Beach Day

Another Beach Day has come and gone. Deb & I left her place at 8 am Wednesday.





Proof positive that we got to the beach this time. It poured rain the whole way up to Diane's, but the weather cleared up beautifully after we arrived.

We stopped in at Brentwood On The Beach and got the nickle tour. It's a 10,000 square foot B & B with an indoor pool, hot tub and sauna. Very nice place.

The stairs leading down from the development to the beach. Oooo - look at all the FABULOUS LONGARM QUILTERS. Is anyone stitching today?

Checking out the progress that Diane is not making today. Maybe tomorrow?




All right - time to get down to some serious socializing. The evening deteriorated to the point where we were laughing until we cried. Poor Bill, though (Diane's DH). I'm pretty sure we kept him up until midnight, even though he went to bed sometime between emptying our third bottle of wine and emptying the super-large-economy-size bottle of Baileys. I guess the walk on the beach made us extra thirsty.

Thanks Diane - it was a great time!

25th Wedding Anniversary

Hubby & I have been married for 25 years today. Neither of us can remember what time the ceremony was. But I think it was 2-ish. I had to be told that the scotch-taped dimes spell the word 'silver'. Maybe after a martini or two. I will likely have to share the Lindt balls, but the bag of licorice?... NO WAY.

My friend Diane is having Beach Day this week so I had to beg her to delay it until tomorrow. I thought it would be really bad form to take off on such a momentous day. Although, I dunno, after spending 9,133 days together as married people, would one day REALLY make any difference?

Poor Sadie is already missing me. For Longarm Show & Tell I am bringing my Paducah Challenge quilt and the completed Quilt From Hell/Summer Quilt.

Sue's Sampler & Backyard Update

Sue's medallion sampler was a joy to work on. Everything nice and flat & square.























Hubby got busy this week and went at rebuilding the patio.







That's a lot of bricks.








Me: "I'm sorry. What did you say? You just ran out of bricks. Are you kidding me???"

Red Hat Day & Mom's Feet

Tuesday was Red Hat day. Hanna had us over for pot luck lunch and a swim. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy, so we had to make do with drinking up all her Pina Colada mix.

My contribution was a Strawberry Dumpling dessert. I had sooo many strawberries dropped off my by b.i.l. on Saturday I put in more than the recipe called for. Well, it spilled over in the oven. DH and the dog were woken up by the smoke alarm (and that is NOT a nice way to wake up!). It was kinda funny to watch them both come flying down the stairs, though. Heh, heh, heh. (bad Helen-Mary, bad!)

Before I went to play with my friends, I took Mom to get her feet done. Tom has a foot care clinic and he comes to 'the home' every two weeks. It seems Mom forgot her teeth this morning. :-)

Tom is wearing his safety glasses to protect him from flying toenails. Stop complaining about YOUR job - you could be doing this for a living. Aaack!!

Black & Rose quilt

This is the end of 'work' for this week. The owner brought this quilt to me in a fit of pique - she was just sick of looking at it, I think. It's actually a really pretty quilt. I am certain she will be much more affectionate to it now that it's been away from home for a little while.

I added her initials and the year as part of the quilting.

Variegated thread in the bobbin gives a bit of interest to the back.


Now I'm going to check the garden. I sent DH out to harvest the zucchini and green beans. Next thing I know he's picking up dog poop. I asked him "where's my produce?". "None ready" he says. I am quite aware that the thought of both zucchini and green beans brings out the 5-year-old-who-hates-green-vegetables in him. So I'll go check myself. Then I'm going to visit Mom and let her watch me do some of her embroidery. Maybe I can get her to play a game of 'go fish' with me. I hope you are enjoying your Sunday.

Art Nouveau Quilt

This beauty incorporates custom embroidery - the leaves, flowers and butterflies were digitized from the fabric. The leaf border design came from a Welsh Quilting design book.


I've just finished reading The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. What a good book!!! I saw a preview for the movie a few weeks ago so I ordered the book from the library. While I stayed up way past my bedtime last night in order to finish the book I was very glad there were no fashion police around to see me... orange & brown striped flannel lounge pants and a hot pink sweatshirt. Yee gads. It's been so friggin' cold I was contemplating hauling in some firewood and warming up my workroom yesterday. Seriously. In July. I didn't - only because DH woulda killed me. Even though he doesn't care if I wear orange and brown with hot pink.

