A Week In Review

This year we are having an early summer and so with every sunny and warm day I am outside in the garden or enjoying the patio deck.

Last week I had hoped to post photos of me and Trevor in the garden getting our flowers planted and the garden looking pretty, but well life took over and so never got around to posting them. Not to mention there seemed to be something happening every evening after supper and just couldn’t seem to sit and take a spell.

So to recap the week, Monday night Trevor and I met up with his Father and Sister, Denise and her son Gavin to treat his Dad to a birthday supper at Boston Pizza. I had a nice chicken parmesan sandwich. After supper we had to run again as we had Alexi’s doggy training to attend. (We start week #5 of 8 tonight). She is doing very well, but there are times she is just not in the mood to listen and so prefers to do her own thing. One thing she didn’t do last week was go into a barking frenzy when she saw the other dogs in her class. That seems to be one HUGE hiccup with her. It seems in her previous life (that is the first 4 years she wasn’t with us but with her first family) she was not exposed to other dogs or had a problem that resulted in her feeling she had to be the dominant dog in the pack. Her trainers say she will eventually get out of it, we just have to keep patient! But I do see an improvement in her since we got her almost 2 months ago, so I’m pleased with the results so far.

Have any of you out there in quilting blogland ever go and experience a Cirque du Soleil show???? Sigh……….. WOW!!!!!!!! All I can say is WOW when I see them perform. I gave Mum tickets to see Allegria for Mother’s Day this year. The show was this past Wednesday night. It was an amazing jaw dropping show! Two years ago Cirque du Soleil came to St. John’s for the first time and we saw them perform their show Saltimbanco. Again INCREDIBLE!!!! If you haven’t seen a show yet, when it comes to your area I strongly recommend you go! Because it will be worth every single penny you spend!

Thursday night I had our work’s Social Club annual BBQ Surf and Turf. It was a very hot and humid evening, but after the bbq all the gals still kicked up our heels on the dance floor and had a ball! Usually Thursday nights is Sewing Group Night, but I said I would meet up with them a little later. If not for sewing certainly for the tea and dessert afterwards. Well that didn’t happen. I completely lost count of the time and boogied longer with my girlfriends!

Left to Right: me, Mike(I think that's his name) from our Maintenance dept., Simone, Katie, Carolyn and Holly

Hey Macarena!!! Yep.. they played it, and we had a Ball!

When I did come home around 11 that evening, Mum informed me that our sewing friend, Kelly gave me a gorgeous little bird feeder for a house warming gift. This morning we saw two Blue Jays dine on breakfast in the feeder. Thank you sooooooooo much Kelly for the bird feeder!!! And it’s yellow like my house too!! Hee hee! She also gave us a 10 piece set of the solar power lights to put in the garden. I couldn’t wait to get them in and set up! I put them in on Friday after work and I have enjoyed looking in my garden in the evening all that much more. I have many photos now of my garden and deck in the day time, but now I need to get some during the night to see how the lights look!! Thanks again sooooooo much!

In the meantime, here are some photos in the daytime of my new favourite place… My Garden and Patio Deck!

Starting my flower boxes

Trevor playing in the compost

Yours Truly!

One angle of the deck

We love to sit out here to have our supper or a little glass of wine and enjoy the summer weather

I thought I would try my hand at planting Zucchini this year. This photo was taken just over a week ago and they have doubled in size already!

My herbs... Thyme, Basil and Oregano. I am also growing mint

More photos on the deck

I did manage over a couple evenings to spend some time in my new sewing room to work on some sewing. I can’t say much right now, but I am working on a couple projects/patterns that I hope to publish and sell before the end of the summer! I’m getting very excited!

Well it is another Tuesday evening and I want to do a little bit of design and drafting work for an upcoming class this September. Will post again soon!!

Quiltingly Yours

Andrea

FINALLY MY SEWING ROOM IS COMPLETE!!!

