I think he likes it!

I think he likes it!

More work on my Dutch Cathedral windows...


I think I will make a decorative pillow out of it. I bought the blue background fabric when I was in Holland. It is the fabric they would use to make the traditional costumes that they wore. I bought it at the Zuiderzee Museum; it is an outdoor museum like a pioneer village, where there are demonstrations done by people in period costume.

Sub zero temperatures!

Here are a few photos of our Thames River on Monday when it was minus 11 degrees Celcius. The sides of the river was frozen with chunks of ice floating rather quickly by. The Canada geese and ducks are huddling together at the forks of the river...haven't made it far enough south, I guess.

These 2 specks are merganzers swimming against the flow, I watched them as they kept diving under water...brrrrr! I have only seen the merganzers in the river in the winter.

The forecast today is a high of plus 6 degrees Celcius and rain! and then tomorrow it will dip down again to -3 and then back up over zero. It's going to be icy out there!

We had to make Christmas decorations to demo at our guild, and I chose these Cathedral Window ornaments to do...I had never made cathedral windows before...and now I am addicted!

I've decided this will be a fun way to showcase my dutch fabric collection! and so it begins...!

December postcards: Let it Snow!

For this month's guild postcard exchange I took an old stained doily I had and cut out some of the circles.

Then I tacked them onto a beautiful snowy background print and then added some tiny embroidery snowflakes et voila!



Let it Snow! and has it ever! We have just had 2 major snowfalls come through since Friday and now it is snowing again...there is rain/snow coming in the next few days...will it be an icy Christmas this year?

Andrew's Scrappy Bargello done!

Yay! My brother's Christmas present is done, with a couple of weeks to spare! I am pretty happy the way it turned out. I decided to just do straight line criss cross machine quilting...(does this have a name?). Many thanks to Jacquie at Tall Grass Prairie Studio for her advice and to Bonnie at Quiltville for the free pattern!

And whenever I have time I have been handquilting my BIQR floor scrap quilt. I designed this celtic knot but I am not big on marking my quilts, I usually eyeball it.

But with this pattern I can't even draw it on paper without making a bit of a mess of it and it turns out all uneven. So I came up with making templates of the inner shapes and handquilting around them and then just eyeballing the rest.

Unfortunately, I should have spaced them farther apart, so that my double lines don't get too narrow, and I also had to take care that they looked like they were inter weaving.

Christmas Open House

Haven't been in a blogging mood lately, sorry. So I will tell you about a lovely open house I went to last sunday. I received this lovely invitation in my mailbox, inviting me to an open house featuring the "whimsical paintings an greeting cards of Nicole Campbell. All are welcome! Apple cider, hot chocolate, and cookies!" Oh how nice, I thought, and only a block away from my house!

So my mom, dad and I went, a perfect day for a Christmas open house, big white fluffy snowflakes flying! I am so glad I went, what a lovely house she had, christmas music playing, her artwork displayed on the walls and her greeting cards on the dining room table, or tucked in baskets on tables in different rooms. You could buy packages of single cards or make up your own assortment. So hard to choose! She had the most beautiful Christmas tree I had ever seen, I wished I had my camera to take a photo of it. You could see the bottom of the tree from the dining room and then you walked into what is usually her living room, and there was this giant 16 foot tree beautifully decorated with fairies and glass pine cones and acorns, a tree skirt with real pine cones scattered across it and ceramic bunnies. Oh so cute, and magical!

I asked her where she got such a beautiful tree and she said they trudged out in snow thigh deep to cut it down. It turns out she has family that lives on my street and she saw my Black Cats Staring in my window, and thought I might like an invitation and popped it in my mailbox! So how lucky is that?!

So dear readers, I send you to her website Moonboots to see the Christmas card I pick out for you! Please check out the rest of her gallery of cards, they are a delight!

Season's Greetings!