The Blob (otherwise known as knitting?)

Here lies 'the blob'. Two years (almost) in the making and it's STILL NOT DONE!! I will never win any speed records with my knitting. It will be (if it ever grows up) the Einstein coat as shown below.
The pattern is this one from Sally Melville's 'Book 1: The Knit Stitch' book.

Tomorrow I will be searching for funky buttons for it. Eternal optimist as I am, I figure I might just finish it sometime in the next year (or three). My long-suffering DH is taking me to the 'CreativFestival' in Toronto for the day, so it's unlikely I will be doing a blog post. Just gossip amongst yourselves!

Progress on TIF

I have made some progress on the October TIF piece. Several of the seam treatments came from Pam Kellogg's e-book (with some variations). I'm still not 100% sold on this particular colourway, but we'll see what I think once it's finished. A couple more cottage pictures.....

Square Pegs and Round Holes

Door demolition has begun and now we just have to hope the new one ends up fitting in the hole. If there's some 'blue' air tainting the sky from this direction, you'll know why! More cottage pictures...enjoy!

I'm baaaccckkkk!!

Actually I've been back a couple of days but haven't spent much time on the computer. Today I've been working on my TIF piece, but not much to show yet. So....cottage pictures!!

The first two are from one of our walks....

This final picture is the view from their dock, early in the morning....

Ahhhh....heaven on earth.

Reporting in...

...just to let you know that I'll be away for a couple of days. We're going to visit friends at their cottage & will be back late Friday afternoon. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Progress on TIF

I actually had an afternoon to stitch today, so I have something to show you! The block is progressing nicely. I found the piece of (antique) lace I wanted to use and it's been inserted. Picture is clickable!

October TIF

I haven't accomplished much today, but here is my block pieced together for the October TIF challenge. I've tentatively decided where I will put the image and the safety pin marks the area where I plan to put my button cluster. The next decision I have to make is where I will put my piece of lace and exactly which one I will use. Then it's on to embellishing - my favourite part!

Lucky me!

A friend gave me these wonderful plastic bobbins, some of which already have some floss wound onto them, along with some spools of perle cotton. I was thrilled with the bobbins to say the least. I plan to rewind the floss onto my normal storage system and then wind some of my perle cotton spools onto the new bobbins. It sure will make storage a lot easier! Spools take up so much space and are notorious for escaping their confines and rolling all over the floor. The cat is the only one that is thrilled with that!!

Colours of Autumn

Obviously I did nothing in the crafting line today, nor did I have time to even look in my studio. All I have to offer is this view of the neighbours tree. It was amazing how the sky was so dark after the rain and the sun was shining just on the treetop.

Grandma's Lace

Today I have two pictures of some old lace I have in my collection. All of these were made by my grandmother who passed away in the early 1960's. I have a number of the motifs in the top picture that are loose the these pictured here are joined together with some dark brown crocheting (which I suspect might have been done by my mother). These pieces are also by my grandmother...I have a number of the square motifs (all loose). The strip in the middle is knitted and was most probably meant to trim a pillowcase. The bottom piece is crocheted and also for a pillowcase.

One of 'those' days

I think I've mentioned before that my mother used to have an expression she used when she was having a bad day..."I should have stood in bed". Well, today was one of 'those' days. DH and I decided it would be a good day to do our grocery shopping (the store we prefer is over half an hour away). It's pouring rain and it was a case of Mother Hubbard's cupboards were getting bare. So...we set out. Over half way there it suddenly dawned on me that we don't get paid until tomorrow!! Oops...can't get groceries. Neither one of us even thought of the date when we set out. Oh well...at least the car got washed.
The picture today is a re-tread of one I had on here many moons ago, but I know I have some new readers who haven't seen them. Enjoy!

aaaaaaa....aa......CHOO!!

Yep, that's me right now. The trees are 'doing something' which means my allergies are rearing THEIR ugly little heads, and making MY head hurt! At least there's one good thing about winter...the snow covers up the leaves and I can breathe.

Today I spent working on another Christmas present and on a piece of mail art, which is hopefully heading out in the mail tomorrow. It's going to be fun to see what the postal person has to say when they see it.

The picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, just after Jack tied a rope around all these flowers to keep them more or less upright. The sunflowers were so heavy and were crushing all the cosmos. Right now the little goldfinches and chickadees really like our garden!

Spinning Wheels & Threading Needles

Anyone who happened to see some black smoke issuing forth from this direction must have tuned in to my thought waves this afternoon. I was trying to sew on a Christmas present (I can't show you what it is!) and things were NOT going well. My machine was arguing mightily about stitching through anymore than two layers of fabric. I rethreaded it numerous times (muttering, which then evolved to full-fledged cursing) because the thread kept breaking. I changed tension, I cleaned the machine, I tried a new needle, I tried a different spool of thread...a different bobbin. Nothing worked. I even resorted to hauling out machine #2 (which hasn't seen the light of day for at least five years...and didn't want to see it today either, I might add). Finally, my little pea brain registered that maybe...just maybe...sewing through numerous layers of fabric (one of which was denim) MIGHT just go better with the use of a jeans needle. Success!! Now, can somebody tell me why it took me over two hours to figure that out???

