ORANGE SHERBERT

I am naming my new quilt orange sherbert, thanks to Niki for giving me the idea. I have "repaired" my big mistakes by adding a piece of the backing and just redoing the binding. It looks pretty good compared to what it was. So thanks Niki.

Today, again another glorious autumn day in Ontario. We are coming to an end though and Jerry will start the shelves he has put off because the weather is so delicous. This morning I had coffee outside on our little deck and it was actually hot there at 10 am. Imagine November 7th.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain so we shall see if the weather brings me shelves to pile my fabrics on. I am practicing my quilting by machine. Boy it is hard to get the stitches even when the darning foot. But I am using my ugly quilt to do it, so it makes it worthwhile.

I have trouble with the backside of the quilt looking "stitched". It sometimes looks like it is loopy so I'm bringing it with me to sewing lessons on the new sewing machine next week. See what I am doing wrong. I love the Janome 6600.

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISTA,

This is a print that I see each day. It reminds me of my granddaughters just walking the beach.

The painter is Joaquin Sorolla y Batista of Spain and this painting was done around 1908, and I bought this print about 25 yrs ago for $10.00. It cost much more to have it framed and has remained one of my favorites after all these years.

My sewing room is all cleaned up, but the weather has been so good that I haven't started my next quilt which will be a variation of 9 patch which my friend Helen says makes a really interesting quilt when adding different elements.

I will have to go to the quilt shop to see what I can find to suit me as it has lots of bright colours with black and white 9 patch. A fons and porter design which I seem to gravitate to when seeking patterns.

The good weather is coming to an end probably by Saturday, so I shall be in shoes and socks again. Oh I don't like the thought of winter and all that goes with it.

What a Day

Well I meant to start early this morning to put my post in for today as I have promised myself to try and do it daily, but we stayed up late to watch the elections, then an early dental appt left me with hardly anytime to even get to the computer.
I have tried to make my blog look more to my liking, but since I am not very literate when it comes to the computer, being almost self-taught I have a hard time making the headings, and blogs I follow, the colours and putting it all together. I am sure others have a hard time making their blogs individual too.
I went to the dentist to discuss a bridge, implant or leave alone small tooth area that was removed last year. I just didn't like the $3,000.00 figure for the implant, and almost the same for a bridge that my dentist said would cost, so I asked for a second opinion from my oral surgeon dentist where I have teeth cleaned, and he said if it didn't bother me to leave it alone for a while and see how I am next year, well that is better because the economy isn't exactly up these days and investments aren't doing well as everyone knows.
I took my Janome circa 1990 or thereabouts to get a facelift and it will be returned on Tuesday. I asked after 10 yrs for the needle threader to be replaced. My eyes just aren't what they used to be and I have been placing a piece of white paper behind the needle and praying that I was able to thread the bloody thing in the first 20 tries. I have even removed the needle, inserted one of those threaders through the needle, put the needle back in the machine. Talk about being cheap.
The quilt shoppe where I bought the Janome 6600 has great fabrics, but so expensive compared to Fabricland. The price with my discount is about $10.00 per metre. I have some fabric in my stash, but not enough to make some more "male" type of quilts.
I wish there were lots of fabric stores here in Canada, but it is very limited. I may use online buying.
Obama is going to be president of the US. What an historical event. I remember when John Kennedy was elected the first catholic president. That was also an historical event.
As I said earlier.....what a day.

YELLOW QUILT TO BE NAMED

So here is my last quilt that I finished last night I really enjoyed doing this one. I tried a wavy stitch from the new machine and I don't know whether this is considered "quilting" or not but I did it anyways. Sometimes I look at these creations of mine and they are just my own, so why can't I do what I want to finish them.

There is a bit of a booboo at the finishing on the back. the fabric didn't quite meet the edge so I am going to put my patch there. Yes, I am posting my mistakes. I can't figure out how that happened because I thought I had lots of edges left over. I am not going to do that mistake again.

Yesterday we cleaned up junk from the basement and took it to the dump. Jerry, wanting to go to Port Perry dump because it is "cleaner" than the Pickering one, first drove us to Goodwill for donations, then on up to Port Perry, the scenic route because we weren't in a hurry. Well we arrived there and the sign said "Closed Mondays", so we then drove past our house to Pickering and dumped the load for $8.00, not bad at all. But we took 2hrs 15 minutes to do this and another 15 minutes of driving we would have been at the cottage in all the time it took us to drive around. We had Wilson with us, so when we arrived home, it was like we had been on a long trip. lol. We are not returning to Port Perry to dump again I can tell you.

I have not decided what my next project will be, so today I am going to try to get inspired. Yeah right, Jerry is starting to build the shelves now that we have cleaned up enough to make more mess.

It is going to be a lovely fall day, probably one of the last days of Indian summer that we will have. Nature has a way of lulling us, only to descend with storms when we least expect it.

And Kelly, I know that was you that posted on my Wilson blog, I did laugh as you did too.

Wilson the Wonder Dog

This is our 3 yr old westie, who rules the roost and as Kelly says, "the child we never had" Jerry being my second husband and no children but many dogs over the years.

However as we say to Kelly, that if she treated us like Wilson we would do the same to her as we do to him.....lol to Kelly.

He is a great dog and is very patient when I am sewing at the cottage. He will wait for a long time before he makes me crazy to play with him. At the cottage we can't go for walks like we do in Whitby. He and I will walk a few cottages over then back, which is enough for him to get a good run. He still likes his toys and specially any toy that has a squeek in it. He doesn't destroy them and just loves to play catch.

I am finishing up a quilt which is another lap quilt and last night while hand sewing the binding, Wilson wasn't happy because he couldn't get on my lap. Tough, quilting comes first. I haven't named it yet, but tomorrow when I post the photo of it, hopefully someone will suggest a good name, knowing I like ice cream names, or fruit names.

I am going to call for my sewing lessons on the new machine this week. I am getting the hang of it and am loving it very much. I am also taking in the old Janome to get cleaned etc. It seems to be a tension problem.

Oh,, I hate a day such as this, the rain came in last night, blew leaves all over the back yard, about 200 of them since our trees are so new that there is hardly anything, but it means that the weather will get colder and then the snow will come. We are expecting a few warm sunny days this week, so it will be hard to go to the basement and sew. But today, dark and rainy, I am going to sort through more "stuff" as I am decluttering.

SUNDAY MORNING

This photo was taken of a granddaughter, Courtney and her friend Doug doing crazy dives at the cottage 2 weeks before we closed in mid October.

The water was about 60 degrees, which is really cold and they jumped in and out for ages doing this kind of stuff. I took this with a telephoto lense from the deck.

These two along with Jeremy also water-skied most of the day. They did wear wet suits for skiing because the breeze at 22 mph was kind of cool.

Ah the young, they feel nothing but joy and doing wild stuff.

Today, the change of time "fall back" I am going to wake up at 5:45 for ages until my body clock gets used to it and then we will return to daylight saving time. I wish it stayed daylight saving all year round. So for the next few weeks I shall be up so early that even the birds won't be up.

Today, being sunday, we are going to go to the basement and work on the new area for my sewing area such as it will be. Jerry is not going to get fancy with this. I just want to be able to put my fabric etc on some shelves to keep the area neat. I am sick of the bins and they are always so messy looking.