Happy Halloween!

Halloween for a school teacher can be a nightmare….At our school all the teachers dressed in costumes… We would do crafts and games in the morning and party in the afternoon.  It made for a VERY looooonnnng day!  I’ve been a pumpkin, a Canadian Loonie, a pirate, a caveman, a dinosaur, an old lady (before I became an old lady!), a cow, a Victorian woman/saloon girl/hooker(Victorian woman in the classroom, saloon girl for the parents and hooker in the staffroom-great fun!), a bat, a dog, a cowboy, a vampire and a witch…to name a few….

 

Here I am leaving for work as the Blue Bird of Happiness….NOT!  (Notice the yellow rubber gloves on my feet- try to walk in those all day!) ;o)

Imagine spending all day dressed like a cat! ME….OW!

Retirement is grand…..no more games, crafts and parties….

Well… maybe just one more costume…yes, it’s me snug and warm under my Halloween quilt….

I really must get some more beauty cream!  Trading teaching for quilting has been rough and it has definitely taken it’s toll on me….ain’t life grand!  I’m lovin’ it!  What’s a few wrinkles…..when you get to quilt ALL DAY!  Happy Halloween!

Have a scary, hairy Saturday and Happy Quilting!

Welcome to….

In January we will be packing up the 5th Wheel and ‘snow birding’ to sunny Southern California for three months.  I was on the net checking out potential quilting stores to visit and I stumbled onto this gem! This store is a quilter’s dream….you must visit!  If you go to Simple Pleasures (Sept 26th) you get to see the shop through Lea’s camera!  Thanks, Lea for taking us on a most enjoyable journey through this store.  When you are finished at Simple Pleasures then click on The Country Loft and you can go to nine years of Quilt Shows hosted by this shop….just click on their side bar…Quilt Shows and you will see tons of eye candy!!  (At the top there are little quilts with the various years- click on one).  Lovely stuff! This shop is located about an hour and a half drive from where we will be staying…..an ideal day trip!  My husband is going to be  SO thrilled…… ;o) !!!

On the quilting front:  Guess what I have been doing…..

  Yup!  Making a mess…..in order to make….

…. these….. holly leaves to appliqué on….

this….

Stay tuned….

Have a fun Friday and Happy Quilting! 

Penny saved….is a penny stitched?

For those of you who may be wondering- what exactly is a penny rug….?  Well first off, they aren’t rugs…more like table toppers.

Let me give you a little history lesson….well way back when my great-grandma was a girl….around the early 1800s, women would use scraps of wool or wool felt from old clothing and hats to create designs for mats or rugs. They would make circles using coins as a template. (Hence the name- ‘penny’rugs…) Each piece was then stitched using the blanket stitch fashion. Sometimes, the mats or rugs were backed with old burlap bags or feed sacks or wool. And to make the piece lie flat, a penny was sometimes stitched under one of the circles to weigh it down (that is if you were rich enough to do this!) Imagine finding an old penny rug with coins sewn in….be worth a pretty penny! :o)  Nineteenth century women were very creative and not wasteful.

So next time I am in a Thrift store looking for an old winter coat to turn into the perfect penny rug I will think of my great grandma working on her own penny rug using bits and pieces of whatever was available.  Maybe even the coat off my own grandmother’s back…Poor grandma….

This is a picture of a penny rug made out of my poor grandma’s coat….taken off Wikipedia. (no copy right rules apply as it was released for publications)

Now don’t you feel a lot smarter….?  Don’t you want to start ripping up that old winter coat of yours?  That’s what I did…..

So here we are 200 years later….and my old blazers and coats have never looked so good….Thanks great-grandma….for passing on the penny rug gene!….

Yahooo- Give-Away Spotted!!  And it is a humdinger!!  Canton Village Quilting is giving away a ton of stuff for five LUCKY winners!!  When I signed up there were almost 450 entries so the chances of getting H1N1 is greater than winning ….but some one’s got to get it …right?…the prizes that is, not H1N1!  (and I hope you don’t get it….the H1N1, that is!)  Sheesh….good luck…!

Have a thrifting Thursday and Happy Quilting!

Penny for your thoughts…

On Monday I told you I would show you how to make a fast, easy and PERFECT penny for a penny rug.

This is how I use to do it….

Iron ‘Heat and Bond’ or any other stabilizer onto the back of your wool felt…this just stabilizes it so that it won’t lose its shape with all your handling.(I don’t use freezer paper as it pulls the wool out of shape when you try to remove it - I had to throw away my wool pieces after using freezer paper…not good!)

Then I would spend hours drawing the circles onto the backing and cutting the circles out resulting in OK circles but not PERFECT circles.

About 2 years ago I was in Michael’s and saw this Sizzix Die Cutter on sale.  It was regularly $169.00 and it was on sale for $12!!!  Yes 12 dollars….they wanted to get rid of them because the new die cutter machines were in.  It gets better- I had a half price coupon and  YES, they took it!! I paid $6 for this machine!  Now I bought it because I was into Scrapbooking and thought it would be fun to be able to cut out shapes to jazz up the pages…So when I started cutting out pennies I thought, hmmm I wonder if my die cutter machine would work on felt….

