I'll be watching, will you?

I do realize it won't be anywhere near as good as when it first aired, but it will be interesting to see what they are up too now.  I wonder if they will write Luke Perry's death into the story somehow?

Jelly Roll Rug.........

I mentioned the other week about taking a jelly roll rug class, but it was cancelled due to a power outage.  It was rescheduled and I went to it yesterday (29th of May.)

It was a six hour class, but it will take a heck of a lot longer to finish it.  I decided to make mine out of fabric I had on hand, rather than a jelly roll kit.  A jelly roll kit is a package of 2 1/2 inch strips by the width of the fabric, and generally around 42 pieces.  So I cut out 42 2 /1/2 inch strips from the fabric below.  

You can also buy a package of batting that is already cut into one long roll of 2 1/2 inch width that is specifically made for a jelly roll rug. I had a couple of bags of batting scraps, so I chose to cut them into 2 1/4 inch strips and used them also.

 Donna our instructor wanted us to get a feel for what we had to do, so we had to sew the first six strips together and make a start on the rug.  Below is what that looked like.

 However back to the beginning you have to sew all your 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric together like you would if you were making quilt binding.  There is a tutorial here if you want to see how to do that.

 You then lay your batting down on the fabric.  Fold each side to the middle of the fabric and then fold in half and stitch along the edge.  There is a good tutorial here.

You carry on sewing in the batting until you are ready to run away.........believe me it will take a while to do that. If you are using up pieces of batting, we/I just butted them together, no extra sewing or tape was needed.

Once you have sewn in all the batting, you can now start on the rug.  You use a larger multi stitch zig-zag stitch. The key is not to twist the rug and keep your tension constant so as to keep it flat, otherwise you will end up with a giant bowl.

 One of the other ladies in the class was making a table runner, in the pink, blue and black jelly roll.  She had to pull out her stitching a couple of times as it was all crinkly and wavy. 

This will take me a little while to get this fully sewn but it's a project I will keep coming back too and will show you updates as I make progress.

The rug will be machine washable, and will be going by our patio doors.......now to just find the time to sew it!!

30 Years Ago Today..........

we arrived in Canada.

(four Canada keyfobs, to represent the four of us)

Two adults, two small children (5 & 3 1/2) straight off the boat airplane.  We landed in Toronto and made our home in Brampton, Ontario.  30 years later, although not in Brampton, we all live close by.  

Both children attended school; went to university, and have since gone on to get married, have great jobs and have presented us with the best grandchildren, grandparents could ever wish for.  Basically, they have achieved everything and more that we hoped they would achieve by moving here.

We have moved several times, I had several jobs, dh just the one............his second job in his working life, he will have been there 30 years on June 6th.........he doesn't like change...LOL Made many friends and have lost some special friends for various reasons.....mainly due to death.

Canada is home, I have lived here more of my life than Britain.  Dh will achieve that status at the end of January 2020.  We became Canadian citizens as soon as we could and are privileged/fortunate that we can still retain our British citizenship.

Both dh and I sound British when we talk, but when people ask us where we come from (especially when we're in the States), my standard response now is we are British born but Canada is our home.

Canada has been very good to us and we have no regrets about moving here.  Our only regret I guess is that I wish we had the rest of our family in the same country; but that will never happen.

A Happy Anniversary to us.......

Question for the gardeners out there.

What is this?

I have a tree with blossom's on it...........no idea what sort of tree it is.

Tulip time..........

The tulips are flowering in the garden now.  No where near as many as the daffodils, however just as pretty.

1st Birthday Party......

Our little man turns one on Monday.  They had his birthday party on Saturday.  It was baseball themed.  He has 7 teeth and can take the odd step.  Can't believe how fast this year has gone by.

Here is one of the three cousins together:

A good time was had by all.

"Somethings Afoot"

"If you say that a plan or scheme is afoot, it is already happening or being planned, but you do not know much about it."

(definition from here)

it involves me, my sewing machine and lots of yummy fabric...........more to come!!

