Pretty {little} Pouch Swap Sent

When I was assigned my partner for the PLPS my first reaction was "Oh yes, I get a fellow-Canadian!"  Shipping a pouch within Canada is much less expensive than anywhere else.

The pouch really doesn't photograph well.

But I admit that this was a hard swap for me this time.  I looked at my partners mosaic, her pinterest, her blog and just couldn't come up with an idea that I thought would work.  It doesn't help that I've been sleeping terribly so the creative part of my brain hasn't been working very well.

The lines were sewn with embroidery floss through my sewing machine, the stitching on the star is by hand.  And of course the paper piecing and applique is by hand too.

Then at the beginning of the month I received my pouch.  And to my surprise it was from my partner.  Yes, we had each other.  And the pouch she made me was amazing.

I wish I had done that fancy stitching in orange thread.

So not only did I have no good ideas, I now had this amazing pouch I had to match up to.  And I had signed up in the advanced category.  What was I thinking?!

As you can see, I did get the pouch finished and it's not bad.  I really feel that it could have been better.  You know that feeling?  But I had to just let it go and send it off and hope she likes it and uses it.

The D is her initial.  And her last name initial too.

She did request bikes in case you were wondering.

And that is the end of the story.  Will I sign up again?  Not sure, but not any time soon.

Pretty {little} Pouch Swap Received

Once again I participated in the Pretty {little} Pouch Swap on Flickr.  I received this gorgeous pouch from Deanna.

It's absolutely perfect and all mine, obviously.

 Beautiful pieced diamonds in bright colours.

Love the stitching!

I love the pouch!  Thank you, Deanna.  The only bad thing was that when I received it I hadn't even started on the pouch I was making.  But that's a story for another post.

Patchwork Glory!

 Once upon a time, Alisa sent Suzanne some scraps leftover from her Freebird Quilt.  The idea was to have a pillow swap.  Alisa would make Suzanne a pillow for her living room (though she didn't send over scraps) and Suzanne would make Alisa a pillow for hers.  The story has a happy ending. Alisa made Suzanne a pillow and Suzanne made a gorgeous one for Alisa.

But that's not the end of the story.  Suzanne secretly stashed the rest of those itty bitty scraps in order to make Alisa another pillow for her birthday.  Which she did, though just a tad after the fact.  :-)  But that's okay because Alisa was so pleased and surprised it made it all worth it.  Her living room has never been so matchy-matchy.

Pillow fits a 12" pillow form.

Here you can see it with the first pillow Suzanne made me.

Patchwork Glory!

(Good thing it's 6 months to Suzanne's birthday.)

Edit from Suzanne:
You're welcome, Alisa!!  For those interested, it was made using this technique from Oh, Fransson!  I started with 1 1/2" squares.  The best part of the project is that out of all the scraps Alisa gave me there is only one piece of orange and a small scrap of solid brown left!  So satisfying to use all those tiny little pieces :)

Tetris Quilt - the real photos and where it's going

So after finishing my quilt just in the nick of time I checked out Happy Quilting this morning to discover that I had won one of the grand prizes!

Thanks to Melissa for putting on a great quilt-along!  And to Intrepid Thread and Tetirs for the prizes!  (Yes, in addition to a fabric prize I get a little handheld Tetris game too.  My kids will love it!)

I made the quilt using mostly scraps and random fat quarters from my stash.  The binding is made with leftover strips of bias binding from making bibs and other things.

The backing has been sitting in my stash for a very long time and was given to me.  My girls think it is wonderful.  My boys think it it awful.  I am glad to use some of it up. Carolin actually wants me to make pj's out of it for her... :-)

I will be donating the quilt to our local Pregnancy Crisis Centre.  This is something close to my heart.  We have 5 children who are all loved.  Sometimes women are in situations that are less than ideal.  Some contemplate aborting their babies.  And because of the Crisis Pregnancy Centre and the counselling they get there, many women (and even girls) choose to keep their babies.  Most of the women get a care package when their baby is born and in it they get a quilt or knitted blanket.  (Those who need it get help for longer than that too.)

I'd also like to draw your attention to something else today too.  In Canada right now there is no law restricting abortion.  Every year hundreds of thousands of babies are aborted even up to 9 months gestation!  At the moment the law states that unborn babies aren't even human until they are born.  Crazy right?

