First Storm of This Year

 Well, Atlantic Canada got its first storm this year of snow followed by freezing rain followed by rain. We have had such mild temperatures & with just 85 days until Easter, this winter is going to go by fast!

I got two of my quilts done the day before the storm & I am really pleased with how they turned out!

This is the Autumn Harvest quilt & the border print that was leftover was cut into 300 -  2.5"squares for the scrappy Irish Chain quilt that I'm working on now.

Rose is going to do edge-to-edge leaves quilting on the longarm, it will really complement the falling of the leaves from the top to the bottom in this autumn quilt.

It was a fun sew-along & it is the only way I would have done this quilt as it was like eating an elephant one bite at a time. The next sew-along is in February & will be tradition baskets, I'm in!

The Lori Holt -  Scrappiness Is Happiness 32-week quilt along, I finished mine as it was taking up way too much of my sewing room after week 10. I'm onto more projects for this spring!

I added some personalized touches to this quilt pattern.

How sweet is this Boston?! He was in my Christmas stocking from Nick & Leslie & I love him in this quilt, he is my Boris Loree.

Then the house has Bridget Loree & Baxter Loree coming to the door, a very frequent happening here daily. When they come in they get a treat so they love leaving to come through the door for a treat!

I ordered some KYROTIME labels to put on things that I make. Kyrotime is my happy place! And the sewing machine for my sewing & the flower basket for the love of the garden both make my heart sing!

I've been working on Mitch & Nicole's wedding signature banner to take to them this Easter. It is getting there with just a few more modifications. I used Civil war reproduction prints & scraps from the wedding quilt I made them. Each patterned square will finish at 16".

Scrappy Irish Chain

I was not going to do this but it called out to me as the perfect pattern to use the Williamsburg Exploration fat quarters that I have been fondling for twenty years. 

989 2.5" squares are needed for this and another 300 of the brown from the Autumn Harvest scraps, with a linen-like fabric that Jocelyne gifted me years back to make a curtain. 

This is a quilt along with Fabric Cupboard in Moncton NB that just spoke to me...

Maybe it was a need for the muted dark colours to ground me after using the bright happy fabrics from Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet. Fabric is colour much like friends, some are loud & happy others are quiet & more sombre, it is wonderful to have choices to play with as winter now here.

Each block has 81 blocks & there will be 13 of them! Sew much sewing to do now & choices of placement, I will want an easy no thinking quilt after this one!

I love the texture of the brown fabric with the linen fabric, it is going to have such a wonderful look!

An old world fee is what I'm trying to achieve, time will time but so far I am pleased with the colour & texture choices.

Rexton wanted in on the action too & grounded the main fabric with her approval! lol

The larger fat quarters are going to be made into cushion covers that will look great on the brown leather furniture in the great room!

With Christmas put away, I leave the RH birch up to give light to the dark days & it really looks nice at night! 

These hearts were at Urban Nest for 50% off as Christmas ornaments, I used them for decor for our New Year's dinner & will leave them up for Valentine's Day. They are very well made & double-sided!!

The backyard view of the morning before the storm, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.

I loved the warm hue with the cold snow & the fringe of the island's evergreens separating the colours.

Thank you for stopping in for a visit, I'm glad you came by to see what I was up to & creating.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend followed by a great week!

Stay healthy this cold & flu season & happy with whatever makes your heart sing!

Hugs,

Cynthia xXx

And The Year 2023 Begins!

 We celebrated new year's eve in our dreams, we could not stay awake past 10pm as morning people enjoy getting up early to start the day. And when we awoke, it was 2023!

Bill had been very busy in the lead-up to the year ending & here is what he was up to!

Look to the left corner with the small built-in cupboard that was there when we purchased the house...

Here is another view, it is a popular spot in the winter with the firebox for Baxter & Bridget!

Bill made me this beautiful custom built-in cupboard for all my quilts & afghans, these are just a few from my collection over the years. I'll post a photo again when it is full! 

