I love the month of May!

May has got to be my very favourite month... the weather actually allows you to be outside for more than 10 minutes without either getting frozen to death or soaking wet, the spring flowers are blooming and the greenery comes back! It feels like Mother Nature rewarding us for making it through another long, hard, cold winter.

These beautiful flowers are growing right outside my kitchen window at the cottage... aren't they absolutely gorgeous? They almost look fake they are so perfect...


If I look up from the flower bed, this is what I see at this time of year... trees... leaves... Nature coming back to life. I love it!


Now for a little bit of quilty stuff: I quilted and put the binding on the "Coming Homes" table toppers and they are both sitting on top of my bedroom furniture at the cottage. I love how they look.


And I also made this cute pillow with the scraps from a quilt I'm making for my grand-mother's 85th birthday which is coming up in July:


Oh and here are the finished "Quilty Curtains" in the upstairs window. I really like the look of quilts as curtains so I decided to do the same thing for the kitchen window (this is a new window we just finished putting in).


That's it for now... Talk to you all later!

Quilting on a Budget

I recently ordered Dave Ramsey’s « The Total Money Makeover » from Amazon. I ordered the book because as I was re-evaluating my values and goals, I decided I want to retire from my “regular job” within the next 13 years (and spend more time quilting!). In order to retire by 55, I need to get rid of all debt… credit cards, line of credit, car loan and mortgage… before I reach the age of 50 (I’m turning 42 on June 2).

So I created a budget for myself (never had one of those before!) and I’m following Dave’s “Baby Steps”. Needless to say, if I am to focus all of my energy (and money) toward living debt-free by the time I’m 50, I can’t be spending hundreds of dollars on fabric every month.

My challenge will be to continue quilting over the next few months WITHOUT purchasing another yard of fabric.

I’ll post my progress here and show you what I’m able to “create” by using only fabric I’ve already purchased.

Should be interesting… J If you have any advice on quilting on a budget or using fabric from your stash to create beautiful things, please leave a comment! I can use all the help I can get.

Talk to you all later!

A new focus on my real priorities

I haven't taken the time to post anything to this blog since January. Notice how I didn't say "I didn't have time to post"? Lots was going on and I realized recently how I was letting a bunch of small and unimportant things get in the way of me spending time doing things I really and truly enjoy.


I had the opportunity to attend a great course at work on Time and Life Management. The focus of the course was identifying our core values and those things that are most important to us, and then making sure we schedule time every week to accomplish these things.


So I spent quite a bit of time over the last month or so making a list of those things that are really important to me but don't get nearly enough of my time and attention. Quilting and blogging was one of them. Quilting because it relaxes me, and allows me to create beautiful things for the people I love. Blogging because it connects me with quilters out there and allows me to learn so much.


Therefore, it it with renewed commitment and excitement that I write this blog post. Don't have much to say about quilty results or accomplishments right now, but I will in the very near future! Meanwhile, I leave you with something else that makes me incredibly happy and content and just lifts my spirits immensely... Spring in full bloom!



Talk to you all later!