Felt a bit like opening a Christmas Present.........

A package came in the mail on Wednesday.  It was a package of fabric from Fabric Spot.  Unfortunately Fabric Spot is closing down on November 17th, and now has 50% off it's fabric.  Most of the fabric I bought was for my "stash," and I only got 40% off.........BOO😞

I did buy these fabrics to use for our local animal shelter fund raiser.

Thought these "Yarn type" fabrics would come in handy.....

 May make a quilt with these fabrics..........

 A couple of neutrals to add to my stash.

 Some Kona basics here.

 I am not a huge fan of Batik patterns but thought I would try this one.

 This is pretty and again a different type of pattern for me.

 Five fat quarters which are even prettier in person.

So now to get on with some sewing.  I will post a couple of photos of things I made for the animal shelter tomorrow.

It's also our baby's birthday today.  Our daughter is 32 years old today, Happy Birthday and hope you have a lovely day!!

Okay I will confess to slightly cheating........

As mentioned here, I am going to take part in Carla's January No/Low Spend Challenge.  So I have been stocking up on food items, granted they were on sale.  Bought a few books from Bookcloseouts, again they were on sale, and bought material, once again on sale.  

This material is for a baby quilt; I don't know the sex of the baby, and the mother is not finding out, so figured this was pretty neutral.  There are five flannel fabrics altogether:

Not sure if you remember the stool I bought the other week that needs to be recovered?  I picked up a metre of this material for $6 to recover it with:

It's a heavy weight tapestry and the lady was saying she also uses that material to make bags.

Now I do have a couple of bids in at the charity shop which I guess is spending that doesn't have to be done; but the money does go to a good cause.  Are my excuses making any sense yet?  I am sure I am not the only one who is doing this, am I?

I have been good though in putting my silver change in my sealed pot.  I have also started saving up toonies and loonies in my other pot; I use that money for when gardening season starts.  I am putting $20 away each week in both my Christmas and Birthday pots; and putting $50 away in my other pot, not sure what I am doing with that money just yet.  I know I generally pay for the wood for the fire with that (nearly $900) and any other big things that come up.

I promise though to be good through January and although it won't be a no spend January, it will be a low spend January!!!

Creativ Festival and a new to me recipe........

Went to the Creativ Festival on Saturday.  This one was at the International Centre in Mississauga, and both me and dd thought it wasn't as good as the one at the Convention Centre in Toronto in the Fall.  However we all did very well and I picked up 5 yards of this Amy Butler fabric from the August Fields collection the light was terrible when I took the photo because of the rainy foggy day we were having:

It's for the attic.  Dh has made a window seat so I am going to have a cushion made for the seat to sit on and matching throw cushions.  Plus I want to make a valance for the window as well.  I also got dd a couple of yards of material that she is going to use for the wedding.  All seven yards cost me under $80 which was really, really good.

I was home by lunch time.  Later in the afternoon I made both Raspberry Yogurt Muffins and Strawberry Yogurt Muffins, using this recipe.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 carton (6 ounces) raspberry yogurt
1/3 cup oil
1 egg
1 cup raspberries

Method

Preheat oven to 400˚F.  Spray, grease or put paper liners in 12 (2 ¾ inch) muffin cups.  In medium mixing bowl, stir together dry ingredients.  In small bowl, beat together yogurt, oil and egg.  Stir yogurt mixture and raspberries into dry mixture until almost blended.  Add raspberries and stir until batter is just blended.  Do not overmix.  Spoon into prepared muffin cups.  Bake until nicely browned, about 20 minutes.

As always I made a couple little changes.  Our yogurt comes in 100g cartons, so I used two of them, as I thought the batter was a bit too stiff for me.  I made 9 of each muffins (Raspberry and Strawberry).  If you notice you're only using 1/3 cup of sugar, so I sprinkled around a 1/4 tsp of granulated sugar on each muffin before I put it in the oven to bake.  They only took around 18 minutes, so watch the timing.

Overall really nice.  I have some more yogurt that wants using up and some more strawberries, so I think I may make another batch today.

One of my goals for Sunday is to get around to visiting all your blogs.  I have been super busy lately and haven't had time, sorry......

What did I do on my day off.........