He was so busy every night after work measuring cutting & creating this beautiful piece of custom furniture for me & my creativity! xXx

Look on the right side of the firebox...he made a welded holder for the firewood!!

The corner of the great room is so customized now & winter has found us, yesterday it snowed!

Here is a close-up of the cast iron owls before everything was painted. I took this photo when Bill was making sure everything was measured right & fit into the space. We found these owls at Louis Open Door Antiques in Chatham a few years back & used them to decorate the log pile. Bill made them so they swivel & I never noticed that they were sitting on a branch until they were detached from the metal bars & placed upward! We've had such great finds at Open Door Antiques!

This is the 'before'. It now has such a great function & is handy for filling the firebox!

This is the 'after', Bill also installed clear acrylic down the side to keep all the bark bits in!

The northeast corner of the great room has great form & function to it thanks to Bill's creativity & his gift to work with wood & metal. He said the metal was so much easier to work with as he understands it more but is enjoying the journey of learning how to make things from wood.

Gary, our London ON friend introduced him to the Busy Bee shop & he is like a kid at the candy store...or his wife in a quilt shop! lol

I played that Baxter was Max from The Grinch! lol

This was the first time Bill had made a cupboard & enjoyed it so much that he's now designing built-in cupboards under the great-room window with a wrap-around cupboard to go under the large TV screen!

He is a talented man in everything he does, I'm so blessed to have him!

I quilted up this 24" pillow cover & will make a pillow out of it for the Praire Meadow quilt. 

The Praire Meadow quilt has now been bound & is housed in the new cupboard!

 

I'm doing the finishing touches to this 16" x 20" Kathy Schmitz project called Frosty & Friends.

I wanted not Christmas on it so I could hang it for the winter months. I'm doing embellishments on each one with beads, embroidery, pompoms, etc...there are thirty of them!

This trio is brought to life, with 27 more to go!

Bill fills the feeders Christmas morning & has the chickadees feeding from his hand again!

You can see we had great weather so far this winter!

This too will pass...

We have such a good life out here on the east coast on the Atlantic, around us wildlife is abundant.

It is quieter in the winter but come spring everything comes to life again with mother nature.

Bridget does not do mornings well, she likes to just stay warm & cozy in her bed.

Baxter is the same way, he's on the other side of her under his blankets warm & cozy.

As we enter a new year everything is fresh like we have a new start with our days, make them count!

Thank you for stopping in for a visit & I hope you enjoyed seeing the updates to Bill's customizing our home here out east. 

Wishing you the very best this year!

Hugs,

Cynthia xXx

Mid-December With Winter's Arrival

 Wow, it is already 1/2 way through December! 

Winter has arrived & the winds are nasty here on the shoreline, the evergreen trees are swaying so hard at times that I fear they will topple over.

The water is dark as there has been no sun shining for days. It is so important to keep taking vitamin D in the winter because of this!

Here are photos of Miramichi Bay yesterday.

The top of the breaker wall shows the division of land & water but soon that will be covered & it will look like the tundra until the spring thaws the snow on the black rocks.

The water was moving very quickly with the tide & then it stopped & the ice started heaving upward!

It stayed like that for quite a while & then it was gone.

 

The low spots on the lawn had melted snow on them looking like small ponds. 

Today it is snowing but the heavy snow starts tomorrow & into Sunday. Bill has his plow ready to go!

Bridget sits by the window waiting for activity outside & snoozes in between. The Boston terriers do not like the cold wet days & cozy in by the firebox every night.

Bridget & that tongue of hers, she has such a bulldog profile compared to Baxter.

Baxter wearing his Max antlers & his Christmas scarf, such a handsome terrier!

We had purchased real wreaths from a local maker & had them in the house to attach ribbons to them before taking them outside to hang.

Well, Baxter loved the feel of those pine needles scratching his back & rolled in them, he did smell good! lol

He does have trouble with allergies from outdoors & being too close to the firebox at night which I think dries his skin out.

