A very rare juvenile Northern Goshawk eating rabbit in Toby's yard.  There are only 2 breeding pairs in mid Vancouver Island according to our local bird expert.  He took all day, but ate the whole rabbit except spine and some guts.

The following pictures are Cassidy's Dream Boats, I love the Sailboats on the rickrack sea, Madison's duvet cover, the bears and bunny appliques are so sweet and I thought the bowtie blocks set in a hugs and kisses setting made the most of the yellow and grey colour scheme (new colour scheme for me) and I was unsure if I would like the finished product, but yes I did.  Noah's Trip Around the Word was the result of a request for a "nautical" theme....with a name like Noah what else could it be?  Wade's Chevrons was the most challenging for me...burnt orange was a tough one and I'm not a big fan of chevrons, but his mom was delighted with the outcome and I definitely delivered what she requested. 

Well here I am again.  2013 is long gone and I have been very remiss in adding to my blog.  I have been sneaking the occasional peek at blogs done by others and am completely in awe of the amount of stitching so many of you do...and the projects have been so lovely.  I have promised myself to upload a pile of pictures of my finished projects from 2013 by the end of February - so saving power failure tomorrow is the day....(fingers crossed).

 

I have enrolled in Sheila's postcard exchange and am looking forward to making my first ever fabric postcard.....a new and quick, quick, quick finish.  Sounds like fun doesn't it!  I've been told they are very addictive....but then what fabric projects aren't?

 

Today was wonderful - sunny and warm and a trip to Nanaimo with my best buddy Janet to buy pellon for the postcard(s), check out the sale at The Stitchers Muse (a wonderful needlework store chock full of threads, beads, fabrics, and all the bits and bobs needed to be creative).  I bought a meter of beautiful green, blue, cream batik, some beading needles....about to start a new crazy quilt block, 2 balls of crochet cotton (a gorgeous deep purple and a classy Christmas red) and several skeins of assorted DMC and Anchor embroidery thread on sale for only 40 cents each!

  

Next stop across the road for lunch - chicken wraps with Caesar salad and chips (very yummy). 

 

After lunch we went up to Winston's Tea Shop to replenish our tea supplies.  I picked up Cream Caramel Rooibos, Morrocco Mint Green, Lady Grey Black and Jinglepot Dream Black, all loose leaf teas.  I haven't tried the Morrocco Mint Green before but since I've been using mint teas for "relaxing" I thought it was worth a try and it smells amazing.  I absolutely love this little tea shop as it has the "very best of teas", a fantastic variety (probably 80 or so teas to choose from) and many tea pots and cups to tempt me.

 

The final stop was to pick up a few groceries and a cup of Timmy's tea before heading home. 

 

Successful day in my book!

Happenings!

The plans for the summer wedding are coming along......I sure hope our "rain forest" doesn't live up to it's name on July 6, 2013.....fingers crossed.  There will be a ton of gardening to do at my neighbours' where the ceremony will be held, and in particular to whip my garden into shape which is showing the lack of attention I gave it last year.  Thankfully one of my son's friends is a horticulturist for the City of Parksville and will pitch in for some of the tidy up duties with a couple co-workers if we buy the beer and pizza!  GOOD TRADE! 

I'm also looking for a flowergirl dress pattern that can be modified to match a picture Amber found.  This also means that for the first time in my life I get to visit this amazing fabric and notions store in Vancouver called Dressew.  I had never heard of it until last year, and now that I've seen the "images" for it I can hardly wait for the "road trip".  I'm also hoping to get my dress for the wedding at a shop I've checked out on the internet while we are over there.

The Christmas raffle we had at work was such a success.  Our office of almost 30 people brought in $470! Which was all donated to the local Loaves and Fishes Food Bank, and translates into 3 times that much, as the food bank has triple the buying power.  I'm so impressed by our office. 

We had a wonderful Christmas - very low key and relaxed but oh so enjoyable.  Our middle son Eric and his fiancee Kiley came over on Christmas Eve and stayed until the 27th which I had to work and we had so much fun laughing and telling stories....First Christmas in years since we had one of the boys home.  Apparently they both loved the lack of wound up little ones and the peace and quiet - who knows, maybe next year they'll come again.

I've been creating UFOs.....actually I prefer to think of it as a lot of starts to quilts that I will finish this year.  The population in the area is exploding again and I need 3 quilts (at the moment) before July, 2 of which are started.  I've also sent out a new challenge to my little group of quilt buddies and there's the batik star quilt I started in the fall (not sure how big that one will grow to yet).  I just love having all the choices on what to work on - not boring for sure.

I'm hoping you all health, wealth and happiness for the new year!  CHEERS!

Another year gone

Wow - can it really be over a year since I wrote anything on here????  Since then my youngest son Glen married Tessa, my middle son Eric got engaged to Kylie, and my oldest son Scott and his fiancee Amber have been planning their wedding which will be in my neighbour's fabulous garden in July 2013.  Phew - how's that for getting busy!  All 3 of the girls are wonderful and I'm so lucky to have such daughter-in-laws!