Well after having a lie-in and not getting up until 10am.  I sat and had a relaxing cup of tea, with home made whole grain bread, with hand churned butter and some of my homemade raspberry jam, while flicking through a couple of those "gossip magazines."  I then had a shower and headed to the spa, where I spent the next three hours having a massage, a facial and a pedicure; having a small break in between treatments for a light spa lunch, of baby greens and a poached chicken breast, and chocolate mousse with fresh berries for afters with a soothing cup of green tea to finish with............ 

Hang on, that's my dream day....in reality, I was up before 6am, thank you Molly for that!!   By 10am I had cleaned the bathrooms, washed and hung out two loads of laundry.  Made numerous telephone calls, submitted the recipe book to the publishers.  Sent a few emails, cleaned our bedroom and "captured" all the dust bunnies living in there!! 

By lunch time I had ironed both loads of laundry, sorted out the raspberries from the night before; made a batch of fabric softener, recipe is here.  Tidied up in the family room.  After lunch I went to my quilt club meeting, and picked up this month's pattern which is a Bear Paw Pattern  I also picked up a Christmas panel for a small wall hanging:

This is a close up shot of part of it.

I get a free fat quarter every month from this club, and for the past couple of months I have been getting this ladybug material.  What would you suggest as a contrast material to go with it?

When I got back in I made fish cakes from the leftover mashed potatoes.  I made enough for two meals so froze the rest.  Here is a recipe for them from a prior post, the are so easy to make I would never dream of buying them.

I prepared a garden salad enough for both Tuesday and Wednesday nights supper.  So that all I have to do when I get in from work on Wednesday is pop the stuffed baked potatoes in the microwave for 10 minutes and pop into the toaster oven to crisp up the outside, probably 20 minutes; and pull out the salad and within 30 minutes, supper will be on the table.

I didn't get everything done like I wanted to, but achieved the main things I wanted to get done......

A super lady with a huge heart......

That is Carol from Scrappy Quilts I have known Carol for a couple of years now, she is one of my Internet Friends. Why I am talking about Carol, is that she does something that makes you proud to know her.

She makes Quilts for young moms and their children in the Reservations in Northern Canada. Here is a little piece she wrote about her quilts:

A little about the quilts:
-each quilt is prayed over as I work on it, praying for the little one who will receive it and their family.
-most of the quilts are baby quilts, however I have sent single quilts. One went to a little boy who was in and out of the hospital all the time. It felt so good to know he had a quilt to cuddle up to.
-the quilts are made in a simple pattern. In that way I can make more, get them finished faster and sent out quicker.
-I have a wonderful friend who has often sent me material to use in these quilts. Thanks Heather, you are indeed a gift to me.
-the quilts often travel by boat or air
-I take a day to cut squares so that when I have a few mins. in my day, I can quickly sew up a few squares. It makes it so much easier that way.

She has posted a lot of photos of her quilts on her blog and they are beautiful. If you have time pop by her blog and leave her some comments. Also if you have any spare material that you would care to donate get in touch with her through her blog. She is such a kind and thoughtful person, who wouldn't dream of asking anyone for anything. I have to say some of her other ideas are also really neat.

Carol does know I am doing this post as I did ask her permission first.

I was like a kid in a candy store in the fabric store...

and here is what I bought......



This photo shows the two Clover Yo-Yo makers, the scissors and the small off-cuts. I saw a project somewhere that makes butterflies out of heart shaped yo-yo's, now I have to find it!!!



These are the pink fabrics:



These are the yellow fabrics:



These are the neutrals:



These are the other colours:



These are the flannels:



These are the fat quarter packs:



These are the individual fat quarters:



All in all I am a happy camper and can't wait to get started on my projects.

**Update, I have finished washing and ironing all that "bloody" fabric including all those sodding fat quarters (a piece of material generally 18" x 21"). The only good thing to come out of it all, is that I had a facial at the same time with the steam from the iron!!** (sorry about the language......I have a sodding headache as well now)

"DEAL ALERT" for all you quilters out there.

I went to a new quilting store today called Sew Sisters for the rest of today and tomorrow, there is 25% off all material and 10% of notions, both in store and ON-LINE. There are a lot of fabrics at $4.99 per yard, then an extra 25% off of that. I picked up 52 fat quarters, 32.5 metres of fabric, another 1.35 metres of offcuts, a pair of embroidery scissors, two heart shaped clover Yo-Yo makers all for $282.09.

That means I am stocked for this year on material....it's truly worthwhile taking a look!!!!

I will post photos later in the week..............