February 29, Leap Year Day of Creativity.

I decided to partake in the 365 Project which is making a block a day for a year.  This year has 366 days as it is a Leap Year so I finally decided to get started on February 18, the anniversary of my maternal grandfather's birthday.

 I started with tracing, cutting and using a heat resistant Mylar circle to turn my edges.

 Then I started stitching some down onto light backgrounds.

 I decided to also use some dark backgrounds.  To jump start me I used a charm square collection of Paper and Ink.

 By the end of the weekend I had a fair showing of circles done.

 Yesterday morning February 28 I decided to place what I'd done up on my design wall and see where I was at...Still needed some more to get caught up.

 So I continued stitching through the Oscar presentations.  I was now cutting backgrounds from my own black and white collection.  Having fun combining circles with backgrounds. Pencils on script fabric and nautilus shapes on a Parisian background.

 Lights on dark, and brights on white.

 Sewing related themes together.

 Teacups with lemons.  Sky images like a portal to the stars.

 These are randomly placed onto the design wall.

 Some are a great contrast and some are more subtle.

 Having fun is the important feature.

 Dragonfly sun on a garden motif.

 Bananas floating on French words.

 Horses galloping against a starry night with chairs against a newsprint.

 Different forms of transportation.

 Crescent moons and sunglasses.

 Whimsical bird on an ant background.

 Another crescent moon beside a fiery sun.

 Frolicking rabbits.

 Images of flowers, scripts, music and scissors.

 Some of my favourite colours. Lions behind a yellow sun.

 Sand, pencils, words and turquoise.

 Mannequins and old style televisions.  We had one very similar.

 Well I needed 60 to be caught up for today.  Count and you see I overachieved and made 66!  Guess I get to take a few days off before starting one a day.

If you are interested hop over to Quilty Folk's Quilty 365 A Year Long Quilting Journey for suggestions and information.

Today, March 1 I'm linking up with Quilty Folk's Quilty Linkup Party.

Fondling fabrics.

Last night I did a running stitch around another 49 circles to help in turning a seam allowance when ironing.

Yesterday I went to the Aberdeen Shopping Centre to pick up a few more binders. Of course the light display blinked off just as I took the photo. As you can see the Daiso store has two levels. The vast majority of products are $2.00.

These are the folders I use to keep my Sue Spargo Bird Dance blocks organized. They come with 20-30 plastic sleeves.

Such a choice of rainbow colours.

Leaving the main entrance.

I also stopped in at Fabricanna, I think these will be my Buttermilk Basin Let it Snow backgrounds. They are more a denim blue than grey.

I couldn't pass up these fabrics for another project.

 And a couple black and whites for circles?

Love these banners in Richmond.

Found this project the other day, the calendar envelope is dated 2000! The same year Stitches 'n' Things closed.

Needs a pressing but I'm going to pick it up again.

Off to my wool appliqué group in a bit. Have a good day being creative!

A bit of knitting to share.

While on Pinterest about a month ago I found a pattern for some minion slippers and knew a friend of mine had to have them. So off to buy the right colours of blue and yellow yarn I went. Minions were born.


They showed a crochet baby hat, but I needed an adult one. So I borrow a book from a friend and this is what I came up with.  If you are interested in the pattern for the slippers check out the link here for the slippers.  For the hat I used the same size needles and cast on 64 stitches on round needles and figured out the proportions that looked good to my eye.  When I thought it was big enough I knit two together then the following row knit all, next row knit two together, following row knit.  When there were about 8 stitches left I drew the yarn through and finished off the top.


Yesterday Anna aka Woolie Mammoth got her package in the mail and sent me this picture of her modelling along with her dog Enzo checking out her slippers. Project Runway watch out we coming to participate as designer and model!  If you've not visited her blog here is a link to it.


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Weekend Sewing.

Over the weekend I saw some Instagram posts of this cute pixie basket made by friends and went to check out Fabric Mutt for some instructions. Here is a link to the Pixie Basket instruction posts, have fun posting your own and share one on instagram with @fabric mutt #pixiebasket

 I decided to make two at a time.  The one on the right is slightly larger as I'm running out of my pink fabric and didn't have the heart to trim it down.  It is about half an inch taller than the one on the left.

 As you can see I've already recruited them into action.  The blue one is filled with my next project.

 Here is the pink one with her friend Baby Bionic Gear bag. and below is her mama Bionic Gear bag.

 I decided to prep some circles for the 365/366 project as it is leap year.  I came across it on Quilty Folk and decided to wait until the New Year to start...well I finally started tracing circles on February 18, the anniversary of my grandfather's birth in 1899.  I like using the freezer paper and starch method, but cut out a heat resistant Mylar template to be a bit environmentally fiscal.

 Here are my first thirty circles prepped.

 I decided to use some of the Paper and Ink charm squares to get me started, here are five of the first six stitched down late Saturday night.

 Sunday mom and I went for a drive over to the west side of Vancouver.  This is a shot of Vancouver downtown from above the former Jericho School for the Deaf and Blind.

 I love driving down this long steep road, farther down the trees tower over the street and have a lovely leafy canopy in the Spring and Summer.

 I spotted this street bursting with early Cherry Blossoms, it had more than any other along the stretch of 4th Avenue heading down to English Bay.

 The blue in the distance is part of the North Shore of North and West Vancouver.

 After dropping mom off I spotted this lovely moon just as the sun was setting.

 Hmm...maybe Phases of the Moon should be the title for this piece.  This link will take you to all the posts that are on Quilty Folk about the 365 project. She started hers in November and has linky parties once a month.

 Here are the last of the circles I did over Saturday and Sunday evening.

18 stitched and 12 more to go for the first 30 and then to catch up for the rest of the month.  Hope you had a productive weekend.