Christmas is really coming!!!

We are only 26 sleeps away from the big day! We are renovating the house and that means all off our ornaments/decorations are in storage. So it might be and ornament less Christmas, and I am not sure how I feel about that. I really love unwrapping all of my little sparkle ornaments. Each one that gets unwrapped brings a sense of nostalgia, I remember the time, place or the who that the ornament came from. Also, all of my Christmas crafty-ness has been packed away aswell, who would of thought that our tiny basement reno would turn into a major waterproofing ordeal. So, to get me in the spirit of the season, since our outdoor lights are also in storage, I decided to make our front door a wreath. I have been inspired by all the lovely yarn and felt wreaths I have been seeing on etsy, so I said why not try it myself. Last night, while watching the very scary "Walking Dead", I wrapped the foam wreath with some scrap quilt batting and the two types of yarn, the cat really loved this part. Tonight maybe I will try to make some felt decorations for it, youtube has been very helpful with some how too videos. Stay tuned for some pictures of the final product!

remember to remember...

Just a quick note, tomorrow is Remembrance Day, for anyone that has the day off please take the time to go to a ceremony in your neighbourhood. I know this post is going to sound a little preachy, but this is something I feel very strongly about. The weather in Toronto is supposed to be lovely, take the time to stand with the remaining veterans and think about the men and women still in service, and those that we have lost along the way. If you can not get the time off work, please make sure to take a moment of silence, one minute out of a year to remember.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

snails, and puppy dogs tails...

So we are off to Merlin today (north of Windsor) for another baby shower. As usual we are running behind, but on this chilly Saturday morning we are having trouble getting the engines running. It is definitely a warm tea and pajama day, but I just wanted to make a quick little post with some crafty news. Here is a pic of the baby quilt I made for the shower, boy quilts are HARD! There is not that much fun boy fabric out there that appeals to me, but I think this one turned out pretty good. The quilt is backed with a warm printed flannel, I love to back quilts with flannel, it makes them that much more cozy. A great blue dot bias tape was added late last night, hopefully the little one to be and his mommy will love it as much as I do.




On other crafty news, I have turned into a WIP girl, I'm usually pretty good with starting projects and finishing them, but the last couple of months I have started 3 quilts that are all at various stages of completion. Bias tape is my nemesis, so that explains one, the others well they are time consuming and my self diagnosed ADD as kicked in, I will use that as an excuse. One of the quilts I have started is the dresden plate block. This sort of quilt is new to me because it uses something other than squares or rectangles and is a lot of piecing. It's a bit daunting but so far I think it is turning out pretty good. I have a lot of vintage feel feedsack fabrics left over from another quilt I started, that I was not to afraid to chop up so I am using those.


Blades for the rings all cut and sorted, ready to be sewn together.


This time around I tried string stitching, I think that is what it's called. Instead of stopping and starting I just kept feeding another piece into the machine, it was scary at first, but the more you do the easier it gets, and it saves so much time!

yesterday was a great day...

Yesterday was beautiful! The sun was out, there was a chill in the air, and my boyfriend and I went to the zoo! We both had a day off and felt like spending it outside. During the fall and winter months we have found that the zoo is quite, you have time to yourself watching the animals do what they do. With some of them the cool weather makes them more active. The otters are my favourite, and to my excitement they have a new one at the zoo, yippeee! James likes to watch the polar bears and during the cool months they are really active and playful. Here are some of the pictures from our lovely day.


We started in the new polar bear domain, they have really done a great job fixing it up and adding more animals and bigger habitats for them.


Then off we went to the otters where we found this great flower, I am pretty sure I could hear the tiny voices of "Whoville". (I am not really hearing tiny voices, but this flower did remind me of one of my favourite Dr. Seuss stories)


Also, the gorilla's were full of vim, and they seemed to really like fewer people. The little baby gorilla that was born there was perfect, so little and tiny and curious.


That was my pretty awesome day and after 4 hours of walking we still didn't get to see all the beasties in the zoo. The Toronto Zoo does so much great work, the re-population of the black footed feret's to name one. So, if you are at a loss for things to do this winter try out going to the zoo it is really great with snow on the ground too.