Category Archives: Family

Small Finishes for This Week

This week sure buzzed by quickly. There was not a whole lot of time spent in the sewing room. I have been spending quite a bit of time working on the shop; especially on the process of moving patterns from the first shop to the new shop. I think it is worth the time it takes. I have had a number of sales from the new shop so I know people are finding it. I like managing the patterns separately from the fabrics. But it has taken a lot of time!

As far as sewing, I made two little projects for my sweet grand baby. My daughter in law asked me if I would make strap covers for their infant carrier. She even found the right pattern to use for the straps that fit her model carrier. I think this is a pretty smart move- the strap covers add some cushion if baby girl falls asleep with her face on those straps. They also catch the drool that come along with baby. It is much easier to take the covers off and toss them in the wash then to wash the pack.
The pattern was a breeze to follow. I did have to make a quick trip to find some green fabric (it actually is green, but leaning to teal blue) for the covers. I had plenty of batting scraps for the filling and velcro for the closures.
These are entirely reversible which would have been fun if I had used two different fabrics but I didn’t. The pack is a print of green and blue and it didn’t need another fabric in the mix. Baby also needs a little hood that will attach to the pack but I haven’t tackled that yet. I did buy plenty of the fabric though. Hopefully I will get to that in another week or so.

After making the little strap covers, I was in the mood to make something else for her. A few months ago, I purchased a collection of the older Cotton and Steel prints during a #destash on Instagram. I had not used any of them yet but as I poked through the bag, I found two prints that were perfect for a little sun hat.

Isn’t that the cutest thing? I had an old pattern from who knows what, so I can’t recommend it because you probably couldn’t find it anyway. There are many patterns like this though and a simple google search should be fruitful. It came together easily and I am hopeful it will fit. Her mama sent me the measurement of her head so if anything, it might be a little big. I love the back side with a little bow. Adorable.

I look forward to seeing it on her little head. Finally, I started the memory quilt I am making for my nephew Sam. He picked out an assortment of his football and baseball jerseys. He even sent a small one that he must have worn as a little boy. As suggested by several readers in the comments of an earlier post, I emailed Sarah from Confessions of a Fabric Addict to get her input. She suggested a particular brand of fusible interfacing she likes for backing these projects. I ordered that and it is already here, ready and waiting for me.

My ever helpful daughter and I cut the jerseys up.

I was really nervous to cut into these. Before we started cutting, Julia and I folded them into little blocks and laid them out to get an idea of how I would make this. Then we cut the fronts from the backs leaving everything intact and as large as possible. I think I will make a lot of 14″ squares with the majority of the jerseys. Then I will cut miscellaneous bits and pieces that aren’t going to measure up as big but should be included (mascots, American Flags, etc). Those will be bordered in red and fit into the puzzle where I can. I think it shouldn’t be terribly difficult. The next step is to stabilize this slippery jersey fabric. Sam is off to college in the fall so maybe, just maybe, I will have it done in time? Well, at least during autumn? Ok, ok, definitely before he graduates college? We will have to see!

This week is once again my week to sponsor the giveaway for the Sewcial Bee Sampler. I had a lot of fun hosting the giveaway at the end of June too. If you are participating in the sew along, hop over to Maureen Cracknell’s or Sharon Holland’s blog to find out how to enter and win! It could be your lucky week! There is also a discount code for the Sewcial Bee quilters. Go check it out!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend! I am linking up to a few favorites. Find them at the top of the page under Link Ups.

Have you signed up for the Needle and Foot News yet? Published monthly, this newsletter provides an update on the latest fabrics to arrive at the shop, as well as any promotions or events happening at Needle & Foot. Click here or use the sign up form at the right side of the page, toward the top!

Dog Days of Summer

15 Replies

It is so hot outside, really just too hot. As I write, the thermometer on the deck reads 95 degrees, in the shade. This means it is about 100 billion degrees in the sun. Hence the reason I am inside playing on the computer! When it is like this, I try to go out early in the morning to do any chores that need to be done. Yesterday I was out early, dropping Julia off at the high school. (She is volunteering as a teacher’s assistant for a class taught by her English teacher to a group of exchange students from France.) After dropping her off, I worked in the garden, dead heading roses. We have a nice selection of roses which we have to keep inside the fenced area to protect them from the ever hungry deer that wander our property.

The roses are slowing down a bit due to the heat but we still have some really pretty ones.

