Every Day Journal mid Jan

I made this flower pin many years ago. It is made with hand dyed fabric but it is very faded now. I do not wear it any more, it has been hanging on my design wall for a few years. I thought it needed a new home. I have been making most of my pages on water colour paper. I paint or spray, as in this one. I needed to write down some ideas for a new quilt project. So I got out a page in a few minutes I had journal-ed all about it. I really do not know yet how I will do it but I have some ideas down, or at least the questions I have about the project. I have a little bit of fabric attached to the top of the page. I know this quilt will get done in Hand Dyed fabric.



It is not the prettiest page but it did feel good to get these ideas out of my head and on to a page. I was nice to work on a coloured page. I normally write about my quilts in a white book and only a few pages get any colour. If I draw out the quilt with the blocks and colour the blocks I never seam to want to make the quilt. It is like the coloured drawing is done and it is finished so why do it again in fabric. So I rarely colour my quilt drawings. I would be no good at the computer aided quilt programs. The colour is were the magic is and I like to save that for the design wall.

Hay Thieves

I got photos of two of them. We have three bucks and at least two does that are getting into our hay. I lose at least one small bale of hay to these thieves every day. We have had a few feet of snow in the last two weeks and the natural grasses have been buried. Our hay is easier to eat. We have put up fences and tires and all kinds of crap to keep them out. My horses are so not scarred of deer now. I wish it was hunting season now. My husband would like to get the first buck.

Laddie's Blue Silk Quilt

I have done another on of Laddie's quilts. She does this great machine embroidery on her home machine with a card. This quilt is all silk and blue and white.



Her thread she uses for the embroidery is Rayon.

I got my internet back. I will plan to make a quilt post on Tue like this one or my own quilts. I pick Tue for quilting because my quilt bee group use to meet on Tue. Then I am hoping to have enough done on my art journal to make a post on Thursdays. My other crafts and hobbies will be when they happen.

Snow Dyed Baby Quilt

It is snowing again. We had a foot of snow last weekend. Now we are getting more. We are running out of room to plow all this snow. The fields are to deep to walk in. I think it may blow later in the week and we will have to plow again.

Here is a close up of a baby quilt my mom Betty pieced and I quilted. Most of the fabric is snow dyed by me. The Dark blue and the boarder are batiks. The blue was snow dyed and then over dyed again. The pinks and peachy are just out of the snow bank and washed. I have machine quilted it with leaves and butterflies. It is a gift for a little girl, a friend of the family.


My internet is down and been that way for a week. I am at mom's to down load emails and make this post. I had hoped to make a post about my every day journal every Thur. I have a page done and other drawing done. I will have to make a post another day.

Laddie's Christmas Quilt

I quilted this Christmas quilt for a customer in early December. She has done some nice machine embroidery with her great machine. The quilt looks great in person. She was so pleased with the quilt, she may keep this one for herself. She has many to do and plans to give most of her quilts away to family and friends. I think the embroidery was a pattern "T'was the Season" but I did not get the designer's name.


Here is the green flannel backing. The quilting of the darker boarders shows better on the back side. I have used holly leaves and berries. The finer boarder has a loops pattern.


I wanted the background quilting to look like blowing snow. I thought this would look good with the Christmas theme.


On the gingerbread men background I did two rows of echo quilting. It help make the cookie pop a little and made it look more 3D.


Santa and his reindeer.



This hole fence and leaves is all thread done on her machine. It turned out great.

I have a few more of Laddie's quilts I will show you in the future. I like to make sure I have the customer's permission to show you their quilts. I also like to know if the customer wants their name in part or whole in my post. I hope you enjoy seeing some of my quilting and my customer's work. I do not get enough of my own quilts done these days so I have to show you what I do get done.

Did you see today's date 1/11/11 wow what about 11/11/11 later this year.

Sock repairs

Every year around Christmas and the New Year I knit some socks for myself. Hand knit socks are just so nice. I love all the great colours that the sock yarn come in these days. This year I have not done much on my new socks but instead I am repairing the old socks. Here is two pairs I finished last week.


