Magnolia blocks 2 & 3

Two more magnolia blocks completed for this Claudia Hasenbach project - the applique blocks are coming up - that worries me, lol!

I concede defeat!

My whale didn't work out - it died a slow and painful death in my craft room, and was suitably buried at sea (aka thrown into the scrap bin) with little fanfare :D  My fellow challengee Barb, however, not only rose to the occasion, she whipped it's a$$!!!   Sheesh even if I *had* completed a whale it wouldn't have been nearly as divine as hers - she truly made a whale of epic charm and prodigious prettiness!  I think I'll steal her photo and post it here - Barb - I hope you don't mind!!

TA DA!!!  Meet Keiko, Barb's delightful creation - isn't she a beauty??!?!?!   Well done, my fellow flamingo enthusiast - you dun GOOD!!!

While my whale stuffy making may not have been successful, my cooking was :D  Today I had the urge to make pizza for supper for the guys.  I made a bacon and onion pizza ... a pepperoni and onion pizza ... and for dessert, an applesauce spice cake!  The guys said everything tasted great, but I think the bacon pizza deserves special recognition - I humbly believe it might be the most beautiful pizza ever made!  Yes, be amazed by my humility - I am!! ;)

New laptop :)

My old laptop (3 1/2 years old) was starting to develop problems (even tho I'm a fanatic about maintenance) - rather than spending money upgrading the RAM and getting it repaired, hubby told me to just buy a new laptop.  So on the weekend we went to Best Buy and bought a new Toshiba - I'm still getting used to it.  I'm unimpressed with Windows 7 (I prefer XP) and I'm really pissed that I can't use OE any more - I downloaded Mozilla Thunderbird which I think is inferior, but which comes highly recommended by various sites online.  I'm still trying to figure out where everything is, but I'm sure liking having a fast lock-up free computer!  The old Toshiba is downstairs attached to the printer so I can have access to all my craft files while I'm in the sewing room - what a luxury having two computers! 

I'm headed to the doctor today for a consultation about some minor surgery I need - I feel like crap because I have another cold.  My Humira injections make me prone to infections, so I get colds every couple of weeks, lol.  I did have a good start to the day tho --- Monday is weigh-in day and when I hopped on this morning, I realized that after losing almost 25 pounds, I now weigh what I weighed when I was 9 months pregnant with our oldest son.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

A "whale" of a challenge ;)

A link to a cute whale project was recently posted on a Yahoo group I belong to.  I think I was the one that posted it, actually, lol.  I found and saved the pattern months ago, but hadn't yet started the project.  When I posted it, another member fell in love with the project, so I issued a challenge:  we would both try to make a whale by the end of the month - she accepted my challenge!  So - Barb and I have until March 31 to get THIS delightful project completed! 

It's ON, Barb --- redhead vs redhead ... mom vs mom ... flamingo vs flamingo!!!

I don't think I've posted these pictures ...

A few small finishes from projects that had been kitted up :)

Things have been BLAH for the last couple of weeks :D

I haven't felt like doing much of anything ... my diet is stalled and I can't get past the 20 pound mark even tho I'm 100% on track ... I haven't felt like sewing ... there isn't anything WRONG - the weather is getting beautiful and I'm ever so thankfully experiencing a remission in my psoriasis symptoms (for the first time in 3+ years!) - there's no reason I should be in a funk, so I'm trying to work my way out of it!

Today I made myself go down to the basement (which is dreadfully cold, which is part of the reason I haven't wanted to go down there!) to sew - I made a zipper bag to go with a tote bag I finished a few weeks ago.  Hopefully this means I'm back in sewing mode!


I had some Chapters gift cards so I ordered some books to be delivered:
200 Fast & Easy Artisan Breads and Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
I quite like baking bread, even tho I'm not very good at it yet!  I use my KA mixer and I don't make anything fancy - now that I think about it, I've only made focaccia bread so far, lol.  Today I decided to make olive bread to surprise our oldest son - it's on it's second rise right now and will be going into the oven soon :D

The boys bought me a KA icecream attachment for Christmas so I also ordered a couple of ice-cream books:
Ice Cream: 52 easy recipes and Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream -- I'm not a big ice-cream fan but I'm hoping to find some lower calorie gelato or sorbet recipes in the books :)

We got new neighbours this past weekend - I met their 18 month old son yesterday and while his mom was holding him, he reached out his arms to me so I could hold him!  Sweet wee muffin!  That put a BIG smile on my face :)

I'll be headed out for a walk soon - hopefully my funk is over or almost over, and I can get back to being happy about life in general!