I spent about an hour working in the yard and while I trimmed and clipped, I listened to a recent podcast from While She Naps by Abby Glassenberg. Episode 100 was an interview with Alissa Carlton of the Modern Quilt Guild. Even though I was familiar with much of the origin of the MQG, it was interesting to hear Alissa’s perspective as one of the founders of this ever growing organization. The podcast was made even more interesting when Alissa talked about her other job as a casting director for the reality TV show, Project Runway. I recommend this episode (and really, all of Abby’s podcasts) as it covered a lot of interesting topics.

This girl’s been working. Check out these boots.

Because Julia was working at the high school for the day, I helped her out by feeding and cooling off her girls, Ella and Daisy. Ella and Daisy are two market hogs Julia is raising as a project for 4-H.

Measuring Ella to monitor her growth.

This has been a great experience and I think she enjoys it for the most part. As with any animal project, she has had a few issues to deal with. Ella, the show hog that Julia has been training to show at our county fair, is oddly uninterested in eating. She isn’t gaining near the weight she needs to gain to qualify for showing at the fair and for selling at the auction at the end of the fair. This is baffling but Julia is treating it as a science project and trying her darnedest to get Ella to gain weight. She is mixing raw cow’s milk with her feed three times a day to entice Ella to eat more. (She gets the raw milk from her very kind 4-H leader who has a dairy cow.) She also makes tons of scrambled eggs to mix into Ella’s feed to make it more desirable. So far, Ella isn’t having any of it. She snacks a bit and then gives the rest to her roommate, Daisy. You can see where this is going. Daisy is gaining all kinds of weight!

Ella and Daisy keeping cool in the mud.

Besides concocting these meals for Ella three times daily (which Daisy eats for the most part!) Julia also has to keep them cool during these dog days of summer. Pigs do not tolerate heat well as they have no ability to sweat. When Julia and Ray built the pen for the girls, they put misters in which is a great help. Julia also goes out multiple times throughout the day to hose both pigs down. They LOVE this and it is adorable to watch how the play in the spray of the hose and try to drink the water.

If Ella’s slow weight gain continues, Julia will end up showing Daisy at the fair and auctioning her off instead of Ella. Daisy is bred as a feeder pig, to be raised for meat. She will not do well when shown at the fair but whomever is kind enough to purchase her at the auction will have a freezer full of great quality pork. Ella will be fed out until she is large enough and has put on enough fat to be butchered. It isn’t what Julia expected but this is life, right?

Even with all that has been going on around here, I had a bit of time to sew this week. I wanted to catch up on my blocks for the Sewcial Bee Sampler. Hosted by Maureen Cracknell and Sharon Holland, this has been such a fun project. They created it to increase the connection amongst the on-line quilters and it has been really successful. Check out the #sewcialbeesampler on Instagram – there are more than 6,400 photos posted to it.

I have fallen behind on my blocks but I did get a few made this week. I tried to combine solids with fabrics by Maureen Cracknell, both her Garden Dreamer fabric line as well as the earlier line, Fleet & Flourish. But I was running dangerously low and still have several blocks to complete. I had a funky size scrap of 1/2 of one Ex Libris panel by Alison Glass that I have been hoarding. I knew I would find the right thing to use it for and this is it. The colors work perfectly and I can fussy cut the bits of the panel to use just the parts I need.

Here is another block with a bit of Ex Libris in the center.

Sewcial Bee Sampler, 20 of 25 blocks

I had all of the blocks thus far completed arranged on the floor to look at the flow of color. I need to make sure the last five blocks are made with colors that balance well with what I already have. I think I want to frame one more with the light green and another with the mustard yellow. As I looked at these, one block jumped out at me – How come I didn’t see the mistake??

I need to spend a few minutes taking apart the upper left corner. Oops!! There is one more block to be released this week and I have four that I still need to make. Then we will sash the blocks and start assembling the quilt top. I really love the blocks I have made thus far – this one is a keeper. It should finish at 72″ square.

Linking up with Oh Scrap and a few others. Please check out the links at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

A Harmonious Finish

30 Replies

This week I finished my Harmony quilt. I will finally be able to send it off to my nephew and his wife as their wedding gift. Doesn’t some rule of etiquette say you can give a wedding present within the first year and it is still ‘proper’? According to this post on Manners Monday of the Huffington Post, I am still within the time frame. Though really, who would refuse a wedding gift because it was late? At least I am finally giving it to them!!

