Applique

I have discovered the world of applique! I am making a book for my granddaughter...she is visiting this christmas from out west. This book I discovered is full of applique so I channeled the help of my friend, Rachel, who is expert at these types of things, and set out to make this book.

First you trace your pattern onto fusible web, but trace it backwards! I learned that lesson the hard way! I used paper for tracing patterns onto fabric with a stylus and it seemed to work fine.

















Then cut out your pattern and iron it onto the wrong side of the fabric you are using. This is not a very good picture but you can see the letters on the fabric near the bottom.

















Then you cut them out again! This time they have the fabric attached. Peel the paper off the fusible web and place the pattern on your layout where you want them and then iron down.
















Once they are ironed down in place you need to sew around the pattern pieces. I used a zig zag stitch but a blanket stitch is very nice too and is what my friend Rachel uses.

















Once you have the sewing done voila! you have your applique. Here is the front and back cover of my book. I still have to embroider on the eyes of the teddy bear and the mouth.

Back to Blog

Greetings my friends!

I am back to the land of blog! I figure this was the opportune time to reinstate my blog with the recent setup of my new 'studio' area in the house for my creativity! So, its actually a creativity center.

My husband and I have decided to do some update work on our house lately. About 15 years ago we purchased a small cottage and have been putting most of our extra resources and work into that but now its time to focus on the house again. Recently (3 days ago) we bit the bullet and put a new roof on. We added a new over-the-oven microwave which includes the vent and light for the stove...very nice...and in the process of installing it we damaged the ceramic top on our stove so had to replace the stove (not planned but nice for me, ha ha). We also installed a little flat screen tv in the kitchen (a luxury) and now I love cooking in my kitchen again! There are other rooms on our list also but back to the studio....

I don't have an entire room in the house for my use but we have a family room in our basement that had some extra space so I took over one side of the room to organize my things like sewing supplies, painting supplies, scrapbooking stuff, card making, knitting, etc. I figure if the guys can have a garage or workshop for their stuff then why not have my own work area? The area is actually in a corner because it is located at the bottom of the stairs. I am happy that I can actually have a full size table there to work on now; I like to spread out! This was my birthday present for 2010. Here are a few photos of my endeavour:
















The lower pic is an overview of the whole thing...my sewing machine is out in this photo but I store it in the background on the smaller shelve (you can see the case for it there). Also, this is the one room in our basement that does not have a window so I put up the mirrors to reflect light and dress it up a little. I thought about putting curtains on them to mimic windows put have not gone that far yet! I do intend to cover my chair in a navy color to match some of my fabric boxes in the cubicles. The coat tree is holding a couple of my current sewing projects, other sewing projects I have cut out but not sewn yet I keep in freezer bags with everything together in it in one of the fabric boxes.



While scanning other sewing/crafting room ideas on the internet I discovered an article about folding your fabrics in order to store them more easily so here are my fabrics....I don't store them by color, I store them by size or the amount of fabric but they look pretty tidy I think!


My cats are very intrigued by these cubicles...they love baskets! Everytime I went to fill a new basket I would find one cat or the other! It was cute.

So, what do you think? Any suggestions out there? I would love to hear them....

Mid Winter Goings On!

Ok, Ok, I know. I don't update my blog enough! So here is this months update, haha.

Survivor starts this week and it is shaping up to be a super super show. I'm in the pool again and my character is Danielle so if you happen to watch you can root for me to win. We have Survivor night every Thursday night with the neighbors and lots of good food and of course beer or wine. We make wine with the neighbors too so it tends to flow on Thursday evenings. This is a lot of fun and something to look forward to every week.

My son is graduating this year and now that it is February and first semester is officially over we have been slogging through university applications and scholarship applications. That in itself is a lot of work let alone all the essays and work to do for scholarships too. But if he gets even one it will be completely worth the work.

I belong to an Artist Trading Card Club and have been working on the monthly card. For March we were sent a little bag of goodies to make the card with which should be a lot of fun. February was a vintage valentine theme and the cards coming in are absolutely beautiful.

Its also time to do some mid winter swamping out! I get the itch to do this every winter. I started with my night stand....yeah it was getting pretty piled but now looks very presentable and is much more usable! Today I started on our home office. Got a lot of filing done and tons of recycling done. Got my income tax files all sorted out ready to combat the upcoming tax season. Thats a first for me as I am usually very late doing my taxes.

I am also getting set to catch up on some scrapbooking over the March Break. I hope to get some photos printed by then and am ready to work on some of those projects. Hopefully that will get my 'hobby' desk cleaned up a little! I will let you know how it goes.....

Hope your winter in going well too.