P.S.  Edited to elaborate:  my psoriasis has been nicely under control since June with a combination of Humira + steroids, but in the last month it has decided to improve without the steroids I usually use - this has never happened before and it is WONDERFUL!   

Stuck @ 16 pounds - dang plateau! But enough about that :D

These are the fabrics I pulled out today to work on a little project -- more about this tomorrow :)

A couple of finishes for the box ... zipper bags and ...

pillowcases :)

iLaugh :)

Talk about bad timing ...

Our youngest son got his new (to him) car on Saturday - on Tuesday we found out about a recall on it, LOL - 1.3 million cars in North America being recalled for power steering problems! 

In honor of this auspicious occasion I decided to make beer bags :D  Doesn't everybody sew with beer fabrics when their Cobalt is in pain??  ;)

March came in like a lamb ...

will it go out like a lion??!!  *yikes* :D

I got a bit of sewing done today -- 3 cat pillows, and one cage quilt for the Newmarket shelter - I'll see what I can get finished up this month and then take everything to the shelter at the beginning of April :)

We delivered dozens of zipper bags to the Newmarket shelter on the weekend - I'm making more, but trying to use cat and dog fabrics that I have in stash - they should sell well, or they might use them in gift baskets - their call!

Here are a couple of pinwheel blocks I made last night, inspired by a "Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along" from P.S.  I Quilt  :)  It appears she's doing 16 blocks - two of each of 8 designs?  So far we're to make 2 each of the first two designs, but I think I might shake things up a bit and make some pinwheels from Quilters Cache - they have lots of different designs :D

Canada wins gold in men's hockey :D

Our son and his girlfriend watched the whole game - the rest of us listened vicariously as scores and critiques were shouted out from the living room, lol.  When USA scored their second goal with only a few seconds left in the 3rd period, there was more than a bit of swearing heard!!  Then in overtime we heard a big cuss and thought that USA had scored the "gold" goal - NOPE!!  Canada won the GOLD!!!  GO TEAM CANADA!!  14 gold medals - un-be-frigging-lievable!!!  Congratulations to ALL of the athletes - your families must be SO proud of you!!!   Congratulations to the USA and Germany for their outstanding medal counts - 37 and 30, and to Canada for their outstanding performance as well --- 14 gold, 7 silver, 5 bronze.  WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

And in the spirit of the Olympics, here's some reindeer poop :)  I'm not sure why I can't get a decent picture with the camera, but that could very well be from a lack of photography skills from the photographer - aka ME :D Reindeer pattern by by Sharon Bennett aka Daffycat (she has another reindeer pattern here!)--- poop idea provided by Aubree, LOLLLLLL!

Deliveries made today ...

Today hubby drove me to the shelter in East Gwillimbury where we dropped off a container of pillowcases (about 50 of them!!!!) plus 6 quilts I've made in the last couple of years.  Then we went to the thrift store and dropped off a bunch of junk valuable goodies ... then it was off to the OSPCA  in Newmarket where we dropped off a bunch of cage quilts and some donation items for their next fundraiser.  The ladies I met up with at the OSPCA were delightful and most appreciative of the stuff I brought in.  I'll definitely be making them more goodies!  We saw lots of beautiful cats in the viewing rooms - it was hard to walk out without a new kitty - I wish I could have brought them all home with me!  We did tell Zoomer that he needs to be on his best behaviour or he's history ;)  (that's a joke - he's beyond spoiled, and definitely rules the roost, lol).

Pictured - projects from the last day or two - the last of the breast cancer pillowcases, 3 cage quilts (18" square, 20" square and 26" square), and a tote bag with matching zipper bag.

Edited to add a whiney gripe:  when I dropped off the p-cases and quilts at the people shelter, the person who took them was a young man of about 18.  Very polite, but it didn't make my day to drop off 50 handmade pillowcases and 6 handmade quilts, with the only comment from the shelter being "Thanks, I'll take these to the laundry room".   I didn't make the stuff for the accolades, and I know a kid doesn't care about (and I'm sure didn't even notice!) the handmade aspect, but it mattered to ME, right or wrong. I'll be doing some research before deciding on the recipient of my next batch of pcases/quilts.

