Oliver Ulysses

This little man arrived very early this morning- 12:35 AM on 27 February, weighing in at 6 lb, 9 oz. He was brought along a week early for medical reasons but he still took a L O N G G G  time making his appearance. However, he is beautiful and perfect . His Mum is very well- VERY tired, of course, but aglow with pride and love. They are a VERY happy little family. We are so grateful- thankful to God for such goodness!

I am DEFINITELY in love with a younger man!

Ready for all eventualities!:The Last Post....

....before we become Grandparents officially! How VERY exciting! Next Wednesday has been designated the Birth Day. DD is still in the High Risk category so she is being given some help to get this babe here safely. Fingers are all crossed, as are toes. Prayers are being said! In preparation for Baby Boy's arrival, the Little Mum made these! Are they not to die for??? BB's Daddy has a pair of purple, hightop Converse runners so it stands to reason that BB should have a pair of "Converse" runners too :-)

In preparation for going away but still having to be ready for the show, I have worked VERY hard and now have my work all in a pile,ready to pack into the car and to hang at the gallery!

The pile!

The pile from the top - on DD's bed! Luckily for her, she has another bed now and does not need this one.

For the antique enthusiasts among you, the bed is well over 100 years old, made of very wide pine boards and painted with wood graining on parts of it. It was made by Polish immigrants and is in the Wilno style. It came from a barn near Wilno ON, MANY moons ago. I think we got it when I was about ten years old, and that was NOT yesterday! It is a very pretty piece and was a child's bed so it is short and had to be lengthened to fit my enormously tall daughter ( 5'0" on a good day!)

And, lastly and in the category ( sort of) of Where's Waldo, here is what happened at our front door yesterday afternoon.The pic was shot through a VERY dirty front window so it is not stellar. The big blurs though, are NOT dirt! They are robins flying away when they saw me !!! The holly bush was full of fruit yesterday morning . Not so much this afternoon! It was picked clean by these poor starving robins. Can you see them? it is a dark, fuzzy pic but there are still several there! Someone needs to remind the robins that we still have tons of snow everywhere  although at +3c this afternoon, there ARE puddles and runnels and running water sounds:-)

And so, I am off to get ready to depart for the southland when we are summoned. Wish us luck please. have a wonderful , creative week and enjoy the end? of winter 2014.

I am going to post this to needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com. Hope you will all have a look there and see what everyone is doing!

Nearing the FINISH LINE!! ( in more ways than one!)

I am almost done! I have the majority of the quilting finished on Wire Fence I. I am almost finished myself! My neck and back are VERY tired and sore from the intense quilting I WILL choose to do! This is the last piece I will make for the show AND_______________________________________
DD has passed the 36 week mark and we are on the countdown to THAT finish line! ( and that Little Boy wants his FREEDOM!)

Here is the finished composition, except for a bit of Lily Gilding .

And one sample of the quilting .

And a second sample.

The finished piece is about  24"x 30" for those who like these details. I still have some nitty gritty stuff to do and then the facing and hanger. Then DH will photograph it for me and I will make a nice label and...........TA DA........... ready for the show! YAY!!!

Then , I am in pure Granny mode :-) Can't wait !

Frustrating and disappointing :-(

I am afraid I have to be honest! I do not like dissing products publicly  but I MUST say my piece about Easy Steam. I have Wire Fence I ready to quilt and have begun to do that.  ALL over the quilt, places that WERE fused with Easy Steam are now lifting  up and interfering with my quilting foot! I have a little mini bottle of Aleenes Tacky Glue beside the machine and I keep having to glue corners down. It is VERY frustrating!!! I have had similar problems from time to time with old, dried out  Wonder Under but this is just sad. It has been kept wrapped up so it does not dry out but it seems to make no difference. It just keeps separating from the background fabric :-(

Here I am , all ready to quilt- in fact I have begun .....

...and here is what I keep encountering!

and here...

and here!!!!