I got these three pairs of socks repaired this week. Some of the socks had just small wear spots that were going to get a hole - those I just stitched the area with a second layer of yarn. Other socks I have gotten the hole already and then I knit a new toe. I am not sure how to darn a sock and I do not want it to feel lumpy.


Here is my new pair of socks I am starting to knit. I have not gotten very far. The yarn is 100% wool (so may not wear well and need repair sooner) I think that it is Arctic Fleece brand, a hand dyed yarn from the east coast of Canada. I love their colours and the yarn is so soft to touch. I think I have three or four more balls of their yarn to be knit up.


This is also Arctic Fleece but the one sock blew a big hole on the ball of the foot area. I am re-knitting the toe. I have reinforced the toe of the other sock already. For some reason I wear out the ball of my socks all the time. Always the same spot. I have very little wear on the heals.


Someone has been trying to get in on the action here. He loves balls and thinks that any thing ball shaped should be his. Darn chessy dog.



These are the socks I am wearing today. Lots and lots of snow here today. A good day to stay inside and knit or quilt. Off to quilt now.

Starting Art Journal Every Day

I have signed up to do the Art Journal Every Day. There is a blog link Here. This is my first page. I am aiming to do about a page a week and spend just 10 minutes a day on my journal. I can glue a background or add a few lines to a ready started page.



Spray painted paper flowers. I hope to use a few of these in the coming weeks. This took more like one hour as my spray bottles were plugged up and I sent time cleaning and finding out which worked or did not work. Some of the mister are just no good. I think I will stop buying spray mister and make my own colours with paint and a mini mister and glitter dust. I have all kinds of colours.


Here is my work space. I am planning to work on one end of my big orange sewing table. I sometimes use this space to cut fabric. With a little cleaning I can cut fabric here.

Winter Trail Ride

We got out riding over the Christmas holidays. Here is my horse Jester and me. We are out on the edge of the little lake that is next to our property. We crossed the lake and rode on the neighbors hills, Sunny`s place, another quilter. We also took the dog with us. We got out riding four different days this holiday season. Hope we can get in a few more winter rides. I am sporting my new riding coat and my new half chaps that were my missing Christmas present, lost in the mail. I also have a new hat cover that covers my neck and ears. Great winter rides.

Rug Hooked Cone Santa

This fall the Rug Hookers Guild had a mini class on the cone Santa. This is my finished Santa sitting with some of my Rosters.


These are some of the teacher`s samples for the class. There were also some tree cones done. I believe the pattern was in an older Rug Hooker`s magazine and the teacher got permission to teach it to us.



Here is one of the Santas getting sewn up the back side in the class.

Christmas Gifts I made this year

This is Edgar the little black Bear. He is this years very special gift. I made Edgar for my mom Betty. He is made with Grandmother`s old Persian lamb coat. I had this idea many months ago. I collected the supplies this fall and got him started at a quilt retreat in Oct. I am pleased with his face and the sewing I did on him. I wish I had gotten the joints all tighter. Note to self do the joints up more and then a little more. I have enough coat left to make myself a bear.


This is a table runner I also made at the quilt retreat. I gave it away in a swap on Two Peas. I also made two more in different Christmas colours. I kept one runner for myself and gave another one away but forgot to take a photo of it. Some of the ladies in the Leduc Quilt Guild have been making these. I thought I would give the pattern a try. They call it the 20 min table runner. The first runner took me 25 minutes and now it does take 20 mins. Not like the `Quilt in a day` that takes a year to do.


A red Christmas sock also given away in a swap on Two Peas.


These are Christmas cones. Kind of like a sock but different. They are hanging sideways. I have tried and tried to get the photo up right but it just will not happen. All other photos on this post were sideways and they worked. Why
I made 12`squares of quilted fabric and then trimmed and made cones. I got the idea in an older Quilting Arts Magazine. I took many other photos of how I made them if anyone out there want to know more.


Edgar under the Tree. Hope you all had a great Christmas.