The old and the new and more...

Over this past Christmas, I spent time in England with my youngest daughter and her family. Since Covid kept everyone celebrating with their own family, no one was coming over to our house so I thought I would celebrate with my youngest grandchildren, the twin boys and their 3 year old brother. I had a return ticket from my stay there last spring/summer so I surprised my daughter. They have a granny flat where I did my quarantine so it all worked out.

While I was there I came across this little quilt that I made for my youngest daughter, Ayla. The original design was in red, white and black (that is what was shown on the pattern) but both Ayla and I like turquoise. I think this may have been a kit from Connecting Threads. I didn't take note of the year that would have been on the label but it was probably less than 10 years ago.

Here's a little close-up of the quilting in the border.

Since it is now spring, I decided that my hall wall could use a bright, but small, wall hanging. I have liked this pattern for quite some time now and one clever blogger, Life in the Scrapatch took the free pattern called Pretty Posies from EQ and made it into a very easy pieced quilt. The only thing to keep in mind is which way you make the leaves. Some of them should be sewn reversed. Once I sewed the middle part together, I decided to audition a border.

As you can see, I didn't go with a green border.

I haven't had time to finish this. I was just thinking on machine quilting it so I didn't have to baste it or put it on a frame.


On a personal note: My husband passed away on May 27th. He had had emphysema for many years and only quit smoking about 4 or 5 years ago mainly because of the grandchildren. Sadly, it wasn't soon enough. My family has been a great help and they are (or will be) all here this month. I have been busy each and every day but this post has been on my mind to compose for a while.

And...

I just received my second dose of Pfizer on June 6th so my youngest daughter and I fully vaccinated. She lives in the UK so she got the vaccine earlier than we here in Canada. I can't believe how many people are not going to be vaccinated. I don't know if I want to be around them. Some are neighbours and others are friends and even relatives. All of my children have had at least one dose and are eager to get the second one when they are eligible.

Growing Family - special guest post

 This is a special guest post from my 10 year old grandson who asked if he could post on my blog. He's my eldest grandchild and quite a go-getter. Just recently he made over $200 selling worms and worm farms at a local farmer's market. Last year he learned to knit and finished knitting his young cousin a scarf.

Growing Family by Luc 

Hi, I am Luc. Welcome to the Growing Family. 

The growing family is where I put challenges that you can do. And I will show you how I grow my plants. So let’s get started with the first challenge. Every challenge will start every month.

So here’s the first challenge: to grow a sunflower. I will put pictures on how my sunflower is doing. but it will take time for my sunflower to grow. so wherever you get your sunflowers seed from – plant in a pot and water it daily.

Completed items and other things

 I'm busy sewing a couple of little dresses for my granddaughters who have birthdays next month exactly two weeks apart. Once I'm finished, I will take a photo.

In the meanwhile, I took some time to finish a few things that have been hanging around.

This is called Chilly's Gift. It is a small (4" X 4") card-sized cross stitch. It was a free design years ago and I thought it wouldn't take long to make. The original colours were red and pink but I changed to colours to suit me. There is supposed to be a charm in between the penguin's hands - hence the 'gift.' I haven't found one yet but once I put it in a card, I will go hunting for the charm. It's been hanging around for quite a number of years and I am glad that I finally decided to finish it.

I bake sweet bread almost once a week for my grandchildren who usually request it. It's a braided loaf with cardamom as flavouring called pulla in Finnish. 

This is what it looked like before I baked it. As an Easter surprise, I added red food colouring and on the top, I added sprinkles instead of sugar. It was an idea my little grandchildren had. I just made two more loaves today. They weren't as big as these because I think the yeast I used was a tad old. Nevertheless, my son said it will all get eaten. He has three little girls. The other loaf went to my daughter who has a little girl and a boy. 

I also managed to finish this sweater. I started it for my little granddaughter last year and since her birthday was coming up, I decided to get it totally done. I only had to finish off the sleeves (I knitted them together) and then sew it all up. I dislike sewing up knitted parts. That's the main reason my knitted items sometimes take years to finish.

Just a close-up of the yarn. It's a cotton chunky yarn that I bought decades ago. I have it in this pink, some beige, some blue and some gray. It was on sale and so far, this is the second sweater that I have made with this yarn. Years ago I made a pullover for my then, teenaged son with the beige. I still have the sweater. I need to make more sweaters to use it all up.

This is my hyacinth that started out with only three blooms but ended up with five. They are now done and planted outside to bloom next year.

About three years ago, on Easter Sunday, we were visited by a bunny rabbit in our backyard.

This little guy has come back again. There are actually two of them that we sighted yesterday morning but they were so quick, we didn't get any photos of the duo. This one camouflaged well.

Sometimes they do visit our neighbour next door (centre of the photo, on the other side of the fence) but they prefer our backyard.

Finished baby quilt

 I did say I would show off this quilt once it was complete.

This shows how I quilted it.

I kept it fairly simple.

I used just parts of some of the quilt stencils I have.

The quilting in the border was just enough.

It's always nice to see the back.

I added hearts to the middle of each block. They don't show up too well on the front because the fabrics are prints.

Another label done on Aida cloth. 

The backing fabric actually has little baby motifs such as baby bottles, rattles and safety pins. (click on the photo to make it bigger.)

I'm now making some dresses for two adorable granddaughters who are turning four next month. Hopefully, I remember to take photos.

Not finished yet

It seems I wasn't finished making masks. Luckily I put my mask fabric all in one place so I didn't need to go and search for anything.

My daughter in BC asked if I could make her two boys more masks since they are still attending a physical school (unlike the children here in Ontario who are all online.)

A few more for my daughter.

And a few for my son-in-law.

I then made some for my grandson in the UK who will be attending Forest School in August. He's only three and is eager to make friends. With Covid, the daycares shut down but things are slowly getting back to some kind of normalcy.

None of these have elastic but I added the elastic when I sent them. This way, the elastic can be cut to size and tied to suit whoever is wearing the mask. It saved me time and this way, the elastic will not be too tight nor too loose.