Hallowe'en Giveaway Reminder

Don't forget everyone that tomorrow is the day I choose a winner for my Blogtoberfest Hallowe'en giveaway. If you haven't entered yet go to my post here to sign up.

It's getting difficult to blog every day. Only now do I realize what a bore I am *LOL* I do have lots to do. I'm working on a fall embroidery which is taking longer than I'd hoped since I usually stitch in the evening and with my husband home evenings I prefer to spend time with him watching TV. I may finish it tonight though.

I'm also trying to fix up my Family Tree after my computer crash. When I transfered it onto the new computer it did fine but dropped all the vital statistics such as birth, death, etc. With 5500 people in my tree it's taking hours to go through and replace all those dates. Not that I really care about a lot of them but if the next generation wants to pick up where I left off I want to leave behind all I have for them. It's been labour intensive cause it's really not fun and I'm at a point in my research now that I just want to put together relevant stuff into a mini book and then move on to a new hobby. I'm genealogied out.

And then there's the fact that today and tomorrow are our last semi-nice days for awhile and I still have a lot of winterizing to do in the yard.. which I hope to get to this afternoon.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Tis the Season

It's official. I heard the first flock of geese headed over to the rendevous area at the George Rifiel Bird Sanctuary. This is a photo of my b-i-l who passed away in 2006 when he was here visiting in October of 2005. As you can see the area is inhabited year round by ducks but in the Fall the Canada Geese go there to fatten up for their trip south. This particular goose decided that rather than waiting to be offered seed he'd just help himself out of George's pocket *LOL*

I know Rifiel is an odd name for a bird sanctuary but it's named after the man who owned all that land and donated it for the sanctuary. It's a great place to spend an afternoon with lots of trails, lookouts and benches.

It still doesn't feel like October out there. The leaves are still green and even though today has been cloudy we've been having many gusts of sunshine.

I found an awesome blog today. I was checking out Facebook and I had joined the Lazy Girl Designs facebook page. She had a link to Pat Sloan - the pattern and fabric designer. That lead me to Pats blog. Her blog is amazing! If you check all the things listed down the side most of them are hers. She has free patterns and how to videos. I LOVE how to videos.. cause I like to "see" things done. That's how I learn. There's a link in my blogs I follow but here's the link anyway.

http://patsloan.typepad.com/pat_sloans_corner/

Off to do a few more fall clean up chores that I thought I could leave til Spring.

Snowman Quilt

A post a day? And it's only day 6? Oh boy, that's quite a bite that's rolling around in my mouth.

Okay, here's something I wasn't going to share til it's done but what the heck. I did the embroidery for this quilt once for a shop sample. They were so cute I just HAD to make the quilt myself. I mean how can you resist this face?


I've been using it for two winters now as a coverup for a white brocade chair in the livingroom. I originally had quilts on there cause we had cats. No cats now but quilts still look nice on it. So after clearing up my quilting room and finding all these UFO's I decided it's probably time to quilt it. I know part of the problem was I had no backing. But I did have enough of this fabric line that I could make a patched backing. Some of the pieces are from other projects so it's different colours than blue.. but that's okay Shirley.. stop being so picky!

This one I'm actually going to try to hand quilt. I figure it won't be that hard, quilt around the squares and then put a snowflake in the between spots. Haven't decided about the borders yet. Something simple.... maybe smaller snowflakes. It's going to be so snuggly. It's a very soft flannel.

What else is new since 24 hours ago? Geesh! Oh, I know. My husband LOVES pumpkin pie. But not just any pumpkin pie. It has to be made from my mom's recipe- which my older sister claims is hers but I don't think so. For one thing mine had Mace in it and hers doesn't, although she claims she just deleted it from the recipe. Plus the recipe calls for a "dessertspoon full of flour" That's definately a 1930's, maybe '40s kitchen measure. Since my sister wasn't born until 1940 I deduce it is my mothers, or grandmothers, recipie. Anyway, horrors of horrors I lost my recipe! So I had to write to my sister and ask if she had "the recipe" not "her" recipe or "moms" recipe just "the" recipe. At first she couldn't find her copy either. Isn't it funny how something like losing a recipe for pie can throw you into a panic? Well, seemed serious to me anyway cause I agree it tastes better than others. But she finally found it and emailed it to me so a pie was in the oven yesterday afternoon... and I did add Mace to her recipie.

Now I think I'm going to write the recipe out and put it in our safety deposit box *LOL* I bet other people have strange things in their's too.

Embroiderer's Jackpot!

I did my first embroidery when I was in Grade 6. It was an introduction to the sewing we would be doing in grades 7 and 8. I actually have that first embroidery. It's a laundry bag with two southern ladies in big skirts and bonnets. I have to tell you that because, although I do have it, I came up with the bright idea a few years ago that we all needed to have "memory boxes"... big Rubbermaid bins filled with things that were precious.

Now this is a good idea... what's not a good idea is to store them under the stairs behind the empty luggage, sleeping bags and similar boxes of Christmas decorations. I can't get at them without emptying the cupboard almost to the very back. Since I don't feel like doing that this morning you'll just have to believe that I actually do have it.

Why I bring this up is because I've been enjoying Embroidery for the last while and have even joined a Sitchery group. I was working on a project that just wasn't turning out right. I thought maybe it needed more than just your regular backstitching. So I went looking for some different techniques. And boy did I find them!

Mary Corbet's Needle 'N Thread has video's demonstrating almost any stitch you can imagine. I'm in heaven. Of course now I'll be sitting in front of my computer trying to learn all the stitches. Where's the take out dinner menus? *LOL*

Enjoy!

Autism Awareness

Do any of you watch The Amazing Race? It's on tonight. It just started last Sunday. For the last couple of years they've had special needs people racing. One girl was a little person, last year there was a 20's something who is deaf. He was amazing. He made it all the way to the final three.

