Crossing off the pink cross quilt

The week sewing machine was off getting a tune up was the perfect opportunity to finish off the little bit of handsewing I had left on the pink cross quilt. I couldn't be happier with how this little experimental quilt turned out and it's always nice to cross something off the ol' project list. Now it's time to toss it in the wash to see how it crinkles!

Side note: I am loving having hardwood floors to photograph my projects against!

Books are good for you!

My sewing machine has been in the shop all week. It seems like cruel torture to send it off having only just been reunited with it after the big move. I remind myself that it's all worthwhile since it will be in tip top shape once I get it back on Monday. To bide my time until then, I've been pouring over some of my sewing books looking for inspiration.

Susan Beal's Modern Log Cabin Quilting book is proving a handy guide to a quilting technique I've wanted to learn for a while. I was drawn to this book because of the stunning quilt on the cover (which reminds me a lot of the pink cross quilt I started a few months ago). I haven't actually attempted my own log cabin blocks just yet, but it's on my list (somewhere between making curtains for the new house and designing a new tree skirt for our Christmas tree).

Susan's t-shirt memory quilt has also caught my eye since I've been commissioned to make yet another t-shirt quilt for a friend. I'm not sure it would work for this particular project, but it might be worth a try on the next one.

1, 2, 3 Sew by Ellen Juckett Baker is another book that I've taken off the shelf lately. The simplicity of her projects is very appealing. I love the idea of sitting down to start a project and being able to finish in just a couple of hours rather than days (or, ya know, years).

Aren't these little blockhead animals cute?!?!? I can't wait to make one of those little bunnies!

This circle floor pillow has actually inspired me to create a new custom quilt project...more to come on that later.

I'm not gonna lie, that tee pee on the cover is the main reason I bought Med McElwee's new book, Growing Up Sew Liberated. I mean, come on, who wouldn't want one of those tee pees to play in?!

In truth, I will probably skip the tee pee pattern and attempt some of these fabulous knit projects instead. Now that Abner is a bit older, I definitely find it a bit harder to find books with patterns in her size. I appreciate that Meg has included designs for babies and little kids alike.

What sewing books are you reading these days?

Around the house: My sewing room

Now that we're settled in the house, my friends and family have been asking to see what it looks like, so over the next few weeks, I'll do a series of "Around the house" posts to show off some of the corners of our home. Today's post is about my favourite room in the house: my sewing room. My wildest dreams have come true! I have my very own sewing room! It makes me happy...very, very happy to be able to say that.

The floors are beautiful hardwood - perfect for my cutting mat - and the closet is the perfect space to hide away some of my stash. Probably my favourite part of the room is my new pegboard. Yeah, I'm an organizing geek. But look how pretty - and useful - it is!

I made and painted the pegboard myself and hung it with a little help from The Dear Sweet Husband. I've already tackled a few projects since putting it up, and I love being able to see all of my tools at a glance and how easy it is to grab exactly what I need whether it's scissors, rulers or my staple gun.

There was even a bit of space left for some cute art pieces!

I love the bright colours of the thread against the pretty blue of the pegboard. (The paint was left over from painting Abner's dresser.) I figure it will be nice to look at such a cheery colour in the dead of winter in Regina.

To organize some of my smaller fabric pieces, I held on to an unused IKEA CD tower and sorted the fabric by colour...the effect is beautiful and it makes pulling fabrics so easy.

What you can't see from these photos is that there is one giant blank wall that I've purposely left blank. My plan is to pick up some rigid foam insulation and make myself a design board. First, I need to make friends with someone with a vehicle large enough to fit the insulation!

I love, love, love my new sewing room. I love it so much, I sometimes stand in the middle of it and just smile (I even ate my cereal in there the other morning - just because).

DIY: No-sew fabric art project

In all the years TDSH and I have lived together, we've never had any artwork to hang above our bed. Since we're renters, that means we've been living with a blank off-white wall above our bed for the past decade or so. Yawn. So why haven't we ever done anything about it? Well, reasons range from not having enough money to buy something nice to simply not being able to agree on what we both want.

Thanks to a genius idea provided by Gail over at Astrin's Attic Quilting, we now have this lovely piece of art hanging in its new home above our bed.

If you would like to make your own, here's a handy little tutorial. It's actually so easy, I don't think a tutorial is required per se, but it's handy nonetheless.

Materials:

• artists' canvases
• fabric
• staple gun (light-weight will do)
• picture hanging tools

Step 1: Cut your fabric slightly larger than the size of your canvas. It doesn't need to be that much bigger - less than an inch is fine.

Step 2: Lay your canvas upside down on top of the cut fabric and fold the fabric over the edge of one side of the frame like so:

Step 3: Use your staple gun to secure the fabric in just one spot along the first side, then do the same thing along the opposite side. Keep your fingers out of the way!

Step 4: Continue stapling along these two sides until they are secure and then do the same along the other two sides of the canvas. I found that staples placed about 2 inches apart worked well for making sure the fabric didn't sag in certain spots.

After stapling along all four sides, you'll be left with corners that look like this:

Step 5: Tuck and fold the fabric at the corners until you get a nice crisp corner (or until it looks good enough and you're tired of trying to get it just perfect). Use one or two staples to secure the folded corners. If you're decent at doing hospital corners on a bed, you'll have no trouble with this step.

Once all four corners are secured, you'll have a lovely little piece of art to hang wherever you may like!

What I love about this project is that it is affordable, quick, easy and if we get tired of this fabric, we can easily swap it out down the road. I'll even be able to use this fabric in another project since it will be undamaged from this project.

