Sewing? what?....ahhh....nope! not this week.
Why not?....hmmm....why...not..?????
I don' know.....too busy?
no...just sitting around doin' nothing and ....ooops
the whole week is gone.
OH !!
MY!!
GOSH!!!!
Is this RETIREMENT!!????

We haven't done much at all!

Staying up REALLY late...sleeping REALLY late.....

Just the usual housework and cooking meals....some gardening when it wasn't too cold or too warm or raining buckets.
I must admit that I had a great time with my sibs on the weekend.
I called my brother on Tuesday for another dinner date but he was busy.
We made a date for Wednesday, I roasted a chicken, potatoes and some asparagus....all done on the BBQ.
We had a great meal, sat and talked....for hours.
My brother had the foresight to bring with him from BC, some pictures one my granddaughters had drawn for him, seven ...yes 7 years ago!  He still had them!
(Through several moves for him!)
Hayley (THING ONE) was surprised that he had them still and but didn't remember drawing  them.
My brother painted when he was younger, he had a drawing of a painting he had done ...maybe 20 years ago... well...I had the painting! He was surprised to see it.

I didn't really get much sewing done this weekend.
Instead I had my younger brother (he lives across the country in BC), my older brother(he lives in the next town ...mmm... 15 minutes away), and my little sister( she lives 2 towns, maybe 30 minutes away), for a BBQ.  A niece and grand niece were here too.
We sat around and reminisced, laughed, told jokes and stories. 
I had a couple of envelopes of pictures for my BC brother and sister.  I came across them when I emptied out my mothers house.  I had an envelope for my older brother, but I gave that to him a while back.
 What a trip down memory lane for all of us.  There were pictures of former girlfriends, ex spouses, new babies (now grown with their own babies), group pictures of us and friends celebrating birthdays, and some really old report cards. LOL!
 Pictures were passed around and commented on, with copies and scans requested.
Then we had a fabulous dinner of hotdogs, hamburgers, potato, and spinach salad and I had made a large crock of homemade boston beans, we also had sauted onions and sauerkraut for the dogs.
All our favourites...
Needless to say, fresh air was a little scarce a couple of hours after dinner! lol!

After dinner, my sister's guy and my older brother got out their electric guitars and rocked our socks off for an hour.
We certainly had a great time.

Last September I said I would participate in a fabric post card exchange.
I was constantly ( well, often) thinking about what I would do.
I looked on-line for inspiration, searched Pinterest, took out library books.
I have to have this done by June 6th to hand out at the June Guild meeting.
But at least I have started.  There are a couple of groups doing this, and I know some of them have finished and given out their ATC's  already, although.... I haven't received any yet.
At first when I started thinking of what I could do, I thought of stamping and painting the fabric.
Then I thought, hmmm, painting and using some rubbing plates that I have.
I thought about raw edge applique.
I read a book about using dyed fabrics and accenting the blotches to look like flowers.
That, is an idea I like.  I have some hand dyed fabric.
So I took a 12" square and layered it with batting and started drawing with a white pencil on it.
Then I went to the machine and put black thread on it.
Hmmmm...no!
Took off the black and put a multicolour "blending" thread on it and started quilting flowers.  I wasn't doing what I drew at all...and that thread kept breaking.
I used some thread conditioner...still broke.
I put purple sewing thread on and started stitching again.

Scribbled flowers and meandering lines.
Then I cut it apart.

I got out some butterfly fabric (2 colour ways) and fussy cut some butterflies, fused them together so they can be dimensional. 

I then went back to the machine to find a suitable stitch to sew the body to the  card.
Before I sewed, I thought ....I need some flowers to fussy cut.
So, that is where I am now...pulling fabrics to fussy cut flowers.
I should have this done in time...I certainly hope so! lol!

Butterflies will be 3D, I will fuse applique the flowers,


This is our last meeting of the year and it is always a busy one.
We will have the results of the quilt show we had in April, our annual potluck dinner, the ATC exchange, BOM winners will be drawn for the year.
 Library will be busy, we are allowing 5 books to go out for the summer (fewer books to inventory).
It's always a great social meeting, we start earlier, everyone tries to make it out for this meeting, it's usually a great time...

