on the binding) and was a great way to use up my skinny scraps. I used the tutorial from Don't Call Me Betsy, which was great.

Belated Happy New Years

Wow, I took a bit longer of break over the holidays that I was intending from blogging. I haven’t done a lot of baking or even cooking really since the end of the holidays and have spent a lot of time trying to get the house back in order and finding homes for things that have shown up over the holidays.

The spice drawer in my kitchen was a disaster (see what I mean).


A trip the the dollar store for some little jars and an evening of labeling later it now looks like this:


My quilting room has also been rearranged (I can not fully open the door to get in!), and I have been working on something to fill the blank space on the wall above the ironing board. The rulers have finally found a home - with easy access from my cutting area, and the catch all drawer has been emptied and my supplies are organized in a handy little organizer (I got it for 50% off at Michaels!). I will have to post pictures, as soon as I get around to taking some and not getting distracted by working or cleaning. Now hopefully I can get some of those projects left over from last year finished (there are only 5 quilts in various stages sitting around the room, along with other smaller projects that were started and never finished).

Cake Decorating - Flowers and Cake Design

I finished the second cake decorating class (and am signed up to do the third - Fondant and Gumpaste in January). Here is a look at some of the flowers I was able to make and the final cakes.

My Lily Cake


Cake with all the other flowers

I was lucky enough that my instructor showed us how to do a few things that Wilton had taken out of the class when they redid the course, so I also got to learn the rope border and the butter cream pansy (which is one of my favorite flowers I leaned to make).




I also did a little playing around with the leftover gumpaste and some online tutorials to make a gerber daisy!



Thanks Erin, can’t wait for the next class!

Garden Update

Things are growing really well in my little garden. The first of the beans was ready today (sadly the dog stole it when I dropped it).

The peas have been coming for a couple days and are awesome. I haven't made any with them, as none have made it into the house before being eaten yet.



The strawberries have been going, and the pepper count is at 5 so far for green peppers and too many to count for the chilis!

Birdie Stitches

I first came across the Birdie Stitches BOM from Little Miss Shabby when I was looking for something to make with my sunkissed fabric. I had fallen in love with the fabric, bought a bunch and couldn’t decide what to make with it. Embroidery isn’t something that I have done before, nor was it something that I thought I would be interested in doing, but I couldn’t get those cute little birds and the bright spring colors out of my head. So I decided to do a test run to see if I could 1. do embroidery and 2. if it would drive me nuts trying to do it.



I ended up with this cute little.... something.... I am not sure what to call it, but it is cute! I think it will end up being an oddly Shaped Mug rug, or might end up hanging as a teeny quilt in my quilting room, who knows. This did tell me though, that oddly enough I kind of enjoyed doing the embroidery.

With that knowledge and an upcoming vacation, I pieced together some blocks, printed the patterns, got myself a larger hoop, some thread and a water erasable marker. I have now been working on these blocks for just over a month (I started them on July 2 - really late) and this is what I have to show to date:










I am slowly catching up and can’t wait to see the final blocks and the final quilt. I love this quilt more and more as I work on it.

Relaxing Eye Pillows

There is nothing that helps a person cool down or great rid of a headache quite like a cool pillow on your forehead. I love placing something cool over my eyes when I have a headache or just want to relax. I have a couple of the gel filled eye masks that I keep in the fridge, and while I love how cool they are, they are very uncomfortable to actually put on. I have a heat pad that I picked up at a craft market for my shoulder that I love. As I love it so much, but it is a little big for my head, I decided to make a smaller version to keep in the freezer so i could just pull one out when I wanted to put something on my head, or pop one in the microwave to have something warm.

I started with the free pattern provided by Amy Butler (I love the idea of a slip cover I can take off and wash!), and then made a few modifications to it to spruce it up a little. I had a bunch of solid fabric and some scraps sitting around so I decided to do a little piecing to make them more interesting and fun (why not have them look fun as well?). I do love how they turned out. The blue one is filled with flax seeds and the pink has rice in it. They were very simple to make and I had them done in no time, which is great.