If you make your own fabric art, please link to your pics in the comments. I'd love to see what readers are doing!

Gramps and Nana come to town

Looking for a way to help out friends or family who are in the midst of a move? Forget helping them pack, loading/unloading the truck, or even bringing them food. No, my friends, if you really want to help out, do what Gramps and Nana did and take the toddler out of the house for a couple of days. Made moving day so much easier!

Yes, we were lucky enough to have a visit from Gramps and Nana on the first days we were in our house. It was a jam-packed, whirlwind of a visit, but we somehow managed to show off the town, do a little roadtrip, celebrate our anniversary, AND unpack all of our boxes in those six fun-filled days.

Opening some gifts from G & N and the rest of the family.

After moving day and an entire day of unpacking in peace, we did let Gramps and Nana off the hook a bit and show them around town and enjoy a regular holiday in sunny Regina.

First BBQ in the backyard. Yes, the entire backyard is paved. Don't ever do this to a backyard.

We even took them on a roadtrip to see Findlater, where TDSH's grandfather first settled when he arrived in Canada.

Three generations at Findlater.

That same trip, we also went to Regina Beach, which is a little community about 30 minutes out of town where Reginians go when they want to get away from it all. A lovely little spot for a day out in the sun!

Did I mention that there's been some flooding here?

Chilling on a bench in front of the vintage diner where we had lunch. Miranda & Steve, you'd love it!

Wicked cute ice cream shop on the main drag in Regina Beach!

The Queen City Exhibition was also on during their visit, so, of course, we HAD to go. Abner had never been to a carnival before and oh my word, did she ever love it. This was one milestone, I am so glad I was able to be a part of.

View from the ferris wheel...Mosaic Stadium in the distance.

Not surprisingly, you could see for miles from the top of the ferris wheel.

We took a pass on all the carny games.

First time on a coaster and she squealed with delight the whole time.

Abner insisted everyone rest for a minute.

Coaster #2 of the day...this time with Gramps.

TDSH took her on a rather sedate bee ride.

Her first ride sans parents. Don't know who the girl is, but I would love to know what Abner said to her during the ride.

It was a great time to visit Regina. Not only was the Ex on, but the Folk Festival was also on. We spent the better part of a day there with Gramps and Nana and then headed back the next day after they'd left town. I've never been to a Folk Festival before, but this one was awesome. It's held in Victoria Park which is right downtown and the daytime shows are free! We saw Dan Mangan, Hawksley Workman, Michael Bernard Fitzgerald, The Sojourners and many others all without spending a dime. Talk about a fantastic way to expose people to great music.

One-word Wednesday: Wings

Out and about in Saskatchewan

Well, we've been here about a month and a half and I have yet to post any pics of the early days of our prairie adventure. Actually, now that I look at the pics I've selected, they're mostly of Abner, but if you look in the backgrounds, you'll get a taste of what it's like here...sort of.

This first one shows how we spent our first non-hotel night in all its glory. The story goes that within the first few days in town, we managed to find a great home to rent. Woohoo, we all do a big happy dance. The catch was, we couldn't move in for a month. Hmmmm. A month of hotel rooms? I don't think so. We lucked out and the rental agency had a one-bed apartment available in the same neighbourhood so we took it sight unseen. If we hadn't been desperate, we probably would have run for the hills the moment we saw the place (which would have been a long run since there are no hills around here). Anyhow, the carpets were steam cleaned the day we arrived and were still very wet that first night, so we set up our air mattresses on the kitchen floor. On subsequent nights, we upgraded to the carpeted luxury of the bedroom.

One of us was thrilled to sleep on the floor for a month...guess which one of us.

One of our favourite things to do on the weekend is hit the farmer's market. It's a pretty awesome market...sorry no pics. Abner is particularly fond of going because there is a great park nearby. Our tradition is to pick up a little treat at the market and make our way to the playground afterward. Even after a month in town, Abner is still asking to go on the carousel at the farmer's market. Seems she got it in her head that farmer's market = carousel because there's one at the Burnaby farmer's market and we went MANY times in the weeks leading up to our move to the prairies.

Having a little fun with John A. Macdonald after the market.

Another tradition we've started since being here is to go for ice cream together on the weekends. I don't know that Abner had had too many ice cream cones before, but now she's quite the connoisseur.

Those first few cones were rather messy affairs.

Before we moved into our house, we had a lot of time to kill on the weekends so we ventured out to Fort Qu'Appelle (best name for a place EVER) one weekend and wound up playing a round of mini golf on a partially-submerged course. There has been an insane amount of rain in this region this year and some areas are still suffering. You can't tell from the picture, but the water was half way up that fence just days before we were there. It was still covering 3 or 4 of the holes...and it smelled pretty bad.

Not too fond of the golf, but loved the ice cream.

She's getting better with the cones...way less messy than that first one.

We've also done some exploring within the city. One of the highlights being Wascana Lake which is smack dab in the middle of town. It's a lovely place with a trail circling the lake and plenty of park space for just hanging out or having a picnic.

A rare mother-daughter shot.

Another out-of-town adventure took us to Craik. Never heard of it? Well, I wouldn't know about it either except that The Dear Sweet Husband conducted some of his PhD research there. If you must know, it's a wee little place on the highway between Regina and Saskatoon. It was nice to finally see the town after hearing about it so often over the year's of TDSH's work...it's kind of like meeting someone face-to-face for the first time after only ever talking or emailing with them.

Abner loved the Craik playground (of course).

The view from the Sacred Space monument located at the Craik Eco Centre.