I've had a busy weekend...working on the garden...reading....sewing...
Sewing in my "new" sewing room.
I worked on and finished a quilt top for quilt guild.  Just a small top for a child's quilt.
The mister and I worked in the garden, got most of that done.  With the mister helping me, it went fast.
  But I do have more flowers to plant.
 It is still a little early to plant here.
 Thank goodness this isn't Newfoundland...they had 53cm of snow this weekend!
I am 58 cm tall (just under 5 ft) ...that snow is almost over my head!  HOLY COW!!!
And I worked on my s'mores quilt adding the side triangles.
It looks like they are set in, but they aren't.  If I had of known, or realised, I would have added them to each row as I sewed them.

Want to see it?

s'mores

I also took some pictures of my new room, before I made  too much of  big a mess.

one sewing station

oooopps..
almost too late!  hehehe


another sewing station

some of my stuff

more stuff on the other side of the room

my huge cutting table

Well, I have all my sewing stuff in place(I think),  the mister has relinquished the desk.
 He still had stuff in the drawers and on top of the desk.
I keep asking him to move it upstairs but he was dragging his feet.
Upstairs needs paint!   Really needs paint!
The walls were papered before, on un-primed drywall.  I removed the paper years ago ,maybe 18?
That was a real bitch!...it was cheap, OLD paper that I removed by the tiniest strip.  I used stripper...that didn't help..so it took a long time to remove.   Now the paint is flaking in spots.  I will need to scrape and sand that off.  Probably wash the walls again, I think there might be glue where the paint is peeling
I don't know if the mister can help much with that, being that he is allergic to paint.  The dust created by  scraping and sanding might irritate his eyes and I don't want that!
I am not looking forward to this part.  My hands will hurt...my back will ache...I'd rather ache from sewing!
I have everything in place except for my sewing machine.  I took my sewing machine in for service....it was in a month ago for the same thing ....
Nick thinks it might be a loose wire or the tension assembly.....it might be shipped back to Husqvarna  for service!.....ohhh!  I hope they can fix it, because there is definitely NO tension at all. 
The mister came into the store with me....hmmmm ...later asked "What model do you have?"  I told him...he said "Well, what is the 'Designer'?" "Top of the line" I told him.
"Why didn't you get one of them? "  he asked  " Remember, I bought a Designer ..on-line...from BC."  "How come you don't use that one?" he asked.  I told him "I do...all the time!." 
UPDATE...I got my machine back, they replaced the tension disc.  It purrs like a kitten again!

I hope every one had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday.
I did...the granddaughters gave me a beautiful begonia to hang outside.
And some funny cards to go with them.

The mister popped a pre-made lasagna in the oven, and we had a salad and some hot garlic bread.
The hot oven heated up the house nicely, being as it was cold, windy, raining and hailing  on Sunday.  The sun did peak out occasionally.
At least it is now nice and green out,  the tulips are blossoming along with all the forget-me-nots.  My bleeding hearts are in full blossom, I love the fresh, green scent they have. I have white one right at the back door and the scent is heavenly. 
 I  never start my summer garden until all the tulips are faded.

Saturday I had a workshop...quilt as you go....fabulous teacher...very interesting...I would have been fun if my machine had have worked properly.
I had been have issues with tension at my last workshop, so I took it in for service.  It still was having issues....now I am getting NO tension.....I was very, very frustrated.
I was going to stop at the store as I came home, but they close early on Saturdays and are closed on Mondays....so Tuesday I will be taking it back in..
I noticed that when I took it in last month, they had put a very large needle and sewed on an extremely heavy fabric....I thought then that it might not be fixed right.
I love this machine.  I've had it 3 or 4 years and been without incident...so I hope it's okay again.  Then I had it serviced,.... I used for the next session of my workshop and had a little trouble...my store advised my to use different thread (better quality cotton thread).  I use good thread...guttermann, mettler, aurifil...
I took it home and really didn't sew with it until this Saturday.  (I was using my other machine to do the s'mores quilt.)
I hope there isn't too much wrong with it.

