Ahhh, that's better.....

Sometimes you just have to go back a few steps before moving forward!!!

It just took a few moments to make this bit of applique much more to my liking......

There are two other spots on this section that I will have to correct but so worth it!

Have a great day.....and stay hydrated!!

...more Auntie Green's Garden!.....

What a lovely summer we've been having this year! Nice warm days, the garden is doing great and really nice, peaceful evenings with colourful sunsets...

I've been applique-ing the next portion of Auntie Green's Garden. This part is just plain, boring fun....it's nice once in a while to work on something that is not intricate! I haven't done so many long stems since my Stars and Sprigs, seen here....

......and now on this one.....

When doing something like this I  do what most people probably do....pin down the stems then baste them so they stay put...and I don't have to worry about the pins. I like to baste in highly contrasting thread so I don't miss any when it comes time to pull it out.

Here's how it looks this morning after some stems been stitched and more basted into place....

Now, looking at this picture, I can see how much I've done already, and I can see that this step of the quilt is not going to take as long as I thought!

Now to my quandary. There are two spots on the vine where it overlaps the previous applique and I don't think I like it!!!  Here they are.....

I thought I would just go with the flow but I just can't do it. I'm not sure whether to just remove the flowers/leaves in question or re-stitch them to overlap the stems? I just know I really don't like the look of the vine stitched on top of the other applique!

After this section comes another intensely appliqued border....can't wait! I know this type of quilt is "too much" for some people....but I just love it!

Visit Kathy's Quilts to see what other people are stitching today!

Have a great day!

Life's Simple Pleasures

It's nice to enjoy life's simple pleasures....

Today they are putting stitches into the next phase of my major applique project!.....

....and planning what will be for dinner tomorrow for the first day of sweet summer corn!!!....

Flower Gardens and hula girls!

It's so difficult to have the discipline to get back into the working mode after my vacation...but I know it's like that for most people. I wish I had another week just to play in the sewing room! The nice part is being able to meet up with all my quilters as new quilts come in and others get picked up....one of the many things I enjoy about what I get to do in my "job".

I must say, by afternoon I'm pooped. I think it's a combination of the anti-climax of all the planning for the wedding...as well as being on antibiotics and painkillers for a good part of the past month. Today I will be productive, though!!! lol

I would like to prepare the next part of Auntie Green's Garden, which consists of yards and yards of brown bias stems. I took a drive to Quilt Junction in Waterford to stock up on a few fat quarters to add to this project. Here they are just waiting to be pressed...

My goal was to get a few more browns and a couple of brighter colours to perk the piece up a bit.

While in limbo with AGG I picked up a block of my Flower Garden to stitch at this morning. I really like this block and I think I only have to do three more to have the 24 blocks complete. Then on to the busy border, I can't wait! These blocks are large, but they work up so quickly.

Lastly, I've decided to resurect an old UFO.....my Wee Houses project. This is a hand-piecing project started in 2013, I think. The goal was to complete one house per day so at the end of a year I'd have a lovely house quilt. Here is a block, 3.5" finished.....

.....and here is a section that has been done now for a long while....

....and I have to show the first block that I pieced in this project. The fun of this is to find different tiny fabrics to fussy-cut for the windows!....

Cute, huh???

I'm going to keep this UFO out and make it what I will work on when I'm getting together for handwork with my quilting friends. It won't get done quickly but I'll be happy if I make some progress on this quilt.

Have a great day!

...and now we can relax.....

What a feeling! After months of planning for the wedding and three weeks of houseguests we can sit back and relax. For all that everything went off without a hitch and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, it feels good to start our new life together with normal activities and thoughts.

So many people helped make this last month perfect, we feel truly blessed in our friends and family.

We had a lot of fun with Tony and Izzy from Scotland the last couple of weeks. They had an event-filled holiday here. The best for me was seeing their utter shock in how close they were to Niagara Falls....from pictures they had seen, they thought they would be looking at it from afar. I've learned not to take my surroundings here in Southern Ontario for granted....I felt like a tourist myself as we visited many spots in the last two weeks.

Somehow we made time for Izzy to play on the longarm. She was a natural! Here are Tony and Izzy holding up the quilt she worked on and now has taken back to Scotland with them....

Poor Cooper is out of sorts with all the houseguests gone home....

We have errands to do today, but I'd much rather prepare the next section of Auntie Green's Garden....this morning I appliqued the last wee circles on this part.....

....so it looks like this now.....

I'm still not happy with many of the circles in this last bit (I'm blaming the meds!) but, except for replacing one flower, I'm calling it good enough!

Try to visit Kathy at Kathy's Quilts to see what other people are stitching on today!

Have a great day!

Busy times!

What a busy time it's been....hardly time to do anything, but still managing a bit of applique in the mornings....
 

Our wedding day was finally upon us last weekend and we couldn't have asked for better weather. I think the only think to go wrong was forgetting to put out munchies later in the evening....so, not bad!

Here are a couple of pictures of everything set up and waiting for guests....

.....and some lovely wine glasses we received as a wedding gift......

We also received a beautiful hydrangea from my sister. She had picked it out and then realized it's name was Blushing Bride!

One thing that was a hit was putting out this large picture frame....guests were encouraged to hold the frame up and take fun pictures of themselves. Lots of fun!

I just want to include this picture of myself, daughter and new daughter-in-law. The girls were such a huge help in pulling this off.

We've had a fun week of holiday....we have Scottish house-guests for two weeks and have been going here and there in Southern Ontario.....Niagara-on-the-Lake, Waterford, to name a few. Of course, we have done a few of the Niagara wineries...

Next week, our guests will stay a couple of days at Niagara Falls. I'm trying to think of a couple of other things to do before they head back to Scotland. Yesterday we made our way to the St Jacob's Market. We ended up taking the scenic route which resulted in an hour longer drive than expected so we didn't see as much of the market as we had hoped!

I did come across something though. One of our visitors was telling us about a kitchen gadget that she uses everyday that I'd never heard about. It's a garlic grater and you can see it HERE. Izzy says she uses it everyday. It's got little nubbies on it that aren't sharp at all, and you get a lovely garlic past in no time. There are many uses for it.....parmesan, nutmeg, ginger,etc.....I can't wait to give it a try. I wish I had picked one up for everyone for Christmas. It's funny how sometimes you've never heard of something and then right away you come across it again!

On a personal note....I've had a rough few days. I've developed some sort of infection and have landed in ER for a couple of evenings to get antibiotics by intervenus and some heavy-duty pain medications. Last night they gave me a shot of morphine before sending me home...I'd never had morphine before, so I was tucked straight into bed when I got home and felt like I was sleeping on a cloud all night, lol !

Being on painpills has affected my stitching a bit, I think. I was going to put it aside for a few days, but figured I would choose not to mind my awkward-looking appliqued circles....I still find comfort in starting my day with my applique, so when I see these circles in the future it will just remind me of this busy wedding time! (sorry for the fuzzy pic, must be the morphine!)

So here is how my Auntie Green's Garden looks now....I'm so close to being done this section, how exciting!

Visit Kathy over at Kathy's Quilts to see what others are stitching on today!

Tony and Izzy thought it was fun that they came all the way from Scotland and are here in a picture with the sign for Scotland, Ontario!

Have a great day!