$#!T just got real....

I know it's Labour Day and all....but I actually had a class tonight: first class for "Practice Skills for Leading and Supervising in Human Services" - I feel completely overwhelmed.  Seems like a TON of work is expected over the next three months.  

Oh well, I will worry about THAT tomorrow.

I've been sewing this week.  I even tidied up my sewing room a bit.

And I finished a few things:

The top for Jamestown Landing:

A mug mat and matching basket that I had started over a year ago, and "re"found it while I was tidying my sewing room:

Two guitar pick shaped mug rugs:

These called for binding cut on the bias - I almost have never used bias cut binding - but at 2", it went on pretty slick!  For the pattern, I traced a souvenir giant guitar pick that Hubby brought home from the Martin Guitar factory in Nazareth PA a few years ago. It measures about 7" long, and 6" at the wide end.

And I started a new project.  Tonight I pieced four of the thirty-six blocks, and cut all of the neutral pieces out.  You've probably seen this quilt all over the internet.  It's called Soul Searching, from Kathy Doughty's (of Material Obsession) book "Making Quilts".  

This is going to be a long term project out of necessity. I simply don't have enough variety of some of the colours.  While I have tons of blue, green, and red - I'm shy yellow, orange, purple and turquoise.  The strips are 2.5" wide - so I'm happy to take any spare strips in those colours off your hands!

Adventures 2

We had such an enjoyable time a few weeks ago on our adventures to Calendon and the cidery, that another adventure was called for the next Saturday.  This time we headed north towards Owen Sound.

The aim of our day trip was to combine a couple of tours: The Grey County Waterfall Tour and The Saints & Sinners Bootlegger Run.  It was a lovely combination of stunning natural beauty, and tasty visits to craft brewers and cideries.  We by no means were able to hit more than a handful of the stops, but that only means that we will just have to go back!  There's another tour I'm interested in taking in that same area, perhaps later this fall: The Apple Pie Trail.



First stop - breakfast in Durham



Inglis Falls near Owen Sound



Whenever possible - we must check out every music store or pawn shop to check out the guitars.  I guess this makes up for the forced stops at every fabric store.

Neustadt Springs Brewery - the oldest operating brewery in Canada.

Hoity Toity Cellars near Mildmay, where we sampled a number of ciders, and brought home a couple of bottles to enjoy.

After a full day of driving, we met my sister and her husband in Elmira for dinner at The Crossroads.  They had been on their own day long adventure, near our neck of the woods.  I was sure to hand over any literature about our trip, so they could enjoy the sites we visited.

Took me a minute....but I remembered how to use my sewing machine...

I have bit on a rather extended break from sewing and quilting, but recently my imagination has been sparked again by images on Pinterest and Facebook, so I believe I can confirm I've been reinfected with a thread bug.  I don't know how long I've been working on Jamestown Landing - it's been on my design wall for at least 10 months I reckon.  Time to get this thing done!  Monday I spent making too many blocks.  By last night I just needed to sew three long seams.  

In between, I've added to my 3" (finished) nine patches.  I think there's about 180 in my jar now.

This morning I was awake at 5:30 - - a perfect time to listen to CBC radio, and stitch those last seams.  Next up is string piecing piano key borders.  

Not much excitement planned for the long weekend.  Hubby is working all three days.  I have an online class on Monday evening (class on LABOUR DAY????).

This is what I've been reading:

Adventures

Hubby and I have been spending Saturdays just having adventures.  Here's a few photos from our trip a couple of weeks ago.

Being morning people, we were out the door bright and early, and headed to Orangeville, where we selected some fresh produce at the farmer's market and did a little window shopping.  After that, we did some driving through the country roads around Hockley Valley, and the Forks of the Credit.  

Next stop was for lunch at Spirit Tree Cidery in Caledon.  On Saturdays they offer pizza with gourmet toppings baked in their wood fired oven.

And of course....any trip to a cidery warrants the testing a few of their brews.  We each sampled a "short flight" of pear cider, applelager, and draught cider (and brought home a few bottles for enjoying later) on their deck.

Due to some road construction, we had to do a little variance to our route, and passed by the Cheltenham Badlands.  I've never seen anything quite like it!

I'll post photos from our next Saturday adventures soon!

Over six years later...

I haven't paid much attention to my blog this year, which meant that there were dozens and dozens of unpublished comments just sitting in Blogger limbo.  I took a couple of minutes tonight to sort out the spam from the real comments, and I'm just so amazed that even six years after I published the tutorial for the Seven-Shirts quilt, it continues to generate about 12000 hits monthly, and I still receive such nice comments and emails.

When I look at the quilt now, I would have arranged the light squares in the nine-patches so that the matching pairs would have been opposite one another.  I wonder if this would give the top a more 'woven' look?

The photo above is from a a few years back when I went to a ladies get-away at a cottage near Port Lambton.  I've been invited to go back twice a year since, but haven't made the trip.  Today I looked at my course outlines, and my work calendar, and there didn't seem to be anything too pressing, so I've decided to book the week before Thanksgiving off, and just go.  

Today I took a bit of a break from reading text books and academic articles for school to start a couple of chapters of The Happiness Project.  I don't think I have the level of commitment that the author seems to have had, but it's still a quite pleasant read. 

One down....nine to go

I'm talking about courses to complete my Masters Degree.

I finished course #1 on Saturday - guess what I got?

I haven't done ANYTHING remotely crafty in months - - unless you count sewing a button on Hubby's shorts, and I don't!  To be honest - I just haven't felt like it.  Recently, however, I've been starting to take longer looks at quilty photos in my Facebook newsfeed, and sneaking Pinterest breaks from time to time.  Perhaps the crafty fast is coming to an end?

Guess where I am?

Yep - I'm at school.  Remember all the angst I went through from 2008 - 2011 doing my undergrad degree?  Well....I suspect the brain remembers university sort of the same way it remembers labour & delivery.... it wasn't THAT bad, and it was worth all the pain in the end.  So, I've enrolled in the Master of Social Work program - Leadership in the Human Service specialization - at the University of Calgary. So, while most of the program is online, I do have to actually travel to Calgary (a 4 hour/$500 plane trip across country) for a week twice over the next two years.  

I flew in on Sunday night....well, actually Monday morning - my flight was delayed by four hours due to electrical storms that effectively shut down the airport in Calgary on Sunday morning, and backed up the skies for the rest of the day.  I didn't get to bed until 3:30 in the morning - and had to be in class for 9am. But...if that's the worst thing that happens to me this week....I'm good with that!

I've been in classes all day for two days - with articles to read and assignments to complete each night.  It's been tough - especially having crossed a couple of time zones.  Being a early morning riser, and barely making it to sunset before I'm tucked in at night...it's particularly challenging.  I keep looking at the clock and wishing it was telling me that it was much later than 8:15 mountain time.