Wednesday Bits and Pieces

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We’ve had a lot of rain the last 24/36 hours and a wonderful thunderstorm last night — lots of light and sound. Unfortunately, a migraine for me is almost always the result of this kind of weather and I’ve now had this one for 2 days.

To cheer myself up, I’ve been playing with a secret project with these fabrics:

I hope to be able to show what I’ve been working on sometime next week.

There have been a lot of swaps on the Inklingo list and one of the things we’ve swapped have been one-inch hexagons. I don’t know why, but I went through and picked out all the mauve/purple hexagons and started putting this together. Not sure where this is going, although I’m tempted to applique a stem with a couple of leaves and have a big purple hexagon flower wallhanging.


I have a question for those of you who have had your quilts quilted by long-arm quilters. Is there a secret to softening up those quilts once they come back and you’ve bound them? My king-size quilt is as stiff as a surfboard! I figure there has to be some trick that I just don’t know about, as this quilt is not something under which I think anyone would want to sleep. It’s pretty and the quilting is quite nice, but it’s stiff! I think it could stand up by itself. Any suggestions?

Rainy overcast days make for sleepy kitties. Smudge, in a half-awake state:


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Another Pincushion

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After making the starfish pincushion, I wondered what one would look like made with 2 grandmother’s flower garden blocks. So I grabbed 2 GFG blocks I had stitched together and six one-inch diamonds and made this pincushion.

This is the other side. It’s rather thick and not even my longest pins come through on the other side. Stuffing this one was much, much easier as I had found a bag of fibrefill (or whatever it’s called). Way easier to use than tearing off bits of cotton batts and stuffing those in!


I’m not quite sure what this look is, other than maybe a just waking up look!

The heat and humidity over the weekend were high. However, it has broken a bit now and is quite pleasant. We had absolutely torrential rain yesterday and a portion of the roof garden that is on an incline seems to have turned into a wee bit of a mud slide. One of the cleaning staff has been out on the roof garden for hours this morning trying to clean it up.

Friday Flowers

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It is hot. Seriously hot. With the humidex, it’s around 36 and the air quality is awful! It feels so humid that I wonder when those of us who live in this type of climate will develop gills for breathing! I am NOT complaining, though. I’ll take this over cold windy snowy winter weather any day.

It’s almost too hot to think, though. Was definitely too much for me last night. At almost 1:00 a.m. it was still around 33 with the humidex.

This morning I looked out and saw these lilies had appeared in one of the flower beds. They’re a very pretty pale pink/peach colour. Everything on the roof garden is so amazingly lush and green as a result of all the rain we’ve had this year. It really is beautiful out there and, thankfully, much cooler than on street level.

The gardeners have put pretty little flowers around the base of the trees. They added the small white ones this week.

Look at the colour of these flowers! They are unbelievably vivid and rich.


Smudge loves the caterpillar toy and last night we noticed he had it in his kitty bed. I’m not sure if he’s using it as a pillow or if he’s just making sure Lester can’t get it!


I’ll be finishing up my Four Seasons quilt this weekend. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Wednesday Odds and Ends

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First of all, a huge thank you to Wanda of Exuberant Color! I won the batik scraps portion of her giveaway a few days ago and they arrived today! They’re absolutely glorious and oh, so perfect for a scrap quilter like me who loves to work with small pieces. I am having more fun looking through these!

I just had to make another of these needle cases — this time with a batik. I love how these turn out, although I think part of my fascination is using all the sparkly beads. 🙂

Last night I decided I wanted to see if making two 6-pointed stars, stitching them together and then stuffing them would work as a little pin cushion. It did! The result is a small pin cushion but it would be perfect for a little travelling stitching kit. I used 1.5″ diamonds, hand stitched them and then stuffed it. It took forever to get the stuffing in — and it was difficult getting it right to the tips. It’s not very thick, but thick enough for #11 or #12 sharps, which are pretty well all I use anyway — even as pins.

This is one side of my little starfish pin cushion.

This is the other. 🙂
Old Red Barn Co. is having a giveaway of the most glorious quilt made with the Ginger Blossom line and an absolutely fabulous vintage sheet for backing! It is absolutely gorgeous!

Jen, at Crafty Giveaways, has a fabulous giveaway too — this time of the makings of a folded flower extravaganza. Gorgeous batiks and 4 pre-folded flowers.

This was Smudge last night — I’m thinking that, because it’s rather hot here, he stretches out of the kitty sack to get a bit of relief. I still can’t believe he wants to sleep in that during the summer, but …

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Sunday’s Adventure

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A friend works at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music and offered to take us on a tour of the building yesterday. It was a glorious day — warm and sunny, barely a cloud in the sky, and not humid. Perfect summer weather.

This was the view as we set off to walk over.


It seems that just about every single building has some sort of planting in front of it. Makes for a very pleasant walk!


This is the Faculty of Music building as we walked up to it.


We have tons of pictures. These are just a few. It’s a very deceptive building. It seems endless once you’re inside. This is one of the 100+ grand pianos and one of the classrooms. Look at that glorious view!

This was in another classroom — a harpsichord that just took my breath away. They are stunning instruments to look at!


