So… remember I said my Blockhead quilt had three more blocks to go? Well it turns out I was wrong. Block number 9 was the last block until the new year.
They split it up this year, leaving a break over the holidays, and stating that the first set of blocks could be used to create something in time for Christmas. Now that should have clued me in. Three more blocks would put us in to the first week of December, and a lot of people wouldn’t have time to finish their project in just a couple weeks.
I could wait until AFTER the holidays for the new blocks… or I could make something with just the nine I had. But I didn’t want to do either of those things. So… Burton and I hopped on the internet and found three more blocks we could work into our vision.
The first two are nice and fancy.
The last one we kept a little more simple. (Don’t ask me where Lemmy went in the last pic. I guess he just got bored and left.)
Now with 12 blocks, we laid them all out to get an idea of the whole.
And it looks pretty darn good!
As you can see, even with 12 blocks, it’s not going to be a huge quilt. I’m going to add some sashing and cornerstones, and then a border or two to build it out. It should end up a perfect lap size. But that’s for another day!
I am honestly trying not to buy more fabric. I certainly don’t need it. Except when I decided I want to make placemats for our Christmas dinner and I have very little Christmas fabric in my stash!!! (How can that be????)
MSQ to the rescue. I did an order a little while back and it arrived last week.
Keeping on theme, I got some gnomes for the main fabric, and the trucks were too cute to leave behind. I have to make 10 placemats for our guests, so I’ll make a few different styles.
And since I didn’t have much in the stash, I got some “coordinating” fabrics to go with the three main fabrics. Aren’t those mushrooms just soo cute??? Perfect for my gnomes!
They were also clearing out some Hallowe’en fabric. My Hallowe’en fabric stash is overflowing but…
I didn’t even notice those little cat faces among the jack-o-lanterns until I took it out of the box!
How cute is that???
Now this one I did notice…
Adorable right??? How could I not get those???
And last…
A beautiful blue batik 108″ for the back of the get-well quilt. Normally I don’t use batiks for backing, because it’s quite expensive – but this was on sale and really reasonably priced. It’s just going to make that quilt that much more special!
Last Sunday was sheet changing day. Now I absolutely love climbing into a bed with fresh sheets (especially if they’ve just come off the clothes line), but there’s someone in this house who love fresh sheet day even more than me!
Place your bets on who you think it is! You’ve got a one-in-four chance of being right!!!
If you guessed the big, black Floofmonster…..Winner, winner – chicken dinner!
Or at least some chicken treats, for being such a good, bed-making helper!
In addition to antiquing, knitting, and sewing Blockhead blocks, the weekend also saw me finish up Burton’s November quilt.
The red looks very bold in the pictures.
But it’s a little more tame in person, and up close you can see the little swirls which calm the colour even more. The dark grey has a nice subtle pattern too.
It is a little on the big side (36″ square), and completely overwhelms the poor chaise. Burton doesn’t mind though.
The size does not affect the comfiness!
There are still a couple months left to fill in (May, June, and September) before he has a full year of quilts! look for those next year!
An adorable memory popped up in my Facebook memories the other day.
A wee baby Lemmy “helping me” with this very sweater. Well as you know… a year later, nothing has changed. Except we FINALLY have have a completed sleeve!
And you can see, Lemmy is very excited about it! I am too! Just one more sleeve to go! While I have just over a month to complete this – I’d love to get that last sleeve done by the end of November. Excuse me while I go pick up all those arm stitches.
By the time the weekend rolled around, we were once again a couple blocks behind on our Blockhead sampler.
I’d intended to do one the weekend before, but Burton’s poppy top took longer than I’d planned. So nothing to do but get to it on Sunday.
Block number 8 had lots of little pieces (and this is the 12″ block – I can’t imagine doing the 6″) but I managed and it is a very nice result. I’m loving the challenge of only using two fabrics. It really makes you look at the blocks differently. You can see the designers original vision here.
Block number 9 was another paper pieced block. And oh my goodness! I loved it! But I’ve never paper-pieced and I’m not going to lie, none of it makes sense to me. After Christmas, Mom’s going to give me a tutorial. But for now I needed a block….
So I substituted a Friendship star with a little extra twist. I think it turned out pretty darn good.
And both blocks look fabulous when put with all the others. There are three more blocks to come for this first part. (There are more blocks after Christmas, but it’s essentially a separate project.
I’ve already decided I’m going to lay this out nice and simple – white sashing and red cornerstones. It’s going to be a nice little lap quilt – stunning in its simplicity.
I mentioned that most of the week was pretty gloomy, so when Saturday dawned bright and sunny, I knew Dave would want to get out of the house and “go do something!!!”
I bundled him into Dory and we headed down to Chatham to one of our favourite flea markets.
First…. let me note that Dave and I usually do our antiquing/flea marketing during the week… and Saturday reminded me why!!! There were people EVERYWHERE and ALWAYS IN MY WAY!!!
Also.. though I don’t have kids, I am by no means anti-child. But what is it with the current child-bearing generations insistence on bringing children absolutely EVERYWHERE??? And I’m not talking school-age kids… I’m talking babies and toddlers. A flea market just really isn’t the best environment for children under five who are basically just hurricanes with legs.
Especially when many of the “aisles” look like this.
Yeah – it’s “that” kind of flea market. Not and ideal place for the little ones.