I also tried tracing my old eye mast and making one of a different shape. It turned out nice as well, but the I like the removable cover of the Amy Butler pattern.

I had so much fun making them I am now thinking of making a neck wrap to match!

Gardening!

We are in the new house and I decided that I didn’t want to deal with trying to plant flowers and grow them in the planters in the back yard all summer. I will do the one in front, but other than that, I don’t want to be dealing with growing plants that don’t really do anything. I instead decided to see if I would be able to get some vegetables growing - they will look great and I should get some yummy produce if everything turns out well, so wish me luck!

I have two beds in the back yard that get various amounts of sun. In the sunniest i have planted beans, carrots, onions and garlic (which is already up a little bit - yay). In the shadier of the beds I have putting in peas and thinking of adding some lettuce as I have been told these do well in partial sun.

I also have a large deck and lots of space for pots, so I am trying out some pot bush beans (we will see how that goes), peppers, tomatoes and herbs! The herbs are doing great (I bought them already started) and some of the peppers already have flowers!

The last bed in the back i have left planted with the plants I found there - strawberries! I will be adding a couple of plants to replace those that seem to have died in the winter, but the remaining plants are already up and doing well. There is already a flower on a couple of the plants.

I am looking forward to see what I get out of the garden and being able to cook (hopefully) with some fresh veggies this summer!

Sorry for the Delay

Oh wow has it been a long time since I put a post up! Sorry about that. I have a good reason - I swear. Since the last time I posted, my husband and I have bought a house, moved, tiled a bathroom, painted and put in a kitchen island. On top of that we went to the in law's for Christmas. So busy! Hopefully the posts will become more frequent now that the house is unpacked and I am settling into the new routine. Enjoy some picks of the house for now.

The living room before painting:


After painting (sorry about the bad lighting)

Cupcakes and a Wedding

So the last few weeks I have been busy making cupcakes, testing icings to see how they stand up to the heat without losing it's shape (or melting all together). Why all the testing and baking? Well in a moment of insanity I offered to bake the cupcakes for my friends wedding. Why on earth did I think that was a good I deal, well I guess I will never know. But I ended up making about 100 cupcakes, icing them, transporting them 1.5 hours to the wedding, and setting them up before driving another 20 minutes to try and make the ceremony in time! Thankfully I got there in time, the icing didn't melt and nothing was destroyed in transport.



I ended up making a chocolate cupcake with a white chocolate icing and a vanilla bean cupcake with a strawberry buttercream icing. They were pretty, and held up well. Everyone seemed to enjoy them.



So I hope you enjoy the pictures and I will hopefully get the recipes up soon!

Quilting - The next project...

My Dad's birthday was in May and Father's day is coming up so I thought I would try making him a quilt (I doubt it will be done in time for father;s day, but here's hoping...).

Here is the fabric that I have for the quilt:



When I saw this I thought it would be great to go with the glider chair in my parents house:



They raise pheasants and pointing dogs, so they have a bit of this stuff around the house.

Anyways, I am hoping to get this done as soon as possible (as well as getting ready for my thesis defense in 3 weeks) so wish me luck!

First Quilt - Finally Done!

Around Christmas time I was looking for something to keep me occupied during the long dark cold evenings of winter. For some reason I decided that quilting would be a good thing to try, I don’t know why quilting struck me as something to do and have yet to figure it out. No one in my family quilts (well my mother started a quilt some 15 years ago – it is still sitting unfinished in a closet somewhere).

Anyways, I wanted something simple – I don’t do much sewing generally, and wasn’t sure how this was going to go. I found a cute kit on connecting threads, and thought that would be a good way to go. I loved the fabric and then I didn’t have to mess around, finding a patter, picking fabric, determining yardage and such. It looked like a simple enough patter, a lot of squares, in only 2 sizes.

