Quilt Guild has started for the new season.
I  stood at the front door as I was leaving and thought  "What have I forgotten?"
It wasn't until halfway through the meeting and I remembered!  Oh CRAP!
I forgot the cuddle quilt that I had made first thing in the summer!
I did have it on the bench at the front door so that I won't forget it and it got moved and I forgot it any way!
It was a fun meeting catching up with some of the ladies, checking out what is happening for the new quilt season.
There are a few local quilt shows happening this fall that I would like to attend.
So I need to mark them on my calendar and prep the mister with the details of where they are.
He doesn't want to travel too far.
The grand daughters are glad to be back to school and to see all their friends.
Dance has started for Courtney and Hayley has started music lessons.
Courtney wants a birthday party and wants to make some invitation with an owl theme.
My younger brother and my daughter have the same date for their birthdays...then less than a week later, it is Courtney's birthday!
I have most of the work down for my other quilt guild, I just have to work on my "sign -in" forms for the new season.
All in all....I had a busy week

Oh my legs... my shins and calves.....they are still sore from walking at the Falls.
I am not used to a lot of steep hills, and we did a LOT of walking that day.
The next day we drove to Port Dover. ( another steep hill to climb!)  It was  warm and windy, so we walked around downtown (it isn't very big), but before that we went to Len's Mills Store.  That's a large fabric discount store.  They carry fabric, threads, notions, patterns, wool, needles, crochet cotton, you name it!

I don't really need any fabric, but I got some anyway.

I looked for some nice Christmas panels for Courtney to use, but I didn't really see anything I thought she would like.
There were some cute Christmas fabrics, but again, not one I thought was suitable.
The mister helped me with the bolts over my head...Oh my gosh!  I never would have been able to see any of them!  The top shelf was THAT high!
In the next aisle, I found the perfect panel!!!!
OWLS! 
Courtney loves owls right now, soooo...
I purchased the cute pillow panel for her to quilt and sew, along with a couple of metres (2 yards and 6 inches)of over- all pattern of owls.

Well....
You should have seen her face when I showed her the fabric!
 She was so excited!
 She wants to start on them right away!
I then went looking for some fabric to make some t-shirts....nice fabric is hard to find!
I found a couple of nice  NEW LOOK patterns, one has a swing jacket type sweater in it...that is what I bought it for....and the other is t-shirts.  I have several patterns already, but I like this one too.
(As an aside....
A couple of weeks ago I was in Fabricland, and there was a big sign at the pattern dept. stating that because the prices to  them were going up 160%, they would no longer be carrying Simplicity and New Look patterns!  I was a little shocked by that!  )  :(

I browsed the store some more and found some vinyl that I thought would make a nice bag.
Next door was another store affiliated with Lens Mills...only this store was clothing, household goods and some crafting stuff.
There I picked up (of all things!) kitchen string!  I can never find it here   okay, okay... Dollar stores carry some different types, but this was a fairly big spool!  
I bought two.  I know the mister will take one for the garage! 
I got some rubber stamps for cardmaking .
And beads...I bought 4 vials of Czech beads.
Then Thursday came around...  we were planning on going to The St Jacob's Market.
I decided I would rather stay home.

Maid of the Mist

The granddaughters are back in school, their mother is on vacation, so the mister and I decided we would take a few day trips.
Tuesday we planned on going to St Jacobs Market again.  Pick up some fresh vegetables, maybe some fresh cuts of meat and have lunch there.
And.....


Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls

Oh crap!  The place burnt down to the ground a couple of days before!
Sooooo....we decided, since they have announced that they will  open the market on Thursday, we will go then and today, we will drive to Niagara Falls.
We didn't plan anything except to see the Falls, and have dinner.
I haven't really spent a lot of time as a "tourist" there.


The American Falls

The last few trips I went there were to do with moving my mother here and then, my mother's estate. 
So...this was a PLEASURE trip for me.
We walked around, enjoyed the natural beauty of the area.
We watched the Maid of the Mist chug up and down the Falls area
Then killed some time and 20 bucks at the casino.
Sorry, I just won't spend any more than that at such a pastime!
Then...
We had a very nice dinner and came home.

both Falls!

Summer is almost done.
We only have a few weeks left ....
The days are getting shorter.
The nights, much cooler.
Local fall fairs are starting.

We have had a pretty good summer.
The tomatoes have been tasty...I love tomatoes!
For some reason, green pepper don't do so well for me.
My neighbour's squash plants are invading our yard!  lol!
as long as they produce some squash for ME!

Not too hot, not too dry...
Then we had a couple of really cool weeks in August.
Overall, pretty good, in my opinion.

But, the girls don't want to go out to the pool anymore....they are tired (staying up too late) and getting bored.
I've suggested a few things to do, but they aren't interested.
Then, one afternoon, Hayley asked for a cutting mat and knife.
She had numerous rolls of duck tape in her back pack, I supplied a couple of rolls and I had a roll of double-sided tape...(I think it was carpet tape).
The two of them sat at the kitchen table for a few afternoons, playing with duck tape and knives.
Scary for me...I know how sharp xacto knives are.  I really don't think they realized how sharp they are.
They watched videos, checked Pinterest and made duck tape work for them. lol!
They created without incident, or blood letting.
In fact, they had quite a fun time making wallets, purses and covering binders.
The pics are just a small sampling of their artwork.

