30 Years Ago

I met this man.

We must have spent five or six hours talking to each other that Saturday night and on into the wee hours of Sunday morning.   While talking we discovered that we shared the same birthday.  Dave is exactly five years older than I am.

He asked me to have supper with him on our birthdays in a week and a half’s time.   Now Dave had been drinking just a teeny bit and so I told him that if he remembered; to call me at work Monday morning and ask me again.

I told him where I worked on base.   I didn’t even tell him what extension I was at; just where I worked.   Truth to tell… I didn’t expect to hear from him because as I mentioned he’d had a few.

But first thing Monday morning, I’d barely gotten sat down at my desk when the phone rang.   It was Dave calling to remind me that we had a date for our birthdays.   I was flattered that he remembered.  And I was certainly attracted to him.   If he’d asked me out for any other day, I would have said yes, right away.

But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend my birthday with him.  After all… birthdays are special and what if that initial spark wasn’t there when we met again to have supper on our birthdays?   A person only turns 19 once!

So to hedge my bets, I suggested that he come along with me on a little Christmas shopping trip I had planned for Thursday evening to Camrose.   It’s about a 2 hr drive from Wainwright to Camrose and I figured in the time it took to drive there, go shopping and drive back, I’d have a much better idea who this Cpl Flemming was.

Thursday after work, I picked him up at the single men’s quarters and off we went to Camrose for late night shopping.  (Even today, in small town Alberta, Thursday evening the shops stay open until 9 pm.)

Just as there had been on the previous Saturday night, there was an ease between us that I’ve never felt with anyone else before or since.  We talked the whole way to Camrose and back.  We talked about our families, our work, our dreams for the future.  We talked politics and religion.

Dave was (and continues to be) the most fascinating person I know.    When we got back to Wainwright later that evening, I asked him where we were going for supper on our birthdays.

The years have sped by so fast and have taken us through marriage, parenthood and raising three amazing children, his army career which included two NATO peacemaking tours and his second career after retiring from the army.

We’ve lived in three different countries; Canada, Germany and the US.   We’ve travelled through almost every province and state in Canada and the US and lived in a few of them.  Even looking back over all that’s happened and all the adventures we’ve had… it doesn’t seem possible that it’s been 30 years.

What an amazing journey we are having together!  I’d do it all over again but more important I’m looking forward to all the adventures we have ahead of us.

Stocking Giveaway 2011

The Stocking Giveaway is Closed

The winner was announced in this post.

 

You’ll notice that this stocking is a little lumpier and a little fatter compared to the finished stocking in the tutorial I posted yesterday.

That’s because it’s filled with goodies; some of which I’ve made and some were purchased.  There’s even one special little purchase from a local craft fair.

Entering to win the stocking is easy.  Simply leave a comment telling me when you start decorating for Christmas.

Traditionally, our outside decorations go up sometime around Dave’s and my birthday on the 10^th.   We don’t get our tree or decorate inside until the weekend before Christmas.

If you would like your name to go into the drawing a second time… if you’re a follower or become a follower, leave a separate comment telling me so and that will count as a second entry.  (This isn’t a requirement to enter, just a little bonus for those who follow my blog.)

The giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere in the world and will run from today, November 28^th until midnight on December 5^th.  I’ll announce the winner on the 6^th.

And don’t forget to click over to Robin’s blog, RSIslandcrafts where she’ll have a post up with links to all the other blogs that are participating in the 2011 Stocking Giveaway.   Make sure to visit everyone and enter to win their giveaways as well.

Quilt-As-You-Go Christmas Stocking Tutorial – Part Two

Continued from Part One of the Quilt-As-You-Go Stocking Tutorial

To make the hanging loop:

Baste the interfacing onto the wrong side of the hanging loop.

Fold loop, right sides together and stitch along long edge using a ¼ inch seam allowance.

The photo shows a 3/8 inch seam allowance, but I ended up having to trim it down to 1/4 inch, so just use a 1/4 inch seam allowance to begin with.

To turn right side out, place safety pin in folded edge of one end of the loop.

Turn pin so that it’s inside the loop.

Push the pin through to the other end, pulling the loop right side out as you go.

Remove safety pin.  Press.

Turn quilted stocking right side out.   Pin the loop to the top back of the quilted stocking.  Baste in place.

Slip the quilted stocking inside the lining; right sides together, making sure that the seams match up.  Sew all the way around the top of the stocking using ½ inch seam allowance.

If you have a free arm sewing machine, sew on the outside.  But if you don’t, then it’s easiest to sew around the inside for this seam.

Turn stocking right side out through the opening in the lining.

Sew opening in lining closed using a blind stitch.

