A lovely weekend

I had an extremely stressful week last week.  Monday and Tuesday were long days taken up with back to back meetings at work that were not fun.  Then I had a ton of work to do the rest of the week and hubby was away from Wednesday on.  Although I like having time to myself, I was too tired to do anything constructive with it and my diet deteriorated rapidly as I didn't have to cook for him.  So I was ready for some fun this weekend!

On Saturday a group of us got together to do some talking and scarf dyeing and a little bit of sewing.  It was supposed to be a lot of sewing but the talking took over 😂.  I took a few pics of the scarf dyeing in process.  This is the same method we learned about in Saskatchewan in the spring.  You can read about the process here

I wasn't happy with how my scarf turned out, so I redyed it this morning. 

I didn't get a great photo of the overall scarf, but here are a couple of closeups that give you an idea of the detail.

Seeded Eucalyptus 

Raspberry leaves

This afternoon we went for a bike ride to the cranberry patch with our neighbours.

And we came home with lots of cranberries.  Here are a couple of trays ready to go in the freezer.

So all in all it was a very pleasant weekend and I feel ready to tackle work again this week.  Only three days and then I am off to a four day retreat.  YAY!  So I'll see you hopefully next weekend with some sewing updates to show. 

I hope your weekend was equally as relaxing and fun.

Janet 

September Friday Night Sew In Report

I had my usual tired Friday - I think that is going to be my new name for it - like thirsty Thursday, then there is tired Friday.  Not that I hit the bar or the put on Thursday! 😇

But even though it was a tired night I managed to work a bit on a hand work project.  DD # 2 is coming for a visit in November and I realized that there are two projects that I want to finish before she arrives - not that they are gifts for her, but just so I can show them off to her.  She is my biggest critic of the fact that I don't finish things.  Well I do, but she is sceptical about the number of projects I finish compared to the number I start.  Probably correctly.

Anyway I can't show this project because then she'll know as she does read my blog.  But I took a little sneaky picture.  Tee hee...

And then today I managed to finish sewing the four patch purple squares for En Provence.

And remember this photo that I showed you a couple of weeks ago...

A lot of you bravely guessed what it is, and lots of you were close or spot on....  it is a milk crate full of potatoes that were in a cold room in my friend's basement, for who knows how long, trying their darnedest to grow.  Here's what they looked like when I tipped them into the compost pile.

Please be sure to drop by Wendy's blog to see what everyone else got up to for Friday Night Sew In.

Janet 

Ugly Pincushion

It was hard to pick an "ugly" pincushion, because really I like them all and they all have a little fond memory of some kind for me.  But this one got the honor of being the ugly duckling.  My friend Nancy gave me this pincushion.  She also gave me my little chair pincushion that is made out of a tin can.  So you can see the style of pincushion she likes, even though she doesn't really sew much and doesn't have a pincushion collection of her own.

The reason I don't like this one as much is because it is so small, and I don't really have a spot to put it where it would be useful.  So it is being useful today, as my ugly pincushion!

And I think this is my last post for the Perfectly Pleasing Pincushion Parade hosted by Ida at My Sister Made Me Do It.  Go and check out the other entries - they are all really fun!

Janet 

My Pincushion Parade

Today I am linking up with My Sister Made Me Do It to show off the rest of my pin cushions.  Last year I posted quite a few of my pin cushions for the parade  You can see them here.  But I realized I missed a few, and maybe I've acquired a couple of new ones since last year.  😉

I bought this beautiful swan from someone online.  She had acquired a lot of old china pieces like this and had decided to make them into pincushions and sell them to raise money for charity  I think I paid $10 for this though, so I'm not sure how much she would have raised.  Unfortunately I can't remember who she was.  The pin cushion is very elegant and sits on the windowsill watching out for wandering animals in the yard.

This is another one that I acquired and I can't remember who from.  I think it was in a swap or a giveaway.  Isn't that terrible - that I can't remember, I mean.  This one is felted wool and I like it quite a bit except that it is only about an inch thick.  I have it hung on my cork board and it does get the odd pin or needle stuck in it.

I got this one last year at retreat.  A little fairy came through in the night and lift it on my table.  I made the decorative pins using buttons and tiny glass headed pins.  They aren't really practical for using but they are cute.

This last one was made for me by Lynn from Ontario.  It is pretty but very shallow so it is a decorative rather than useful pincushion.

And here are all of my pincushions out on parade.

Except that there is one more.... The ugly pincushion.  He gets a post all on his own....😍

Janet 

Perfectly Pleasing Pincushion Parade

I said I was going to make a new pincushion for this parade.  And I got an idea in my head and even though I didn't necessarily want to make it, it wouldn't go away.  So I made the pin cushion yesterday.  I hope this pincushion is not offensive to anyone.  I am trying to think of the right way to describe it and all I can think of is commemorative, but maybe memorial would be a better word.

I have no idea why I was so fixated on making a pin cushion to remember what has been going on in Texas the last few weeks.  I have no connection to Texas, other than my friendships with Irene and Ida.  My brother and sister-in-law lived in Dallas for about five years before they moved to Seattle.  And I drove through Texas once, back in 1975.  I was on my way to a year of travel in Central and South America with two companions.  We were going to cross into Mexico at Brownsville, Texas but one of my friends fell in a big pit in the middle of the night and broke his leg.  He had to fly home to Canada.  My other friend and I decided that we wouldn't take our car into Mexico and we drove on to Phoenix where we left it at a friend's house.  So I probably spent two days in Texas and the time was spent travelling.  Hardly an experience that created huge bonds.

But hey I needed to make this pincushion and here it is in the parade.  It isn't too beautiful, but it is good and sturdy.  Stuffed with fibrefill but I put a little pouch of lead shot in the bottom of it so it is sold and stands up the way it is supposed to.

I'm linking this up with the Perfectly Pleasing Pincushion Parade at My Sister Made Me Do It.

And I'm off to see the parade of pin cushions!

Janet 

Friday Night (and Saturday and Sunday) with Friends

I hope everyone had a fun filled FNWF.  We did here! I was terrible at taking pictures and the ones I did take aren't flattering so I am not going to post them.  But I really did sew with some in person friends as well as all my cyber buddies.  Lori was working on a UFO that she figured was about 17 years old.  Marg had made a large wall hanging of a rearing stallion using the fusible web method and she was busy stitching around the edges.  Linda started a new quilt and got four blocks done.  And Connie, who is a bit of a new quilter, made a set of four placemats with matching coasters.

On Friday night I finished stitching down the binding on my postage stamp quilt and sewed on the label.

I'm keeping the details of this quilt for a full post sometime so you're only getting a peek.  😊

And then I spent the rest of the weekend working on En Provence.  First I cut and sewed 169 of these two patch purple blocks to make a total of 336 of them altogether.

And then I turned about half of them into 4 patch blocks.

But then I had to say "enough" because I wanted to at least make one more block.  Four of the sixteen done!  But I still have to make a whole lot of the joining strips and then there is the border to put together.

And there you have my weekend's worth of sewing.  It seems like so little in retrospect.  😞

Here is a little quiz for you.  Can anyone guess what this is?

 Tee hee! 😃  Head on over to Cheryll's blog to see what everyone else got up to for Friday Night with Friends.

Janet