There are a LOT more places too but I am so sad about it , I could not bear photographing them. The pieces started lifting as I was placing them on the background so the edges are now woolly and frayed in spots. After all of my hard work, I certainly HOPE this piece works for me and isn't a mess when it is finished.

I want to add some info regarding fusibles later on. I regularly and normally use Steam a Seam 2 Lite, Wonder Under and Misty Fuse and will say how I use them and comment on their effectiveness - as soon as I have had my lunch :-) As my DH says, "M'ungry"!
_________________________________________________________________________________

OK, back from lunch and ready to rip! Interestingly, while I was munching, I checked for Steam a Seam online and was on a Joann Fabrics site where there were reviews of SaS and Easy Steam. I feel vindicated! The reviews for Easy Steam were abominable. Anyway, here is my basic modus operandi:

I have my enlarged , printed pattern on the table and trace the whole thing WITH NOTES TO SELF written on , onto freezer paper. Then I cut pattern piece Number 1 out and iron it onto my fabric of choice. That is then trimmed roughly and placed on my fusible of choice ( fusible on the back, of course!) Then, I carefully press the back side of the fusible WITH PAPER STILL IN PLACE  and THEN, the piece is cut out. This then leaves me with a totally fusible pattern piece. In the case of things like my leaves on Wire Fence I, that is my base piece. I then remove the freezer paper and iron it onto the top layer of fabric and make that layer fusible, then carefully cut that out and  fuse that to the top of the first layer. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT THESE TWO LAYERS STAY STUCK TO EACH OTHER!

Now, that said, I prefer to do my work with Steam a Seam. Why? Because it has paper on both sides of the SaS. The paper can be drawn or written on. The fusion capacity is stellar. Because SaS is tacky to touch, it can be placed on your background, checked to see if you like it, moved if necessary and can stay that way till you fuse it ALL at the end or can be fused right away . Best of all, ONCE FUSED, IT DOES NOT PEEL OFF!!!

I also like working with Misty Fuse. It is not everyone's cuppa. It is NOT sticky to the touch and it has NO paper backing. MF is flittery and a bit hard to control so normally, I make a biggish piece of my chosen fabric fusible first so the fabric has some body and I am not trying to manhandle the spiderweb of the MF.  Once the fabric has MF on the back though, it is easy to cut  a very complex shape from it using a freezer paper pattern ironed onto the right side of the fabric. The best thing about MF is that it is so transparent itself that you can use it to fuse delicate fabrics like chiffon, light silks, organza , tulle etc and it barely shows through. MF comes in black and white. It stays put quite well if fused carefully but it does not respond well to being moved if you have a change of heart.

Lastly, but certainly not least is Wonder Under. I use WU a LOT! It has a paper backing that can be written on . It is NOT tacky to the touch and has to be fused in place before it sticks but it CAN be removed and replaced if you are needing to do that. If it is kept wrapped carefully, it holds its  fusibility well . It is pretty transparent but not s good as Misty Fuse.

I would add that it behooves one to keep ALL of your fusibles tightly wrapped to keep them from drying out.

There you have it , Folkses! MY take on the fusibles I use. I am sorry not to give a better report on Easy Steam but I just can't do it. I neglected to mention the fact that it REALLY sticks to itself badly if it manages to come in contact with itself. Then , you have disaster! SaS WILL do that but it is usually salvageable. Good luck to all with all of these products.

When the time is right, I will post this HUGE missive to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com
Maybe others will be less verbose than I . Hope so for your sakes :-)

Time to Layer- I THINK!

I have "finished" the top of Wire Fence I- I believe. I keep changing things . It is a little different from the original but that is a good thing. I tried to add some grassy details in the background but it just didn't do it for me. DH liked it , but I did not. It is a busy picture anyway with all of the bright colours,  the erratic vines and leaves and the bright blue berries. I like it better with only a hint of the turning maple leaves in the background.