Every Boston terrier we have had loves to take the lid off the water bottles and then crush them down, here's Bridget with one in front of the firebox.

Have you ever had one of these days, when one of these things is not like the other?

And here are those blocks resew the right way as I brought the quilt top together on week 12!

Here it is all sewn together & now the outer borders have to do with the Monday reveal on putting it all together!

I hung this Christmas sweet treat on a bookcase in my sewing room. I spend most days in there creating & finishing projects.

Memories of days past with the racing days in the rearview mirror, I really have had a charmed life full of fun & adventure. It was that road that brought me here to the present day. 

Bill & I laugh at the fact that we live at a resort setting here on the north Atlantic year-round. And we are over the moon that Leslie & Nicholas live 30 minutes away in the city.

It's this Christmas year that Mitch & Nicole go to British Columbia to spend Christmas with her parents, so missing them I made them each a hanger to put on their Christmas tree in their new home.

I did a YouTube class on how to make a rectangular crocheted rug, it is so much easier than I thought!

This is 20 batik jelly roll strips (2 1/2" x 42") It now sits on my ironing board for Rexton the Manx Cat to sit on whilst I sew.

The scrap round rug continues with 3/4" scrap fabrics from my many projects & it was this rug that inspired me to make another because the cat is always on my seat-mat when I get up to cut or iron!

Now she has her very own & is high on the ironing board to see what is going on!

I was watching the Fat Quarter Shop show the new fabric lines & kits for 2023 & a Lori Holt project caught my eye! It is a kit she's selling that finishes at 40"x 40".

I took out paper & drew her quilt pattern, this is it done in 2 1/2" squares & finishes at 20" x 20". I'm making it into a pillow to go with the Prairie Meadow quilt that I finished & still have to sew the binding on. But I had to get this idea out of my head! I am really enjoying working with colours these days as it gets dark so quick now & the sun rarely shines.

I made myself a project bag from these squares.

Here is my first project bag, the pattern of the crosstitch can be seen through the front plastic, making it easy to see what is inside the project bag!

The zipper pull was made by me from watching Lori Holt's daughter Cassidy teach it & Lori taught how to make the flower that is on the bag. I'm so enjoying working with Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet and working on her books & projects.

I chuckled at the projects I worked on this week & how they are so colourful. I usually work in primitive colours & always have black as my go-to. 

When my Pfaff 720 starts to skip stitches it is usually its way of telling me that there is too much lint in the bobbin case. Yes, there was!!

All cleaned and ready to sew again! 

  

I did get the rumballs made up this Christmas & have delivered many to friends. My friends are so generous at Christmas & I've been gifted with two meat pies, apple pie, raisin pie, chocolate bonbons, scotch cookies, and sugar pie ( that never made it to the end of the day, yum!) Christmas cake that was made just how I like it & I poured on the cognac. Food sharing is such a wonderful way of giving. xXx

These rumballs have walnuts in them, another batch was made for Bill that has no nuts but crushed sunflower seeds to give it that texture.

This is a box of vintage Christmas stickers that I enjoy looking at & warms my heart of Christmas's past seeing them. I kept them next to my chair & at night would shake the box & look at them.

Then a box arrived in the mail from my girlfriend Sandy and look at this paper she wrapped my gift in!!

I will be saving this paper for sure! xXx

I made this rum carrot cake as I'm making a rum cake for Christmas day's dinner & I had this Nordic mould for a very long time & have never used it. I was so pleased with the detail that was exposed when I took it out!

I'm trying the slogan 'Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without'.

We have become such a disposable society & it has really gotten us into trouble, it is now time to take a step back. And reduce our footprint in our everyday living by just a little bit every day the habit will form & take the time to breathe. 

I hope you too are enjoying the holiday season in a way that makes your heart sing, there is joy in the world that you live in.

Wishing you peace & happiness always.

Cynthia xXx