... and I'm a winner !

Yeah ! I was all sad and thought that lady luck was not on my side after entering all those wonderful giveaways. But no, sitting in my spam folder ( I must check it more often ) was a notification that I have won ! Coming to me is a new GreenBag lady market bag and produce bag, I'm very excited - I love getting packages in the post. If you go to her site Here you to can enter to win your own Greenbag lady bag. She has some lovely dotty ones up for offer ( the ones in the picture), contest closes on the 20th so be quick or go back often as she is always giving them away. You do have to pledge to go green and use the bags instead of plastic, now for those of us in the GTA we don't really get a choice so may as well get your self a freebie bag! I will post pictures when they arrive

Free stuff !

Oh I'm busy this morning,  Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day ends today at 5:00 and I am trying to enter as many as I can , you should too lots of great sewing loot, and some of the best bags out there up for grabs, why not stop over at my friend Kat's page  Kat's page and then link back to all other offers!

Okay does anyone feel a bit gloomy this fall? Looking for a pick me up? My friends over at Beauty Crazed are having an amazing makeup give away,  we are talking Chanel, Dior, Benefit.. you name it, it is there go on have a peek and get your name down for that contest ! Honestly if I don't win it I want someone I know to win it .. and maybe you'll pass me over the Chanel lipstick that I would loooove to have just for letting you know about it ! Fingers crossed girls !

Oh I have been gone a long time !

I have been not posting about everything I have been making and there has been lots and lots.  At the moment I am participating in 3 swaps on Flickr and am secretly sewing for Christmas. Now it is avoidance as I should be looking for a job hmm I need to bring the two together at some point, not sure how yet but I'm working on it !

Coming home from spending Thanksgiving with my family we stopped off at BonEcho Provincial park , I worked there one summer and my husband proposed to me there when I brought him camping there several years later, so this is a special place and to return even for an afternoon with my family was a treat. It was the last day of the season ( and luckily for us 28'c and sunny) so there weren't many people around and I was amazed by the beauty of the place again, and was able to share some of the the history  and beauty of the place to my children . 

Whitby Bakes for Japan

We went to the local bake sale, Whitby Bakes for Japan, with 100% of the funds going to the Red Cross relief effort in Japan, how could we miss it. I bought some of the prettiest cookies, (they were prettier before I brought them home) we had a little icing smushing in transit.  BTW they taste as good as they look. 
I also got some lovely paper craft items which were made and sent when a crafter in Japan heard there was going to be a bake sale to raise funds for the relief effort. That is my kind of lady :)

The event was packed, and lots of very tasty goodies were sold, as well as raffle tickets and paper items, and it seems OshKosh was donating one piece of child's clothing for  every paper crane made, let me tell you the origami table was busy and I have never seen so many paper cranes ! They also had a guest speaker, George Kourounis, from TVs Angry Planet. All in all it was a great event - I know it wasn't a telethon or some massive event but really it was one community coming together and helping out another community. I need to check in and see how much was raised. I will post when I know .

Pink Penguin: Envelops and Mailbox Block for Ringo Pie

Ayumi at pink penguin has made up the most awesome of  quilt blocks you must go look at it.

Pink Penguin: Envelops and Mailbox Block for Ringo Pie: "Remember I told you that May is my month in Ringo Pie bee ? Seriously, you have no idea how excited I am about receiving everyone's blocks..."

Ayumi I love how your brain works!

Why I love this... ever since I was a child to get a letter in the mail was always so special. I loved the post cards from places I could dream about and the letters from pen pals that I wrote to from childhood into adulthood. Even now as a woman who spent over 10 years across an ocean from friends and family I appreciated the convience of our modern time of texts and email but cherished the letters that come via the post. I think this is one of the reasons I am enjoy the flickr quilting community with their swaps & bees, it is for the childhood thrill of what is being sent and what is to come via that red box.