This is the detail painted on the wood beneath the wires of the harpsichord.

This is a close-up of the painting on the underside of the lid of the harpsichord.

This beautiful grand piano was in the technicians’ workshop. It was almost heart-breaking to see a glorious piano like this in a workshop room. It’s a Bechstein grand piano that was gifted to the grandson or great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm and has made its way here.

This is yet another classroom — with two grand pianos.
This was yet another harpsichord. They are really beautiful instruments and are, I believe, made totally by hand.

This is a concert grand in the MacMillan Theatre, named after Sir Ernest MacMillan, the former conductor of the Toronto Symphony.

There are more pictures — we saw the stage where they put on opera performances, the workshop where they build props and sets, the sewing room (I had to sneak something in quilt-related in some vague way!) and other incredibly interesting areas.

Thank you to everyone who chimed in on the orchids, yo-yo’s and folded flower dilemma. I have decided to go with the orchids, using one colour per stem. A few leaves will probably be added to the base of one or two of the stems as well. I had a good look at some orchids at the florist’s over the weekend and it seems that sometimes those stems are really that heavy with blooms!


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Four Seasons Quilt — Decisions!

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This has taken forever to post. Blogger just didn’t want to upload photos this morning for me at all!

The stems and branches are appliqued on. The orchids are, I think, perhaps too large and overpowering for the stems. I have to make a decision and would love some opinions on this.

The first option are the orchids. These aren’t attached yet, just placed on for the sake of photographing them. Because of the stems, there has to be a flower everywhere I’ve got one of these orchids.



The second option? Yo-yo flowers in two sizes. I don’t have many made, so just used these to give the idea. I’m thinking I could use some beads or a button in the centre of each yo-yo flower to finish them.

The third option is this — another folded fabric flower, but much smaller than the orchids. I would make them in a variety of batiks so not all the flowers would be the same colour as they appear to be here.

This is a close-up of the flower in the third choice.


I’m really torn about which way to go with this so any and all opinions are welcome!

Yet another picture of Lester in his favourite summer spot — sitting in the window.


Four Seasons Quilt

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This is the beginning of the applique on the summer Four Seasons quilt, backbasted and ready to go.


One stem and its branches fully appliqued, another stem finished except for the branches and the third about 3/4 appliqued.

Once the branches are done, then I’ll sandwich and quilt it and then add the orchids from here.

It was hot here yesterday — really, really hot. Humidex readings in the 40C range. We had an amazing storm last night — lots of thunder and lightning and rain that came down in sheets! Today? Today’s a bit better, but it’s still pretty humid. Tomorrow we apparently get a day of cooler weather and then back to the heat. I am NOT complaining, as I remember those cold days in the winter and all that snow. I’ll take heat and humidity over that any time!

How do the cats deal with the heat? Smudge does this:

Lester seems to enjoy the heat — and is usually here:


No Reply

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I know this has been addressed on other blogs but feel compelled to mention it. Lately I have received comments to which I would like to reply or which ask questions. I would love to reply but can’t when someone has their settings at no reply. Please, please if you leave a comment asking a question, change your settings from no reply so that I and others for whom you leave comments or questions can reply!

There are two great tutorials on Chookyblue‘s blog on this. First there’s how to leave a comment at this post and then there is this post on how to change your settings from no reply. If you’re concerned your e-mail address will show up or get harvested, you could always open a Web-based e-mail account that you use only for commenting on blogs.

And just because he’s such a big lovey of a cat, yet another picture of our Lester. I’m not sure what he’s saying with this look, but love the picture! He truly is our house lion!




Daphne’s Adventure

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This is Daphne. She is a very inquisitive duck and was determined to have an afternoon adventure out on the roof garden!

Here she is sitting on the edge of a flowerbed looking around.

What was she looking at? The remains from a Roaring ’20s party that was held out on the roof garden last week!

“Oooh,” said Daphne, “perhaps I can find something with which to have an adventure!” Little did she know.

After a closer look at the bits she saw, she realized they were pretty dirty and trundled up the little hill to have an afternoon outing, sitting out on her little quilt.


Uh oh!! Look what she spied! A martini shaker and glass on a nice silver tray along with a fan!

Being an adventurous little duck, Daphne clambered up and stuck her bill in the shaker!

Oops!! The shaker tipped over with Daphne inside.

When Daphne emerged, she was wearing a string of beads and had her hat down over her eyes. “I’m a flapper,” said Daphne. We think there were the dregs of a martini in that shaker!

Looks like our suspicion was right — here’s Daphne looking for another sip, it seems.

Daphne had a bit too much, we think. She had to have a rest in the glass before she stumbled back to her little quilt!

Daphne had a little snooze and woke up wondering what on earth had hit her! “I don’t think I’ll stick my bill in anything like that again!” she said.


Fabric Orchids

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I’ve been working on my Four Seasons summer quilt — which will have orchids! Here are the orchids for the little quilt. This was the most labour intensive part of the little quilt and I hope to have it all ready to quilt by the end of the week.


Here’s a close-up of one of the little orchids. These are just too much fun to make! I think I’ll be making a few quilts with folded flowers on them. Love the effect!