Here's a stupid joke that has gotten stuck in my brain from weeks ago. I cannot remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember this. Go figure.
You must say this out loud to get the full effect.

A noise annoys an oyster. But a noisy noise annoys an oyster more.
Ha, ha, ha, ha. Still makes me laugh (very low threshold for humour).

Tokyo Quilt

Here is one of the Tokyo quilts. Click on the photo to make it large so you can read the embroidery - the book holds a very important message from me to you.

Vintage Quilt, Ragtime Quilt, Bye Bye Charla

This quilt has been made from vintage linens, embroidered by my customer and the ladies in her family. It includes embroidered collars and hand tatted edging. What a keepsake. The backing is prequilted eyelet, so there is no additional batting.











In comparison, here is my dog's new car blanket. Yaaay, another UFO off my list. Now I'm down to 16.




Yesterday we had dinner at my brother's to bid a fond farewell to my niece. She will be heading back to Singapore for another year. sniff sniff. We also welcomed the newlyweds home and got all the poop on their New York honeymoon. Of all the times to NOT have my camera with me. They were cooking a turkey for us - at one point the whole barbeque was engulfed in flames. I got the hell out of the way since I was wearing a synthetic blouse and I didn't want to be the secondary attraction. Come to think of it, the last time I saw a bbq engulfed in flames was also at their house. That time I think it was bacon-wrapped appetizers. Very crispy. Dinner was great though, the turkey was fine, and we had my favorite hash brown potatoes with corn flake topping. Yum. Thanks for dinner guys!

Free Episode of The Quilt Show

This weekend only there is a FREE episode of Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims in The Quilt Show. A perfect way to spend an hour on a rainy day.
Click on the link.

Quilts & garden bugs

These are the blocks I won from the Binbrook guild a few months ago. The ufo blocks have morphed into a ufo top.

I put the top together on Wednesday. My plan (!) is to donate this to Quilts of Valour. Sometimes when they're finished they're so pretty I hate to give them up. The angel in me has to have a tug-of-war with the selfish brat in me. And the selfish brat is the fat one who plays dirty by sitting on the angel. sigh...

Here are Barb's two quilts. It makes me smile that one quilter can have such diverse tastes - bright and bold vs. soft neutrals.
However, I think they are both gorgeous. The blue batiks has wool batting which is my all-time favorite. The taupe quilt has 80/20 which comes in a close second.











Here is my latest boo-boo. I was weeding in the garden Tuesday evening. I was wearing freshly laundered jeans that had been dried on the solar drier. My inner knee felt funny when I went to bed, like I'd bruised it.
When I woke up Wednesday morning that knee was covered in blistered welts and nasty looking red marks. I think perhaps inky-dinky spider mistook the leg of my jeans for the water pipe and crawled inside. But I'm only supposing - I have NO IDEA what ate me.

Gorgeous quilt this week

I've been hard at work on this beauty.




We went to the movies and saw The Proposal with Sandra Bullock last week. That was a really good, funny movie.

I've been digging up yellow daylilies to share, and weeding the cutting garden.

Today was mom's 89th birthday. I'm bringing her home for supper tomorrow - it should be a really nice day weather-wise to have a barbeque.

Postcard and Quilt Exhibition

My poor friend Marion is having surgery this coming Wednesday for an aneurysm. This is her get well postcard, representing a 'recovery angel in the fast lane'.

Yesterday was Micheline's exhibit opening at the Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph. It was a very festive event, in part because her quilts are so bright and colourful. Artsy quilts, not bed quilts. The quilts look fabulous hung on the walls. Try and get out there to take a peek. Her exhibit is on until the end of July. Click on the link for the store hours, the gallery is upstairs.

She very kindly gave me credit as her longarm quilter. Following is an excerpt from the bio she drafted:
The technical skill of manipulating the Longarm machine is one aspect of Helen’s talent, the other being her sense of design and imagination with respect to ideas and suggestions for quilting patterns and thread colour. It’s fun to work with Helen; she has a knack for interpreting what you are trying to convey with a particular piece and accommodating to your vision and, if you are at a loss of where to go next, she is never short of ideas or suggestions. Helen has the knowledge and technology to mock up stitching patterns over photos of your quilt and email them to you where you can view various options and make decisions with confidence from your home (or office). Helen’s work is impeccable and her anticipated turnaround time for work completion is accurate.
That's almost enough to make me afraid of myself. ;-)

Happy Canada Day

I hope you're enjoying this glorious country of ours. Appreciate it and keep it safe.