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

The Prime of Life..

Last Sunday, November 22, was my birthday-
My current age is the only prime number in my current decade(or so my mathematically minded husband tells me) so I now can consider myself a Lady in the Prime of Her Life. LOL

My birthday began on Friday, the 20th, with my spouse and I having a delicious dinner at a local restuarant. It was so nice to spend time together talking over a gourmet dinner. On Sunday evening we went to see Bill Cosby- he still has the ability to make people laugh about life's everyday situations.

These lovely flowers came from my educational assistant (P.- thank you so much) How lovely they look on our dining room table, almost a week later. The bouquet is in my favorite colors- pink, purple and green- Don't you love the green pompom flowers in the bouquet?

Sunday was the actual day of my birthday, but it really has felt more like a birthday week, because there were birthday greetings from friends far and near. There were packages from my folks and another friend, with some specially chosen things that they knew that I would love. Today I had lunch with my dear friend V. The thing that I have really enjoyed about this birthday, has been the time I have been able to spend connecting with friends and family. On Sunday, my sister and I had a long conversation on the telephone.

One friend, J. contacted me on Face book - I have known her since I was 6 years old- technically she is my oldest friend(not age wise)but she is the one that I have known the longest. I have known J. since I started school. She and her husband live in Inuvik,N. W. Territories, which is in Northern Canada. Her parents still live in a house on the same street as my parents. My parents moved to their current home in 1963. Some of their neighbours have lived on that same street almost as long as our parents. I think it is a fairly uncommon experience these days, to still have connections to the house in which a person was raised. Most families move around alot more-especially if you live in a town or a city. My folks live in a city of 85,000 people. When I was growing up the city was much smaller- about 25,000. My home town is losing that small town feeling.

Another friend E. sent me a birthday card with a new home email address - we had been out of touch for awhile but we now have a way to reconnect. She lives in Vancouver, the home of the 2010 Winter Olympics. We have been friends since we were teenagers.
This Wonky Rail Tie quilt is officially finished- it does have a label but the camera and I had some difficulties communicating and the photograph was too light to read so I will try again another day. Hopefully I will get to give it to our friends next weekend as it is long overdue.
You may remember that we were decluttering our home - last weekend I spent some time going through some drawers of fabric and craft materials.

While I cleaning, I realized how many different types of crafts that I had experimented with on my journey to becoming a quilter. The list is amazingly long-knitting, crochet, silk ribbon embroidery, regular embroidery, painting silk scarves, playing with fimo, macrame, stamping, cross stitch, rug hooking, weaving on a frame, decoupage and candle making. That does not include sewing, pottery, beading or quilting. I found a baby sweater that I knit for Kevin- he is soon going to be 22. Many of the craft materials that were left, I got rid of, but I did find a few gems in the drawers.

I was surprised to find some quilt blocks and scraps of fabrics from my early quilts-I spread some of them out under the bowls of beads. I found it interesting that so many of my first pieces were blue. I continue to make some blue quilts but I have become much more adventurous in my color choice- or maybe there is just so many more different color/ fabric choices available.

I enjoyed playing with all of these crafts, but these days I have limited time, so my first choice is to quilt. When I don't have enough time to quilt, or feel the need to make something that I can complete quickly, then I will play in the beads.

Do you have other types of crafts that you do besides quilting? Does it feel like playing to you?

Do you think of quilting as a craft or an art?

The beads on the plate are from a bead show that my friend V. and I attended today. They were all made by local artisans. While we were at the show, I ran into a colleague that I had had, when I worked in a pediatric rehab hospital in the mid 1980's. Our son's are the same age and have the same name. It was lovely to see her too.

I wish the photos of the beads had turned out better- the photos are all too light unfortunately. We had a wonderful time playing and touching the gorgeous handmade bits of color.

V. makes gorgeous bracelets and other pieces of jewellry and I bought a few pieces to use to make as gifts for others- and one or two beads for myself.VBG. At lunch,V. gave me a lovely bracelet and earrings for my birthday.( Thank you dear friend- you always find such wonderful things.) You can see them on the cup and saucer. I think the beads are called pod beads and I love wearing them because they lay so nice and flat against one's skin. My new bracelet has such pretty colors- pink and yellow and golden in beautiful swirls.

I placed the beads on a cup and saucer from our china. Barb
had shared her china in a post not long ago. (I wrote about a giveaway that her niece is running on her blog in my last post). I love dishes and these dishes are called Limoge Bridal Wreath. I bought them from a friend more than 20 years ago. They had been her grandmother's. Her grandmother had brought them out west with her at the beginning of the 20th century. We use them on special occasions. They need to be hand washed as they are around 100 years old. Like the other photos, they are not the best but hopefully you can see the pretty pink flowers on the china.


This last photo is of a lovely giveaway prize that came from Hazel of Cotton Cocktails. She made this pretty bag and enclosed some wonderful fat quarters too. She also included a very nice applique pattern. Thank you so very much Hazel.

There are many giveaways happening in Blogland just now. Do check out the bloglist because there is often an announcement on them of current blog giveaways.

To all my American friends, A Belated Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have enjoyed a fabulous time with your family and friends sharing good food and good times.

On the school front, I have completed report cards and conferences- We are now preparing for the Christmas concert. On Friday, I was learning how to sing " Up on the Housetop" in Cree so we could perform it in the concert. I had to practise singing it in English before I could get it right in Cree. Most of my children are First Nations or Metis and we offer Cree as a Second language. We have a Cree speaking teacher who teaches my students the Cree portion of the curriculum. The phrasing is different so hopefully I can get it memorized in time.

December is just around the corner- I have done a little Christmas shopping and am thinking about putting up the Christmas village. We have had a skiff of snow but there is not too much yet.

Wishing you a Happy Holiday Season.
Warmest regards,
Anna