Ooooh the birthday cake was a total success ! Now I will tell the extra healthy sneak that I had to do, I used 1/2 spelt flour as I didn't have enough plain. You couldn't tell and my hubby and daughter are usually the first to sniff out when I have ' healthed up' a recipe. Firstly I think starting with the great recipe helped. I love Cooks Illustrated / America's test kitchen, ever since I read my first Cooks Illustrated way back when I was hooked. The explanation of why the recipe works and how they came about to the best way to make something,  brilliant.  Their low fat carrot cake does not disappoint and unlike some recipes that are a bit gummy from the substituting of fat for something else, in this case baby food carrots, the cake had a nice crumb. And whoever thought of using marshmallow fluff and cream cheese for the icing awesome! I was worried it would stay loose but the top kinda dries a bit and I think it helps seal the cake as it was still as moist on day 3 as it was when we had it the day after it was made. I will be making this again !

As well I am in a Flickr embroider-bee and have made my squares for my hive members, now to get on with the embroidery.

Sorry I have been absent for a bit but back now !

Much has happened, today finally I am making the Carrot cake recipe I have been wanting to try. Hubby's birthday tomorrow so it is for his big day! So far I think the batter is pretty thick for a cake, we will have to see, the proof is in the pudding as they say. I hope it is rich enough to feel like a birthday cake and not too 'healthy' tasting.  I have to say thank you to my lovely friend around the corner Nathalie who kindly lent me some parchment paper as I only realised we were out after the cake batter was made.  You know when you meet someone and you instantly feel like old friends, that is how it is with her, I am so very glad that we have met !

My little sewing machine ( very inexpensive plastic variety bought from our local Canadian Tire ) has kicked the bucket, well it still kinda works,   it has stopped winding my bobbins .. and you can't sew without bobbin thread it was all very sad ... what was I going to do? Mom to the rescue,  I was telling her I saw an old one at a thrift shop and was thinking maybe I should get it, when she suddenly remembered that there is an old one at my Grandma's house. It was the machine she learnt how to sew on, it had been her older sisters (so we are talking old here folkes). She brought the Kenmore home and my dad got a new belt for it and cleaned it and oiled it .. it is awesome ! It is so solid and quiet compared to my little plastic thing, wow ! It also comes with an open darning foot so I can try a little free motion quilting ! Awesome but the new machine needed it's own table, it weighs a ton and I couldn't be picking it up and putting it on the kitchen table every time I wanted to sew, now could I ?  I am afraid the girls have lost their old craft table from the basement ( they hardly used it ) and it now lives in the corner of our living room I have claimed as a permanent sewing station ! Yippee. I will take some pics of the beauty and the cake later today . 
And maybe let you see some of my other stuff I have been doing, hmm think I need to learn how to link my flickr photo's to my blog.
x

What to do first ?

Do you ever have so many ideas in your head that you can't figure out what to do and then you don't do any of it? I have 2 quilts to finish and have started another two small projects which could turn into a mini quilt or pin cushions.... I have a baby quilt or baby items to make for Holly's teacher who is going on mat leave at the end of the month and now the school is looking for silent auction items and I am thinking about making another quilt! The thought of starting something new: trying out a new idea / theme/ technique / colour scheme is so exciting it is hard to keep on track and finish what I have started ! Ahhhh, so easily side tracked. Ok today I will work on finishing something I have started and then I can post a picture!
Next week is March break so we can look forward to trying out some recipes, one of the things we are going to make is the carrot cake recipe from America's test kitchen light recipes as the banana bread was such a star !

What is up for March so far

I have started with a block of the month project, with http://www.littlemissshabby.com/ and it has embroidery it is so cute .. check it out . I haven't done anything like this for a very long time and even then I only did a little cross stich. But with the internet for a reference tool I relearnt how to do the stitchs needed ( they are basic ones I might add) ,and went to work . I have caught up and finished Jan - Feb- and March . I am also working on a lap quilt for my grandma .

My swaps have been posted and I know that my mini was recieved and is loved. : ) I have to wait until this evening to pick up a package that is waiting for me ... it should be one of my swaps, I can't wait to see what I get ! I have been keeping tabs on our group to see who has recieved what and I have seen a several of the of my chosen 10 go but there are still two or three of my favorites left out there not been reported received yet ..ooh it is like Christmas.