Back to Internetland

Home from the camp now and back into the land of internet. We don't have internet service there, its supposed to be the place to get away from such things and spend time together. We decided to stay an extra week so we were there for 3 weeks total (since before xmas). I thought I would really miss being online but I really didn't. It was actually quite peaceful being away from the hussel-bussel or busyness of technology! Life used to be so much more simple.

The holidays were nice, family and friends and good food. I didn't spend as much time with my book as I planned but I did catch up on some scrapbooking! I had some Canada Games pictures from 2003 that needed an album and I have them almost all finished and looking good I might say! Our daughter competed that year in freestyle skiing so it was about time I got those pictures done! Just a few more odds and ends to find like newspaper clippings and its all done. This week I will have to work on my ATC Club project for January. That will be my art for the week. Its a harder theme this month for me so I will have to think hard about it.

Also it was a great time to be 'snowed in' at the camp considering I have been weaning off morphine over the last few weeks. So not having to travel anywhere or have plans was perfect timing. I am almost completely off the morphine now and should be done in around another week. That will be so great.

My boys are both teaching skiing this winter which leaves Saturdays to myself. It is weird not to be at the hill teaching with them but I decided to enjoy my day too being lazy, doing some art projects or something along those lines in the quietness. Sometimes I put an old movie on just for company in the background that I can watch or ignore, something like Gone With The Wind or Meet Me In St. Louis or another musical. Its fun.

Well, thats all for tonight, catch up some more later.

Time for updates

I guess it has been a while since I updated this blog. Shame on me! My friend, Rachel, puts a bug in my ear every now and then to get moving on it. It is certainly a white Christmas here and lately it has been in the minus twenties with the windchill (celcius) which is pretty cold especially considering it has been fairly mild all Fall. The kids are off school now as of today and the holiday shopping is all done, at least on my part but hubby is another story. He tends to be a last minute shopper. He is working tonight and the boy is out overnight with friends which means I had the house to myself and could wrap. We are heading to the cottage for most of the holidays which will be peaceful and fun because there is no tv which means we will play lots of games together, visit together and relax. Gotta love that. Plus I will get some quality time with my latest book recently published by Diana Gabaldon, a sequel to the Outlander series. I just love the story and the history in it. We don't have internet access at the cottage so it will be another while before I can update again but I'll try to write again before we go. There will be lots to report on after the weekend.

For all you Survivor fans, the finale is coming up this weekend. We expect a living room full of fans and lots of goodies to finish off what has been a really good season. Yes, I am still in the pool but barely!! Hoping to win the mulah!

Happy Holidays to all.

Birthdays

Its what I call my birthday week, which means my birthday falls on a day this week. Lets just say its a significant birthday this year which is why I'm glad to be a November baby, haha.

So along with a significant birthday come lots of different thoughts; one being, "do I have wrinkles yet??????" ahhhhh wrinkles? so I checked....ok so here are the eyes :

Here are the eyes when I grin:

So I guess we can call them laughing lines and yes, I still have freckles. So did my grandma.

My very very close friend Rachel sent me a beautiful quilt with a matching pillow cover for my significant birthday. Here is a picture of it:

Having been involved in skiing professionally for many years, the theme is really appropriate! Really really nice and a lot of work went into that. Its awesome. Not only that but she did the most beautiful write up on her blog about the long friendship that we have had. I had many tears in my eyes when I read that, it was sooo thoughtful and very real.

What else is new? hmmm, Levi is getting big now and looking more like a cat even though he is only 5 months. He is still very beautiful though. Loulou has now become the 'grown up' of the cats in our family. Pretending to not want so much loving but secretly loving every second of attention! She loves Levi too, except when he steals her chairs. She gets quite annoyed at him but still sleeps with her arm around him!

Medically is another story. I have not updated that part of my life story in a while. Lets just say that I have actually been doing better in the last few weeks and I'll update that this coming week in more detail.

Well, that is all for now. Hope you all enjoy your significant birthdays and celebrate all the ones that follow just because you get to have them, good reason to celebrate eh?

Growing Kids

My baby is graduating from high school this year. He and his first cousin whom he is very close to. So graduation stuff has already started, year book orders, ring orders, pictures,etc. all that good stuff. While we have had professional photos done of him, my sister and I decided to take some pics of the kids together for our family. So we got the camera out at the camp one day and did a few candid shots, which have not been touched up yet but here are a few:


Are they good looking kids or what? Of course, I am biased! While I am happy for him and his achievements, I must admit it is a bit sad to think of him almost through with school. I had to tease him a few days ago, he actually had his first cavity filled at the dentist, his dad thought it would be great to put in his baby book!!! Of course, he has not completely decided his next course of action, I think he is considering several options. When the time comes I will really miss my little buddy who chats with me when we are alone, rubs my back when I feel really sick and still kisses mom goodnight. (but don't tell anyone). Tell me again, why do they grow up?