Two weeks to go!

The countdown is ON. The studio tour starts two weeks from tomorrow, so the clock is definately ticking. I feel like I'm almost ready though. I made 14 pillowcases last week, and a bunch of ornaments this week. Everything is priced and packed, so if i have time to make more things great - if not, it's not a problem. Hopefully Nellie and I can get into the building next week to start putting up tables and display racks. That will make set-up day much easier. Check out the brochure for the studio tour at:
http://www.tiarts.org/tour_cc/index.php
We are at studio #8.
Hope some of you will be able to visit!

Make-up bags!!

I still have lots of batik scraps left over, so now I am making make-up bags. I think they will be a nice addition to the Studio Tour line up! I think I will make more in other scraps as well. My friends and I all LOVE batiks, but there may be people out there who don't. I hope I have enough room to display everything!

The Purse Quilt

After Nellie and I had finsihed making all of the quilts for Camelot Fabrics in the spring, we had LOTS of the Lulu fabric left over. I REALLY wanted to make a purse wallhanging using those fabrics, so while I was in Florida last March I stitched up this wallhanging. I just now finished quilting and binding it.

I went to a garage sale in the summer and bought some fancy rhinestone broaches to use as embellishment.

I really love the way it turned out, but I'm not too sure what to do with it. It doesn't fit anywhere in my house and I don't know if I want to make a pattern out of it. Perhaps I'll sell it at the Studio Tour.

Winter Wonderland

Here is the third batik fusible applique wallhanging I designed over the summer. I just LOVE the snowman batik fabric in the corners of the outer border - I actually bought that one in Florida a few years ago!! Now I have LOTS of work ahead of me getting all of these new patterns onto PAPER!

The agenda covers are done!

I figured out how to do the agenda covers pillowcase-turned so that I wouldn't need binding on them - they turned out GREAT!! I ended up making 14 - I'll need to go buy more agendas.

Summer Fun

Here is the second of my new wallhangings - another batik fusible applique quilt. I LOVE batiks and have a big stash of them in my studio and I have FINALLY worked up the nerve to cut into them - I just love the finished result. I'll let you know when the pattern is done!

Coffee Time

Over the summer I designed four new wallhangings and did lots of hand stitching. This fall I have been working on quilting these tops and I just finished putting the binding on #1 - Coffee Time. I bought the coffee cup batik fabric at Taylor Sewing Centre in the spring and I just HAD to do something with it! So I found more brown and turquoise batiks and VOILA! Now I just need to get to work writing the pattern!

Next on the to-do list....

Now that the paper, cutters, adhesive and photos have been put away, I have cleaned off my cutting table and I'm ready to sew. Now I am working on quilted agenda covers! I made a quilted cover for my day-timer/agenda a few years ago (using Laurel Burch fabric) and EVERYWHERE I go people comment on it. So I decided to get a few of the purse size agendas and try to make covers for them for the studio tour. I don't want to put binding on them at the end (takes WAY too much time), so I'm trying to figure out how to assemble them without binding. I'm going to use some of my batik scraps left over from other projects. I think they'll look really cute when they're finished.

The gift tags are DONE!

I ended up making a total of 480 gifts tags! I sorted them into two groups - Christmas and Everyday and then made up packages of ten. I ended up with 24 Christmas packages and 24 Everyday packages. They are really cute and I'm very pleased with how they turned out. My Creative Memories tag maker and my Making Memories Slice cutter REALLY came in handy!! Check out www.whyslice.com to see the Slice in action. My family gave it to me for Christmas last year and it is so neat - I just love it!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of my friends in Canada, and to my friend Christa in Colorado!!
We spent Thanksgiving day morning stacking firewood! Then, as a reward, I took the boys and the dogs to the Mac Johnston conservation area to meet our friends, the Hazlitts, for a walk. Since Beth has two boys the same age as my boys, we have lots of fun when we get together. Her oldest daughter Chanice came along too, as well as their dog, Winnie. With four boys and three dogs along for our "walk", we didn't take long to complete the trail - we decided that it was more of a RUN through the trail. But it was fun and the trees were in full colour so it was a really beautiful way to spend the afternoon.

Our "Stay-cation" - part 4

At the end of the week, while Mike was working, the boys and I decided that we wanted to go to Ottawa for the day. My Mom and Dad decided to come along, so after we shopped and had lunch we headed to the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec. What a GREAT museum!!

The view of the Parliament buildings across the Ottawa River.

Mom and I in front of the fountain.

A beaded and embroidered coat from the Native Canadians exhibit.

The great hall of Totem Poles - Aidan is standing against the wall, near the bottom - that's how BIG it is!!!

Our "Stay-cation" - Part 3 - Going Home

Even though we had a blast at the new cottage, we had to head home in the middle of the week so that Mike could go back to work. One the last day we always take a picture of the kids - it is so neat to see how much the grow each year. Alexia is so easy to take pictures of - she just smiles and sits quietly. The boys on the other had ALWAYS have to goof around, so I end up taking at least 10 pictures to get one good one - thanks heavens for DIGITAL cameras!!

Our "Stay-cation" - Part 2

Aidan had his appendix removed the week before we headed to the cottage, so we were worried that he might not be able to participate in all of the planned activities but by Tuesday morning he was ready to head out in the tube with Alexia and Carson. They were bounced around quite a bit, but they were all laughing and smiling the whole time.

