This pretty bouquet of flowers given to me to remember Mars, was left on my desk at school by a lovely school friend- The blossoms were the colors of Mars cat- rich oranges, carmel and white. It was such a touching gesture of kindness. My colleague is also a pet lover and knew how sad our house was with the passing of Mars Cat. We still have bits of the bouquet brightening our dining room table.
Winter has arrived here in Alberta- the trees were laden with snow and look so pretty after the first snow fall last weekend. I was grateful that I had a day to get used to the snow before I had to venture out in it with my car. ( I managed to get my hair cut across town before the snow started- wahoo)
It snowed all day today so the roads will not be too wonderful for the next day or two but I don't have to go too far and Monday is a holiday as it is Remembrance Day on November 11. We made poppies at school and talked about Peace- and living Peacefully. There is something quite peaceful about trees covered in snow..
I started this Twister Jack pattern just before we lost Mars. I have yet to do the second cut of this quilt- not sure when I will tackle it.
It is made using a fun little tool called a twister ruler- Don't you wonder how people come up with these cool ideas? I have seen a heart done this way too. You can get varying sized rulers to make different sized pattern blocks with it. Have you tried a twister pattern?
This is as far as I have got but I have lost my motivation to finish it just now- perhaps by next summer I will get back to it again.
In the meantime, I have returned to finishing the second wedding quilt from the summer- This first view shows it just before I decided on the outside border. Like many quilts I auditioned various borders before choosing this one.
The pattern is the disappearing 9 patch and is a companion mate to the one that I made for our nephew and his bride that live in New York.
While it snowed last weekend, I ventured upstairs to my sewing room and got the quilt quilted. It is almost a queen sized quilt so it took a little while to free motion quilt it but it is now quilted. I am pleased how nice and flat it quilted up. I trimmed the quilt today and will try and get the binding on it before this weekend is over. It is sometimes difficult to get things finished during the school year but I want to get this to our niece and her husband soon. While the two quilts had some similar fabrics- the different borders do change the look of each of them. The camera really doesn't capture the rich batik colors. I got a new camera awhile back because my I had problems with my other one- however I really don't like the picture quality of this one- sometimes too cheap is just too cheap to produce a good photograph. I guess I will put it on my wish list for my upcoming birthday or Christmas.
Our son and his fiancée arrive next Friday. We are so excited to see them both- I know we will talk about what their wedding quilt is going to look like as I need to get started on it.( Their wedding will be in February 2014) Christmas will have come early in our house with their two week visit.
Recently, Bruce and I went to see a very fun earring exhibit done on some netting called 100 widows. The earrings were all singletons- ones who had somehow lost their mates. The day that Bruce was reading in the newspaper about the exhibit ( it was created by Elizabeth Withey)- I lost one of my favorite earrings ( or it appeared to be gone) I searched high and low for it- by some miracle it had got caught in my sweater and it fell out at my feet, a couple weeks later when I took the sweater off. I was thrilled to find it. The exhibit had some really interesting stories that went with the lost earrings. It is always fun to check out what is happening at some local art galleries.
One Hundred Widows Exhibit - Latitude 53
Check out the link if you are interested in reading more of the one hundred widow stories
We are off to a concert with Three Folk artists on Monday evening- Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris and Richard Thompson. It will be a terrific evening of music...The venue has wonderful acoustics and live music is always a great way to spend time together..
One of my blogging friends Victoria from Bumblebee quilts is having a giveaway of her terrific book time to Play.
Victoria Finlay Wolfe of Bumblebee quilts ( click on the link and it will take you to her very fun blog). We all need to take time to play with whatever fills ones creative soul...
In the meantime, I have some cleaning, as well as school work to do and some reports to finish so the weekend will fly by..
It is the season of craft sales and Christmas planning.. I expect I should do a bit of shopping soon so that I don't have to mail presents after the kids return to the east coast. LOL
Have you done some Christmas shopping? baking? decorating? Perhaps we will put up the Christmas village while our boy is here...
'Til next time, have fun creating and planning for the upcoming festive season...
Warmest regards,
Anna
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