I have FINALLY completed putting my sewing room together the way I want it to be! Well eventually I want to get rid of the #($#( 70's panelling on the walls and put in a nice laminate flooring, but that might have to wait until next year or the year after. I want to replace my patio deck first I think. Mind you the deck we have is really nice and we spiced it up and made it very cozy this weekend with flowers and such (photos to come in the next posting), but it's about 20 years old and we want to have an updated pressure treated one now.

So for now, the sewing room is now my cozy little space to call my very own! On this post, I want to share a pile of photos with you. I have alot to show as I pretty much did a 360 degree view and did some close up shots. I hope you enjoy my little tour!

Alexi wishes to share these photos of our new sewing room! She loves her big pillow so I thought I would bring it downstairs to the sewing room tonight so we could have a girl's night in the new room!

My sewing room is my basement. The door is the main door to Mum's apartment. She just has to open her door where you will see her kitchen and she can come sit with me to sew in the room. She is a quilter and sewer too, so we have a great space when we want to hang out together and stitch. We also started our first Thursday night sewing group in the new space after a few weeks without meeting up since we were so busy unpacking.

One of my many wallhangings I put to my walls.

One angle of my sewing room. On the wall with the window, and another wall you will see later, there is that ugly 70's panelling this is hard as nails to get a nail pounded into it to hang wallhangings! Eventually I will be removing the panelling and the carpet to put in laminate.

Another view of my sewing room and my home office space. The sewing machine in front here is Mum's machine. She left it there since Thursday night as she is working on a project and didn't want to disturb it.

This little fishy nightlight was given to me by a lovely lady I work with. Maxine gave me this little nightlight for my birthday this year. I told her last week that I finally got to take it out of it's packaging and actually get to use it. I wanted to put this in my sewing room when I finally unpacking. He finally swims by my desk!

Some of my quilts folded. The very bottom one is the very first quilt I made back in 1994. It is a sampler quilt and I remember learning many great techniques from that quilt!

More storage area as well as a filing cabinet on the bottom that holds 13 years of quilting class lesson plans!

Fabric Stash Cabinet #1

Fabric Stash Cabinet #2

My home office space

More wallhangings to cover the ugly panelling!!!

This is my hand applique/quilting wh I made some years ago. I love this piece and just had to add it to my walls! I hung this one tonight

My little 1945 Singer Featherweight. I love this machine and sew on it all the time!

My 1907 hand crank Singer machine. I haven't sewn on this one yet. I need to get it serviced first to see if it still works. Everything seems to be okay and nothing seems seized. I love the swirly designs on this machine!

My hand applique/quilted Grapevine Wreath WH I made back in 2000/01. It is 54" square. This is the first thing I see when I come down my stairs to my room

My hope chest that is filled with batting and showing off some of the cushions I have made. Two of these I used as class samples

My UFO cabinet. It is filled to capacity with UFOS!!!!!!!! The wooden sewing box was made many years ago by my ex-FIL. I remember him to be a very sweet man. He made this little sewing box for me.

Some of my bears as well as my little sewing motif tea set my ex-MIL gave me years ago. She was a quilter herself and so knew I would really appreciate this little gift. I unwrapped this little beauty tonight. I had it stored for almost 10 years, so it was really nice to take it out and display it again!


Up close photo of the tea set. The thread spools are the cups and they sit on button saucers. The machine is the teapot, the dress form is the sugar and the ironing board is the creamer!

Another sewing cabinet filled with notions and as you can see my collection of mazagines. I have my iPod dock here so I listen to my favourite music.

hee hee can you see I like bears??? :) Here is a close up shot of a little sewing machine trinket box that is big enough to store needles. I love this little trinket box!

A close up shot

My sewing station, complete with a glass of wine!

Another view of my sewing station.

This little display cabinet cost under $5 at a flea market! I bought it a few years ago. It is perfect to show off more of my little sewing related trinkets as well as my little collection of thimbles!

This little sign was a little stocking stuffer Mum gave me last Christmas. I think it speaks VOLUMES!! Don't you??

My bookcase filled with lots of quilting books!

Another view of my work station. The cushion on the press back chair came from Paris. Well the tapestry part did. I made it into a cushion. A dear friend of me from a few years ago brought it back to me when she and her husband took a little trip there. She brought back a gorgeous piece herself which we made into a wallhanging for her kitchen.