Push the lining down inside the quilted stocking.  Press upper edge.  Topstitch.

Admire the finished stocking.

I’ll be posting the giveaway for this stocking (filled with goodies) tomorrow.  So be sure to come back and leave a comment to be entered to win.

 

This post has been added to Sew Darn Crafty Party Week 42 over at Sew Many Ways

Quilt-As-You-Go Christmas Stocking Tutorial – Part One

Using your favourite stocking pattern, cut 2 stockings from a light weight, light coloured cotton fabric.

I used a print with a white background that was leftover from another project but if you are going to be using any light coloured fabric strips for the quilting, I would recommend a solid fabric for this.  Otherwise the print may show through.

Pin the stocking pieces to the batting and cut out; adding at least ½ inch all the way around.   Baste fabric to batting.  This forms the base on which you will quilt-as-you-go.

Make sure there are two mirror image stocking bases.  You wouldn’t want to do all the quilting only to discover that you have quilted one of the bases on the wrong side.

Also at this time, cut 2 stockings pieces from whatever fabric you wish to use for the lining.

For hanging loop, cut 1 piece 1.5 inches X 6 inches.  Cut 1 piece of light weight interfacing 1.5 X 6 inches.

Next go through your stash of Christmas fabric leftover from other projects and cut strips of varying widths and lengths.  The strips will need to be at least long enough to cover the fabric part of the stocking base.  For my stocking I needed strips that were 9 inches or longer.

Lay the first strip down right side facing up, matching one long edge with the top of the fabric part of the stocking base.   Baste across the top of stocking to hold that strip in place.

Lay the second strip down, with right side facing the right side of the first strip.  Sew along bottom of the strips using a ¼ inch seam allowance.

Flip the second strip down.  Press.

I  recommend that you press each strip well after it’s sewn in place as that will make the strips lay nice a flat; ready for the next strip to be sewn in place.

Lay a third strip right side facing the second strip.  Sew across bottom of strips.  Continue in this manner until you have covered the entire fabric part of the stocking base.

Sometimes, I angled the top strip a bit before sewing it in place, just to give the finished quilting a more varied look.

As you get closer to the heel and toe, you may also want to lay some of the strips down on a bit more of an angle to make that turn at the heel.

Repeat the above steps for the second stocking base.

Place the paper pattern piece on top of the quilted stocking base; lining it up as best you can with the fabric base.  Pin pattern piece in place and cut out.

Repeat with second quilted stocking base.

Baste along the toe to hold the fabric in place.

Pin quilted stocking bases right sides together and sew using a ½ inch seam allowance.

Trim seam allowance to ¼ inch.

Notch outside curves and clip inside curves, as pictured.

Pin lining pieces together and sew using a ½ inch seam allowance, leaving a 4 inch opening along the back for turning.  Trim seam to ¼ inch.  Notch outside curves and clip inside curves, again as pictured.

Continue to Part Two of the Quilt-As-You-Go Christmas Stocking Tutorial.

 

This post has been added to Sew Darn Crafty Party Week 42 over at Sew Many Ways

Christmas on a Budget – Make Your Own Christmas Stockings

Have you seen the price of Christmas stockings?  Not the plain red ones with a bit of fake fur at the top (our kids had these when they were little) and can be picked up at the dollar store.   I’m talking about the really nice ones.  I’ve seen them priced anywhere from $20 on up.

You can make your own stockings that will last for years and not fall apart after a couple of years of use.   And you can do it for a fraction of the cost of the fancy ones you buy in the big box or department stores.

For example, these stockings that I made for the Stocking Drive run by Lyanna of Purple Panda Quilts cost about $6 each.

A few years ago, I decided it was time to replace our children’s little kid stockings with grown up stockings.  I waited for a really good sale on fashion fabrics and I purchased velvet and satin.

Oldest Daughter's Stocking

Middle daughter's stocking

Youngest Son's Stocking

I even made two new stockings for Dave and I.

Dave's stocking

My stocking

I know… you may be thinking velvet and satin are not cheap fabrics even on sale.  But the great thing about stockings is that each one takes just a little over ½ yard to make.  And if you’re making several stockings, you can mix and match, using scraps leftover from one stocking to trim another stocking.

For example, for Dave’s granddaughter’s first Christmas I made this stocking out of the scraps leftover from making the stockings I made for her father, mother and big brother a couple of years prior (I would have posted pictures of those stockings but I couldn’t find them in any of my files.)

And speaking of scraps, the stocking that I made for the 2011 Stocking Giveaway (link in my sidebar) was made from scraps and batting leftover from other projects.

