Quilting for charity

by | Oct 6, 2015 | Uncategorized

This week I finished a couple of quick quilt tops for donation.  I used jelly roll strips that I had from a guild fabric exchange and tried the jelly roll challenge quilt.  It is quick and easy to make to make so a perfect choice for a last minute gift or a donation....

Colour Challenge – shades of gray

by | Oct 5, 2015 | Design

It has been a few weeks since I posted a colour challenge but I have been continuing to play with my acrylic paints. This week, I was focused on finding a spectrum of shades and tones in my scrap stash. Since I was experimenting with adding gray (or grey) to colour,...

Drawing challenged

by | Oct 4, 2015 | Art Quilts, Design

I am a writer, a list maker, a planner.   I am most definitely NOT a person who can draw much of anything that would be recognizable without a label.  Not entirely true, I guess because I can manage things like fruit or line drawings of fish or simplified animals....

South Shore Road Trip

by | Oct 3, 2015 | Inspiration, Woodworking

I spent the day on the South Shore of Nova Scotia with a number of members of the Atlantic Woodworkers’ Association (AWA)  watching some skilled trades people .  What a time we had.   I have often wished that  I had learned woodworking much younger and today...

Month of learning

by | Oct 2, 2015 | Inspiration, Quilting, Woodworking

I’m excited!  I just learned about the Craftsy October All Access Pass.   It is the first time that I have seen something like this on ths site.  For a limited time, you can buy a one month pass to any of Craftsy’s 800+ classes.  It looks until you have...

October Blog Challenge

by | Oct 1, 2015 | Uncategorized

It is a new month, a new quarter – and time for a new blog challenge.  I am going to participate in the Ultimate Blog Challenge, a challenge to add a new post for every day of the month.  It is a great way to get in the habit of writing here every day.  It also...

Not feeling inspired?

by | Sep 25, 2015 | Inspiration

Now that fall has officially arrived, time to reflect on the summer.  The past few months have not been as productive as hoped.  This has many causes – low energy, limited inspiration and the usual glut of distractions.  Whatever the reason, my output was not as...

Hacking Becksvoort

by | Sep 14, 2015 | Design, Inspiration, Woodworking

Today’s post is written by Stephen Parsons. In the August edition of Fine Woodworking Christian Becksvoort presented an article on making a traditional Shaker laptop writing desk. His version uses dovetail joinery and features a small drawer at the side of the...

Bag Blitz

by | Sep 5, 2015 | Repurposing, Sewing

I’ve been focusing  on making bags the past week, trying out a few new patterns and techniques.  It felt like a good time to do a number of smaller and relatively quick projects and bags fit the bill since they gave me a chance to do some experimentation.  Here...

On our workbench

by | Jul 29, 2015 | Repurposing, Woodworking

This week, we are finishing off a library desk – another project that has been in the queue for a bit. This restoration is unique for us for a couple of reasons: We don’t usually work on restoration projects together – typically one of us will find...