Snowflake Bag FINISHED!!!

I finally finished the bag last night and I even took it out on its first fabric shopping excursion this afternoon!!! Fabricville had a big sale and well I just HAD to take my little bag along! Not to mention it was a cold cold COLD day here and it was sprinkling snowflakes, so it was only appropriate to use the bag! I love how it turned out!





I didn't buy much at the sale. I did buy some terry cloth fabric and a meter of a really cute pink baby fabric as I want to make a nice hooded bath towel for a friend of mine who recently had a baby girl. Once I see how big this towel is I might make some more for William. I also plan to do some machine embroidery on the hood area. Once I finish it I will post a photo of the result.

I decided to pull out a little UFO this evening to work on for an hour on a little bom I started a couple years ago and then gave up working on it. It is a Calendar BOM with applique and embroidery work. As you can see I have January and February completed.



March month was started but never finished. I picked it up again and got back to appliqueing two of the 3 tulips. I still need to look for a border fabric which I will do in the next day or so.



By 9:30pm it was time to head to Mum's place (she lives in my downstairs apartment. The door that connects her place to mine enters into the main sewing room... convenient hey!!) to watch our new favourite tv series that started last week on CBC. It is called "Pillars of the Earth" For the last couple of years we were caught up every week watching The Tutors But now that that series is completed we are looking forward to this new one. Two shows into it and already I'm looking forward to next Tuesday night!

Tomorrow night we also start up our weekly Wednesday night sewing group here at the house. For the last 6-7 years there have been a group of us that meet for a few hours to sew and quilt. At the moment we have 5 gals that get together. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again tomorrow night to see what projects they will be starting on!

It is a cold night out there tonight. I just took the dog out for her bedtime pee and we got back in the house as fast as possible. She is now curled up on the couch behind me here in Trevor's "Man Cave" and I have my nice warm wooly jammies on. I'm on monitor duty tonight as Trevor is working so I'm heading off to bed. Hopefully William will have another full night of sleep without waking up til the morning. He is cutting tooth #3 right now. When we got him ready for bed tonight after his bath I noticed the top left front tooth just peeking out!!! yipppeeee!!!! another little chomper!!! I'm sure the other top tooth will be along very soon. If not he is going to have a silly little lopsided smile!!! LOL

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Scrap Saturday

I couldn't wait to get into my scrap stash last night to pull out some blue fabrics for this month's Scrap Challenge! I found some nice blues at the bottom of this container and got to work making a bunch of 2 1/2 inch squares.





I also found a nice white fabric and got to work making some snowflakes on my embroidery machine.



I have decided to make a nice winter theme shopping bag for this month. I managed to get all the blocks made and put together, as well as cut the lining and batting. I now have all the pieces ready to sew the tote bag together!



If time permits tomorrow evening I think I only need another hour and I should have the bag complete!!! woo hooo!!! I'm stoked!!! I am already thinking of what I will make for next Saturday's "Scrap Saturday"!!!

Oh, btw, I still have two more spaces available if anyone is interested in the "Pay It Forward" I am doing this year! I have been putting on my thinking cap the last few days and I have some ideas in mind for some pressies to make and giveaway to some special quilting bloggers out there!

Well its off to bed I go. It's already 11pm and I am starting to fall asleep. I got into bed last night at a good hour and figured I would get in a nice sleep. Unfortunately I spent the night staring at the ceiling! I might have got an hour of sleep in altogether. And William actually slept through the night. What a good sleep I could have had... sigh.... ahhh well Trevor is on monitor duty the next two nights. We take turns with the night watch.



I'm crossing my fingers I get a better sleep tonight!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Get Scrappin'!!

Today is a very blah day here both outside and in. The weather is crappy here with half rain and half snow combination. It's cold and just plain ole crappy outside.





Inside, the house is dark from such an overcast day and well now that the Christmas tree is down and all the feeling of Christmas is gone the house just seems dull.


(living room back to a playroom)!!! The room is much bigger now with the tree gone!


(Even Alexi is just lazing around and napping all day)

Not to I myself and having an icky day health wise. Mum has taken over watching Will for the day as Trevor is working, so I'm just resting and taking it easy today until this icky sicky feeling of mine passes.

So I thought since I can't really do much, I would do a bit of blog lurking and see what new blogs I can find! One of the blogs I love to follow and read is from Kathy. I was reading her blog from today and she shared with her friends a new challenge from So Scrappy.



