Oh Deer!

We have so many of these cute little fawns around our house, that I was inspired to make a deer quilt.

I was drawn to the greens and browns of these fabrics from one of my fabric sample books. I like the swirly designs combined with the linear designs.

I often go between making clothing and making quilts and blankets. When I have been focusing my time on clothing, and make the move to quilts, I always forget how much time it takes to cut out each design, on top of cutting out each square and the boarders. In my head cutting seems fast and easy, and with my rotary cutter it is slightly faster, but still time consuming.

This is the deer together. Isn't it so cute? It reminds me of the playful little fawns around our house.

and the deer on the front of the quilt ready to be sewn on.

I forgot to share a picture of the satin stitch I use to sew the design onto the blanket. Instead I have a picture of the boarders now in place. I like how the brown boarders frame the blanket.

And the completed quilt! This is the first time I have quilted the entire blanket, so there were some frustrations, having to take the blanket apart twice, and tears, and moments of feeling like I should just give up and never sew again because I suck at sewing!! But I took some deep breaths, walked away when I needed to and calmed down. I am happy with how it turned out. There are some lumps and bumps, but I don't mind. I like texture and I think the lumps and bumps add dimension as well as texture.

A close up of the quilting, and you can see a bit of the satin stitch.

and I went with a brown flannelette for the backing.

This quilt has gone to Sidney for a First Nations and Metis art show that begins this Friday September 9th. I'm a little nervous as I have never been apart of an art show before. Also, when I brought my quilts in I was told that one of their key people for hanging the art is a women that is an acclaimed quilter and won many awards. Yikes! My stomach is full of butterflies. I just hope my stuff is well received. The show runs until October 23rd, so I will keep you up to date:) The opening night is this Friday, so I hope to go and bring my camera so I can get lots of photos to share with you all.

Cougar Tracks?

Last night I stepped out of my comfort zone, with the help of my oldest, and decided to try out boxing. I have never tried boxing, but I am in desperate need of regular exercise, and it's free....three days a week, so it wasn't a question of should I. It was more a question of why am I not already doing it.

Well, my oldest and I headed out, and on our way, we saw these tracks on the sidewalk just behind our house. They are a little hard to see in the photo, but these look very much like cougar tracks.

Dog tracks are closer together in the toes, and are also more pointy. Also the heel pad is shaped differently between cats and dogs.

So now I am a little fearful that there is another cougar in the area, or the same cougar has returned. I am almost certain these tracks were not there the previous day. I pay pretty close attention to the ground when I am walking, and especially to tracks, so I can point them out to my kids. Rob was trying to convince me that these are from a dog, but I am not convinced. Do any of you know whether these are cat or dog tracks. I forgot to use something as a reference for size but they are the size of a large dogs prints. 

On another note, the sky was amazing last night. 

Win Your Discount Wednesday at SVP-Aug 24th, 2011

I picked a 43% off chip today, which is awesome! I love getting odd numbers. I think I picked 41% off another time.

I found another wool blanket. It's a good fall color.

It was made in Canada and is Mothproofed, so......cool.

A pineapple nightie. Couldn't pass this up.

Even though I am considering moving away from making clothing for a little while, I still couldn't resist getting more tees. The rainbow striped polo may go to my husband if he likes it, and the tan colored polo will be used to make the Deer design for my newest quilt. 

Jas picked these for daddy. 

What are some of your best thrift finds? I keep reaching out, hoping to make a connection with more of you:) No pressure.

Hope you are enjoying the final bits of summer. I can already see signs of Fall. The leaves have started changing color and falling. Summer always ends too soon.

Want to play Plinky?

Before I start the Plinky questions, I wanted to share the start of my new quilt:

This one will have a Deer design

We have a ton of these little guys around right now:

A blog that I follow occasionally has Plinky questions. I usually answer the questions to myself, but today I decided to answer them on her blog. It's fun, and so I wanted to try playing Plinky on my blog, so feel free to leave a comment with your answers, or you can answer them privately to yourself.

1. Name a food you were surprised to like.


2.  Share a fear that you are working on overcoming.


3. If you were given the chance to find out what happens in your future, would you take it?


4. What were the must have toys when you were a kid?


I so hope that some of you will share. You can answer one or all!


I will get the ball rolling:


1. Carrot jello 


2. Driving. I really want to learn how to drive. It would make my life so much easier, but I am sooooo afraid!


3. I don't think I would. I fear it would take away from the experience of living.


4. Rainbow Bright, Care Bears, Popples, Cricket

Potlatch Gifts

My aunt finally has a shop featuring all her beautiful designs, called Potlatch Gifts. For any that may not know, my aunt is the one who generously gave me some of her designs to use on my quilts and blankets.

My aunt is off to Emily Carr at the end of the month to pursue her love of art, and I can't be any more excited for her. She has spent her life helping others, putting her desire to create on the back burner, and she is now going after her dream. It is so inspiring.

Unfortunately I am not computer savvy enough to figure out how to add photos from her shop, so I encourage you to pop over and browse through her beautiful designs.

Here are a few of the designs she has given me:

Hummingbird

Deer

Butterfly

Killer Whale

Bear Prints

Tree of Life

So pop over and maybe you can get some early Christmas shopping done:)

What's new in my garden

We have had a few blueberries, and they are the tastiest blueberries ever. There is almost a rosey flavor to them.

Forget me nots that were given to us on earth day. 

Our zucchini's are not as plentyful as they have been in the past, but this is our first year in our new home and the soil is not very great. 

The yellow squash is producing lots, but they aren't growing very big.

Here are some more yellow squash.

The pumpkins are so cute:)

The second crop of strawberries have started. Yummy.

It looks like we will have some tomatoes soon. I'll be using these for fresh salsa.

This is my first year growing cucumbers, so it's super exciting seeing these grow. We have already eaten two cucumbers. One from this plant and....

one from this plant. Jude ate most of the cucumbers to himself.

These tiny squash aren't really getting much bigger than this. 

Only four pole beans survived the critters, and they are starting to climb the poles.

Our peas are done. We just pulled up the pea plants on the weekend, and I have planted a second crop where the pole beans are, and I will be putting up chicken wire to keep the critters out. 

I am hoping to pick up some alpaca manure from our neighbors soon, so I can work on improving the soil. I have heard alpaca and lama manure is like the rolls royce of manure, so it's pretty exciting to have a source so close at hand.

The Night Sky

I love how beautiful the night sky is. The top picture was taken of the full moon. Rob really wanted a photo of the moon rising. The sunset pictures were taken by Rob a couple of nights ago, and the last picture was taken by me last night. I commented on how we need a tri-pod because the pictures turned out so blurry. Rob asked if I used the railing on our balcony. Ummmm....I tried using our patio table, but the railing blocked the moon! Isn't it funny how sometimes the obvious is TOO obvious? Sigh. Next time.