Here it is to date. The colour is fairly accurate considering it is dark in here because it is SNOWING outside.

Well, stay tuned and see what happens to this now. This is all for the moment. Time for dinner and our Saturday PM "stories"!

Making some progress

OK, I actually HAVE a WIP!! I am working hard on finishing the new piece, Wire Fence I. It is called Wire fence I because there will also be a # 2 and possibly more but this is definitely enough to be getting on with just now. I am working from photos I took on a drive by last fall when the wild grapes were ripe and the Virginia Creeper was at its most flamboyant! I have a nice little collection to work from so here is number one to date.

Partly finished this stage. MANY stages to go!

I normally like Steam a Seam II Lite for my work but , sadly, SAS is not available just now so I am using EZ Steam . It works. It is sticky so it stays put nicely without heat till you are sure, but Steam a Seam, IT IS NOT!!! For one thing, it is just TOO sticky when you are doing something complex like this. It sticks to me, to itself and is generally a huge nuisance. COME BACK STEAM A SEAM!!

I am going to post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com I haven't much to show but a few people have been following this piece's progress , so here you are. Hope you enjoy it and the other posts on TNTN. 

Of All Things

Well, of SOME  things, anyway! It is cold, windy and snowy- generally inhospitable , so we are inundated by hungry, furry and feathered friends here.

Pity the photos have to be so small. Ohh! I can enlarge them :-)

Almost every Cardinal in the valley is here ! What is the collective noun for Cardinals??

And one of only TWO grey squirrels. We have many many black ones - and they are ALL ravenous.

I have started on a new piece of work. It is based on one of a series of photos I took late last fall of Virginia Creeper on a wire fence in Waterdown. I also took a number of pics of wild grape on the same fence. I just LOVE the photos. Hope I can do them justice. This is not very far along so it looks pretty silly at this point.

This is NOT doctored! The fruit WAS that blue and the leaves and twigs WERE that red! 

...And here we are to date. Lost the light now so I shall wait till morning to do some more.

OK, I guess that accounts for the weekend. We have both been busy. My DH has been carpenting for me all weekend- almost finished now , and I have been cutting and sticking and finishing up after the carpenter has finished his work. We are rarely at loose ends looking for something to keep us busy here.

Hope your weekend has been productive - and safe and warm. SO many people have had accidents . Please keep safe and keep warm and dry.

Bag done and new venture!!!

Well, that Little Boy can arrive any time now and there will be a nice place to keep some diapers etc when he is "out and about"! The bag AND the changing pad are fini! Yay, Me :-)

The finished bag- closed up!

And the "business side" of the changing pad OPENED up!

The fun big grommets

The pad in a pocket

The bound and finished pad. It stays so nicely folded when not in use.

All we need now is a baby to use the bag. Soon enough , I expect. As of tomorrow, six weeks to go. This has been a diversion and a fun job to do. I have one more bag to make - for ME this time. I have some fabulous fabric which shall be unveiled eventually - once I get a few other things out of the way. BTW- I do NOT plan on a career change- from Fibre Art to Bag Making !!

Now- you may have wondered about the frenzy of work before Christmas- several biggish, major pieces of new work in a short time. Well, I am making an unofficial announcement , more info soon. Late last summer, I was honoured to be invited to participate in a small group show at the Homer Watson House and Gallery which will take place later this spring. I am one of four Fibre Artists who have been asked to take part. The others in the group are Marg Notar ( also a SAQA member), Joanne Young and Carol McLean. The other three are all Kitchener- Waterloo artists and I am a "foreigner" from Burlington . I am really thrilled to be involved with this . I have shown my work often in the past- watercolours and batik, but the quilts have never really been seen publicly. As I have no samples of the other women's work and as I do not know what their parts of the show are to be called, I will wait to make a more formal announcement . My part will be called Passions- because it will include pieces from my nature collection and from my Kintyre (Scotland) collection, two things about which I feel passionately. I will announce dates later and will issue a more formal invitation to any and all of you who are able to attend. It would be grand to meet some of you face to face.

