Christmas, Snow and Reno's

So much has happened this past week....a bit of a long post. I finished the bag for my Mom and mailed it before the snow storm. The bag is bigger than I expected, I should pay attention to the dimensions before deciding on a pattern. If it looks cute in the picture, I dive right in.

It snowed for two days straight, very unexpected. It caused a lot of problems with traffic.  With hills in my area, trucks and buses couldn't make it up, the roads were too slippery. I couldn't leave the house, I'm thinking we got at least 12", ask me how I know this....I shoveled the front walk a few times because DH was away on a business trip. 

Fonz had fun playing in the snow.

In the middle of a snow storm the contractor insisted he could still make it over to install doors. His half hour drive took 3 hours but he made it here. Before: This is the ugly back door off the kitchen.

And After: Isn't it pretty with the big open window, I'm am so thrilled with my new door. The kitchen is much brighter.....I really love how it looks. 

Before: This door is off the dinning room and goes out to a deck on the side of the house. Isn't it the ugliest door......yuck, I've always disliked this door since we bought the house.

And After: Oh so much more light and a pretty door. Oops I took a picture before the tape was removed from glass.  The new doors are solid wood. I agonized over picking the stain colour, and even paid someone to help me (what do I know about stain and doors) and in the end I wasted my money, I didn't like the colour she suggested....I'm so happy with my choice.

Boo is showing us he is in charge of the tree. He plays with the ornaments and climbs up the middle. The tree doesn't look as nice now, Boo has done some rearranging himself and he's definitely happy about it.

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

A Couple of Things

 All the stitcheries for the Simple Pleasures quilt are done and ready to go into a quilt. These are bigger than the original in the book, I enlarged them because in the book, the blocks are teeny tiny. I'm happy to have all 12 blocks completed.....I couldn't fit them all in one picture.

My Petite Houses are now a little quilt ready for quilting, the problem now is I don't know how I'll quilt this one. I like to keep it simple and need to think about it for a while.

We had a huge snowfall this weekend. It didn't stop us from getting downtown for dinner, a play and staying at a swanky hotel, it's fun to be a tourist in your own home town. 

Thanks for the wonderful comments on my Lil Twister quilt, I used a charm pack to make it.

Snowed In

I'm still traumatized after being stranded in the snow. We went to a small town in Northern BC "bad idea in the middle of winter", what we do to see family over the holidays. The airplane was a small prop plane "another bad idea". we had a very nice time visiting, playing board games and watching the snow coming down all around. I didn't think about how that would effect getting home, "the snow kept falling". The little prop airplane could get up there but couldn't land, "due to poor visibility" you guessed it, they didn't pick us up....so now the airplane is going back to Vancouver without us. The only thing we could do is drive back to stay the night again "1 hour of driving in full-on snow storm"....you get the picture. My In-Laws were scheduled to leave after us but got home before we did. I'm so happy to be home, no more trips in the winter for me. I needed some serious relaxing time after that trip.

I hope everyone had a wonderful time over the holidays and spent New Years doing whatever makes you happy, we stayed home, I made dinner for the family and went to bed early.

I started cutting and piecing a quilt on New Years Day, I'll be back tomorrow to show you my first flimsy of the year.

Until next time....happy quilting.

First Quilt for 2009

My first post for 2009 and you're probably getting bored with hearing about snow, I promise I won't talk about it again....LOL. We've had 3 weeks of snow fall and here is 3 weeks of shoveling the driveway. We've only been able to get down the back lane and into the garage for the past few days but every day DH was out there shoveling in hopes we could park in the garage. Behind that huge pile of snow is our second car....I don't think it will be moving until spring.

Over the holidays I received a surprise package from Carole. I had seen this table topper on her blog a few weeks ago, not knowing she had plans to send to me. Carole made one of her awesome embroidered labels for the back, if you want to see it go here. Sorry I didn't take a picture.

Carole had my little package all wrapped in the cutest snowman paper. She also sent me 2 of the Crabapple Hill patterns, the stitchery witches hat and a stitchery pillow with "Happy Halloween". I'm excited about starting these projects. Thank you so much Carole for the fantastic surprise gifts, you are a sweet friend.

A New Year and a New Quilt. When I pulled out all the decorations before Christmas I realized that all year I didn't make a red/green quilt (which BTW I had planned to do in 2008) If I don't do something right away....I forget quickly, so I started a few days before Christmas making the stars (better late than ever). In between working a few 9 hours days and all the holiday events I got this top finished (being snowed-in was a big helped to get this top finished). I didn't use a pattern, if anyone is interested in the measurements I used (just yell), I'd be happy to send them along.

Happy New Year and I look forward to your continued friendship as well as some new friendships in 2009.

More Snow and Another Small Quilt Done!

Snowed in for another day! Watching the snow fall must give me some energy because another small flimsy is done. I got the inspiration at this quilt shop. I saw it up on the wall and came home and made it before I forgot what it looked like...LOL. I couldn't decide which brown print I liked better with the pinks so I decided to use both.

Here is a closer picture of the blocks. The block is 2 3/8" finished size...wow that's small...what was I thinking AGAIN.

This is what my backyard looked like this afternoon. The shrubs are getting pounded down by the weight of the snow. This big tree is not usually hanging so low, I can hardly see the fence hiding back there.

I hope you are finding time to spend sewing. Thanks for dropping by with a comment....I look forward to everyone.

Flying Geese and SNOW

On Sunday we had a snow storm that left behind about 10" of the white fluffy stuff. It's not unusual for us to get snow, it IS unusual for this area to have the snow last longer than one day. After snow comes rain and with rain comes yucky slushy snow. I'm not complaining, I like to see the snow on the ground when it's dry and fluffy. Monday was sunny and the roads were clear, so I didn't have a problem driving to the quilt store. Another snow storm on it's way for Tue, so this is what we woke to, another 10" of snow today. It snowed most of the day, so I got busy with quilting.
Doesn't the fountain look like a big fluffy cake on a stand. See how deep the snow is under the fountain.
The quilt shop visit gave me the inspiration to make this small quilt by Lori Smith. So today while watching the snow falling I put together 54 itsy bitsy flying geese and finished a flimsy. The finished size is 19x14 and I think I'll put a brown binding on this one.

Close up of the flying geese, these are 1"x2" finished.

While we visited this quilt shop the owner told us about the birthday month offer. All that's needed is to tell them your birthday month and and book a date for a party shopping spree. Bring 3 friends and the birthday girl gets 25% off (Yippee, Woohoo!) and her friends get 15% off. Since my birthday is next week (Thurs), I've book Monday for me and 3 friends to go shopping. The shop provides some treats for the party goers as well. I can't wait....we are going to have so much fun SHOPPING.