A lovely visit- babies and some new quilts...

Poinsettias were my wedding flowers and yesterday, my husband, Bruce and I quietly celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary. It does not seem possible that we have been married quite that long- through good times and bad we have always had each other's back. Our journey together has had our fair share of twists and turns, but I feel very fortunate to count my partner in life as my dearest friend. This beautiful pot of poinsettias is a large one- we considered briefly putting on lights and decorating it as our Christmas tree. The poinsettias were a Thank you gift from a friend and we are enjoying their luscious rich colored petals. ( In the end , we did put up a small artificial tree and the poinsettia adorns our table)
 Time has flown by quickly and this fall has been particularly hectic. I seem to have disappeared from my blog page this year- especially this fall. When I sat down to write I suddenly realized why it had been so long. Here are a few highlights...

In Mid November our son and his fiancee arrived home for a couple of weeks to finalize the plans for their wedding in early February. It was so lovely to have them here for parts of two weeks. Here are the four of us gathered in my parent's kitchen. I am sure that the wedding is going to be lovely. The wedding will take place in Banff- a beautiful spot in the Canadian Rockies. It will be a small intimate celebration but I know that it is going to be a special time for us all, but most especially, for Kevin and Roseanne. I have chosen a quilt pattern and have the fabric for their wedding quilt. One of my goals over this Christmas vacation is to get a good start on the blocks for the quilt. I hope to have the top put together by their wedding.( it is always good to have a goal LOL) We shall see....

  While the kids were here visiting we celebrated my November birthday. They brought me this cute little sewing machine to decorate my sewing room. It reminds me of my featherweight that I will be using to piece the 200 or so blocks in their king size quilt. The wedding quilt fabrics that I have chosen are a kaleidoscope of color from the Fossil Fern line by Benatrex. I have always wanted to use this fabric line as it has so much movement and texture in the fabrics. I am sure there will some photos in upcoming posts of the wedding quilt blocks.
 Late November is always an exciting time in kindergarten. We wrote letters to Santa and made some drawings. I thought you might enjoy seeing my student's drawings of Santa along with their reindeer.
Santa Claus came to visit our kindergarten students. It is such an exciting season and the children are always awestruck when Santa comes in, bringing parcels and goodies with their names on it. I love watching the magic of Santa - It is always a special day when he comes to school.

Quite  awhile back a dear friend gave me this quilt top to finish. With our combined efforts, it is now a  completed quilt. I knew that my younger brother's quilt had seen better days, so when I was home for Christmas, I brought this quilt to him. I called it The Twist and Turns of life and I know that he was thrilled with it. I hope that he gets many years of enjoyment out of it .

Last summer I was busy making wedding quilts for two of our sibling's children: one for  a niece and  the other for a nephew and their new spouses. One of the quilts was delivered to our nephew and his bride in October. Now the mate to that quilt has now been delivered to my niece and her husband. The pattern is a disappearing 9 patch and the fabrics were all batiks. I had both of the quilts all pieced in the summer, but I had not finished quilting this one in time for their August wedding. I am pleased to finally get them both finished.May each couple enjoy many happy years together and may they know how much they are loved by their family and friends. 

2013 has brought three new babies to our extended family. Two of our nieces on my husband's side of the family had babies. We had a new nephew arrive in August and a new niece in September. Here I am with my arms full of two beautiful babies wrapped in their baby wraps. They are both sweet and will enjoy lots of good times  together as they are first cousins. They sat so nicely with their grand auntie - There is nothing like holding small babies - and this pair were as good as gold.

This handsome little boy with all the hair belongs to another nephew of ours. He was born in late November. What joy these new family additions are bringing to all of our lives.

The festive season has been a busy one- lots of preparations - cooking, decorating, shopping and wrapping for the big day. Now is the down time of the Christmas vacation: a little  rest and relaxation along with some fun times spent with family and friends. I know that January will be a busy month and our son's wedding is the first part of February so the new year will be exciting.

Hopefully when I post next I will have the beginnings of the wedding quilt. The New Year will certainly start off with a bang.
 I want to wish you all a wonderful 2014. May it be rich with good times spent with loved ones. May you enjoy good health and prosperity in the year ahead.
 Warmest regards, Anna

A quilt finish, One hundred widows and other November news..

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

http://onehundredwidows.tumblr.com/

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

Just in case that you thought I had disappeared...

This is my god daughter' A's birthday quilt- in an unfinished state. I finished this quilt at the beginning of the summer and in the photos below you can see the quilt close up with its completed border and quilted.


Sunflowers was given to a friend who is dealing with some health issues. Both of these quilts are made using the Disappearing 9 Patch pattern.

Fabric choices make so much difference to the way a quilt looks.
In my god daughter's quilt you can see a more distinct pattern happening because of of the use of tone on tone fabrics combined with the the same central block so that it repeated.

I love the riot of sunflowers in the sunflower quilt but it is much harder to see the repeating pattern than can happen with the disappearing 9 patch pattern.

Which look do you like better? When you are making a quilt do you like quilts with overall designs or quilts that have repeated blocks? Do you like sashing between your blocks or the blocks sewn together without any separation?

This past week I have been busy doing some assessments with my students. It is a new testing instrument for me to use so it is a learning process for me.

Other accomplishments included finishing the baby wrap and making a couple of bracelets. I have cut out another baby wrap and am working on redrafting the pattern. For some reason the pattern keeps getting smaller and the babies are getting bigger so that is not a good. I hope to get a couple made on the upcoming long weekend.

The weather is turning cool and the leaves are beginning to fall from the trees. I am sure that GoTo the squirrel is grateful for all those peanuts collected earlier in the summer. I put on close toed shoes for the first time today- a sign of the changing seasons.

Today was World Teachers Day- a time to reflect on the work one does as an educator. Each day, I hope to make a difference in my children's lives- and each day I learn something new from my children. To me, that is joy of being a teacher. Happy World Teacher's Day to other teachers around the world- I hope you had the opportunity to celebrate being an educator.

Next Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving- I am looking forward to an extra day to spend with my son and some friends - My husband will be away visiting his mother and sister in Victoria. Perhaps there will be some time to get the yard and house cleaned up too.

Have a great week.
Warmest regards,
Anna