What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 My daughter was here for the past week and she and Finn went home yesterday.  It was nice to have her here.  Finn was very excited to see her.  He loves it when all of us are together.  I did a little bit of cross stitch this past week, but no machine sewing.  I finished the framing stitches and added more sky stitches as well.  I hope to do more today. 

I think I'm in big trouble, and I need medical attention. Not mental health medical attention, but physical. My leg has been bothering me a lot, and it's time I did something about it. I could barely walk yesterday - at least without pain, and that is affecting my good leg, so there is no time to waste. What do I suspect is the issue? Well, where do I start? Issues with the PCL, which is a tendon on the back of the knee, and the sciatic nerves.  

Don't you love how I'm self-diagnosing? I'll go ...

Your comments put a smile on my face! Yes—there are multiple ways to tackle this mess. What boggles my mind is how I didn't realize what was happening. At one point, the second set of shelves didn't exist, and so there were boxes and piles of books on the floor, and when I wanted something, I was happy to move those. When I got tired of moving, I got new shelves built. Seriously? That just makes me shake my head now. But then? It seemed the perfectly normal thing to do. 

THANKFULLY, I saw the light about ...

OH—after reading the comments this morning, I don't think I'm worthy of decluttering the books! Ever since I was little, my mom taught us that books are precious. And YES - they are, but that doesn't mean you need to own all of them. Or if you buy something, you don't need to keep it! ACK!! I'm in big trouble. 

We had two great presentations in the morning, and I can share a little bit of what I've been working on. One of my goals for 2026 is to finish Sylvia's Bridal Sampler ...

 I blinked and it is May now. We had one summery day amid all the coolness and it is still flirting with overnight frosts. These Daffodils always open too soon and, in their shady spot, don't get to really shine like they should which is a shame. I should move them and the bunch behind there that didn't get to open at all this year.

I've pleased to have finished the quilting on the final  (third) quilt I'm  making for a special family.  I really struggled with the quilting, and couldn't understand why the tension was wrong and the machine was really struggling.  My  Bernina had just come back from a service so should have been running fine.  Eventually, after rethreading yet again, I decided to change the fancy embroidery thread I was using to standard cotton.  What a revelation, no tightness in the tension, no strange noises, and the final quilting line ran smoothly.  When I sent my machine for a ...

 I'm still working with pink, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for April, so decided to make some more draw string bags for the foster kids.  Looking through my big bag of bag making bits and pieces, I found four pink contenders.

There was a black and grey fabric piece which I had pinned some bright pink for the top.  Piggies in pyjamas, and a pretty floral fat quarter I had tucked away which yielded two bags.  So I cut, and stitched, added the linings and the draw string tops, found some suitable cord, and they were all done.

We were plunged back into Christmasy looking winter on Saturday. It was beautiful outside in my woods.

This Wednesday morning is cool, windchill making it -18C but the sun is shining so another very pretty wintry looking day. But staying this cool means no melting today.

I've been trying to choose which of my quilt tops to get to ...

 I've been doing a bit of this and a bit of that all week.  Remember those blue stars and hearts I've been working on for a secret project?  I've finished stitching the binding down on the stars, just need to do the binding on the hearts now.  I'm not sure when I will be meeting up with the recipients to hand these over though, could be a while.  But I'll keep them safe and sound and share photos when they finally go to their new homes.

I've also done a bit more knitting on ...

No change in the numbers.

My local library had a book sale this week, and I picked up this book.

I doubt I’ll ever make a quilt from it.  I bought it because it belonged to a woman I knew from a Guild I was in many years ago.  Her name and contact info were written in the front.  She was such a nice person and an amazing quilter.  Inside there were pages of hand written notes describing a quilt she designed.  It had to go home with me.

In the sewing room, I added borders to the striped ...

 Red is the colour for Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month, so I dug into my big bag of bag making bits and pieces, lining fabrics and cords,  to see what I could find.  I like to make drawstring bags for foster kids from time to time and have been using the RSC colour of the month to keep me on track.  Not much red there at all, just enough for one bag.  This one has cute little teddy bears with red bows on it.  I got this little piece of fabric from a pile of free fabric at my quilt ...

We had sun in spurts yesterday but today we are back to a white world out there both sky and landscape. It has continued to snow a lot- small flakes but they add up. The saying at home was "small snow, big snow" and when the snowflakes were large...."big snow, small snow". This has been a winter of small snow building up. The dogs love it all of course. I'm so happy that having obedient Petey, who comes when called, join us has meant Ned stays close too and no longer needs to be on a leash. This ...

 I'm feeling a little drowsy this morning sitting here by the fire. I've just mopped the whole upstairs because we've had a lot of activity here. It's been a trying week because our furnace quit working and what a time to choose to do that during these very cold days in February. I'm thankful to have Brad who helped me with getting wood up from the back basement door for our fireplace...that is quite a trek. The little heaters we also used were okay but it was really nice to be able to keep ...

OH MY!!!!!! When I sit down to write the blog, I have to come up with a title, and some days that's a struggle because nothing super exciting happened. But there are days, like today, when I have many titles! I called it "The Best of both worlds," but "Happy Dance," "Exciting update," and "The email saga continues (part two)" would have worked as well. 

It was a good news day all around, so I'm excited. 

The knee update is all good. I did a short walk with the girls in the morning. While I feel perfectly fine ...

 There was more green stitching this week and I completed five green drawstring bags for the foster kids.  So I'm quite pleased with that.  I'm always amazed at what is tucked away in my big bag of bits and pieces.  It doesn't seem to be getting much emptier. 

Bag making bits and pieces

So what did I find to work with?  There was an already made elongated nine patch featuring frogs, and a farmyard scene with a red barn and roosters.

A fat quarter of dark green Japanesy fabric was enough for two bags, plus two small ...

 This is a painting by William Kurelek called "Balsam Avenue After Heavy Snowfall", 1972.  This area of Toronto just had a huge snowfall so I imagine the present day residents doing just this. Shovelling snow is certainly something all Canadians are very familiar with. Do you like the way William used pops of colour here in what otherwise would be a drab background?

OH -- I need to get back to answering those blog comments!!! Tammy --- I NEED an ice scraper! I was the one who drove over the snow before it was shoveled, and that spot has niggled at me for weeks now! I'm chiselling away at it with the shovel, and it's almost gone, but for the future! That's hilarious, and I'm glad to know that I'm not the only anal person about the snow! 

It was a long, yet very productive day! The quilt top is in one piece!! I never thought that would happen! I ...

It seems to be all about the weather here in the winter months. Saturday,when I went out with the dogs, the temperature was this with a wind chill of -34C.