Instead of gardening and quilting this summer I spent a lot of hours repainting the inside of the house, but I did want it freshened up for next year's festivities.....I'll be hosting some out of town guests and the rehearsal dinner.  (I did begrudge the time it took from the other 2 activities though.)

My 10 month temporary contract with BC Govt Employment and Labour Market Services (formerly known as Manpower) ended in March, but I was hired (2 weeks before the end of that contract) as a full time permanent employee with BC Govt Income Assistance (formerly known as Welfare), moved 2 desks over and proceeded to drive myself batty trying to absorb the seemingly infinite procedures and computer programs to do my job. More than a little stressful to say the least.  But it does pay the bills and I was grateful to have the job this spring and summer when Ken was unable to work much as his thyroid was all out of whack and he had surgery in September and was off work for a few weeks.  Thankfully the surgery was a great success and he has been re-energized......but I don't think I'll retire just yet (good back up plans are hard to come by).

I've been quilting a fair amount especially since the rains began (I do love a good rain storm) and was part of another international round robin - crazy quilting this time.....something none of us had too much experience with, but wow talk about some fabulous blocks.  I haven't got them done in a setting yet, but have a good idea of what I want.....added it to the "some day list".

My little quilt group "Sassies" (Sunday Afternoon Sewing Sessions) has undergone quite the personality change as people have left and others have joined.  A little more laid back and easy going and a much fun as ever.  Last Sunday I took the opportunity to use the girls as guinea pigs and tried out a new recipe I found in the newspaper for apple dumplings on them.......well, if I made them just for myself it just wouldn't have been as much fun!  And yes, I'm allowed to make the dumplings again for them if I want to.

Toby is still just as much fun as ever....and now that he's five he's not quite as high energy, but he's not slowing down much either.  In fact a few days ago he proved he can still corner running along the living room wall!!!  Gravity defied!  (Watch out for that new paint job silly dog!)

At work I've been put on the "Social Committe" and a few of us are now planning the December festivities.  Cubicle and desk decorating during the first week of December, a fund raising raffle (each of the 3 departments in the building will do up a gift basket) proceeds to go to the local children's charity for toys, crafting in the boardroom at lunchtime and the Christmas party during the second week, third week we're having a potluck lunch and secret santa gift exchange.  We do know how to organize! Fourth week we'll have a skeleton staff of which I'll be one......  (I'll be working at the office in the north end for several days to cover staff shortages there too - absolutely nothing static about this particular job.)

Well, there's the condensed version of the past year for you......

Lynda

And I can cook too!

The past 2 weeks at work I've been the Public Employees Charity Fund canvasser and fundraiser coordinator for my office.  Nothing like government service for long-winded titles!

On Wednesday, October 5th we had a "Soup Kitchen" and 3 of us brought in our homemade soups to have with buns at a whopping huge donation of $2.00 a bowl!  I made my "famous" beef barley soup and it was a hit!  One of the other soups was a creamy mushroom that was so rich and made by one of the men in the office - a definite gourmand. The 3rd soup was a traditional Eastonian soup called "frikkadilli" which was also creamy and full of veggies, barley, little pork meatballs and ?  There have been several requests for this event to be a weekly occurrence......

On this past Wednesday it was "Appetizer Party".  8 of us brought in appetizers ranging from Jalapeno Popper Dip (so yummy!) to Malaysia Beef (I've asked for the recipes for both of these), and my entry was Pear, Pecan, Blue Cheese Bruchetta.  Everyone that paid (again $2.00) for a plate of all the choices got a ballot and voted for their favourite.....you guessed it!  I won!  (A Cooking Light magazine recipe comes through again.)

At the start of the charity campaign, which was October 3rd, I sent a quilt "Techniques BOM" (that the little quilting group "Sassies" which I belong to, had made up last year for our local quilt guild) into the silent auction which could be bid on by every provincial government employee in BC!  The auction ends on Monday and I'm wondering what the final bid will be.

Here's Spotty Polka Dotty!!!!  A baby quilt I just finished for little miss Evelyn....now an entire month old and cute as a button!  I bought the 2 polka dot fabrics on a fabric shopping trip a couple of months ago and just couldn't wait to use them.....guess I'm just getting "dotty"!  The pieced block is a traditional block called Aunt Dinah...guess she's dotty too!  Okay, so I'm glad to finally have a finish to show!

Spotty Polka Dotty!!!!

Yes, I'm still around

Hello there my long lost buddies.  I am still around, but between work (which I am still enjoying a lot), doing extra household and yard chores (because of my husband's extended absence due to new jobs up north - he should be home by the time the snow flies.....I hope) and plain out and out laziness?.....maybe it's because there's too much fun to be had while the sun shines, I just haven't gotten around to updating my blog for a while.  This week I will also be finally adding another completion - a very cute baby girl quilt.  Photo coming soon.