I put a piece of felt on the cutter (I still iron on Heat and Bond first) and got out my circle cutter….

 

Put the circle die on top of the wool…

 

Pulled the lever and…..

PRESTO- Perfect pennies…..how cool is this?  And in seconds, too!

I can also cut out all of this….perfectly!

Quick, easy and perfect pennies….every time.  I save all the scraps to make leaves, stems or whatever…. Check out a Michaels near you….you just never know what you will find on sale!

Give-Away Spotted!!  Cotton Coctails is giving away three gorgeous hand-made bags!  All you have to do is comment for one entry, blog about her for three more and link it back to her blog….and if you become a follower you get three more entries!  Hey, I did all this…I guess that means, I’ve got it in the bag….(get it!)

Aren’t the bags gorgeous!!  I honestly don’t know which one I like best….I guess I’ll let Cotton Cocktails decide for me!  :o)

Have a wild Wednesday and Happy Quilting!

A Sweet day…

Sweet ‘P’ is getting sweeter… and the thighs  are getting bigger!  Look what happened to me yesterday as I was stitching the binding…..before I knew it I had all these wrappers to hide, I mean… to throw into the garbage…. 

Is it just me or are the Halloween chocolate bars getting smaller?….I mean really….I had to eat 6 or 7 before I had my fill of chocolate!  Let’s see…Halloween is on Saturday and today is Tuesday…looks like I am going to be shopping for more candy!  (:o)) that’s my double chin! 

A few of our fellow bloggers have been showing a few pictures of the Houston Quilt Market…and I love looking at them!  Then today I got my newsletter from Snip and Snitch, a quilt shop in Nanaimo (a city about an hours drive North of my home)… and Eureka!  The Mother Lode- she has posted three videos of the Houston Quilt Market!  Love it! Pour yourself a coffee (and maybe a chocolate bar or two… or six) and settle in as there is lots to see!  Enjoy!

Now that you have been to Houston and back, let me take you to the Snip and Stitch…it is a gorgeous store!  Lots of eye candy and upstairs is where you will find the bargains!  

I love a quilt shop that has a nice inviting door…..

Look at me…I’m already upstairs casing out the sales…and yes I found some good things!!

Do you think they would mind if I slid down the banister?  Ouch…that post in the middle is going to spoil it!  Darn!

You can see all kinds of goodies from up here!

This is the stuff that was on sale.

A Thimbleberries display……

More Christmas fabric, patterns and ideas….sorry it is so dark…but it was a sunny day!

Lots of quilts, books and fabrics….

A wool  and stitchery section….

Another Christmas section….

There was a workshop in session….something to do with computerized quilt programs or embroidery…?

What did I buy, YOU are asking?  Well…quilters DO love to sew and tell…..

I’ve had my eye on this pillow pattern for some time now…..and it was 50% off! Score!

This was my BIG find!!  They had two Nature’s Chorus charm packs….you probably don’t remember my hexagon quilt….remember I ran out of fabric which happened to be Nature’s Chorus !  (check Aug 31 posting).  Well I found it and bought both for 50% off!  Now that is Sweet!  And this sweet deal isn’t going to go to my thighs!

And this was another 50% off find!  I love this sweet stitchery!

So what do you think of the Snip and Stitch, well worth the drive?  You bet!  Thanks for coming with me!  It’s a good thing!

Have a terrific Tuesday and Happy Quilting!
PS  Wool Pennies tomorrow…. :o)

All Day Sew-win…..

Whoop-tee-doo!  I won!  I won! Yes, I FINALLY won a give-away (and no… Claire’s ‘give-away’ doesn’t count! Although I did love my gift from her a lot!! :o) )  I won this lovely charm pack from Marj on Eclectic Quilter!  It’s called Heaven on Earth and it really is lovely….reminds me of Spring on this rainy Fall day… Thank you very much Marj!  I am thrilled!

Yesterday was a wet, cold and rainy day on the coast….but I was warm and snug sewing up ‘a storm’…(get it…)  So what did I get done….well I completely finished off the Fall quilt-got the binding on and stitched. Whew…it still Fall and it’s finished!!  That’s a first!  Then I couldn’t decide where to put it…

Kitchen?  or Living room?… Kitchen won…for now!

Then I worked on the Ball Jar Penny Rug.  I took two steps forward and one step back as I burned the bottom right corner of the jar-OUCH!….is that the smoke detector I hear….?  Ahhh, nothing like the smell of burnt wool….

I  learned a valuable lesson here….use a pressing cloth and steam iron!  See we do learn from our mistakes.  So I cut out a new jar and proceeded from there.  I still need to sew on the buttons, stitch more babies breath, finish the crow and then start the pennies.

  

I am not going to put on tongues…I like pennies better.  Tomorrow I will show you a neat trick to make pennies…wool ones, that is….whew almost had the Canadian Mint breathing down my neck.  I can tell you one thing….I wouldn’t be wasting my time making real pennies…. although our Canadian dollar is up!  

I also cut out the binding for my snowball quilt and got it stitched on….Whew!  I feel like I am back in Kim’s Finish It Up in August Challenge!  YIKES! 

Have a magical Monday and Happy quilting!