Fantastic free fabric on offer

Yummy fabric givaways over here, Guess what .... !Check it out and enter, I am !

My Favorite Little quilt swap

This is my entry to the flickr group- My favorite little quilt swap. We were able to choose what we wanted to make, and once finished members of the group were able to vote on their favorite 10 and choose 10 which they would love to have as part of the swap. 1 of the 10 is now on its way to me and mine is was posted out to its new home a couple of days ago. I really enjoyed this swap once I got over the fear of the possibility of my little quilt not being good enough. This was not my first design , I started another project but it wasn't what I wanted so I quickly changed to a pattern from Boo Davis's book Dare to be Square Quilting that I got for Christmas. the pattern was originally done in solid colours and used as a bag front and it was love at first sight. I think the Circa 50 organic cotton featured nicely in the boxes . All in all I am really pleased with how it turned out. I even had my Mom look at all the quilts made and she picked this quilt out as one she liked but had no idea it was the one I made. Yeah!

Quilts and cookie making in pictures

Wow I am sewing up a storm!

The table has been busy, I have finished my swap quilt and I love it ! We haven't swapped yet so I won't show it yet. As for everything else I'm just going to make a list as soo much has been going on, then I think I will do a blog entry of the pictures !
-finished Megan + Steve's quilt
-Baby T's snail quilt top done
-worked out a plan for my AMH fabric and the HTS are made up
-Miraposa curtain is done I'm just looking to see if I have anything to back it .

And we have been baking:
-Chocolate chip ( a River Cottage Family recipe) a yummy cookie and the only recipe with weight measures so I know the ingredients were spot on but we had some baking issues they took longer than suggested and the second pan burnt around the edges, I think when we make them again I will use a standard measure for the cookies so they are all the same!

-Gingerbread Cookies (an Every Day Food recipe) The gingerbread were perfect, they were a little soft and had a workable dough and a nice tasting cookie, the recipe was just time consuming you had to chill the dough ( normal ) , then roll... then freeze the dough, then cut, and bake. The steps made them really good but a long process for making cookies with little kids.

-Banana Bread (America's test Kitchen Light and Healthy recipe) This was amazing, the recipe was easy and it is a low fat, lower sugar option and tastes fantastic! It is going to become a regular in our household. I would like to say that even though it is a 'light' recipe it has normal ingredients so no artificial sugars or the like. per slice Cal 150, Fat 2.5 g .

I am doing my first quilt swap.

I am so excited, I am in a Flickr small quilt swap. I was a bit unsure if I was good enough to enter one, it is hard to tell some people have been quilting for a very long time and I haven't. This group has a bit of a voting system for deciding who gets who's quilt ( other swaps people get paired up - I think) and well, I want someone to want my quilt. It is a bit like when I was a kid and people were picking teams for dodgeball, you don't really want to be the last kid, the oh, ok I guess we will have them. I want lots of people to want my want my quilt. That might be why I have used some of my favorite fabric, you know if I love it maybe someone esle out there does to! I am using a pattern and have a time line . Normally I sew bits as and when and for a lot of it I wing it or adapt it so we have a couple of firsts going on here!

I can't show pictures of how far along I am but I have a little taster of what is to come . ( BTW this is the second project as I started a little something with some Anna Maria Horner's, Innocent crush, fabric but it wasn't working for me.)

And now something for me !

I was lucky enough to get some fabric (a batik roll) and a pattern for a new bag for Christmas. Put the two together and this is what comes out . This bag has pleats along the top and along the sides which were new for me . I really like how it looks, and it is a good sized cross body bag. I still have the blues and greens from the roll to play with hmmmm, what to do ? Making the bag also inspired me to use my hand painted batik scraps, in fact I have started to a butterfly type quilt pattern but will use it as curtains for the bedroom . Hey why not, who said everything has to be a pillow or a quilt.