You might remember I made the quilt top a long time ago. I used a fat eighth set of Millie Fleur by BariJ for the centers and Moda solids, Fig Tree Cream and Stone. The pattern is one that alternates hourglass blocks and economy blocks, each of which finished at 9 1/2″. I love the look of this pattern and feel proud to have drawn it myself and figured it out without a pattern (I don’t do that too often.)

I wanted to quilt it on a long arm because there is lots of cool negative space and it would have been fun to play with it. However, that just never worked out and in the interest of time and wanting to complete this quilt, I opted to quilt it at home. It is fairly large at 74″ square so I decided against free motion quilting and settled for straight line with my walking foot. I did a diagonal line across the middle. For one side I did vertical lines all the way out and on the other side I quilted horizontal lines. I like the effect.

My favorite part of the quilt is the bottom border where I relief quilted their last name and the words EST. 2016. It is a sweet reminder of when they married and established their family of two (plus a couple of dogs!!) As with my other relief quilting projects, I fused stabilizer to the back of the border strip (before it was attached to the quilt) Once the letters were traced on to the border, I used my darning foot and created the design by free motion quilting around the shapes of the letters and numbers. After attaching the border strip and quilting the body of the quilt, I took the darning foot and FMQ’d the outline of each letter and number to quilt that section of the border and make the letters stand out and puff up a bit.

On the corners I used a four patch block as a cornerstone. On each of these I quilted a little flower. The borders were free motion quilted with a pattern of loops, alternating small and large ones.

To finish it off, I made a scrappy binding! I am such a fan of scrappy bindings. Luckily, I had just enough of the Millie Fleur fabric left to make the binding.

The backing is a green, floral wide back I purchased long ago and I couldn’t honestly say what it is. I can say I love the ease of a wide back for backing. Pieced backs are very cool and give you sort of a double sided quilt but wide backs (108″ wide) provide ease of use and a speedy finish. (Plus I have a large piece of it leftover which is kind of nice!) In fact, I recently bought the first bolt of wide back, a small gray polka dot by Red Rooster and it is listed in my shop. Just in case you need some. 🙂

I can’t wait for the kids to receive their quilt. I was really sad to have missed this wedding last year. From the pictures they shared, it was just a gorgeous day for my nephew and his new wife. I am sharing a picture of them dancing at their wedding. Breathtaking, aren’t they? I hope they love the quilt and use it happily for years to come.

If you haven’t yet signed up, I would love to have you sign up for my newsletter. Sent monthly, it contains updates about new fabrics I have in the shop and promotions that will run that month for newsletter readers. Sign up form is on the right side of your screen, toward the top.

Linking to my favorites, each of which can be found at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

The Best Kind of Sewing

18 Replies

I know I am not alone when I say I love to sew for a cause. There are so many people less fortunate than us, people who are dealing with all sorts of hardship. Quilting and sewing cannot fix these things, but it can show others how much we care. One such cause is Sadie’s Dream for a Cure. Founded in 2012, this organization provides tote bags filled with toys, crayons, games and stuffed animals to children who are battling cancer. Sometimes the child regularly endures long IV infusions or hospital stays in an isolation room while their immune system is severely compromised from their treatments. These bags bring a little happiness to a scary time for a child.

This organization has several options for how we can help. They will provide an entire kit to a person wanting to sew a bag. These kits contain the fabric, fusible batting and the label for the front. Alternatively, they will send you just the label, if you would like to rather use your own fabric. I thought it would be a good use of some stash so I requested just the label. Finally, if you don’t have time to sew just now, they keep a wish list on their website of items they need for filling the bags. Here is a link to check it out.

Bags are donated to hospitals all over the country. Some of the bags are filled with adult items for parents who find themselves suddenly experiencing an extended stay at a pediatric hospital. The adult bags are stocked with toiletries and snacks.

Before I go any further, I need to make a clarification. I didn’t make all four bags shown at the top of the page. I first heard of this project on Instagram when The Quilter’s Planner announced a sew along to make these bags as a group. They did a few posts explaining the steps along the way. I didn’t join in with the sew along due to some timing issues. However, I did pass the idea along to my sister. She also loves to sew and I was fairly sure she would want to make a bag or two. Turns out she made three! Hurray for the kindness of others.

It has been fun to receive pictures of the bags my sister made over the last week or so. She did this cute one with bugs — perfect for the budding entomologist.

Who wouldn’t love the colors in this purple and blue bag? The fabric choices are perfect. It would work for a child or an adult.

For the third bag she used this sweet multicolored fabric with little cupcakes.

My bag is pink with a floral print used for the pockets and the trim around the top. I added a pop of green for the accent strip. When I was making it there was one hiccup. After I attached the lining to the outer bag, I noticed I had forgotten to put the pocket on the lining (for the inside of the bag). Dang it. I decided to unpick the stitches on the side seam and carefully insert the pocket and try to stitch it down. It was kind of silly but it worked.

I am pretty happy with the final results! Fun, bright colors make for a cute bag.

These bags are fun to make and a simple way to help out a family going through a rough time. I enjoy bag making anyway so this was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Just a quick note – I want to let you know I have begun a newsletter to keep readers posted about my fabric shop. I will be sending it out about every eight weeks or so and it will contain information on new arrivals and fun promotions for my newsletter subscribers. If you are interested, there is a sign up form on the right side of the page.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF. Hope all of you have a fantastic long weekend for the Memorial Day holiday.

Three Babies with Three Quilts

22 Replies

This is a quick post to bring a little smile to your day. Over the past several months our family has grown by three. It has been wonderful to welcome the three newest members to the family. This brings the great granchild count up to 12 for my parents. Quite the family my parents started; they had six girls and the six of us had a total of 21 children between us. Now there are 12 great grandchildren (so far!)

When I found out about all of the babies to be born in the beginning of 2017 (we had one born in January and two born in March) I got busy making some quilts. Now that the babies are here and the quilts are gifted, I want to share photos of these sweet babies and their quilts.

This little guy was born January 17th. He has the lattice quilt I made for him last fall. (Read about details for this one here.) Isn’t he adorable? Have you seen such a cute smile? His two older sisters dote on him. This lattice quilt was based on this tutorial.

My sweet grand daughter was born next, on March 7th. She is so darn cute. This girl got a quilt of HST’s based on the Simply Snuggly pattern. More details on this project can be found here. Her presence in this world means I will be traveling to Vermont when I can and enjoying the stream of photos her parents share with me in the meanwhile. She just started to smile last week and it melts my heart to see those smiles.

Finally, the third baby, this adorable girl was born at the end of March. She also has two older siblings, a brother and a sister. I made her the rainbow star quilt using the When You Wish pattern by BonJour Quilts. For details on this quilt click here. I really loved making this one and will definitely use this pattern again.

Hope you enjoyed these sweet pictures. I love seeing the babies with the quilts. Makes me smile. 🙂

Back to the Real World

19 Replies

I don’t know if it is the same for you, but it is always with mixed feelings that I end a trip or vacation. Julia and I had such a wonderful time in Vermont. The week seemed to fly by and it was difficult to leave. Having my kids living so far from California isn’t the ideal situation but it is what it is, right? While I was a bit sad to leave them, and especially my sweet grand baby, I was happy to come home. I love my home and was more than happy to see my husband after ten days apart.

As for my grand baby, since I know you are all dying to hear, she is just adorable. I loved having the opportunity to spend a long stretch of time with her. She is full of all that newborn wonder that just melts a person’s heart. Her little cooing sounds when she is nursing, the happy smile she does when she is dreaming (what do newborn babies dream about anyway?) and the adorable cat-like stretches she does when she is waking up – the stuff newborn babies are made of. Ahh, I do love babies. She does have a touch of colick and can be quite fussy during the late afternoon and into the evening. Her parents handle these episodes with such patience. I am really proud of both of them.

When I got home, this was the first thing I saw as I drove up to the house. Isn’t it great? I ordered this banner a few weeks ago from Vistaprint. I will be a fabric vendor at our local quilt show in May and wanted to have something hanging at the back of the booth so shoppers would know the name of my shop. I am thrilled with how well it turned out. These pictures don’t do it justice. Ray hung this for me as a surprise but it was very gray and cloudy out and we took it down right away so it wouldn’t be rained on.

The size is 2 1/2 feet by 6 feet. It seems big to me but I am a poor judge of these things. Ray thought it was perfect so I am going with his opinion. We will see when I get the booth set up.

I also came home to a lot of happy mail. There was a lovely thank you note from a reader that won some fabric. How sweet of her to send a real note. It is a treat to receive a real card when email is usually the way we communicate these days. The card featured a very pretty crazy quilt picture.

After opening the card from Gloria, I opened a package sent to me by Jayne of Twiggy and Opal. I cannot even describe my surprise to see this gorgeous mini quilt. Jayne enclosed a note saying this was just a little gift for me. Really? For me? Just because??? I am beyond happy to have this quilt. I watched Jayne’s progress on this project on her Instagram feed. (Side note: do you follow Twiggy & Opal on IG? If not, hop over there and follow her. She is just a constant source of inspiration. I love her feed.) Anyway, I loved this project from the beginning.

I love the quilts Jayne designs. It seems like (and I may be totally wrong) she starts with an idea and it just organically evolves while she is sewing. From what I saw on her IG feed, Jayne made the bias strips she used to create the heart in the center. Then she started creating little (teeny, tiny) pieces to use in the border. The nine patch block on the left side of the photo above measures just under one inch. I have no words. It is adorable. The little HST’s to the right are also just under an inch. Yikes. My fingers are too clumsy for such miniature piecing.

She must have done some strip piecing for the nine patch and then also used it for the checkered border. That isn’t a striped piece, it is pieced! I just love her straight line quilting and also the quilting she did over the bias strips to emphasize the heart shape.

It is already hanging in my sewing room. I love having this treasure from Jayne and will think of her when I see it. It is such a special gift.

I have so many blog posts to catch up on this week. I didn’t read too many while I was away last week. There is so much going on right now. The New Quilt blogger Blog Hop is on going and there are lots of new bloggers to befriend. Check out the links at Quilting Jetgirl, Cooking Up Quilts and She Can Quilt. I will have a new Meet the Designer post up in a few days. This one will feature Kim Schaefer, a designer of cute, whimsical fabric lines for Andover. Hope you will come back Wednesday to get to know Kim. Until then, happy sewing to you!!

Baby is Here

41 Replies

Just a quick post to share the news. My son and daughter-in-law have a beautiful baby girl. She was born late last night at 12:38 am.

Isn’t she just gorgeous? Parents and baby are doing wonderfully. Baby Girl weighs in at 8 pounds and 4 ounces and is a very long 21 1/2 inches. She has such kissable cheeks! The kids and I FaceTimed this afternoon which was such a treat. Technology is going to make living across the country from this little girl almost bearable.

The whole birthing process is nothing if not exhausting. This girl is tuckered out. I think her parents probably look much like this as well. It is an amazing thing to watch your baby become a father. Indescribably awesome. These two will be fantastic parents. Such a sweet family of three (plus the dog and two cats!) I am reveling in this little miracle. <3

When You Just Can’t Focus

26 Replies

Today is a crazy day. So much to be done and my mind is just wandering from one thing to the next with little actually being accomplished. Baby Girl is just far too content on the inside and my daughter-in-law is having labor induced today. So far things are going just fine but I am excited for the baby’s arrival and, as any mother would be, empathizing with my DIL and remembering how it was to deliver the first child. Exciting, nerve wracking, lots of unknowns. My DIL is a physician which means she has less of the “unknowns” than I did but still… until you experience it, you don’t really know what it will be like.

So I am distracting myself and playing in the sewing room. It is so cold out – we got a dusting of snow which often seems to happen just when my daffodils are blooming.

As for projects, I have a number of things stacked up in the sewing room! My first priority is a bunting I am making for Baby Girl. I have each flag ready to go. I will applique her name on it when I find out what it is. Until then, I can’t really do anymore on this.

I am using gray fabric for the letters. I suspect I will be working on this tomorrow!

Over the weekend I started to cut out a shirt. I didn’t have quite enough for the entire layout and figured I would run over to the store and pick up another yard of this gorgeous charcoal gray knit. However, they are out and it isn’t coming back. 🙁 So, I am changing plans and will make the sleeveless version. It is cute and will be a good way to make sure the pattern fits correctly. If I am happy with it, I want to make it with the three quarter length sleeve and a cowl neck. I love the version with the cross over in front.

When I got the pieces cut out, I realized I didn’t have the right needle for my machine. Clearly, this just wasn’t in the cards for me and set it aside. I will go pick up needles later today!

