In the beginning...

In the beginning there were some very dear friends of ours, A.&V, who I wanted to make something special to mark their birthdays.... and so I chose this version of magic tiles. If you have not tried this pattern, you may want to check it out. The magic tile pattern is a fun pattern to make- You start with a set of fabrics that are cut into 15 or 16 inch squares. On paper,you create a wonky 9 patch grid for the squares and cut it with the fabric all facing good side up. In each set, it involves shuffling a section of the block in the pile. By doing so,you give each section a different piece of fabric. Buggy Barn quilt patterns work on this same premise as do the "Stack the Deck" books by Karla Alexander.
After a while, it is nice to have a change for every quilt. I believe that I made this Magic Tiles quilt in the summer of 2002.
Here it is - the Wonky Rail's on our dear friends bed. If you are looking for the pattern, you can find it here. Mary has a list of free patterns on her site. Just click on Wonky RWB Rail for the instructions. For those of you that have been reading for awhile, you have seen this quilt as it has come together over the past 6 months- I have had it finished for about six weeks except for the label. Somehow, I just hadn't managed to get the last bit done on the Wonky Rail Tiles Quilt. I called the quilt " Celebrating Earth and Sky" because of all the blues and greens. Remember when I was unsure how large to make a King Size quilt? This quilt measures 115 X 124 inches. It is plenty large enough for our friend's bed.
For fun,we decided to wrap the three of us in the quilt - I am the goofy looking one, who is in serious need of a haircut in the middle. ( I am going this Saturday afternoon for that haircut) This quilt was made to celebrate A&V.'s 20th wedding anniversary. We have enjoyed many wonderful hours together over those 20 years. Happy Anniversary, dear friends, may you continue to enjoy many more happy years together.
Yesterday would have been my in laws 66th wedding anniversary-this photo quilt was made to honor my in-laws 60th wedding anniversary. The pattern was based on a pattern in one of Evelyn Sloppy's pattern books.It currently hangs in my mother in law's room. Many times after we gave them this quilt, my father in law phoned me, just to tell me how much pleasure their quilt gave him. When your gifted quilt is loved like this photo quilt was, what can be better than that?
Do you love beads? These beads are some beauties that were given to me by my friends in the photo. They are cloisonne, and were bought in China, when A& V were there this past summer. Don't you love the fish and the butterfly? I love cloisonne and mille fliore beads, oh and glass ones... and ceramic and polished stones too...
One of my fellow blogging friends Paulette - has a very fine stash of beads as well as fabric.
She wrote a recent posthere Click on here to read about her passion for beads and her dilemma - to bead or not to bead ??

Ryan is having a giveaway of a Barn Quilts calendar that is from a very interesting place called Neversink. Ryan tells the story behind finding this calendar. Do check it out...

Winter has arrived in spades here in Alberta. We got about a foot of snow last Friday. By Saturday, I was wishing that I was a bear and could hibernate for a little while. This week the thermometer spiralled downward so, at school, we have had many indoor recesses. Today we all got a bit of a respite - at least enough to have the children go out to play at lunch time. The long term forecast is more cold weather so the week before Christmas break could be filled with more days of excited children who are suffering cabin fever... The days before Christmas are filled with anticipation... just waiting to play ....waiting for Santa ....waiting is hard work for little ones...and for us grown ups too....

My list gets longer of jobs to do - things to cook, and presents to buy and wrap, and a house to decorate- it is a similar list to many others. I am trying to find the balance between getting things ticked off of my list and pausing to enjoy the moments of the season. How do you find ways to balance out the busy days of the festive season?

One final note, Thank you for all your birthday wishes- It is our son's birthday next week, followed by Christmas and then on Boxing Day ( December 26),it is our wedding anniversary- the celebrations are many, for our family in the month of December. We are looking forward to spending time with my family at Christmas, and to having time together with family and friends over the Christmas break.

Wishing you all the season's best.

Warmest regards,
Anna