May I have the Time Back Please…

Sheesh, has it really been almost 3 weeks since I updated you on my progress? Where did the time go? Can I have it back please?

Lets see here…what has been keeping me away from the computer…

Well, I’ve been working on the Summer Edition of the Just Around The Corner event I held in November.   I have the floor plan ready and most of the vendors arranged.  Although there is still room for more   I am thinking to have some quilters arranged around the building to add a bit of a feeling of home.  Instead of tearing my house apart this time I have rented the hall in Priceville for August 1, this will allow a few more vendors too.  If you are in the Grey/ Bruce area it would be great of you to stop by.  There is no admission fee and should be a nice collection of arts, crafts and goodies.

I have a number of pictures too, unfortunately they are on the camera phone so I will have to wait to get them for you.  I don’t know what your digital cameras are like, but mine eats batteries like you wouldn’t believe.  They are rechargeable thankfully so I pretty much always have to have a set in the charger.  Once day it would be nice to have a camera that actually works when I turn it on…what a concept 

I would have loved to get a picture of the chickens the other day – I think they must be the welcoming committee to the house.  We were away for a day the other weekend and when we arrived home we got out of the car and from the back came a couple of the chickens running up to the car.  It was the funniest thing to see them running up to the car.  They are pretty comical to watch running around anyway..they sort of waddle.

I’ve also been working hard to get some quilts completely finished for the Quilters In Bloom event I am attending July18.  It sounds like it will be a fantastic day.  There will be 8 gardens filled with a variety of quilted items, plus a marketplace filled with great products.  I will be displaying my quilts in one of the gardens, plus we will have a booth at the marketplace with our soaps and candles for Pioneer Spirit.  I’ve been spending a lot of my time creating the soaps and candles for Pioneer Spirit as well as taking them to the markets.  Currently I spend my Fridays at the market in Walkerton with the soaps and candles, and occasionally bring fabric too   There is also a few stores that will be caring our products! yahoo   Don’t worry I am still working on BQD patterns and getting them to stores near you!  I actually have a few patterns out being tested as well as some in progress in my studio.  One is going to be a lot of fun to make as there will be a lot of freedom with the sewing.

And this weekend…well this weekend I had a nice busy weekend of doing nothing!  Okay, well not totally nothing.  I spent the time sewing.  I am part of a block swap with the Canadian Quilters Group I belong to and spent the weekend sewing the cat blocks together.  It was a great weekend.  Who knew, sometimes its nice to have a weekend to do almost nothing

Once I get my pictures off the camera phone I will be sure to let you see them

Happy sewing!

http://buttonholequiltdesign.wordpress.com/just-around-the-corner-celebrate-local/

Things are Growing

Back when the snow was still flying we planted our vegetable seeds indoors to get them started.  We seem to have a very short growing season here so the plants need all the help they can get.

Once the weather got a little warmer we built some mini greenhouses for the plants.  We started out with some recycled fence boards…

Then we added left over drop sheet plastic.

I think the plants look pretty happy in there…

They are now uncovered and doing well…most of them are doing well anyways.  A few of them sucommed to the weather.

Shortly after planting them we had some reasonably chilly days.  Magnum was curled up underneath his quilt to stay warm   I didn’t think it was that cold!

Another New Machine

Well I do seem to have a bit of a collection going on.  I didn’t mean to get another sewing machine…actually two, but couldn’t help myself.  I seem to be especially prone to the older machines, the ones with very few gadgets and metal cases.

I was recently at a yard sale and came across two cases that couldn’t be anything but sewing machines.  What I found under the lid was two older sewing machines.  A Singer and a White.  And for some unknown reason, before I knew what was happening I had them both in my trunk…sheesh.

I gave them a quick try and the White seems to work pretty well considering how old it probably is…

The Singer ended up in my BF’s workshop as he has been after me to let him take apart one of my machines for awhile now.  The singer works ok, however it seems to be a little “stiff”.

Did you have any idea how simple the inside of a sewing machine was?  I figured it would be much more complicated.

He was looking to see what was inside to see if he could stretch it for me into a long arm quilting machine   I haven’t heard the final verdict on that yet.

Since we have been having such beautiful weather the last couple of days the flowers have been exploding in colour.  I just noticed that my mini iris’ are blooming…so pretty.  I actually have some full size irises too that need planting.  Oh, and the Forget-Me-Nots are blooming too…I just love these little flowers!

Purple Mini Iris and Forget-Me-Nots

Yellow Mini Iris

Now these pretty yellow flowers we have all over our yard, and what a hardy flower they are too   I’m not sure who decides what flowers are weeds and which our plants, but I do like the cheerful yellow dandelion.

Something I just realized the other day is that is has been more then two months since we set foot in a Wal-Mart store.  After reading the book The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman we made a conscience effort to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart.  There is a lot of people in the world that say they dislike Wal-Mart, but continue to shop there anyways.  If you are borderline about wether you should shop at Wal-Mart pick up this book at your library or bookstore and give it a read, it has some pretty interesting insite into one of the largest chain stores.

Well I have much more work to do.  I have a table runner, a quilt, some candles and even a batch of soap on the go today!

Happy Quilting.