Sorry for not visiting blogs, crazy busy around here.

"In constant sorrow.......

all through his days."

I spent Thursday in my sewing room and while in there I put on the cd, "O' Brother Where Art Thou."  Do you remember the movie?  It came out in 2000.  I always loved that movie.




The main song on the movie is "In Constant Sorrow."  The movie version was always a favourite of mine until I heard Sawyer Fredericks version.  No one can top that version.




I took out Cher's Greatest Hits cd from the cupboard, so will listen to that one next when I sew.

This might just get me to the movie theatre again...........

I really enjoyed the series and just love Maggie Smith in her role as the Dowager, mind she technically must be at least 150 years old in this movie by now!!!!!!!

We have just started watching Suits on Netflix, better later than never, right?  Really enjoying it.




Did you watch either of these series?

Canada Goose

Saw this the other morning:

Always find it funny when I see a Canada Goose, honking away on a roof top.

Another 50 cent bag make.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about a 50 cent bag challenge here.  At that time I said I had bought two bags and I would post what I had made with the second one at a later date.  I managed to find a little time to do something with some of the fabric on the weekend.  Here is the bag:

Here is what was in the bag.  Now I do have the panda fabric, the bottom fabric, and the third from the bottom along with the witch and trim to use.

Here is what I made............bunting.  I used 4.5 inch triangles and I didn't have any double fold bias binding on hand that was long enough, so I used to seam binding.  The length of that is probably a good seven feet.

It's so pretty, and I just hung it there to take the photos, it hasn't found it's final home yet!!

Found it a home in my sewing room.

Busy day Sunday.......

We worked away all morning in the garden and got the rest of the side of the house finished, except for putting some gravel in the window wells; they are a little short of gravel.

Got the mulch on sale at Home Depot, 4 bags for $10.  Never bought black mulch before, it is quite stinky, no idea what they put on it?

 All seeded, top dressed and watered, so fingers crossed everything grows.

We have a large expanse of grass on the side of the house, and the previous owners had planted three pinky winky Hydrangeas there.  For anyone who cuts their grass you know as well as I do what a pain in the butt it is having to cut round small things like that. 

 So we took them out and covered the holes with sod and soil and grass seed. I put the hydrangeas on the front lawn, posted them on our subdivision Facebook page for free and they were taken within the hour. Can you see all the lovely yellow flowers we have?

I went out and bought a new dandelion/weed extractor.  It's a Fiskers one, this one and it is on sale at Canadian Tire this week for those in Canada.

It works great and is simple to use.  I am even going to get my 5 year old granddaughter to give it a go next time she is up.  Very worth while buying, especially if you hate dandelions like I do!!

what we achieved on Saturday............

Between our house and next doors is this.  Although we have a gate on this side as well, we tend to use the other side to get into the back garden. 

 Not sure what the folk before us were trying to achieve, as there were no clear edges and it was full of weeds.

 There were a number of hostas and some other plants, which we dug up and transplanted into other parts of the garden.

 The weeds are just crazy in all the gardens and the grass.

 They left a composter, I need to sort that out as well.  The window to the left of the photo is the spare bedroom window.

We have full basements in Canada and ours is fully finished.  The window here is for our laundry room. 

 This is the after photo.  The sod is looking worse for the wear.

 I top dressed it with soil and grass seed, so as long as we keep it watered, it should be lovely and green in a couple of weeks.  Already it looks a hundred times better.

We had to take a trip to the dump.  It was hazardous waste drop off as well as it being a bank holiday/long weekend, we knew it would be busy.

When we got there we were at the 30 minute wait time, but in no time we were at the 15 minute time.  See the truck in front of us?

We were soon at the entrance.  Again see the truck......sort of figured that truck was going to be dumped, as it was a rust bucket.  Saw it on the way out in front of us, so it must be road worthy.........didn't look like it though.

We had 110 lbs of yard waste from digging up the side of the house, and it cost us nothing to dump it.  All in all a productive day.  Today will be as busy for us with more jobs being done outside in the garden.