Carson really wanted to catch a fish, but despite trying repeatedly from both the boat and the dock, didn't even catch one.

We had a camp fire a couple nights to roast marshmallows and make smores - both Aidan and Misty liked this activity.

Blake's Sea-doo was a very popular mode of transportation - Aidan just loved going out on it to get the morning paper! Here is Carson driving (safely tied to the dock).

Our "Stay-cation" - part 1

Ontario was really promoting "Stay-cations" this summer - encouraging people to explore the vacation possibilities around their own homes instead of travelling outside of Ontario. For our vacation in August we visited our friends brand new cottage north of Peterborough - what a beautiful vacation home. Their old cottage was torn down almost two years ago and then all that fall and last summer they worked away at rebuilding it. They did an AMAZING job!!

Getting ready for the Studio Tour

Once again, this November, I will be participating in the "A Country Home Christmas Artist's Studio Tour". Nellie and I are both going to be involved and we are going to be located on the Thousadn Islands Parkway in our friend, Linda Scallion's, "Piggery" - which is, despite it's name, a quaint little building that looks just wonderful decorated for Christmas. Once again I will have my wall hangings and punchneedle pieces for sale, but I wanted to offer some smaller items too. One the weekend I had a brain wave - I have a thousand pictures of my quilts that I used to use on the cover of my patterns, but now that I use digital image I have no use for these pictures! Instead of throwing them out I decided to make gift tags. have a look at some of the ones I made on the weekend.

Where did September go????

Every August I look forward to September, to getting back into a "normal" routine, but then September comes and I remember that it is one of the busiest, craziest months of the year!! With the kids going back to school, joining the swimming club and heading back to cubs, Mike going back to both of his jobs (supply teaching and working at the Heart and Stroke Foundation), me working extra because other pharmacists were on holidays, Aidan having dental surgery, us closing the pool and doing other outside work to get ready for the fall, the month has just flown by. Lat Thursday I FINALLY had a day off where I didn't have to go anywhere or do ANYTHING!!! So I sewed - all day!! It was great and I got lots accomplished. I quilted four wall hangings that I had appliqued over the summer and then over the weekend I sewed on the bindings. When I have finished hand sewing the bindings I will post pictures - they are really cute if I do say so myself!
Well, maybe October will be more "normal".

Brockville Public Library Display

For the month of August, Nellie and I were the featured artists in the Brockville Public Library here in Brockville. They have a large display area which is such a great space for showcasing local artists. We felt very honoured to be able to show some of our quilts and we were really pleased with the positive comments that we received!

Meeting Diana Gabaldon

My friend Beth introduced me to the "Outlander" series of books in January and ever since then I have been loving them. I'm not a very fast reader, so I am now just on book #5, but I am really enjoying Claire and Jamie's adventures! My husband, Mike, announced a few weeks ago that he would like to go to the Highland Games in Fergus, Ontario. I looked on their website to see what would be there and I couldn't believe it when I saw that Diana Gabaldon, the author of "Outlander", was the guest of honour! I was sold - and off he headed to Fergus. She gave a couple talks about her writing process (so interesting) and signed copies of her books - what a fascinating person!!!

Carson - Water Baby

My son Carson must be part fish!! usually he spends every day of the summer in the pool. This summer, because of the poor weather, we didn't get to use our pool as much as we would have liked - but when it was warm enough, he was swimming!! I complained to my Mom one day about how hard it was to get him out of the pool. she just smiled at me and said "Hmm, it reminds me of a little girl I used to know who would never get out of the pool." - hmmm, I wonder who she means ;).

Willow and Pugsley

One day we were all out on the back deck and Pugsley was up on one of the chairs, sleeping. Willow decided that she wanted to be up there too, so she wiggled her way up, somehow without waking Pugsley, and snuggled in. It was too cute to not photograph!

Scary Night II

The second line of Halloween fabric that we get to design with is the "Scary Night II" line by Laurie Godin. I think we are going to design a table topper with it! The panel is really nice and would make a great wall hanging. Here are a few of the fabrics in the line:

Costume Club

Now that we are almost done our three big quilts for Northcott, a package arrived in the mail with two more fabric lines from Northcott. These are both Halloween fabrics and they are REALLY cute!! Here are some samples from the first line - "Costume Club".

Going for Gold

The Northcott Fabric arrived last week while I was away at our friends' cottage. Nellie started to work on the quilt right away. We actually have to make THREE copies of the quilt - Northcott is going to send them out to different quilt shops in trunk shows. So, when I got home from the cottage, Nellie had 1/3 of the fabric ready for me to start quilt #2. By Saturday I had the quilt top done, by Sunday afternoon it was quilted. Now I am about to start quilting #3, which was pieced by my mom, Judy. Here is the quilt - it is called "Going for Gold". The pattern is done and will soon be available on our website: http://www.uppercanadaquiltsworks.com/ or at a quilt shop near you!

Camping out - Baker style

We aren't very good at camping - Mike and I really don't like to rough it too much, so when we go on vacations we always stay in hotles or condos. But really, there is nothing like a good campfire, so we decided to have one on our front lawn - complete with marshmallows and smores. Luckily we have a stump that needs to be removed, so we just built the fire beside it and set up our lawn chairs.

I guess we need two more chairs if the dogs each think they should get one!

Here's Carson roasting his mashmallow to perfection (or maybe that was the one that burst into flames).

It's so hard to get both of them to pose for a "nice" photo!!