Got it, I think!

Well it's taken me most of the evening but I think I've got you all back where you belong. I will know in a day or two if I've forgotten someone. Keep on commentating please, and that way I will know you're still with me.

Must take a course in blogging 101 because this darn thing is very confusing at times.

~~Fran...:c)

Grrrrrr......Big Mistake!

I just made another BIG boo-boo! I wanted to remove a name (blog) from my list of blogs that I read faithfully and ended up removing all of them. I'm a walking disaster when it comes to this blogging stuff. When or how long will it take for me to finally get this right?

Grrrr.......I'm so mad! I will have to spend hours now to get them all back on , and I sure hope I don't forget any.

If any of you know a way I can reverse this please tell me, or if I've ever responded to your blog, please let me know and tell me the name of your blog so I can place you back where you belong in "The Blogs I Follow" part of the page. Some of you come to mind right away, and you know who you are, and you will be back on tomorrow.

Tonight I feel like I've done enough damage and will call it quits.

~~Fran...:c(

Cloth Weaving

I spent the whole day yesterday at a workshop learning how to weave cloth. It was amazing!

The teacher had these mini looms for us to work on and all kinds of wool and fibers. She even had us add beads and charms to our project.

This is what we made. A mini 'vest' which opens up into a miniature sewing kit.

We spent the morning weaving our "cloth" . ... It was so interesting, we were about 20 in the workshop and we all had access to the same materials, yet there was not one identical "cloth" in the whole class. Once we had filled our loom tightly, we ironed on a piece of heavy interfacing. After it cooled we pinned on our pattern and cut out one front of the vest.

Believe it or not it took us 3 hours to do this. And she expects us all to make ourselves a vest by Christmas. AH! Maybe by next Christmas.

We spent the afternoon putting together our little vests. I kind of overdid it with the beads and charms,... LOL...but I'm not a fan of 'less is more' group of thinkers. I'm a ..."I paid $35.00 for this class, bring it on"..., kind of girl. :c))

:c)

Today I started adding the bits and pieces of the sewing kit and I do believe that a special little girl in Nevada who is just learning to quilt, will be the recipient of this little gem. Her birthday is at the end of November so it's perfect....Made to order so to speak.

:c)

It was fun, and I did learn a new skill, so it was worth the money I spent. :c))

:c)

~~Fran...:c)

Thank you & kudos

I want to thank everyone that have responded to my posts in the past week. Your help in finding my pattern was awesome. Kudos to all of you.

A special thank you to Jan, who just sent me an e-mail and informed me that my comments were not being posted and I didn't know this. I started exploring the blog site and found 49 comments waiting to be approved. I pressed a few "buttons"... and got them all posted where they belong, but I'm not sure if I managed to reverse this process. I'm so computer illiterate it's not even funny. I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back when I finally was able to make my own blog. Wow!! Even my husband who is the 'expert' was stunned that I managed to do this.

So...., hope I've fixed the problem and I will be monitoring this blog faithfully in the next few days, and more often in the future. As for right now I am going back to view my blog page and catch up on all those comments that were left and un-read. I promise I will try and be a good girl, LOL and check this thing EVERYDAY!!!

~~Fran...:c)

In Search Of...

These were taken by me at a quilt show this afternoon with the owners permission. However....I fell in love with this quilt called "Garden Twist". I even bought the fabric from the vendor, and when I asked her for the pattern she informed me that she "doesn't share her patterns". If I didn't like the fabric so much I would have insisted on my money back.

Now the search is on...can anyone help me? Where can I get, or buy this pattern? I've spent the better part of 3 hrs on the web looking for it to no avail so ladies there is just one thing to do in a case like this and that's to ask for ..... H E L P

I've been away for awhile so since I'm back there hasn't been a whole lot of trafic on this blog, but I'm hoping that even if only one of you see's this you will pass the word out that I'm in search of this pattern.

Thanks everyone....

~~Fran...:c)

Genealogy Quilt

I've been working on this quilt for a long time. It was just a 'get rid of the scraps' kind of quilt.