Angela is challenging us quilters to use up our scrap fabrics in various ways! I have soooooooooo many scrap fabrics they are starting to take over my room! I have decided to make Saturdays (as many as I can with a baby in the house) my "Scrap Saturday"! This will give me the incentive to dig through my scraps and come up with some projects. At the moment I have a number of full size quilts lined up to make and complete, so for now the scrap fabric challenge will be for smaller projects.

So tonight after bambino has gone to bed, I will haul out my scraps and start in. With this challenge, Angela will be choosing a colour theme for each month. January colour will be blue.

Well I'm off to read a few more blogs and get some inspiration for the January Blues.

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Christmas if Over .. sigh

Christmas is over for yet another year. Sigh.......

Once I get breakfast out of the way, I am going to start tackling putting the gifts away that are under the tree and start taking down the decorations. I always find the first day or so after the tree is down very low as it has been sooo pretty with all the lights and ornaments the last few weeks. But in another way, it is a time to get "life" back to its "normal" routine again. My sewing room is in chaos with all the empty decoration boxes and tree box and gift wrapping and the sort. It is time to get it all put away so I can put my sewing room back in order!! I have LOTS of plans this year!







(I was working on reorganizing some recipes since I couldn't do much sewing.. this too needs to be cleaned up)!!!

The other day I got started on the next panel of a sweater I am making. It is a nice long cardigan with a long tie. It is a pattern my aunt did back in the 70s!!!



It is a really nice and easy pattern to get me back into knitting and AWAY from making socks!! After making something like 9 pairs of socks last year, I'm SOCKED out!!! LOL

So I got a good start on the front left panel only to realize about 2 patterns into the side that I did a HUGE boo boo!! I tried my darndest to fix it only to make more problems.. so what did I do??? I unraveled the WHOLE thing!! sigh.......... at least it wasn't tooo far into the side. I lost about 2 nights of knitting!


(since this photo was taken I had knitted a good 5 inches more before noticing the problem)

Well it is now 8:30am.. baby is fed, bottles are washed and refilled for another day. Time to make myself some breakfast and then to start tackling the tree!!! Maybe tonight, I'll see my sewing room start to improve and MAYBE.. just maybe spend an hour or two down there working on something.

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Project Book 2011

I sat down the other day and got a start on the list of quilting/knitting/scrapping/recipe projects I want to do for 2011 year.




I still have a few things to add to my list but so far here is what I got planned to complete. Some projects are ongoing as they are more larger and handsewn projects. But they are still added to my list!

- Layer and machine quilt crumb quilt
- Hot Chocolate Snowman BOM quilt (two blocks made... it will be for William's big boy bed)
- 2 Baby Quilts
- 12 Sew motif squares (ongoing)
- Hand sewn hexagon quilt (ongoing)
- Make kitchen curtains and re-upholster kitchen comfy chair
- Make Bathroom valance and a new shower curtain
- Learn to knit gloves
- Sewing machine cover
- Embroidery machine cover
- Kitchen aprons (maybe some seasonal ones too)
- Farmer's market tote bag
- Pumpkin table runner
- Make myself a Christmas stocking (still using a very old one... need to refresh it)!
- Scrappy Tote bag
- Tackle a few projects in the UFO cabinet
- Make up some scrappy quilt tops (don't have to be quilted right away)
- Complete Christmas cross stitch (only have backstitching left... only been 5 years making it)!
- Knit myself a cable pattern scarf
- Knit myself a cable pattern hot water bottle cover
- Coffee themed embroidered coasters
- Seasonal placemats
- Re-organize recipe collection into specified binders (scrapbook style)
- Knit myself a sweater (ongoing.. well only started it a couple weeks ago)

The other thing I want to do again this year is start up the Pay It Forward Exchange.


It is based on the movie "Pay It Forward". Basically it is based on doing acts or deeds of kindness without expecting anything in return in the hope that the recipients you send something to will pass it on!

So here is how it will work. The first 3 people who post a comment to this entry stating they wish to join the Pay it Forward exchange, I will make them something handmade and will have it sent to them before the end of 2011. Remember I do have a small baby here now! But I promise it will be done! I email these first 3 people requesting their email addresses so that I can receive their mailing address.

In return, you will post the Pay it Forward Exchange on your blog promising the same thing to 3 people. Remember though, you will need to have a blog in order to do this!

So who wants to join??? Let's start 2011 with some nice random acts of kindness!!!

Quiltingly Yours!
Andrea

Happy New Year!!!!!

Wow!!! 2011 is here!!! 2010 was a blur it seemed! I swear the years go faster and faster as each year passes! If only things could just slow down a bit. But then I suppose that is life.