Almost done!
and almost done in!
We have been working on my sewing room in the evenings after dinner.
We need the whole day to rest before we feel up to moving more stuff around.  Each day we are so sore we can hardly move.  Hands and feet, backs and leg muscles are complaining bitterly! 
I am not used to so much running up and down 2 flights of stairs!
Only my sewing table and machine is left...oh! and my thread racks!
Even though I have 2 more bookcases and two more sets of shelves, I am running out of room!  I had 6 shelves on the wall that never came with me,  I have to find somewhere for that stuff on the shelves.
Things were pretty organized before...I had my rulers on the wall near my cutting table...thread racks, bobbins and such over by my sewing machines.
I have all my rulers on a shelf now.  That takes up too much room ...I think I will get the mister to put up some pegboard for me. BUT...now my rulers will be pretty far away from my cutting table.
Well, my goal right now is to just get it all in there.....
Right now I need to stop and prepare for a workshop that I am taking this weekend.
I have been looking forward to this workshop mainly because   I NEED A DAY OFF!!!   lol! not really...but I have been looking forward to this weekend, the workshop is 3 different ways to quilt as you go.

I am so sore I can hardly move.
My hip has been so sore for the last 2 days, it really hurts when I bend over, or am laying in bed and want to turn over.  I have been taking some Advil and that helps.
I think I've overdone it.  I KNOW I've overdone it!
Wednesday the mister and I moved a couple of cabinets around in the basement.
Then we carried the last one upstairs and outside for garbage pickup.  And BOY! was it HEAVY!!! pressed wood under in fake wood..(plastic laminate).
I worked on the other two cabinets, putting the stuff that was in the 3 cabinets back in into 2.
THEN, I moved two bookcases that the mister had used, up against the wall.
That was enough for that night!  I was a little sore...not too bad.
Thursday was quilt guild night, so I didn't take on a bunch of work, the mister threw out of more stuff from his office.
He still has a 4 drawer  file cabinet to go through and his desk.
Friday the mister went to play golf......and I emptied my book cases upstairs and carried them downstairs and filled the bookcases....Then my hip started to hurt.  Just a little.
Friday, after dinner, I started on my cubbies.  I emptied one out, then called the mister to come and help me.
Together we carried down  (2 flights) one base cabinet, then the cubbie.  He also carried down all the baskets and boxes of fabric and stuff that was IN the cabinet!
I then proceeded to load them back up.....I finished one, started on the next , then called the mister for help again.
By the time I finished with that cabinet, it must had been 1:30 am and I was DONE IN!
So we went to bed ...and do you think I could sleep?  Four o'clock came and went and I was still awake.
This has been happening for the last month or so.  Not falling asleep until after four in the morning.  And I have been taking a o/c sleep aid!!  It's not working!
Saturday I sort of rested...did some vacuuming while the mister pulled weeds on the patio.
I wanted that done so we could put out the patio furniture.  I want to be able to sit out in the nice weather!
so
Sunday we put out the patio stuff and put up our canopy.  All done!
That wasn't so bad on my hip.
I am going to take it easy today!

Blogging ...
A lot of people do it ...
on a lot of topics...
any topic really!
I have some of my blog favourites listed here on my blog.
I have quite a few different  favs of different topics.
Lately I have a new fav......
I don't have to remember to go and read it....she comes to me.
Right to my inbox!
I like that!
I also like what she blogs about...quilting! and a bit of other stuff...sometimes it is just pictures she takes...
I like her pics.
I really like her quilting.  She does some unusual designs and show how to do them.
Not as intense as Leah Day, whose blog I also read, don't get me wrong, I love Leah Day!
But just as informative and some really nice quilting ideas for you to use...with good pics of what she is demo-ing.
Here's a link to her blog and enjoy the inbox jaunt!
http://theinboxjaunt.com