Well this post took me over an hour to put together and it is now after 1:30am!!!! It's a good thing this is a long weekend here so I can sleep in!!!
I hope you all enjoyed my little tour of my sewing room. I started sewing here for the first time Thursday night past. That was the last night I sewed here! All weekend Trevor and I have been playing in the garden and planting flowers and getting the patio set up the way we want. My next post (hopefully tomorrow, now that I think I am getting on more of a routine and settled) I will post photos of our weekend planting our summer flowers!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Things Are Beginning To Look Up

Well the boxes are pretty much gone and I am seeing alot more floor space in my sewing room. There is hope after all!!

I spent the other night working away at my little office desk and putting that into some sort of order and organization. I am starting to like what I see! It is not EXACTELY the way I want it to look, but it's a good start. (photos to follow soon).

I have more of a reason to get set up and organized soon as I was approached recently about publishing my work online!!! I'm getting really excited!!! I have been looking for a new challenge for myself and this was just thrown in my lap and lately it's all I've been thinking about! Has any of you out there in blogland been published online before? I would love to hear your story! This will make my little quilting business a little more grounded if everything turns out alright! I promise to keep you all posted as things progress.

I am hoping to be back in sewing mode after this weekend. I really want to get back at my one of a kind tote bags I make up and sell as well as get a start on my Christmas inventory. Somewhere in amongst all of that I have to make curtains for my living room and dining room!!! Sigh.. there are just not enough hours in the day!

So on to other news. Alexi got her stitches out the other day and she started Canine University! Yep pooch is going to dog school. We (myself, Trevor and the trainers) realized that for the four years she was with her previous owners, they did not discipline her and she must of had the run of the house. We refuse to have her think she rules the roost. We had our first class earlier this week. She is very leash aggressive around other dogs and she goes STRANGE with barking and yapping when amongst other dogs. She has to learn that she is not the leader of the pack in this house and she follows our rules!

In the beginning of the class the trainer had to take her himself and get her calmed down and relaxed around the other dogs. My nerves were a mess and I wondered to myself if this dog can still be trained. I was told there is still lots of hope and she will learn! So far we are learning Heal, Sit and Stay. She is doing okay, but sometimes she thinks I am playing with her when I tell her to sit and looks at me and twists around as I try to gently push her butt down to the floor. Sigh.. it's trying some days, but I have to keep persistent and stay positive that she WILL listen and obey! Anyone out there with dogs that have gone through this???? There is hope for me and her right???

Here are a few more photos of our little girl while we were out working in the back garden last Saturday and after she had her little surgery. No puppies for this baby!


She looked so sad and humiliating with her collar on. I kept it on her for a few days then I had to take it off. She looked depressed.

Out for a little Sunday morning walk

She loves to nap between the cushions on the bed.

Our little Gargoyle on the corner of our deck!

Alexi is introduced to Chase. Chase is the most friendliest cat I have seen! She belongs to someone in the neighbourhood and she makes herself at home wherever she is. Alexi just looked at her for a bit then began to bark. Chase would just walk by casually and not break her stride. Poor Alexi would be all agitated and the cat would walk around the dog just to get her going.


Chase making herself at home in our backyard

I just loooove this photo of her!!! She is such a little poser for the camera.. The camera loves you baby!

Chase suggested I needed a little break from the weeding and to pay some attention to her!

Trevor and Alexi playing with a stick in the back yard. Alexi is an EXCELLENT jumper! She is our little circus dog! Quite the entertainer!


Well that's all til next time. With my sewing/office space almost ready to be worked in, I hope to be able to post blogs more regularly. Well... I'm saying that right now.... there is still much organizing to be done throughout the house. So for now I am going to sign off and get back to my space and do some more organizing. I really want to put the push to start sewing by the weekend or early next week. Tomorrow night Mum and I are meeting up to go to dinner and a movie and we also plan to take a little drive over to Fabricville to see if there are any sales going on.

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea