The end of the Decade is upon us.

I left my last post saying I would finish off the Summer and talk about Autumn.  Well here it is Winter and I haven't said much. August was lovely and warm and lots of flowers and sunshine.  Fortunately our fire season was not as bad as 2018 so we didn't have the poor air quality although there were a few days of warning.

 I love that our city planted Palm Trees along the quay and other parts of New Westminster and the lower mainland.  We jokingly are called the Banana Belt of Canada.

 Each year we have a Boardwalk Garage Sale and all the condo and townhouse owners can buy a table for the one day sale.  I usually don't find much but while walking down this pink lace edge depression glass bowl caught my eye.  Even better was the price $3!  I've seen them on line for ten times that price.  Perfect for holding the threads of the current block I'm stitching on along with holding some extra scissors in the holes of the bowl.

 At the end of July Rita and I drove down to La Connor to go to the Quilt Museum but first a quick stop in Sylvia Pippen's shop.  This was her previous BOM of sea life.  I saw this just before it was released when my friend Anna came to visit and speak with her. I ended up being her videographer giving G a day off by himself and Enzo.  You can see part 1 here.

 And you can see the second part here. Sylvia also took us to a room where she stores her mother Kitty Pippen's quilts which was why Rita and I were in La Connor.

 We thought the display was ending that weekend but it was extended for another month.  Sadly Kitty passed away in August 2018.

 One of her early works an Hawaiian quilt.

 August brought out some beautiful flowers along the quay, I love Rita's echinacea or cone flowers.

 At an antique show i found this lovely dove tailed wooden box. It had one of the crayons for marking wood in it.  I plan to store some quilting tools in it.  Haven't figured out which ones yet.

 I love re-purposing items especially ones on sale.  Most people would see a cutlery caddy I made it into a Quilting tool caddy.  Where you would keep your napkins I keep my smaller square rulers.  It has a wire frame and woven plastic strips so it is very sturdy.

 Rita gifted me with two glass flower frogs which I'm keeping some of my often required tools.  Perfect for storing my brushes I use when I do my starch and freezer paper method of applique and it houses tweezers, pens, pencils and scissors nicely.

 September brought some amazing colours to our trees along the quay.  We had beautiful blue skies to show them off.

 Another fun box I found this time at Value Village.

 It has two compartments and a stain on one side.

 When I turned it over I discovered why.  I used to have some limited honey pots inside.  Woodward's was an iconic department store in Western Canada.  The Douglas Lake Cattle Company was owned by the family for many years.

 Another find on that visit was this turquoise hinged box.

 My rotary cutter and some larger paper scissors fit in the bottom large compartments.  I'm going to make a small square pin cushion for one of the top compartments.

 And check out my great prices!  I recently saw a new hinged box at Winners/Homesense which was about 3 times the price of mine!

 Another lovely find was gifted to my by my friend Irene, she found this lovely lace edge depression glass fishbowl style at a thrift shop.  Unfortunately even the shortest scissors hit where the glass bowls out.

 It is a bit different shade to my other shallow thread bowl but I love it.

 Doesn't the bowl have a pretty etched bottom.

 And it is perfect for storing all those thread ends when you are cutting strips and straightening fabrics.  I plan to use some of these strip worms to stuff some pin cushions.

 The star flower bush started showing off it's pink and indigo flowers.

 I went to the Portland Quilt show and found a pair of these candlesticks.

 Which became something else in my eyes.

 A pin cushion holder.  The pumpkin was designed by Lori Moore of Homespun Whimsy.  She has a Facebook page that she is sharing some different BOM and she adapted the pumpkin to be made into a circular pin cushion.  My bowl is smaller than the one she designed so I reduced the pattern so it would fit.

 It fits snugly inside the bowl.

 Here is the flip side for when it's not Halloween. My initials are shh meaning quiet the moon and the stars are out time to sleep.  Not SHH that you hear in a library!         

 Another side view. By the way I do hang some of my smaller scissors in the holes and they dangle quite nicely.

This year was a bumper crop of these mushroom/toadstools.  Yes I know they are poisonous I only photograph them I don't handle them.

 They usually start out white and progress to the red with spots before flattening out and growing tall.

 Autumn crocuses.

 A family of three with dad protecting mom who protected their child.

 Another threesome.

 My Halloween wreath that I created of bits and pieces and add more each year.

 My favourite witch is out all year.

 Beautiful colours.

 I got this limited cross stitch from an Etsy shop.  Sorry I don't recall the name it isn't on the pattern but all monies raised went to a no kill animal shelter.  I added the little moon and star to it.

 The beginnings of a new project.

 Adding some stems.  There were wool, cotton rusched, silk ribbon rusched, silk bias and again wool being added.

 In class interviewing some new shapes.  That blob below the two tulips was an attempt at a poppy profile which failed miserably.

 Changing some of the shapes into wool and some silk.

 My friend Rita working on hers.  This was a Sue Spargo workshop that we went to Calgary Alberta to take at Out Of Hand quilt shop.  Rita allowed me to share this picture and of her work.  We were asked not to share anyone else's work or Sue's.  But if you go to her Sue Spargo Facebook page you can see some of the other people's works.

 Rita's is progressing nicely.  Sadly she had to leave the morning of the last day so I couldn't share what hers would have looked like after the class when we showed ours off.

 This is mine, our background wall was Kaffe Fasset bolts of fabrics!

I've been slowly working on mine along with some other projects that I'll share in the future. I loved this class and would recommend taking it if you want to learn about adding layers to your wool designs. I'm going to end this post with November as I've not downloaded my end of November or any December pictures yet.  I have to have something to say for the for the New Year.  

I wish everyone a Happy New Year for 2020 and that the new decade will bring you all that you need when you need it along with good health and happiness.  I'm working on my Word for the coming year.