This year I was surprised and excited to hear that one of the racers has Aspergers. Aspergers Syndrome is what my son Michael has. It's on the Autism Spectrum of disorders. I had never heard of it before Michael was diagnosed. All I knew about was Autism - non verbal, rocking, head banging, violent at times. Asperger's Syndrome has been around for a very long time but no one knew it was there until the late 1980's. A man and his brother were shot and killed by police in San Francisco in the early 1920's because the police wanted to talk to them (they were innocent bystanders when an incident occurred) and they didn't understand what the police wanted so they tried to run away. No blame to the police officers of course. All they saw was 2 men trying to run away from the scene of an incident.

There have been one or two TV shows, series, where they've had actors playing the part of someone with Aspergers. But no, they didn't get it right. I'd comment that someone with Aspergers wouldn't do this or that or act this way or that way. To see an actual Aspergers individual showing the world who he is, what he can do is beyond awesome.

And this fellow is very brave to try this at all. He said he had difficulty with changes to his surroundings.. understatement. I don't believe anyone knows just how hard it is for them. I want to change from my summer red impatiens on the steps leading up to the front door to winter pansies. I got maroon coloured ones, closest I could get to red. But Michael keeps telling me the impatiens look fine, he likes the red ones. Something that small, when the time comes to change them, will bother him. He'll pace, he'll be anxious because they aren't the same plants. And change is too hard. So you can imagine what happens when we put a Christmas Tree in the livingroom and start decorating and putting things where they "don't belong."

Last week in the race they were in Vietnam. It was raining.. like monsoon weather. There must have been 3 feet of water on the roads and pouring rain. A young man got onto the bus that the racers were on. He wasn't wearing a coat and so the fellow with Aspergers gave him his coat. He said he looked like he needed it more than he did. That is the beautiful side of Aspergers. They are so giving and so compassionate. Socialization is a major hurdle for them and yet if they see someone they don't even know that they perceive is in need they will give them the shirt off their back.. literally.

Their challenge on this leg of the race was to "herd" ducks. The Vietnamese use them in the rice paddies to keep down algae, etc. that can ruin their crops. This one was a no brainer. If you have a room full of people and one of them is autistic and then you let in 3 dogs all 3 dogs will gravitate to the person with Autism. There is some connection with all animals. The fellow that is racing with him called him the Duck Whisperer.

I see Michael in the field out back with the horses.. there's about 20 of them. They all crowd around him. Maybe they think he is one of them I don't know. He went to his uncle's house where there were 5 cats. All 5 cats, including one who always hides if strangers are around, ended up vying for space on his lap.

Anway, this is my long round about way of saying that I hope lots of people are watching this show, watching this fellow, at least until he is disqualified by coming in last at a checkpoint. I want so badly for the world to understand my son.

Crazy Zuchinni

I decided today I'd show one of my favorite quilts. I put it out the other day in celebration of Fall. This was a class I took in 2006 but you know some classes just stick in your head cause they were so much fun. There was maybe 6 of us. We each had to bring a bunch of different fabrics cut into various size pumpkin shapes the instructor had given us ahead of time. It was to save time, sure, but it was also so we could share. We cut each of our shapes into 4 sections. Then each section was put in a bag and we all reached in and pulled out 3 from each of the four bags. We sewed as we went. The idea being that our pumpkins would end up really scrappy.. like a Buggy Barn pattern but without the obvious same fabrics. We also had leaf shapes and stem shapes that we did the same with.

This pattern is all raw edge applique so went together very quickly. I can't remember the name of the background fabric.. it's almost like prequilted - in kind of a small grid. So all that was left to do once our pumpkins were finished was to embroider the tendrils and then do a stipple to quilt it to the backing. I didn't even remember doing a stipple cause it doesn't really show.

Here's a close up of one of the pumpkins, sorry it's so blurry.



But it shows the different fabrics that went into making it. We don't use it as a lap quilt. I have it out just for Fall ambiance.

I'm working on UFO's at the moment too, a bit each day. I have one quilt ready to hand quilt and the other ready to figure out borders on. So here it is October.. so the calendar says... and I'm working on Christmas quilts.

It's hard to believe this really is October. Our temperature is supposed to go up to 20C (70F) next week. Interesting climate changes we're having. I went out and bought winter pansies yesterday but then realized my impatiens are still doing fine so why pull them out? Hope the pansies don't mind sitting in their little containers until it decides to get cold around here.

I really shouldn't complain. This sunny weather is a real treat around here where Fall/Winter are usually gloomy and raining.

Have a great Saturday (or Sunday if you're in Australia).

Blogtoberfest

Lane always has such neat ideas. So I've decided to sign up for Blogtoberfest, which means I will blog every day for the month of October. Of course it's already the 2nd so I'm behind before I start but that's nothing new *LOL*

You can sign up too at tinniegirls blog. There's a whole slew of people signed up which is kind of neat. Over the month I'm going to travel around and I just might learn something or find something interesting I haven't see before. There will also be giveaway's on some of the blogs.

Seeing as it's already Oct 2nd and what I have to give away is a Hallowe'en theme I'm going to post mine today. I'll be doing the draw on October 10 so that I can get these mailed out in time for someone to use them for this year.

The package will include 2 panels. One for a wallhanging



and one of 12" squares that would be great appliqued on a childs trick or treat bag or made into a special Halloween quilt:



I'll also be including some smaller applique sized images that came with the panel.



I've never done a giveaway before so I'm not sure of the rules. Just leave a comment and let me know that you want to be included in the draw. I'll be putting up reminders leading back to this post every few days.

Guess I should have pressed everything before I took the photos but I'm allergic to ironing *LOL* They do press up nice though, promise.