The fabric came in in January, and I got to work. A few weeks later I had a quilt top done and ready to be made into a quilt – the kicker? There is not even close to enough room in my living room unless I move out a bunch of furniture, to put the three layers of a quilt together. This meant that my poor project was left sitting for months until I went to my parent’s place and took over their dining room to finish it.

Well, it is done now, after 1 weekend spend ironing, sewing, pinning and quilting and one weekend spent hand sewing on the binding. I am very pleased with the results, and it turned out much better than I had expected. I have found quilting to be relaxing and a great way to let me procrastinate working on my thesis. In the time since this quilt has been finished (or almost finished) I have somehow come with 4 more quilts I would like to make and am trying to figure out what I can do with other fabrics that I love.



Hopefully there will be more quilt posts to come!

Baby Quilt

A friend had her lovely baby boy a few weeks ago, and I had offered to make him a nice warm blanket for watching hockey games in – he came to his first game to watch his Dad play at only 2 weeks old, I would say he is going to be a hockey fan. Anyways, I decided to do the blanket in the colours of the team’s jerseys (they are basically the same as the Nashville Predators jersey).


I got the idea from a pattern I had seen with nice large blocks and made a trip to the fabric store. Lucky for me they were having a sale on fleece, and that would make a great hockey blanket! I didn’t do the 3 blankets like the original pattern called for, so I kind of re worked the cutting and fabric amounts to work for me.

Materials:
¼ m Fabric 1 (yellow)
½ m Fabric 2 (White)
½ m Fabric 3 (Blue)
1 m Fabric 4 (patterned)
36 x 42” batting

Squares:
4 – 9X9” squares (Fabric 1)
1 – 18 x 24” square (Fabric 2)
2 – 9 x 18” square (Fabric 3)
2 – 9 x 24” square (Fabric 3)
1 – 36 x 42 square (Fabric 4)

I sewed everything together following the original instructions, and then quilted it with a random curved line. The only thing I added as a stitch around the edge of the blanket to make it neat with a ¼” seam.

Reviews:
I love how thick and soft this blanket it. Sadly the total size of 35 x 41” is a little too small to be of much use to me. I really hope the new hockey fan enjoys it!

Ice On Whyte

It has been a great weekend around here, the weather has warmed and festivals are running, making finding some entertainment easy.

This weekend, O and I decided to check out Ice on Whyte which opened on Thursday. We don't usually go this early as not all the sculptures are done, but we wanted to see things before the heat destroyed them.

It was great to see the ice carvers at work!




The Castle theme this year was hotel, which they did a great job of. The bar was great with all the bricks. (Top of post)


I even tried the Ice Slide - which was so much fun, I highly recommend. It takes between 6-7 sec to get down (we had timed races)


If you are Killing time in Edmonton this week, be sure to check out the festival.

The Olympic Torch!

I was alive the last time Canada hosted the Olympics in Calgary (in my home province), but I was too young to really remember anything about it. Luckily, I am not old enough to remember and I am living in an area that makes it easy for me - at least this time.

The olympic torch made it's treck through our beautiful city yesterday, and I was lucky enough to see it go by. Actually it took a little planning on my part to figure out where I wanted to catch it as it was coming a couple blocks from work and a block from my house - how lucky is that?

It was great to see the crowds of people who turned out to see the torch - adults, kids and dogs lined the street, cheering for the runners. Everyone was enthusiastic and some people were even running down the sidewalks trying to catch up with the torch. Luckily traffic was stopped and people were spilling into the street in anticipation of the torch.

I got to see the passing of the torch from one runner to another, but sadly couldn't get a good picture. I have no idea who it is running with the torch at this point, as it wasn't one of the sections that I had heard who it was.

Owen got to see the torch earlier in the day, as he got to take some time off work to see his boss run with the torch. I tried to go, but it was a little to early for me to be able to take off.

Anyways, the Olympics are almost here, and while I don't get the joy of going to the actual games, I at least got to see the torch go by.

Go Canada!!

Christmas Presents make for a Busy New Year!

