Squares

 I finally cut into my 1930's storybook fabric.  I've been collecting it for about a year now, but didn't really know what I wanted to do with it.  I just knew I liked it and wanted to make a quilt out of it.  I finally decided on a simple patchwork style.  So now, I'm cutting squares, lots of squares, about 225 of them.  It's a good way to relax at the end of the day, just stream a movie from Netflix and cut away.  I found these gorgeous quilts from Film in the Fridge's blog so that's what I'm going for.  Here are 3 of her quilts - aren't they lovely?  I especially love her double angled quilting on the purple one.  I'd love to try that - we'll see if I get that ambitious!

Crab Season

Yesterday was one of those gorgeous I can't believe it's the end of September type days. We went to the beach. It was perfect. The tide was out and there were very few people there. My boys were running huge circles around the place and my daughter was delighting in putting her toes in the water and dancing. In my beach wanderings I found a little dead crab. I picked it up thinking I would show my oldest who has had this fascination and fear with crabs since he was small. I carried it up the beach and over to him and his brother at the shore line. He shrieked and ran away. My younger son was a little braver and touched it before screaming and running away. My toddler daughter took one look, said, "mine!" grabbed it and put it in her mouth.

A crab found by my husband by turning over rocks, not the one our daughter tried to eat. We did get it out of her mouth, much to her crying disappointment.

City Life vs. Country Life - Hunting Season

Yesterday, I got to work and one of my colleagues was saying that she hoped she didn't miss it by being on a field trip that morning. Miss What? I wondered. Well, apparently, Moose Season just opened and quite often if someone bags a moose, they will bring it by the school for the kids to see. After work, I picked up my two youngest kids. I had to stop by the store on the way home to get some milk. (The store really is THE store, it's the gas station/pizza place/video store/liquor store/convenience store). As I pulled in, I saw a crowd around a pick up truck and I knew. I said to my 4 year old, "Do you want to see a moose?" "A moose?" "Yep, a dead moose is in that truck honey" "What?" "It's hunting season and that hunter got a moose" He was quite fascinated with the idea of it. And it really is quite something to see. The admiration of the crowd. The pride on the hunter's face. It's all part of living in the country. Someone's eatin' BBQ tonight.

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Hosted by SouleMama

My Commute

The other morning Jonathan had to come into town with me. So I took advantage of it and took a few pictures with my iPhone for you all to see how pretty it is out here.

How to Make Stuffed Letters - O's, A's and all those other tricky letters

A while back, I posted How to Make Stuffed Letters, which has been my most popular post to date. My same frustration in making stuffed letters was also the same as yours - what about the letters with the holes in the middle - they don't turn, it doesn't work. And it doesn't. I don't know if I'm the best person to try to explain how I got it to work as I'm still such an amateur at sewing, but I did indeed figure it out. What I did to get the "O" to work was this: 1: Fold the fabric so that the the pattern is on the inside and there are 2 layers. 2. Pin your letter template to the fabric 3. Cut out the fabric 4. Take off the template. Re-pin your 2 pieces together so that the pattern is on the inside. 5. Sew the outside circle of the O 6. Turn the fabric out and match the centre up (you are now looking at the pattern side) 7. Sew most of the inside circle together, leaving a hole for stuffing 8. Stuff 9. Sew the hole up. Yes, I know this isn't as neat as having both the inside and outsides turned in, but it does work. You can sew pretty close to the edge so that it still looks neat overall. I found this all out the hard way and did a lot of seam ripping and repairing. Since having these up, I've had a lot of positive comments and compliments for it. I hope that explanation helps you out!

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

City Life Vs. Country Life - Traffic on the Bridge

So the bridge into town is under maintenance. So instead of 2 lanes going in both directions, they are down to one. The funny thing is (and please explain to me why if you know the answer) is that people start lining up into one lane way before it's necessary. I mean like 2 or 3 KM early. I don't get it. I've never seen this before ever. You would never see this in a big city. I've driven in Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and New York, no one does this. Everyone waits until the last possible moment to merge. I've never seen 2 KM of free open highway before a merge before. So I don't merge in early. I don't see the point. And really, what are people going to do about it. Yes you can all glare at me all you want (I know you are), but I'm driving in an open legal lane! There's no rule saying I have to line up nicely and really early all because you do. Now, I haven't gone completely big city driver snob here, I don't wait until the last possible merge moment (although I could), but I wait until I'm under a KM away. I just can't justify merging in 2 or 3 KM early and adding in 10-15 minutes to my commute.
Actually, yesterday, one guy did decide he was going to be the line up police, and pull out in front of me just to block me. He didn't quite go all the way into my lane and out of his. He was in both lanes (which is really illegal) and driving the snail pace of the line up. I just had to laugh at him. What was his point? Nothing, except being uptight about his line up. Get over it buddy! So I just followed him to see what he would do. I hope he enjoyed his moment. I know I enjoyed my morning giggle at him.