I guess that is all the excitement for this post :-) I am posting this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com and hope that you will join me there to see all of the interesting work going on just now. Marg, Joanne and Carol's entries in this year's Grand National can be seen here by clicking on Local Colour at the bottom of the page. Hope this works! Grand National Quilt Show 2013

A Diaper Bag :-)

I have stopped doing art in order to make a diaper bag for this VERY active babe who is about to join our family :-) He is currently giving his Mum no peace and , as a result, I get lots of iMessages almost every day giving us a blow by blow description of the goings on! We are all very happy and excited. Seven weeks to go as of today. I never would have believed it possible! God DOES work in mysterious ways- and we are SO grateful!

I made a prototype bag before Christmas as some may recall. ( see Diaper Bag) Katherine and I worked together to decide where and how many pockets would be good. She chose the fabrics and I am making the bag- from an Indygo Junction pattern called Grids and Grommets. It is a great bag.

We decided to amend the original pattern and to add outside pockets to it as well as bigger ones inside. I have finished the outside bag body and have the front and back pockets on.

Here is one side with a big single pocket. I put a paper in so you could see it a bit more easily.

And here is the other side with a double pocket.

The sides fold in eventually. I made a pleat at the bottom of each pocket and gathered the top edges with a bit of elastic to keep the pockets from flopping open too much. Before I go much further, I intend to make bar tacks at the vulnerable corners to keep the pockets from pulling away with use.

I have the pockets on  the lining now and am about to sew up the side seams, make the squared bottom and put the band along the top edge. NB: This is NOT shaping up to be a "pink or blue" baby! So far, it appears that he will get lots of stimulation from all sorts of bright, cheerful colours. Please stay tuned for the finished product- soon, I hope, as I have another exciting project on the go which I shall announce soon :-)

See what I mean! Not subtle colours. This is the big single pocket and the split one is on the other side. 

Poppies done and dusted!

Closeup of the finished stitching

The finished piece

Well, I did get my Poppies sent off to SAQA last week and now, I am in "baby mode" for  brief time , making a diaper bag. Once that is finished, we will check all of my quilts for proper hangers and make new ones where needed. I have one more piece I am dying to make before the babe is due ( early March!!) I hope I can manage that.

Today is my birthday so we have some plans- well, apparently SOME of us do :-) One thing we are doing is going to the Apple Store to the Genius Bar to ask a few questions and after that... who knows!! It is looking like it MIGHT be a little sunny today  which would be nice. I have not checked the temperature but  we have had a very mild weekend and lots of ice melted but I think it is cold again today. There is a Carolina Wren serenading me from the back garden as if he thinks it is spring. Silly, dear little bird!

I am going to post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com when the time comes. Not a lot for me to post today but this piece is finished and mailed away. Have a grand Tuesday and enjoy TNTN.

Glowing poppies

No, not GROWING! Glowing Poppies! I took this photo ages ago, just one of those happy accidents . The poppies were really red but in this particular light, they glowed golden orange to scarlet and the background turned out very nicely. I am finally making some progress on it. Good thing, as it is due in Houston TX by 31 January for the SAQA trunk show. So far, so good!

Here is my little photo. LOVE this picture!

I painted silk Habotai for the background using Dye Na Flow paints. It seems to have worked pretty well- VERY well, actually. I want the two main poppies to be very crisp and in focus and the background  to be watery and soft.

Here are my two poppies and part of the background ready to fuse.

I am using hand dyed cotton for the two poppies but apart from the green stems and buds which will also be cotton, the rest of the red/orange mushy poppies in the background are being made with translucent fabrics over the painted silk. I have fused polyester chiffon for some of the bits at the top left and down the right side. The two fairly distinct poppies are going to be made of silk chiffon painted loosely with Dye Na Flow.

Two painted gloppy poppies ready to be made fusible and then cut and pasted.