Moving on from the shirt, I decided to cut pieces for a baby quilt I am making for my niece. Her third child, a girl, is due at the end of the month. I am using the pattern, When You Wish, by Kristy at Bonjour Quilts. It is a free download when you sign up for her newsletter.

I had plenty of fabrics to choose from and they create a nice rainbow effect.

This quilt is just a very effective arrangement of HST’s. I have most of the HST’s completed and have begun stitching them together. I love the look. I am saving my HST trimmings. Some time ago, I saw something on Kitty Wilkin’s blog, Nightquilter.com, about leaving the trimmings out for the birds and seeing them in nests in the spring. We are just coming into spring and we have a plethora of birds so I want to see if we get any colorful nesting going on!

I plan to gather a few more and put them out in a suet feeder. I will let you know if I get any results.

Ok – last thing for today — I made this awesome frosting over the weekend! (Talk about jumping into a completely unrelated subject!) Julia and I were making a treat for my husband to celebrate a (work-related) special accomplishment. But he can’t have dairy products so I was looking for a new way to ice a cake. The cake was chocolate and it seemed like this Peanut Butter frosting recipe would be a fun one to try. Oh. My. Gosh! It was amazing.

Peanut butter, coconut oil, almond milk and powdered sugar. Amazing. Not at all healthy and three zillion calories, but for a treat? So yummy. Here is a link if you would like to give it a try.

That is the latest and greatest. I will be on pins and needles (ugh, terrible play on words) all day. Hoping for a swift delivery of Baby Girl and that her amazing mama does well throughout the process.

A Quilt for Baby Girl

37 Replies

We are playing the waiting game for Baby Girl (my first grandchild) to arrive. Everyone is so excited to meet her but she seems to be taking her own sweet time. My daughter-in-law is great about my constant texts – although I had better knock it off or she might block my number. 😉

I did get the baby quilt finished and sent off. It turned out so cute! Remember I used the Simply Snuggly pattern by April Rosenthal, making adjustments to size it down just a bit. The baby’s room is lavender and white. My daughter-in-law asked for lavender, gray, white and pink for quilt colors. I had fun shopping for these. This was the initial fabric pull but I didn’t end up using all of them.

The quilt is a collection of HST’s set on point with sashing between each one. It was very simple to piece.

I enjoyed quilting this sweet little project. I free motion quilted a flower on each HST. Once those were finished, I did little loops on the long sashing rows and a little heart on the sashing between each block.

Simple and sweet for Baby Girl.

The backing was made with a cute bunny print and I added a few leftover HST’s to jazz it up a bit.

The quilting shows nicely from the back. There are some puckers, or ripples, where I quilted the sashing. I am guessing it might be from the order in which I quilted it? Quilting the blocks and then coming back to the sashing might not have been the best choice? Maybe I should have been more methodical and quilted each row in its entirety and it may have given me a smoother finish. But it is what it is, right? I washed it and it is all crinkled up and ready for Baby Girl to use it.

I bundled it up and sent it off. The strip of fabric I used to bundle it up is actually a scrap from the binding fabric. Sweet lavender and white flowers.

Hopefully I will have news of the baby to share with you soon. Until then, I will try to be patient and leave the kids alone! Believe me, it isn’t easy. 🙂

Linking to my usuals, as well as She Can Quilt for the end of Q1 FAL link up. Check the Link Ups tab at the top of the page for the details.

Home Sweet Home

27 Replies

We are home! It was a fantastic trip and I was terribly sad when the weekend was through. It is very difficult to have two of my four children living with their wives on the opposite coast. So much distance is between us. It is strange because we have our children and never really think about the separation that often happens as they grow up and find their path in life. I am fortunate that my boys are good communicators. We have a family group text string that is used daily – multiple times each day. Sometimes about silly stuff and other times about important things. We are very much in touch with each other, which is great. But nothing beats being together, you know – in person. 🙂

Since we got home I have been mentally and emotionally processing the wedding. When I experience these big events in life, I love that feeling of thinking about it. Kind of mentally ingraining the memories so I will always have them. It is akin to the feeling when I finish a really good book. I usually wait a bit before starting another one as I am just enjoying thinking about the first one. Does that make sense?

The happy couple!

