More Quilts!

I finished another donation quilt the other day, from some leftover blocks that Sarah B sent me.

This went to the Womens Community Shelter along with 7 others on Wednesday.

Now I'm working on a purple 'thing', lots of scrappy in it but controlled with thin black strips and of course lots of purple.

Picked out some fabrics today out of my stash for a neat diaper bag (Amy Butler pattern), will start on that prolly next week.

I received a lovely email from Alex at piecinghope, they received John's quilt and it will get sent to him soon I think, I hope that he likes it.

String Top

Heres a lil string top that Sue's Mum sent that I quilted and bound the other day.
this one will go to the womens shelter along with 7 others I completed over the last month or so.

not a great pic but your used to that by now, right? lol the blue center fabric is Harry Potter, I think this one is perfect for a lil boy to cuddle under while reading or watching TV.

piecing hope

Here is the quilt I made for John, a lil boy in Africa. I sent this by UPS over a week ago to the central location collecting quilts for the 40 children. Hopefully it made it there ok, the website etc isnt great about communication, but apparently neither am I since its been months since I updated this blog lol

Anyway, some info was given about each child, John likes playing with cars and playing soccer, his fav colour is purple. I tried to incorporate all these things into this quilt I designed for him. The applique patterns are from fatcat patterns, the embroidery designs from emblibrary.com I quilted Caution, Stop, Go into the yellow, red, green borders, freehand cars into the outer black borders, a soccer game in one of the grassy areas (ok my drawing skills suck so my soccer players look almost alien) but E for effort? lol

Trying again...

Well...I see my last post was in August 2009..really?! where the heck did the time go inbetween? heck idk. but I have been quilting...lots and lots!

Heres some pics of the inner peace quilt, these are of the center medallion area.






Getting there!

More Inner Peace

Since my omg I'm in a pissy mood yesterday, fitting to work on my Inner Peace BOM right? =)

Sometimes I question my sanity when I quilt stuff...its like k why must u pick things that take forever and a day? and why must my perfectionism make me never happy with anything I do? blah....will I ever make something that I'm ok with? I remember this friend of mine used to say 'use the 3 foot rule' basically meaning stand back and dont focus on every little mistake or wobble...well yea, but sometimes I think maybe if I rode by 300 feet away on a galloping horse? lol oh well, guess we all have our own private demons.

Anyway..heres some more terrible photography of the inner peace quilting progress.
the borders really are jet black and the other fabrics deep deep rich colours.




Its hot and humid. I love the heat, but not so enraptured with the humidex. Yesterday I tackled weeds in the backyard. I have a seriously amazing crop of them this year, matched only by my lack of interest in all things garden related. However, the neighbours are surely by now sick of my lack of interest in the 4 foot thistles...therefore it is required that I make an attempt at taming them. My tomato plants are the saddest looking things in my garden, the thistles are spectacular tho. If only weeds were an acceptable beautified object, well then I'm sure some home gardening mag would feature my yard! its all a matter of persepctive, right? =)

An economy rant

So the other day I get a notice from Rogers that hey the CRTC is adding a fee for u know Canadian programming...to the tune of 1.5% of my bill. But Rogers is quick to point out that we are just collecting this fee, we make absolutely NO profit on it...umhmm. Bottom line to me is I dont give a rats ass whose profiting from it, my Rogers bill is already like 300 every 2 months, u think I care where this insane increase is going? because I dont. I care that in the roughest economy ever where our unemployment rate is thru the roof, u are charging another 1.5% of my bill, for the lousiest TV lineup possible. 4 mins of program, 8 mins of commercials. and I pay a lot of money for this....I'm so sick of these companies.

Hydro, oh we have to initiate a sewer surcharge cause yanno the sewers all need replacing..but dont worry! its temporary...how many effing years ago was that?! still there and not only that now often times the surcharge is more than my actual water bill. Oh and hey now we charge more in the summer than the winter cause we know darn right well its the time ur using ur a/c and when ull use the most hydro.

Banks. So the government infuses them with money to 'help' them. My money btw. yup the taxpayers money. So when the interest rates go down to jump start the economy I get a letter from my bank. "Since the interest rates are so low and we cant afford to lend money at that rate, we are upping your line of credit interest rate by 1%" wait, what? we had a contract at a set amount of percentage above prime...u cant just change it now?! but oh yes they can, cause in clause 26 of their dumbass contract it says that the bank can change any and all terms of this contract at any time by sending notification by regular mail. Gee, I cant do that now can I? if I lose my job, I cant send them a regular mail notice and say oh btw I lost my job and I need to reduce my interest rate...but they can? with money the taxpayers gave them to reduce interest costs to move the economy....unbelievable.

And is there anything that can be done about these injustices to the Canadian people? nope, just try to find a governing body contact info..ull get bounced from one place to another for days. and in the end, all they will say is 'working as intended'

yup good thing we pay politicians and governing bodies insane salaries while we slug it out working 2 jobs a piece to pay them, cause yanno they can speak French so they gotta be worth the salary, right?

yes its true, I'm pissed off today! lol

A shout out to the ppl of Toronto

Ok so I confess, I'm as bad at directions as I am at photography.

So yesterday I went to the ROM to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, been really looking forward to it, thought I had it all planned out, you know, google maps, printed this and that, yes, def I have this under control! ummm....well, actually I did get there easily enough, despite the usual Ontario highway summer construction that seems mandatory in the province to delay all travelers, altho I'm so used to it I prefer to see it as a 'slow down and smell the roses' opportunity...lol

Side note here: the exhibit is spectacular. Kudos to the museum for doing justice to such an awe inspiring subject. Only complaint...where the heck were the audio headsets?! me and a bunch of students were all looking for them...nowhere to be found.

Anyway, I digress. I haven't been in downtown TO for a while, I've always found the people there to be exceptionally friendly and helpful in the past, but, ya know these days that sort of courtesy has gone by the wayside in so many places, it was absolutely refreshing to find that the people of TO have maintained this mostly lost art. In such a busy metropolis, with people everywhere, cars backed up for miles, motorists stopped, let me in to lanes, waited patiently as I tried to decipher street names and figure out where the heck I was going. Stopping at lights, asking other drivers, hey...am I going the right way? taking time to answer my questions and directing me, reassuring me that yes, 3 more blocks etc.

But the big surprise was when leaving, I decided since I'd come in on the QEW, onto Spadina then all thru China Town that perhaps it might be faster to go back on the 401. But where oh where were the 401 exits?! After some missteps, I asked a taxi driver stopped at a red light. Explaining to me where to go, the light had long since changed, and we were still sitting there. ok so ppl were patient but it was time to move for sure, so off we went. Next light he pulls up beside me, explains more. Next light he gets out of his cab, hands me a hand written note with directions. Next light he says, dont be nervous, stay in this lane, then that lane etc etc. Next light he says, you know what, follow me, I'll take you there.
He was so kind and patient, just amazing to me that someone would take time out to do that for me. I believe the taxi company was "Beck"? anyway, he got me safely to the expressway and his notes made it easy to find my way from there, even including what lanes to be in so I wouldnt miss my exits.

I came home tired but bubbling over with what I had seen and learned at the exhibit. I also realized how much quilting affects my life and thoughts...some of the patterns on various ancient relics...oh wow what great quilting patterns those are going to make! I can't wait to incorporate them into future quilts.

So people of TO...high five! you rock.