All of the stockings pictured were made using Butterick pattern #5783.  I’m not sure if it’s still available, but each of the pattern companies will have patterns available (Hancock Fabrics has a sale running right now until the 30th… 99 cents on all McCall’s, Simplicity and Butterick patterns.)

You could also download any one of these patterns (or several others available on-line):

http://www.craftandfabriclinks.com/xmas_stocking/Christmas_stocking_pattern.html

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/christmas-ideas/christmas-stockings-craft

http://dsquilts.com/uploads/StockingInstructions.pdf

Or you can trace around a stocking you already have.

Once you’d found the basic stocking pattern that you like, print it out and come back Sunday when I’ll be posting the tutorial for how I made that Quilt As You Go (QAYG) stocking in the last photo.

 

This post has been added to Frugal Friday over at Life as Mom.

Happy Thanksgiving

I’d like to wish all our friends and neighbours and everyone else in the US a very Happy And Blessed Thanksgiving.

Since we are busy packing for our move, I’m not cooking the big traditional Thanksgiving dinner that I usually cook.

Our wonderful neighbours across the street have invited us to share their Thanksgiving with them.

But it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the smell of turkey cooking so we’ve put a couple of turkey thighs in the oven with stuffing between them.

Place turkey thigh in the center of a piece of foil greased with olive oil.

Pile the dressing on top of first turkey thigh and top with second turkey thigh.

Place foil packet inside dutch oven. Into the oven it goes at 325 degrees F until done.

If I remember… I’ll add pictures of the finished turkey thighs and dressing later today.

 

Edited to add:

I remembered… lol.   And to answer Sandra’s question in the comments, the turkey thighs and dressing took about 2 1/2 hours to cook, but the thighs were still partly frozen when they went in the oven.

If you wanted to, you could place them under the broiler for a few minutes to brown the turkey skin a bit more.

 

Can you tell that we love dressing in this house. There's twice as much dressing as there is turkey.

Laurel Burch Pillow Cover

Just a quick post today to share photos of the pillow cover I made from Laurel Burch’s Holiday Celebrations fabric that I mentioned in my FNSI Results post.

This is the front…

It’s difficult to tell from the photo, but I straight-line quilted with gold thread in the gold lines that frame each image.

The fabric I used for the back was so pretty that I didn’t want to cut into it to insert a concealed zipper in the back, so I left it whole and inserted the zipper in the bottom of the pillow cover.

The pillow didn’t make it into the mail yesterday as we had a bit of craziness here, but it was mailed out today.  I hope Lady L likes her surprize.

November FNSI Results – A Most Successful Evening

I am so pleased with the results of last night’s Friday Night Sew In.  I was able to complete both Christmas stockings and on Monday they’ll be mailed off to Lyanna over at Purple Panda Quilts for her Stocking Drive to provide a handmade stocking to each of the foster children served by the agency she works for.

After finishing the stockings, I even had time to cut out and baste the front of this Christmas pillow cover.

When we were down in Panama City, I (of course) had to check out the local quilt shop, Quilting by the Bay.  They had some of Laurel Burch’s new line, Holiday Celebrations.  I missed out on buying Celestial Dreams when it was available and I didn’t want to miss out again so I decided I’d treat myself to just one panel.

When Dave and I arrived back later in the day at our hosts’ place, I showed the lovely Lady L my little splurge.   She mentioned that she’d love to have a Christmas pillow made out of that fabric.

So the next day, before we left to come home, we stopped back at Quilting by the Bay and I picked up another panel plus a yard of the co-ordinating birds on black background print so that I could surprize her with a little gift to thank her and her husband for keeping us in their thoughts and prayers this past year. (I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t read my blog so the pillow will indeed be a surprize.)

I plan on doing straight line quilting around the borders of each image.   I’m hoping to have the pillow cover finished later today so that it can be mailed out on Monday as well.

For now, I’m off to check out the blogs of the other participants to see what they worked on last night.

But before I go, I’d like to mention that starting November 28th, I’ll be holding a giveaway for the Christmas stocking pictured below as part of the 2011 Stocking Giveaway (button on my sidebar) being hosted by Robin at RSIslandscrafts.

I’ve slowly been adding small gifts to the stocking; some handmade and some purchased.  So be sure to come back and enter to win.  The winner will be drawn on December 5th.

I realize that at this busy time of year it might be difficult to remember to return to enter a giveaway at the end of the month.   If you would like a reminder simply sign up to follow my blog via email.  The sign-up box is in the upper corner of the left side bar.  You’ll receive a notice each time I make a post.

In addition to the 2011 Stocking Giveaway, upcoming posts you might be interested in include:  November’s Christmas on a Budget post, a QAYG (Quilt-as-You-Go) Christmas Stocking Tutorial and two great make and freeze ahead breakfast how-tos:  How to Make Breakfast Burritos and How to Make Homemade Breakfast “McSandwiches.”