Not Me Monday - it's back!

Not Me Monday is a fun little meme hosted by McMama. She's had it on hiatus for a year now and I'm so pleased that she's decided to start it up again. Never participated in a Not Me Monday before? Head on over there to check it out. Of course you would NEVER do any of those parenting things would you?

Just like I would never allow my 20 month old daughter to eat 3 yogurts for lunch just because she's on a yogurt kick right now. After all, we all know that kids need a much more balanced diet than that.

Just the same way that I would never put on the same Elmo DVD for her twice in a row because I get a kick out of her excitement at seeing that fuzzy little red face, and hearing her sing "la di da di da" over and over again. Because kids under 2 shouldn't be watching TV anyways.

City Life Vs. Country Life - the commute

We recently moved from a city of 2 million to a country village of 600. It's near a small city of about 120 000. I commute into work 3 days a week. It takes me about 20 minutes to half an hour to get there. Many, many people have commented, "How do you like that commute, being way out there where you are?" Honestly, I love it. It's 20 minutes of free, empty highway driving, followed by 10 minutes of relatively empty city driving. It's not a big deal.
In our previous place it took me 20 minutes of bumper to bumper city traffic to get to Wal-mart on a regular basis. Then you fought your way through crowded isles to get what you needed. I actually found it easier to jump onto the highway, drive 20 or 30 minutes north to a smaller suburb to go shopping.
Here's the highway near where I used to live:

And here's where I commute into now:

So yes, I don't mind the commute at all.

Wild Blueberries

This morning my toddler and I went blueberry picking. Just behind our house is a patch of wild blueberries. Did I mention that I love living in the country? At first I was very ambitious, because I know that these blueberries are fantastic for blueberry pies. As I started picking, my daughter was very helpful in holding the container for me, and eating the blueberries as I put them into the container. So I decided if I could get a cup of them without her eating them we might just have enough for blueberry muffins. I did manage to get the container away from her and pick enough. Right before she fell into a patch of mud and declared, "Dirty, Cold" so we had to go away.
Now a word about these east coast blueberries. They in no way resemble the beautiful large blueberries of the Fraser Valley that I grew up with. I happen to have some of those on hand right now as I found them at Costco. Look at them. They are so completely different that when I first moved here, I couldn't quite believe they were blueberries.

My Fraser Valley blueberries grow on these tall bushes and are perfect for snacking on. The Maritime blueberries grow close to the ground and people rake them to collect them. I know, raking blueberries! (My maritime friends are thinking, 'and the problem is?')
So I did bake these tiny blueberries into some delicious banana blueberry muffins. Here's the recipe:

1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 bananas, mashed
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup blueberries

Heat the oven to 375°F. Prepare your muffin cups by spraying with non-stick spray. In a large bowl, mash the bananas, mix in applesauce, brown sugar, and vanilla.
Combine the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon. Stir into the banana mixture until moistened. Stir in the blueberries. Spoon batter into muffin tins.
Bake for 20 minutes in the heated oven or until the tops of the muffins spring back when pressed lightly. This made 24 mini-muffins and 7 medium sized ones. I had to do the mini muffins for the mini blueberries :)

Saturday Morning

It's a beautiful Saturday morning here. After returning back to full time work outside the home a couple of weeks ago, I'm so grateful for Saturday morning. What better way to spend it than with a cup of tea and to re-vamp my blogging life. My boys are happily confiscating all the blankets and pillows in the house to create the greatest fort ever, while my daughter is coloring away in her colour wonder book. I've been thinking about blogging and how I blog for a long time now. Over the years I've gotten so compartmentalized with my blogging. I have a blog for books, a blog for books, a blog for crafts, a personal blog and share on a parenting blog. That's just getting to be too many blogs. So many that I've become overwhelmed with it all. So I'm streamlining. I'm taking this little used crafty blog and making my own little personal space on the web. Whether or not I close down the rest and just blog it all here remains to be seen, but that's the way I'm seriously considering going.
While I'm at it, I never did show you all the dress I made for my daughter did I? I love it. She wore it to her baptism a few weeks ago and I got a lot of positive comments on it. Here are a few pictures:

I have to give a huge plug for Skype here. Skype is awesome. This is my first dress pattern I've done and I got stuck. So I Skyped with my mom. She knew exactly what to do and walked me through it. Fantastic!



*Do you like the new little signature I've added? I got it at My Live Signature and it was super easy to do. Moms Who Blog has a fantastic easy tutorial for it too.