When I look back on 2010 and all it brought to me, I have to say it was a very rough and hard year. I think the only one good thing that happened last year was the birth of Sweet William. Since Christmas of 2009 I was sick through the rest of my pregnancy and then very sick after the pregnancy; then two major surgeries in October. Health wise it was not easy. Please God 2011 will be a more healthy year for me.

Being a first time Mom, I have to truthfully say the first year is BRUTAL raising a baby! But saying that I don't complain. When I see that little face smiling at me from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed it is well worth the work. It is a 24-7 job and the most demanding job I have ever experienced but I also have to say it has been the most rewarding too! And I know there are sooooooooooooo many more wonderful years ahead of me with this little boy!!!

So here we are in the first few days of 2011 and I know many people make resolutions for the new year ahead of them. However I never really believed in resolutions but more like goals to obtain. Resolutions always seem to get broken and they only seem to work in that first month! LOL.

Every January 1st I take out my project book and begin to write down the goals I want to complete for the new year. My project book consists mostly of quilting/sewing projects, scrapbooking ideas, and projects I would like to do for the house.

The first list I start is the quilting/sewing projects for the year. I only started the list and I know I have a ton more things I want to add. In the coming week I hope to write out my new list to share with you here on my blog. Stay tuned!

This year I also plan to reorganize my recipe collection and make it a little more manageable and user friendly. I started taking out the big brown envelopes filled with various cut out recipes and sifting through those picking out ones I still want to try and others I know I will never do. Once that is completed I place them in binders under various foods, ie: beef, chicken, vegetables, desserts, etc. I want to make my binders fun and colourful so I plan to break out my scrapbooking papers and have some fun! I also received 7 new recipe books this Christmas and I can't WAIT to dive into those! Mum gave me 6 of those books with each one representing a different place in the world. They consist of: Italian, Indian, Sushi, Greek, Mediterranean and Thai. I already tried out a new pasta dish from the Italian book and it was to DIE for!! I'll post the recipe soon!




(yep already started with the post it notes of things I want to try)


(another recipe book as well as two new novels)

Despite being very sick last year, I did manage to make alot of my Christmas gifts. I also started making my gifts before William was born as I knew when he came along my time would be a little more limited. Now that Christmas is pretty much over and everyone received their gifts, here are some photos of the gifts I made!


(Apron and potholder set I made for Trevor's Mum)


(machine embroidered bath wrap and homemade socks for a friend)


(sewing machine cover for one of our Wednesday night sewing friends)


(Sewing machine cover, pin cushion and tidy bag for my Aunt Elsie who also sews with us on Wednesday nights)


(Puppy Dog neck roll I made for our play group's Secret Santa. I also machine embroidered the little boy's name on the back of the dog)!


(close up of the apron I made for Trevor's Sister)

I have to say it was a wonderful Christmas this year with William as part of our little family. Christmas will be so much more fun when it is seen through the eyes of a child! I can't wait to see what next Christmas will bring with our Sweet William! In the meantime, here are a few photos of William's first Christmas!








(Me and the kids)!!!

I will post more of some gifts I received shortly. It's after midnight here now and I'm ready to head off to bed for a bit.

Until Next Time!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Merry Christmas To You All!!!

Hard to believe Christmas is here once again. Trevor had to work an overnight shift for Christmas Eve as well as for Christmas Day. After Bambino was finally put to bed and the last few gifts were wrapped and toys assembled, Mum and I sat down with a nice little glass of Christmas Cheer and relaxed for a few hours. No TV, no radio, just complete beautiful silence.

It is a bit odd this year to be home during Christmas Eve. Normally every year we do a little bit of visiting and gift exchanging then head off to Midnight Mass. With an 8 month old who decided to have some hard teething issues the last few nights, we are home relaxing this year. We are figuring we are going to see a couple of those pearly whites making their debut any day now. Poor little fella he is having a bit of a hard time the last few days. I finally had to break down and go to the local pharmacy at midnight last night to pick up some Benadryl and Baby Advil to help with the pain. He put in a very hard and painful night. Tonight I was more prepared... got the stuff on his gums and some pain meds and so far (keeping fingers crossed) he is asleep in bed with sugar plums dancing in his head!


(William at his Great Aunt and Uncle's home this afternoon helping to prepare supper).

It is now 12:30am Christmas Day. I'm off to bed myself as I want to get up a little bit earlier in the morning before Trevor comes home from work. I'm planning to make a nice big Christmas Breakfast!

At this time I just want to wish you all a very happy, healthy and safe Christmas season. From our home to yours, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!





Quiltingly Yours
Andrea