SNOW...it's kinda nice.

Somewhat wordless Wednesday...
Yep today we have snow, which I am pretty happy with. Winter never leaves without a swift kick you know where, and lets face it there are worse things happening in our world right now. Luckily we were a bit lax on getting the snow tires switched out, thank goodness for that. This is the colour we painted our fireplace mantel...I love how the pigments have seperated...I must say the colour was rather shocking at first but now we LOVE it. With the super cheesy electric fireplace insert we bought it looks great. The reno is almost done!!

peanut butter cookies and warmer days

This last few weeks I have come to a few realizations...

- this blog thing is supposed to be fun, and is not supposed to make me feel sad. So that means NO more pressure to do posts on a frequent/regular basis. To make them when I want and fill them with happy wandering thoughts.

- there is not enough crafting happening right now. This is because our small basement spruce up has become this giant purple, yes purple monster that keeps growing eyes and limbs, and has a hunger for paint samples. Oh what to do. I have been muttering, "we're almost there" for the last few months...but we ARE almost there. So that is the reason for the lack of craftyness and fabric buying, both make my heart sad. So in an effort to get crafty I pulled out my felt, embroidery floss, and fabric scraps and came up with some lovely pins.

- I really want to take a class at "The Workroom" but find it a hard place to get to on a regular basis, and I am somewhat shy about new things so opt not to try them...this makes me sad.

-I am trying the 365 day photo challenge that lots of people seem to be trying, phew, it's hard, but with the days growing longer and the air slightly warmer (some days) this self imposed challenge might get easier.

-a few other ideas have been rattling around in my head, but putting them in one of the many notebooks I have kicking around seems like more fun than posting them here.

Today was such a lovely invigorating day, the perfect mix of cloudy and sunny skies, with a little nip in the air, but also the promise of warmer times. So invigorating that upon arriving at home a set to baking a couple of batches of peanut butter cookies for the men in my life. James, Dad and Grampa, all love peanut butter cookies, especially Nanny's recipe. Here's the recipe, super easy and only a bowl, mixer, and fork needed to make them. EASY.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp water
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Heat oven to 350F. Mix everything together until soft dought forms. Shape dought into small balls, about 1" each. Place 2" apart on a cookie sheet, flatten witha a fork. Bake until edges begin to brown, about 10-15 minutes. Cool for a few minutes before removing from cookie sheet.

Since James loves peanut butter and chocolate together I tried making some mini PB cookies that I might sandwich nutella in-between!! Hmmm, sounds icky to me but I am sure he will give them a try.

a new year...

Already only 11 days in and I feel behind the eight ball!

Oh my, I have gotten a few projects finished already, and have a few more planned. Last week I had 3, yes 3, days off! With all this crafty time laying in front of me and wanting to finish an old project, that was making many parts of me twitch, I set to work. During our vacation to PEI this summer I made another quilt top using a pattern that makes you cut the finish quilt top into sections. Then re-sew them together and put borders around the outside. When it came time to lay it out and quilt it, well, it was not working at all, one word, well two, REALLY WONKY! The inside was quilted with basic straight lines, and when it came to quilting the borders nothing was laying flat. So it was put away for a few months. I pulled it out again this weekend, and beat it into submission! The borders had to be stitch ripped off and re-sewn, and then ripped off again and re-sewn, but I beat it. The binding was made and pinned on and is awaiting a needle and thread, but after a day of work I didn't want to look at it anymore.

Before Christmas I made a set of pillow cases as a gift and fell in love with how simple and rewarding they were to make. With pillowcases you also have the chance to buy and enjoy your favourite fabrics in larger quantity, which for any fabric hoarder is a good thing. Using the tutorial here, and using fabric I picked up at "The Workroom" they were done in about and hour and a bit, and to brag a little, they look FANTASTIC! I can see that there might be a whole lotta pillowcases in my future.


Oh and here is a picture of the Christmas wreath I made this year. Oops I guess last year now. It turned out a lot better than anticipated and I think will become a new obsession!


Happy sewing, and enjoy the snow, hopefully Toronto will see a lot!

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.