The picture above is in our garden, and the one below is an atc I made with a fall theme.

Aha!

Now I know why my feed list is going slightly crazy! SharonB has kindly listed my blog on hers and people are popping in to see what I'm about. Welcome to everyone, feel free to look around (check the archives if you're interested in crazy quilting) and please do leave a comment to let me know you've visited.
Enjoy!

New (to me) toy

I lucked out (I think!) when I was gifted with this little thing. It's a Rhinestone and Stud setter. Unfortunately it didn't come with any rhinestones OR studs (of any variety...two-legged or otherwise) so I'm not able to test it. It came with instructions, which is a good thing - and it tells me what types of 'bits' I need to get. Now just have to hope I can track them down somewhere. For now it looks pretty cool sitting on my worktable.

Ink Blots and Furushiki

Now, how's THAT for an interesting title!? Today was our CQTeers group meeting and Irene and I (Sue & Kym were away) had great fun doing a 'share' session. She does some of the most interesting (and creative) things and I love seeing her work.

Irene was on a trip to Japan last year and learned to make these wonderful bags called Furushiki. They are so very simple to make and are very practical. The 'base' is just a large square of fabric and the whole thing is created with knots. This was the one I made, in a purse-size. I'd like to repeat it and make one twice as big to use as a shoulder bag. I know that it just looks like a blue blob here in the picture, but trust me - it's great! Google the name and I'm sure you can find out more about it. Our theme this month was ink blots or fall. Below are the atcs I made (atc size). The top row reminded me of people, so I scrounged around & found some wee polymer clay faces I'd made a couple of years ago. While I was looking for those, I stumbled onto the brass hands - perfect! The bottom row of blots reminded me of faces and were 'done' when I added some googly eyes I had in my stash. Great fun!

We talked and laughed and ate copious amounts of chocolate, including wonderful chocolate-dipped strawberries...yum!! Thanks Irene for a great day!

Two colour roses

Yet another picture from our garden. This little rose is bravely blooming at the foot of some iris'. I was quite fascinated with the fact that both blooms are on the same plant, but are so different.

I spent today sewing with a couple of friends (actually I crocheted). Jacquie is working on a denim quilt for her youngest son using 3 1/2" squares I cut from my scraps leftover from making the bags and the jackets. Great use for my scraps! Julie was working on finishing a beautiful (albeit small) quilt top she found at the thrift store. She's putting a wide border on it and then giving it to her 94 year old mother to quilt. What a great way to make her mother feel useful and what an heirloom to pass down in the family. I worked on a Christmas present (that I can't show...yet). We 'did lunch' and had a grant time chatting. Tomorrow I have another crafty day to look forward to with other friends...I'm lucky!!

Squash

How's that for a title that grabs your attention?

Anyhoo...here's a picture of our butternut squash crop. I have visions of brown sugar/butter and some soup dancing in my head. Yum!

Experiments

I finished working on the latest Corpse piece this afternoon and then did some playing around. The first picture shows a piece of 'packing' from a box of chocolates and what happened when I ironed it between two pieces of parchment paper (on the bottom left) and zapped it with a heat gun (bottom right). The ironing took the shimmer out of the paper and left a few holes in it. The heat gun, in a split second, shrivelled it up into a hard clump. Next I played with a piece of gift wrap which is blue on one side & silver on the other (mylar, perhaps?). Original 'stuff' is the large piece, ironed bit is at the bottom of the picture, and the heat gun created the lovely textured bit on the right. This I really liked! The heat gun won this round.

Finally, I worked with some more gift wrap - in a lovely copper colour. Maybe mylar again...not sure. The top of the photo shows the result from the heat gun and below is the iron. I thik the heat gun won this round too, although (to be fair) the outside edges of the ironing is nicely textured. The middle (likely too much heat) seemed to stay flat.

All of these will be additions to my 'component box' (thanks Arlee!) for future use.

Oh, how I wish....

......I could show you what I worked on today!! The latest Exquisite Corpse piece is in my hands and I'm inspired and so excited about what I'm doing. We are sworn to secrecy though, and I can't even show you a tiny little corner until they are all revealed at the end. Shucks!

So...here are a couple more pictures from our garden instead. The first one shows just part of the jungle we have going on here. A summer of rain (quite unlike last year when we had very, very little and things struggled to survive) has led to a total over-abundance of flowering things. I'm not complaining, mind you.
The second picture is showing three of the blooms on our hibiscus (found out the proper name). I know I showed it before, but I couldn't resist taking another photo. You can see Jack's hand propping them up so you have some idea of scale. Dinner plates come to mind! There are tons of buds on the plant yet to come, so we are hoping that the frost will hold off. Aren't they gorgeous?