*Note:  All stockings pictured measure 19 inches from top to toe and 11 inches at their widest.

Gifts Mailed Off and FNSI

The first of the Christmas gifts have been wrapped and mailed off.

We always sends books to Dave’s grandchildren for Christmas and birthdays as we’re quite sure they receive loads of toys from their parents and other two sets of grandparents.    It is our plan to become known as the Book Grandparents as we hope to foster in them the love of reading and the appreciation of the adventure, knowledge and pure enjoyment that can be found between the pages of a book.

As well, the gift for my parent’s 50^th Wedding Anniversary has finally made it into the mail.  I had been searching for a really pretty gift box to wrap it in… but I wasn’t able to find any locally that were the right size or that didn’t have a Christmas theme.  In the end, I ended up making one by taking apart a larger one and cutting it down to the size I wanted.

That completes the mailing of gifts.  The rest of the gifts will be hand delivered or they’ll open them with us on Christmas Day or Boxing Day.

Now I just need to get started on writing the Christmas cards so that they can be mailed out before we move at the end of the month.

In other news… Heidi has the sign-up post up for this month’s Friday Night Sew In, so hurry over and sign up to join the rest of us who’ll be busy sewing and crafting tonight.  Just click on the FNSI link in my sidebar and it will take you to Heidi’s blog.

I’ll be working on completing a couple of Christmas stockings that I promised to donate.  They need to be completed this weekend so that they can get to their destination by the 1^st of December.  I’ll be posting photos tomorrow of the completed stockings, as well as trying to visit as many of the participants’ blogs as I can… though I might not make it to as many this month as we’re having a moving sale tomorrow.

How to Sew a Patchwork Scarf

Back in August when I took our son up to Canada to get him settled into his second year of college, my rest stops along the way were quilt shops.

When I’m traveling, I have a tendency to succumb to a little impulse shopping and one of my impulse buys on that trip was a package of Moda Candy Bars.   I had no idea what I was going to make with them at the time.

When I returned home, I discovered that there really aren’t many projects designed specifically with Moda Candy Bars in mind, so they sat in the drawer while I pondered what to do with them.

Then last month, when I was working on October’s Christmas on a Budget post for One Hour Sewing Projects, I looked at those Candy Bars and realized that since they were pre-cut into 2.5” X 5” pieces, they would work great for making quick to sew patchwork fleece scarves.

I’ve been busily working away on Christmas gifts and the tutorial for the patchwork scarf got pushed to the back of the line, but yesterday I wasn’t feeling inspired to start the next Christmas gift on my list, so instead I sewed up another scarf and this time took pictures of each step.

Now today I can post the patchwork scarf tutorial, I promised.

To make the patchwork strip:

First, choose 30 pieces of fabric from the Moda Candy Bar.

Next pair those pieces up.

Sew each pair together in one long chain and then clip between the pairs to separate them.

Continue sewing pairs together until you have one long strip of 30 patchwork pieces.

Press all seams in the same direction.

Cut one piece of polar fleece 13 X 60.

Most polar fleece comes in 60 inch widths, so you should only have to trim off the selvages to get  60 inches, but measure to be sure.

Mark the center of each long side and again at each quarter with pins on both the fleece and the patchwork strip.

Match up the center and quarter mark pins.   Then pin long sides together, distributing fabric evenly.    Fleece is very stretchy, so use lots of pins.

Sew using a 1/4” seam allowance.   Repeat with other long sides to form one long tube.

Mark center of each short end of patchwork strip and of fleece strip.

Fold the tube so that the pins match.  This will position the patchwork strip in the center of the fleece.

Sew one end closed, using ¼” seam allowance.   Sew the other end, leaving an opening in the middle for turning.

Trim corners of the seam allowance on the diagonal.

Turn the tube right side out.

Sew opening closed using a blind stitch.

Pin along each side of the patchwork strip, making sure to center it on the fleece.

Notice that I have the pins all facing in the same direction but it's better to first determine which direction you'll be sewing in and then pin accordingly. Otherwise, you'll have to switch the pins around before sewing to make them easier to remove. (Don't ask me how I know)

Top stitch 1/4” from the seam and on each end.

A little over an hours worth of sewing yields a soft pretty scarf perfect for gift giving.

To make these suitable for the men on your list, simply choose more masculine fabrics for the patchwork and fleece.

This post has been added to Sew Darn Crafty Party Week #41 over at Sew Many Ways.

And it’s has also been added to Mady By You Monday at Skip to my Lou.