I had been visiting Quiltville with Bonnie Hunter. I went down her list of patterns and chose "Simply Stripy". Dog-dead easy. You will never find an easier pattern if you tried, and I figured this would get rid of a lot of scraps, and at the same time be fast to make.

Well as is said 'the best laid plans of mice and men'.... I made the top in an afternoon and then having no "design wall" I threw it on the floor and HATED it!
I put it away for awhile and would periodically throw it on the floor again to see if it was redeemable. One night or I should say morning at around 3a.m., (insomnia) there it was on the floor with the cat laying on it when inspiration struck.
I started counting all the solid colored pieces, then I counted all of the people in our immediate family ( had to do this several times, kept forgetting one or two) and I came up with this .......

Genealogy Quilt

You can't see the names, but they were all embroidered "Tonya" style with white and red cotton. On the small solid pieces that I couldn't put a name on I put hearts. I tried several borders but since I didn't have any fabric left over from the body of the quilt, I simply sewed 2 two inch borders.

One is black print with flowers, and the other is a yellow whimsical fabric that I picked up. It said "A Passion 4 Patchwork" . It was so cute with small spools of thread between the phrase. It was perfect for this particular quilt.

On the back of the quilt I used a black fabric marker and made up the genealogy chart.

What started out to be an ugly quilt, an "I don't want to work on this anymore quilt", an unwanted quilt in other words, has turned out to be probably a family heirloom, and all the fancy beautiful quilts I've made will come and go, and that will be the end of them, but I see this one being passed down and added to.

I have 11 grandchildren and they are all asking for one also. I smiled and said perhaps as a wedding gift. Only next time I will add a lot more solid fabric, so there will be lots of places to put my great grandchildren names on (*LOL*) This one was given to my son, who came to me last year with his quilt I made him when he was about 12, and asked if I could make a new back for it. Since it was over 30 years old I suggested that maybe it was time I made him a new quilt . He hugged that quilt and with a gleam in his eye he said "Mine!" We all laughed at 'Linus' and mom put a new back on his old quilt. When it was time to give this quilt away there was no one else in the family that came to mind other than Richard. Although it didn't start out as a quilt for him , the gods had other ideas.

Until next time

~~Fran...:c)

Autumn Splendor for Thanksgiving

Hi All,

It's been a while since I posted but I'm back and ready to go. We've just come home from a long weekend with our sons and spent Thanksgiving with them. Turkey and dressing, sweet potatoes and pumkin pie, oh my... I can hardly move. I should have jogged at least halfway back home. It will take me from now until Christmas to burn up all the calories from this weekend. But, what a wonderful meal and what fun to be with our sons, their wives and our grandchildren.

This is one of our boys home in the heart of the Ottawa Valley. The colours were spectacular and I honestly didn't know which way to point the camera. As you can see the house is nestled in among the maples. These are the same maples which provide us with the honest to goodness of maple syrup, come spring. Below was a view of the field across from his house.
It so happened to be my birthday on Monday and my son and his wife gave me a brand new camera. Being totally mechanically and computer illiterate, I'm having a hard time figuring it all out. This thing even takes videos. Looks like I'm going to have to take photography 101. (*LOL*) Not to be outdone my other son who owns his own computer business is building mom her own personal computer. Specs are to be "VERY" simple with lots of memory, and no bells and whistles. :c))

We passed many beautiful places and so may scenic sites but couldn't stop at every one and shooting going 55 miles an hour is not recomemded photography if you want nice clear pictures. I tried to take some out the window and got these kaleidoscopic blurs. Pretty but not pretty enough for publication.This was taken in a little village that was so picturesque, you could almost say it was enchanting . I got a novel idea for turkeys that someone put together from hay bales.

What a pretty little church!

I could go on and on but I just haven't the space. here for all the pictures I took. I'm now going to make supper and then spend the evening catching up on all my favourite blogs.

Talk to you all soon.

Until then.....

~~Fran...:c)