And don’t get me started on people trying to bring strollers through places like this… Thankfully, there was none of that this time, though we have seen it. No… this time we had to play “watch your step” because a mother thought it was a good idea to let her three year old lay on the ground and zoom a toy car around while she wandered off to look at some dishware. If I was a little meaner, I would have just stepped on him…
And of course, when she finally did come back to pick him up because she finally realized he was a bit of a nuisance, he had a meltdown when she took the toy away. I don’t blame the child at all – he was being a child as he has every right to be… but as I said – there’s just some places you just shouldn’t take small kids. And I don’t understand why that’s such a hardship for these parents? And why they WANT to bring their littles in the first place – they NEVER look like they are enjoying the experience because they are (usually) on constant watch and dealing with miserable, overstimulated toddlers.
And again – it’s not that I think these places should be child-free. I went to lots of flea markets as a kid… but that was when I was old enough to keep my hands to myself (even if I totally wanted to touch everything!!!) and understood that it wasn’t a playground. It’s just… what are these parents thinking? Whatever happened to common sense??
Okay…rant over.
Despite the people, big and small, we did have a decent day out. One of the vendors there knows us, and knows our love of history – he was very excited to show us something special
That, my dear readers is an 1853 Lee Enfield muzzle-loading rifle, complete with bayonette. It belonged to his great, great grandfather who was British/Canadian soldier in the mid-late 1800s. And it wasn’t just his rifle he had.
He had his dress belt, and a picture of him wearing the dress belt. Check out that buckle – I just love that little beaver!!! So Canadian!
And a letter of a land grant – providing him 160 acres for his service!!! How cool is that??? This kind of stuff just gets me so excited – I probably should have worked at a museum.
And of course, since we were antiquing, I didn’t come home empty handed.
I found another little Corningware piece for my collection – this one a 1 3/4 cup casserole – no lid but it sure is cute!
And these little guys were the priciest piece
The Salt and Pepper shakers that go with my Spice of Life collection! They were $19 and normally I wouldn’t pay that much for something as small as a set of shakers, but this is the first time I’ve EVER seen them. And a web search has confirmed that they are more on the rare side. And going for a lot more than I paid too!
And I’m not starting a shaker collection – but these little mushroom shakers came home too (they were a much more reasonably priced $6). I thought they’d look cute with my Gnome set at Christmas, when it’s handy to have an extra set on the table.
After the flea market, we hit up a couple close-by thrift stores (Dave got a new stool for his work bench) and then the Chatham reStore.
There I found this cute little bird house. Hopefully I’ll find some time to do some decorative painting on it before spring.
After that we stopped for some lunch (and got some underwhelming Souvlaki, I’m sad to say) and while we were eating, Dave suggested we look to see if there was a hobby shop (the modelling type) nearby. That kind of hobby shop is a dying industry here, so Dave tries to support them wherever we find them. (He build model ships) There was one, only a few minutes from the restaurant… and wouldn’t you know it, there was a fabric store right beside it!!!
So after he had a good look around the model store (he didn’t buy anything but we now have another location to get his paints if we need it), we popped over to the fabric store.
I was a very good girl and only got a few things. The ant fabric is flannel – and it was on clearance! I got enough for a back for a small quilt. I have some watermelon fabrics, and I thought them paired up would make a fabulous picnic quilt!
I also grabbed a few fat quarters. They weren’t on sale, but they were pretty and it was nice to support a brick and mortar store. Quilting seems to have a better following than Dave’s modelling, but if we don’t support them, they will disappear too!
It was certainly a great way to spend a sunny Saturday.
Workwise, last week was quite a hectic one. It was also, for the most part, grey, gloomy and wet (and cold).
With the exception of Thursday. While it was a bit of a brutal day workwise, the temps reached almost double digits (Celcius), and the sun was shining bright and true. Around 3 pm, I got a bit of a break in the workload (had a little time to breathe between projects). I left my office to use the washroom, and as I looked out the window, I noticed a pile of Juncos playing in Willow Grove.
Juncos are a type of sparrow, all black, with a little white belly. We only see them here in the winter – some people call them snowbirds instead of Juncos. They also have a tendency to feed off the ground, making them easy prey. They are the main reason I cut down the seed heads in the catio yard – our first winter here, Burton brought me a dead Junco as a present – twice!
I think they are an exceedingly cute little bird!
So anyway – I decided I deserved some fresh air and sunshine for all my hard work. I grabbed the fancy camera and headed outside to see if I could get some Junco pics.
Of course, as soon as I got out there – the little guys scattered. But I figured if I settled in and sat quietly for a while, they’d come back.
While I was waiting…
My squirrelly friends came by. There were peanuts in the feeder and while these guys are still wary of me, they were willing to chance it for a peanut feast.
There’s something about the way squirrels hold their hands that just make them look so excessively polite!
If you look closely, you’ll see this one has a little leaf in his hand.
How the get peanuts from the ring still cracks me up. Hanging by their feet! That seed feeder in the background… it’s supposed to be squirrel proof. The cage slides down, blocking the holes, when anything heavier than a cardinal perches on it. Well… that’s all well and good, but the squirrels get the seed from it the same way they do the peanut ring – they hang from the top – gate averted!
I don’t mind if they get a little seed though – there’s more than enough for everyone.
It’s been mostly the grey squirrels in the yard this year – my black squirrels with the red markings have seemed to disappeared this year. There have been a few solid black squirrels playing about, but they are much more shy.
So was this guy.
He is a grey squirrel, but his coat had a very red/brown tinge to it. And no white belly like the other grey squirrels. He was digging about in the leaves by the shed, but took off when he realized he was being observed.
Of course, since there were peanuts in the ring, the Bluejays were about.
There were three of them (I think) coming and going.
I sat out there for over half an hour, but then then sun started to set, and it was getting much cooler. Despite the wait, my Juncos hadn’t returned. No doubt they are extra wary in my yard thanks to Burton…
But… as I got up to go inside, something flitted down into the pussywillow…
A wee little Junco at last! Only one, but I’ll take it!
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
Wandering Cat Studio 