I did not know how well the translucent fabrics would be with fusible material on the back. I have used Misty Fuse ( white) and it is fine- nicely transparent. Not much of this is fastened down yet, but it soon will be . If I have more done before before it is time to post this to WIP Wednesday, I shall add to the post. I am going to post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com. Hope you will check out the rest of the posts there. ALWAYS something interesting to see there!

Well, I HAVE made some progress , so here are the latest pictures. Hope you enjoy them . I SHALL post to TNTN , as promised :-)

The bottom poppy

The top poppy

Here is the finished piece so far. It WILL eventually be 7" x 10" when I send it to SAQA. Right now, it is just a bit larger
to allow for quilting and facing.

And now, I post!! Enjoy. 

Christmas Eve 2013- AND an addition on 02 Jan 2014

We woke up this morning to fresh new snow, a glorious sight to see but I am sure that some people would disagree- especially those who still have no power on! To those folks, I apologize for my enthusiasm! Over night last Saturday and into Sunday morning we were hit by a fierce ice storm that has crippled much of Ontario and many places south of us as well. People are suffering badly from the cold , lack of phone and power. Right here in the Banana Belt , we mostly live a charmed life, especially at our house this time.

Yesterday, DH drove me north of here to shop for last minute groceries. All of our ice, or most of it, had melted , but the drive up there was stunning!!! The ice was still on the trees and even though the sun was still behind the clouds, the glittering coating of ice was a truly spectacular sight! I took WAAAYYY too many pictures, I did not have my boots on and I was cold and not on a solid footing so most are slightly out of focus, but you get the idea!

No captions required.

Inside at our house, all is frantic preparation for Christmas dinner tomorrow. I have been cooking and cleaning . Still more to do but I am getting there. I DO wish I could invite some of the lovely people who follow this blog to join us for turkey and all that good stuff. There will be plenty! I will certainly be thinking of you all and hoping that you are blessed with a wonderful Christmas , filled with love and joy. Even if you do not celebrate Christmas, I wish you and yours love, joy, peace and good health for this day and for the New Year. Thanks for following my ramblings. I appreciate your comments sooo much. God bless!

These folks all send their best

We could easily set a few more places!

This year's little tree

And a few old friends

Merry Christmas to all, and to all- a VERY good night!

And, as there was no posting over Christmas, for the folks who did not see this at the appropriate time, let me NOW wish you the happiest and most creative of New Years . VERY cold here today...-17c and a fine snow falling continuously. I have begun work on my little SAQA piece which I HOPE to post next week when there might be more to see. Check out a couple of posts ago, the little orange poppies. Happy New Year , dear e-friends. Take care and check out theneedleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com. They seem to be back in business now.

Lovely visit!

Clingman's Dome, TN 

We have just returned from a few days visiting our Dear Daughter and her Husband. Some of you know that they are expecting their first babe in the spring so we NEEDED to see that Little Mum To Be . She looks wonderful and she is calm, happy ,very excited and she is finally feeling great! While we were there, Clay, her husband, showed us his fledgling website where he is posting his photos. He is a very keen and VERY talented photographer and I would really like to share that website with you. I hope you will have a look and perhaps enjoy some beautiful work.

The website address is    claybarry.com

We are VERY excited about his work . I hope you will be too.

Just a little sample!

I realize that some of these pictures show very small on the screen. I THINK it has something to do with the resolution at which Clay posted them. Look at the website! That's the best way to see them. There is a gorgeous series of B&W pics of my Darling girl there too :-)

What have I been doing?? Well, I am getting into Christmas mode right now - at last, but here is the picture I will be working on next. I took it years ago. I am going to make it small- only 7" x10" to submit to SAQA for a travelling trunk show. Gotta have it submitted before 31 Jan  so I am doing some preliminary work now. BTW, the I Spy quilt was a big hit!

I am going to post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com. Drop by. There are always interesting posts to read there.