Always So Much Going On…

We picked up some plastic fencing to give the chickens more room to roam and eat grass.  I figured if we put them were we would be digging up the garden they could eat up the grass.  The fencing we got was very tall and the stakes I had to hold it up were too short and the fence kept falling over.  So, why not stake it on both sides and create a tunnel for the chickens to follow?

It worked well and the Ladies have figured out how to use it very well.  They don’t seem to mind it at all.

It is a sight to see them wondering through the tunnel…

I’ve just finished the yummiest piece of cake.  Homemade black forest cake. Yummm.  My older brother came up last night to celebrate his birthday so I made him a black forest cake.  It amazes me how easy it is to make and yet it tastes so good!  Fortunately I don’ t celebrate a birthday everyday so when we do have cake it is a real treat.

To ware off the slice of cake we had last night after dinner we went for a walk today.  We went to a conservation area up towards Collingwood that we frequently drive past and every time we do we say – we should stop there to walk – and finally we did.  Now just as a side note, we had a thunderstorm early this morning with some very heavy downpours.   When we got into the bush there were about a dozen large trees tipped over, roots and all.  They all looked pretty fresh so we presumed that they had fallen over during one of the down pours.  Do you think they made a sound?  There was also a number of washed out sections of the trail and boy was it muddy!  Sheesh, I guess I should have had on my rubber boats.

I am also rearranging the Buttonhole Quilt Design site.  I don’t have a physical window display or store front to rearrange so I’ve got to do it on the website.  Don’t worry, it will *hopefully* be seamless.

And as an update on my foster kitty, Ella, she is getting very comfortable around the dogs and has recently realized that Magnums bed is very soft and warm too.  Especially warm when Mag is there to cuddle with

Happy Quilting.

Celebration Time!

To Celebrate my upcoming Birthday, and the fact that warm weather has finally arrived I am offering a 2 for 1 sale on my patterns! Yep thats right, buy 2 and get one, any one, for free.

How does it work? Choose the two patterns you would like to purchase, add them to your cart and check out like normal. When the box appears that asks if you would like to send a note, put in the name of the pattern you would like.  Or you can always e-mail…I do love getting mail

This offer is only good until May 26th so don’t miss out!

What a Weekend!

What a busy, but reasonably enjoyable weekend! I actually took Monday off to make it a long weekend (shhh, don’t tell my boss It was just too beautiful of weather to spend it indoors sewing, so I weeded the garden instead. I can’t believe how nice it is to see the daffodils blooming and seeing all the little sprouts popping up.

On Sunday my mom and I took the trip down to Toronto to the Creativ Festival. We had been down to the fall one and were just thrilled with the variety of arts and crafts and products. The spring one however was quite disappointing   There did seem to be a lot of booths for beaders and scrapbookers.  However the quilting and yarns had less booths than the fall.  It seemed reasonably small too.  Oh well, it was a nice outing.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing cleanup and garage saleing!

Happy Quilting.

Pioneer Spirit Grand Opening!

Well its been a long time in the works, but our combined effort has made it happen. The grand opening of our online store where we are selling our all-natural soap and beeswax candles. Feel free to stop by!
http://www.pioneerspirit.ca

Happy Quilting

Received this by e-mail

In general I”m not a fan of all the e-mails I get that just seem to be forwarded to me because I am in someones e-mail list. However I am fortunate that a couple of my friends only send stuff that is actually nice to read. I received the following today and thought I would send it out to you as it was a nice morning read.  I hope it puts a smile on your face too.

1. There are at least two people in this world that you would die for.

2. At least 15 people in this world love you in some way.

3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you.

4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don’t like you.

5. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.

6. You mean the world to someone.

7. You are special and unique.

8.. Someone that you don’t even know exists loves you.

9. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it.

10. When you think the world has turned its back on you, take another look.

11. Always remember the compliments you received..Forget about the rude remarks.

Good friends are like stars…..You don’t always see them, But you know they are there.

Easter Surprise

I know, I know, its been more then a couple of days.  I was doing so well keeping you updated, but I’ve been slipping lately.  Blog writing seems to be one of those things that if you miss a couple of days it suddenly becomes a week then before you know it its been a month!  Sheesh.

I do have some exciting things to tell you about though…

I’ve finished up a pattern for you.  I soft flannel quilt…

Sleepy Time

This particular photo is of a twin size, but the pattern includes a crib and wall hanging directions too.  Who doesn’t love frolicking sheep?

There will be two more designs available soon – they are currently out being tested.

Now, about this Easter surprise.  I had been browsing a classifieds website and came across a listing for free quilting books, and of course contacted the lady regarding them…well I had my first look at them yesterday and all I can say is Wow!  I can’t believe she was just giving these books away.  There must be more than 30 of them, all in great shape and of the most interesting topics.  I’ve so far only made it through 3 of them.  Thank you so much!

Oh, and don’t forget if you are looking to do some paper pieceing,  to check out the different paper pieced dog patterns we have.  We have 7 different dogs and a siamese cat.

Well I think that is all for now.  I best be going to start the day!

Hope you all had a happy quilty easter.

Happy Sewing

I haven’t forgot you!

Just wanted to let you all know I haven’t forgot about you. I have been working in the sewing room and have hardly come out.  I have a few new patterns that will be ready for you in the next week or so.

Plus I have been trying my hand at making rubber molds…they are…interesting

I will post pictures of the new designs when they are a little farther along…thanks for baring with me!

Happy quilting.