I guess word has made it around to my entire family that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and it showed this year with my presents. I can't wait to start using them, and they should keep me busy for the next few week at least!

First is the pasta roller and cutter set for my kitchen aid:




I have already tried this one out (who could wait) and the pasta turned out fantastic. It was so much easier than trying to hand roll and cut the pasta. However the pasta was a little thin for my taste, and I will be trying the thicker noodles soon, then on to making ravioli!

I also recieved a BeaterBlade for my Kitchen Aid, which I have heard great things about.



A cookbook that is going to result in lots of new cookies for the bulldogs.



Pie Weights! I now need to think of an excuse for needing cooked pie shells.


There were also some cake pans and cookie scoops in the pile:



This one looks exciting, and I doubt I will be able to hold out until Valentines to give it a try.



I hope to have some posts coming up on them soon. I will be making some lemon cookies for the bulldogs this weekend from the new cookbook.

Christmas Bags 2

I needed a couple more bags this year, as apparently we went a tiny bit crazy with the presents this year (oops). I still didn't want to go out and get any fabric, so I checked through my fabric and found some blue scraps big enough for the bags, and some white fabric to decorate. I had Iron on adhesive left over from making my halloween costume.

How to:

1. Iron on the adhesive (cut into the shape desired) to the back of the "decoration" fabric (the white in this case).
2. Cut out the fabric around the iron on patch. Place this shape on the right side of the fabric for the bag. Iron it to secure (make sure you like were it is, as you can't redo it after it is attached).
3. Turn bag fabric inside out and sew into a bag, fold the top over to make a loop for the drawstring and sew.

Note:
For the snow man, I hand sewed the eyes, mouth, buttons and scarf.

Quick Gift Bag

We use a lot of cloth gift bags for the holidays in our house. They are great as you can reuse them from year to year, they get packed away with the decoration and fold up nice and small, and last, Christmas fabric is so much fun.

Well this year we were a little short on bags, I don't know why (most likely the fact that more get sent out some years than come back from family depending on which side we are mailing gifts to and which ones we are visiting or it may be the fact that we have a few extra people coming for Christmas this year). Whatever the reason, Owen couldn't find a bag to wrap my present in and didn't want to use any of the paper bags we had around the house. I didn't want to go and get fabric to make new bags until it went on sale and he wanted something fun.

I can not take credit for the solution - Owen came up with the idea, all I did was a little sewing. He found a cute stocking for cheap while he was picking up something else and thought it would make a cute bag - well he was right! I love this back, and am thinking of making more like it!




Need:
1 stocking (this can be bought or made)
Ribbon
Thread

How To:
1. Fold the top of stocking down to create a place for the ribbon to thread through and act as a drawstring. Pin in place.
2. Optional - put the ribbon in it's place, making sure that it will not go were you are stitching. I like doing it this way, as I hate threading drawstrings.
3. Stitch around the stocking at the bottom of the folded area (not along the fold).

Your done (unless you need the thread the ribbon through) and can now fill it with the presents of your choice!

Baby Blanket

Isn't is cute? All packaged up so pretty. The bow matches the underside of the blanket.


The pattern is a light green with cute monkeys and the underside is a pale yellow with faint white dots on it. Sorry about the poor pictures, but getting decent lighting round here is next to impossible.

Alright, so first off, this blanket is not for me. I am not having a baby any time soon.

Now that we have that straight, this blanket is for my cousin who is having a baby, in little over a month. She will be at the family gathering this christmas, so i will give it to her then.

When I found out about her having a kid, I knew I wanted to give her something but didn't know what. I have been wanting to sew something for a while and this gave me a perfect excuse, especially with flannel being boy one m get one m free this week at fabricland!

I followed the instructions from abmatic, and ended up with a super cute little blanket. I loved making it, it was easy and quick. Now I might move onto a more complicated blanket or I may go stock up on flannel and make a stock pile of these for anytime I have friends having kids. I would love to play around with different color combinations.