New car :)

Our car boy (aka our youngest son Chris) traded in his "old car" (purchased in May 2009, lol) for different one - he puts a lot of miles on the vehicle and wanted a 4 cylinder vehicle :D This is a 2006 Cobalt SS. It's almost the same color as our Challenger, lol! It's a standard, so he's out "practicing" now. Any excuse to drive, hehe - that's why he's our car boy!

Happy birthday Brian ...

Our brother Brian (the baby of the family, and the other redhead :D) would have been 46 today - happy birthday Buzz :)

I've been working hard in my (basement) studio doing a major declutter - in between declutterage and organizationage (yes, they're words, in my world :D) I whipped up some more items for the local animal shelter - a couple of dog print zipper bags (pictured) and a few cat pillows and cage quilts (not pictured).  The zipper bags aren't very good for stashbusting, but the cat pillows and cage quilts are!!  My stash got enhanced yesterday when a girlfriend brought over some fabrics from HER stash (thanks Nancy "Tilda Tavern Wench"!) - they'll be perfect for tote bags for the shelter.  So much to do - so little time :D

Wordless Wednesday :D

Pretty in pink :D

Tomorrow if hubby gets home from work in time, we'll head up to the shelter in East Gwillimbury and drop off a load of pillowcases and other stuff I've gathered up.  I have quite a few girly pillowcases whipped up - I don't have nearly as many boy type cases - I'll have to see what I have to even up the numbers a bit!  The zipper bag is just for fun, lol.  It's even lined with fabric that says "Meow" :D

Tied baby quilt :)

Yesterday I found a YouTube video on how do a proper knot to tie a quilt - I tried it, and it worked great!  Hey Chris - do you remember the duck fabric?  You gave me some scraps a few months ago - I have enough squares cut out for one more little quilt as well - thanks, milady!!  This quilt measures 35" square, and is backed with the same yellow TOT that's in the top :)

Here are some bibs I made a while ago - I posted them to my blog but I had photographed them backwards (lol) - I'm too lazy to go find the post and change the picture :D

Two more zipper bags for the shelter - the color didn't come out very nice in the photograph - it's a pretty soft blue with ivory dog bones on it :)

New bedroom furniture (well, new to US, lol)

We bought this vintage (mid 60's) bedroom set a few weeks ago, but just got around to putting everything together.  In the spring we're going to redo the bedroom - new paint, light fixtures, bedding, curtains, lamps etc. (we'll likely keep the carpeting tho - it's a huge bedroom [$$$$$$ to replace] and is in perfect condition).  We got the furniture from kijiji - the seller only lives 2 blocks away, LOL (hi, Anna, hi, Paul!) :)

The headboard, which is almost obliterated by the pillows, and that's only one pillow each - we use 5 altogether, lol.  We'll have to rejig it to make it higher.  I'm sure Dennis will be thrilled ;)

Dennis' nightstand and his necessities - phone and alarm clock :D

My nightstand with my flamingo bag holding my psoriasis lotions and potions :D

A bit of a better view of the headboard :)

Tall dresser - Dennis' dresser :)  (that's our old ugleeeeeeeeeeee headboard on the right).

My dresser - aren't the curved drawers fantastic?  That's what drew me to this set - the shape is so pretty!!


I love my new bedroom set :)

Olympic luger killed in crash :(

"WHISTLER -- A men's Olympic luger from the former Soviet republic of Georgia crashed training for the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Friday and has died from the injuries.


Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died from injuries suffered in the crash, German IOC official Thomas Bach confirmed."  (Clip and the rest of the story here).

I'm almost speechless - this is so terribly sad - his poor family and friends :(

I needed the patience of Job ...

to sew this paper pieced magnolia block - lawdy lawdy!!!  16 sub-sections, 62 (give or take) pieces - definitely a challenging block!  I wasn't all that happy doing such a detailed block - I used to enjoy them, but now - not so much :D

This is what the finished project looks like - it's Magnolias by Claudia Hasenbach from Germany :)  I bought the pattern a few years ago and am just now getting around to working on it.  Hope to have it finished by the time spring rolls around!! 

The bibs and zipper bags were far easier to complete ;) OH lolol I just realized I photographed the back of the bibs instead of the front - they have red trim on them!  I'll have to get a new picture tomorrow :D