My son’s wedding was absolutely perfect. He and his wife worked very hard to plan an event which represented the two of them. They knocked it out of the park. The ceremony and reception were held in a very small restaurant on the campus of University of Toronto, where my daughter-in-law both teaches and studies (she is working on her PhD, studying the religious artifacts from early Russian history.) Gallery Grill, located in Hart House, was a gorgeous venue for the event. There were fifty people at the celebration. The officiate was a Humanist minister and her ceremony was so beautiful. It incorporated the necessary, legal elements of a Canadian marriage ceremony as well as the philosophical elements that the bride and groom wanted. I found it interesting that the marriage documentation is signed during the wedding ceremony (as opposed to afterward, like we do in the States.) Both the bride and groom are led to a table where they sign the marriage certificate and then the two witnesses (the bride and groom’s older brothers) come and sign. It was so sweet. The ceremony culminated with the groom breaking a glass, which is a Jewish custom, signifying the fragility of a marriage and how it must be cared for by both parties. (There are many actually many interpretations of this custom. You can read more about it here.)

Proud, joyful parents of the Groom!

I didn’t take many pictures over the weekend. Sometimes the camera actually distracts a person from enjoying the experience. Also the wedding invitation specifically asked that guests take no pictures – the kids purchased the electronic files for the photos from the professional photographer and I know those will be far superior to anything I would have taken. When I get those, I will share a few. The one picture that is here was taken, on the sly, by my sister so she could quickly text it to the other four sisters who were unable to attend. My sister, Cathy, was our social media coordinator and she Face-Timed with several of the sisters, showing them the venue (so pretty), the food (amazing!!), the flowers (peonies in January??), and the cake (I ate a bit of all three flavors!) My sisters were able to get a good feel for the occasion, which was wonderful.

I very much enjoyed spending time with my daughter-in-law’s family. We had met them last summer, when they joined us in Maine for a few days. We enjoyed a few meals together and got to know each other a bit more. They are very sweet and it is wonderful for the kids to be living near family. (The bride grew up in Toronto.)

Oh, my thoughts on Toronto, you ask? Of course, here you go –

Toronto is freezing. Not just cold, more like stepping out onto an iceberg wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Here, in the mountains of Northern California, we get cold. We have many days where the high temp is in the 30’s and the lows can dip into the low 20’s. We see snow now and then. But I kid you not, it is a whole different sort of cold up there so close to the lake. We walked and walked as Kyle toured us through the city and the University. (He is a great tour guide, walking backward and showing us the sites, providing fun anecdotes along the way.) We had reasonably warm clothing but my face would just be numb, especially my chin for some reason. The local Torontonian’s kept telling us what beautiful weather we were experiencing because the high’s were in the low 20’s (farenheit). Yikes. I know that means it could have been much colder! Crazy kind of cold! The bride was more than a little disappointed by the lack of snow. She really wanted a dramatic, snowy day for her wedding. I tried to hide my joy in the lack of snow. 😉

Trying to fit in (and definitely not getting there!)

We stopped by the National Hockey League hall of fame. We didn’t actually go in but I loved this sculpture that was out front. I’m thinking this is as close to a hockey game as I will ever get.

Black squirrels? I had never seen one. Apparently they are common on the East coast of the States and Canada, both. I looked it up and read that there are actually some living in the Bay Area here in California because they were introduced to the population at Stanford University. However, there are not many. (I wonder how the person got that squirrel here to California – Customs was digging through our bags both entering and leaving Canada. I am pretty sure I could not have hidden a squirrel in there anywhere! Haha.)

Dramatic beauty (and frigid cold) at Niagara Falls.

On the Sunday after the wedding my eldest son, his wife, Julia, and two friends took a day trip to see Niagara Falls. Ray and I didn’t have the energy for much so we declined. I think is was about an 80 mile drive to get there. They had a great time and I love this picture of the three of them.

Now that we are home, it is time to get back into my routines. I have been doing laundry constantly and today I need to clean up the house. It was so busy the week before we left, I had not cleaned or picked up around here, and now it is time to fix all that! I did get to sew a bit yesterday and will share that in another post. I am far behind in reading everyone’s blog posts. Last night I got caught up a bit but without commenting. Apologies for my rudeness. I’ll be back in touch soon. Also, I had the very good fortune to meet up with another quilt blogger in Toronto and will share that soon as well.

Glad to be home, sad to be separated from the kids. Such is life – always striving for a happy medium.

By the way, the picture of the map at the top of the page is a print I had made for the kids. It was done by a graphic artist who has a very unique Etsy shop, Ink of Me. Check it out.