Earlier this year, Stephen Woodworth, MP for Kitchener, ON put forward a motion asking that a study be done to define when human life really starts.  Motion 312, if passed, would establish a Parliamentary Committee to study Canada's 400 year old definition of a human being.  If the motion can be passed we can then go on to restrict or outlaw abortion all together!

If you are Canadian and believe that unborn babies are indeed human please contact your MP and the Prime Minister soon.  You can phone both of them or you can write them an email or letter.  If you don't have much time you can use Simple Mail to easily write an email.  Please don't delay as the vote is happening soon!  It's set for September 26.  Any questions, please ask in the comments or email me.

I'm also linking this quilt up to 100 Quilts for Kids over at Swim, Bike, Quilt.

Just in the nick of time...

... to enter my quilt in the final linky of the Tetris Quilt-Along.  And I'm so silly because I thought that the quilt had to be finished, as in pieced, quilted and bound.  But now I'm reading it again and I realize that only the top has to be finished.  So now I have some terrible, 10 o'clock-at-night photos to share with you.  (But the quilt is all the way finished!!)  I'll take some more pictures tomorrow and make as separate post on the who and why of this quilt.

A few notes on the quilt.

- Benjamin pieced 2 of the blocks.  He petered out after that.
- I cut my squares at 3" rather than the 5" called for in the QAL
- I used scraps and fat quarters.
- I skipped the borders.
- Benjamin made a mistake in the piecing of one of the blocks and we decided to just leave it.  I don't think it's too noticeable anyway.
- More on this quilt tomorrow.

Good night!

Today I am...

 ...stitching the binding on a special quilt.  I didn't make this whole quilt, mostly my friend Rebecca did.  It was nice to read the messages as I went along.

...mailing my block to Cheri.  It's a bit late, but better late than never, right?  It's a big block (16" square I think) and time consuming with all of those HST's but the finished block makes it all worthwhile.  I think it'll be a gorgeous quilt.

... baking buns for the first time in quite a while.

... taking care of my cute nephew.

... enjoying the cooler and cloudy day.  We had a pretty dry August and we had some rain last night.  It sounded so good.

... making spaghetti sauce with my own tomatoes.  And hoping the rest of my tomatoes have time to ripen.

... hoping you all have a good day.

Summer Sewing

I really didn't do much sewing this summer but a couple Saturdays ago I spent the whole day at a friend's house for a "day off".  It was wonderful!  We both had our babies with us so it wasn't completely kid free but they were very good for us.  I worked on the backing of my yellow/blue quilt (you'll notice that link takes you to a post a year and a half ago!!).

It's all layered and ready to quilt but I haven't gotten back to it since then.

While I was gone Conrad did a painting project with the kids!

They really enjoyed themselves and are excited to have their art work hanging on the wall :)

The girls and I also made some doll clothes this summer and I'll share those with you another time.

Coupon Code

Use the coupon code SEPTEMBER to get 25% off in the shop until the end of the month.

First Day - 34 - Last Bit of Summer

The first day.  They had a good day, but I can't say the same for me.  The littlest decided to have the worst day ever.  Combined with the little sleep I had (insomnia, again) it wasn't the greatest day.  Just being real here.

He does like beets though. 

I turned 34 yesterday.  As much as I tried to skip my birthday, several lovely people didn't forget.  They all made me feel special. :-)

My sister's boyfriend made me this wonderful card.  I think he knows me quite well.  I love it!  Above is the front and below is what was on the inside.   (I cropped the personal message.)

 Pretty talented, don't you think?

 Last week I took my kids to Maan Farms.  It's a bit of an agritourism place.  I had my doubts that it would be too much fun, but the kids really enjoyed themselves and we spent more than 3 hours there.

 I think this one is for a whole family, not just the kids of one family... :-)  It was perfect for my 5!

And lastly a photo of my baby-loving daughter with her new cousin.  He's just so cute!

I have a list a mile long of things I want to get to in September.  Some of it is in the sewing room and some isn't.  Hopefully I can carve out some time to blog about it!

The first day of school!

Today is the first day of another year of school!  We have one in Grade 4, 3 and 1 this year.  Always exciting to start fresh but hard to say goodbye to summer.  Now I might have a bit of time to sew here and there and maybe even blog about it ;-p.