I've said this before, ....I am still tweaking my sewing room.
The set up isn't bad, but I still want to tweak...move stuff around...edit some of my stuff. Lol! not too much, though!
I find if I get rid of something, then I need it!, or could use it for an ATC or something!
Murphy's Law always applies!
At any rate, I am still working on that space.  I knew I would have to, and I am.
I've been in the sewing room, machine quilting, and I have been finding that some things need re-arranging.
I have been looking for the projects that I was working on....like my Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt blocks that I've finished and the patterns I have printed ready to sew.
Well, I found the tin that I had the finished blocks in.  It was under a project that Courtney was working !
A clock that I had propped up in the corner of the desk had fallen on top of the blocks and the tin lid was kitty-corner on top of that. Courtney's sewing on top of all of that.

the culprit

I picked the tin up and almost had a fit!

There, in the lid, on it's side, with the spout hanging over the contents of the tin, was my sewing machine oil bottle!
 On it's side and ..
OH!
MY!
GOSH!
D R I P P I N G !!!!
This bottle hasn't a top to close it....
so I keep a large headed pin in the hole of the spout!
Good thing I do!
It had dripped only a couple of drops.
But that is enough to ruin all my completed blocks if it dripped on them.
I carefully picked up the bottle and checked what was underneath it.....

THE CLOCK!


the clock that saved me

Only a few drops of oil escaped the bottle, the pin was still in place.
The glass face of the clock  had a couple of drops on it .
I thanked my lucky stars and wiped off the oil, got a "Command" hanger and hung my clock.
I moved that little bottle of misery oil to a different shelf...far..far away from my blocks, quilts, fabrics and projects!
There is a trick to get out oil spots that I have used...and it does work!
CHAULK! 
Ordinary sidewalk chaulk.  I have a whole (LARGE) box for the girls to use.  (they don't play anymore they tell me).
I have tried rubbing chaulk into grease spots on my clothes after cooking and splashing myself.  It does work. You have to keep rubbing the chaulk into the grease until it is all absorbed, then launder.
BUT!  I certainly don't have enough chaulk to fix all my blocks and absorb more than a half bottle of machine oil!

my shirt, no grease spots, thank you chaulk!

Boy it's been a while since I blogged...not that I have been overly busy.
So, the girls and I have all this dye, paint and all these shirts and pillowcases to work on.
 I prefer that we work outside, but the weather is threatening to rain, so we are going to have to work downstairs in the laundry room.
Courtney wants to tie dye her pillow case.


Hayley's pillowcase

Hayley wants to ombre dye hers.  At first she wanted to dye her pillowcase black ombre.  Then she changed her mind to blue.
Courtney has to spend some time wrapping spots on the pillowcase with elastics...which she did...
I kept telling her ..."More".... "Tighter"
She did!
When she finally had it wrapped and twisted enough, Mommy arrived.
She went out to greet her with the knotted up pillowcase on her head!..lol!!!
We all laughed our heads off!!
Next day, we got busy and got serious with the dyeing and painting.
Four bottles of dye and only 2 pillow cases.....actually just one pillowcase.


Courtney's pillowcase

I made up some blue dye from some I had from a while ago
Hmmmm....
That will waste much of the dye...
I have some fabric that I (tried to) dyed with Kool-Aid...(that really didn't work!) and some fabric that I dyed and really didn't like.
I gave them a few of those pieces to use as clean up rags
The girls worked on their pillowcases, then worked on painting their T-shirts.
They worked on their  shirt and pillow case  almost all afternoon, after they were done with the dye, I used up the rest over-dyeing my fabric.
No t-shirts for Poppa though, he didn't want anymore.
BUT...after we were finished ...Daddy said he wanted some!

Hayley really enjoyed her art camp.
She said the week just flied by.
She printed paper with ink and shaving cream.  (something that I wanted to try!)
She carved her own stamp from lino.  (another thing I wanted to try!)
Each day she came home happy and tired, excited with what she had done.
And, at the end of the week she had a journal to show off!
and
this week has just blown by..
A nice long weekend..
Not that it matters for the mister and me, we have 6 Saturdays and a Sunday in our week.  haha!
Nice getting used to that!
The grand daughters told me this year they didn't want to tie dye.
(Poppa didn't really want any more tie-dyed shirts!)
Then, they changed their minds.
 They wanted to dye pillowcases...
I bought some craft dye.....
then they wanted some fabric paint.
I bought fabric paint.
I thought there really wasn't enough dye, so I went out and bought some dylon dyes.
I was able to get them at half price with a discount card, so they ended up being cheaper than the craft dye.
WELL.......
We can't dye and paint just 2 pillowcases.
So....
We went out to a local T-shirt warehouse and bought some shirts, a white one and 4 coloured ones each.
We were going to embellish the coloured ones with iron-ons, and other stuff, but now
only Courtney wants to embellish a shirt, and only one shirt.