December 9, 2023
by wordsfromanneli 41 Comments

Fishy Placemats

These are the fish placemats I started almost a year ago. By the time I got to the nearly finished stage, I had lost my enthusiasm to do much quilting in between the fish. You might be able to see where I did a tiny bit of quilting in the second to last placemat, but I soon decided that it was a waste of time and not really necessary.

They are each flawed in their own way, so that makes them unique. That, and the fact that I was making it up as I went along without a pattern or any idea of where I was going with it.

The back of the placemats is of the same material as the binding around the edges. When I get tired of looking at fish, I can flip the placemats over. This project has taken me so long that by the time I was putting the binding on, I didn’t much care if the corners weren’t exact or the edges a bit wobbly.

I was just glad to get them finished.

Now all I need is a meal to put on the placemats.

I wonder what would happen if I served fish on these mats.

March 1, 2023
by wordsfromanneli 36 Comments

Quilting Retreat

The view from the lodge where we have the quilting retreat is gorgeous, even with snow, which always seems to hit us for the February retreat.

Inside the lodge, in the new section (below), quilters have their machines set up at the far end and tables are set up for meals at the closer end. See the buffet-style serving area in the middle by the posts.

Next to the new part is the older section of the lodge, with carpet instead of hardwood flooring. The quilters on this side are closer together, but they each have their stations that they use every time they come to a retreat. The banter and chatter is cozy and friendly, and the quilters share new ideas.

Some of their finished products are hung on the railing of the loft. Sometimes just the flimsy (the top of an unfinished quilt) is hung up, and the less creative finishing work is done later, at home.

More quilts.

My project of fish placemats was very time consuming and I haven’t finished them yet, but I’ll post them when I get them done.

When I came home, I had a short (maybe 10-minute) ferry ride from Quadra Island to Vancouver Island, but the sky and sea were all one snow-filled mass. See the bits of snow still sitting on the roofs of other vehicles? I took this picture from inside my truck.

Looking out one of the ferry’s side windows, I could see the white caps blowing off the tops of the waves. The ferry swayed side to side as it battled the pull of the tide near Seymour Narrows while the wind blew in the opposite direction.

I had a white-knuckle 45-minute drive home on a snowy highway once I got off the ferry, but I felt safe in my truck, and was glad we had invested in good tires.

February 16, 2023
by wordsfromanneli 58 Comments

Set the Table

When I was quite young, my mother taught me how to set the table. I think it’s something that most parents teach their children as soon as they’re able to help out. Sometimes children ask:

Which side does the knife go on?

Which side for the fork?

Which way should the knife be turned,

Ready to eat pork?

Sharp side in or sharp side out?

How close to the plate?

What if there’s a spoon as well?

Can you tell me, mate?

So I decided to come up with a way to make it easier for a child to learn to set the table. Somewhere I had seen a set of placemats that showed exactly where to put the cutlery and where to put the plate.

At the same time, it was a good way to learn what the primary colours (red, yellow, and blue) were. The green was a bonus.

I made these quite a long time ago (eight years), but as I looked through some old photos, I came across them. Since I’m going to a quilting retreat next week, I thought I’d share these with you. I didn’t use a pattern to make the placemats. They’re quite simple. But I did cut out the shapes for the plates and the cutlery using cardboard tracers.

February 13, 2023
by wordsfromanneli 46 Comments

Love, Love, Love

Because it’s February and Valentine’s month, along with my fish placemats, I plan to make some more heart placemats at the upcoming quilting retreat.

Did you see the movie with Adam Sandler where he frequently says, “Love, love, love”? He says it with a sigh, or as if people are making too big a deal of love, but really he wishes he could make the girl fall in love with him. I don’t know which of his many movies it was, but I remember him being on the beach being a bartender in a little beach bar.

Anybody know which movie I’m talking about? I just don’t remember. All I remember is that every once in a while, he’d say, “Love, love, love,” as if it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

On Valentine’s Day we like to show the special people in our life that we really do love them.

But shouldn’t we do that every day? How should we do that?

Here are a few ideas.

Good relationships have a lot of give and take. The thing is, it’s not meant to be “one gives and the other takes.” You both have to give and take, equally.
No good keeping score and saving up Brownie points. Just go for it, and be good to each other.
Work towards a common goal. If you are working against each other in life’s goals, it’s not going to work. For example: If one makes the money and the other just spends it, it’s not going to work. Or if one always messes up the house and the other one always cleans it, it’s not going to work.
Allow your partner his/her own space; time to pursue some creative hobbies or quiet time on their own.
Say something nice to your partner every day.

Lastly, I was reminded the other day about how dogs behave when their owner returns after having been away for a while. If you’ve ever owned a dog, you might have noticed how they jump around and sometimes yip and bark and whine, or roll on their back hoping for a belly rub because they’re so happy to see you.

Wouldn’t it make your partner feel good if you showed how happy you were to see them when they come home? You don’t have to bark and yip, or roll on the floor with joy, but … well … you get the picture.

Happy Valentine’s Day

February 6, 2023
by wordsfromanneli 58 Comments

Something Fishy

In a couple of weeks, I will be going to a quilting retreat. It’s a chance to do three days of sewing without having to stop to clean the house, make dinner, and wash dishes.

It has been since before Covid that I have been to one of these working holidays and I was at a bit of a loss as to what project(s) to take with me to work on.

Four years ago, I sewed the placemats you see in this post, meaning to take them as gifts to friends in Montana, but with the border closed for a long time, the placemats were put on the shelf for later, and later, and later. I almost gave up on the gift idea and was going to use them myself, but they didn’t feel as if they really belonged to me. They were destined for Montana.

Along comes a quilting retreat that I’m able to attend for the first time in several years. It will be the perfect time to make a set of these fishy placemats for the Captain and myself.

Here is the first one I made, rather oversized, but okay to use as a table center. You can see that I got carried away with my imaginary fish. That’s Darth Vader’s cousin on the top right.

No such fish exist, as far as I know, but it was fun to make up some “pretend” fish to swim in and out of the seaweed.

A few turtles swam past as I was sewing. Some stayed to visit.

Some of the placemats have rocks near the ocean floor. Maybe I’ll put some clams and crabs in the next set. Sea urchins might be fun to add as well, and who knows what else might live there in the depths? Maybe a squid or two? In this case, the sky really is the limit.

I hope to have a new set of fishy placemats to show you in a few weeks.

February 20, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 41 Comments

More Bags

I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on while we are all housebound by the coronavirus. A few years ago I made a tote bag at a workshop. That inspired me to start looking for some more ideas online and to take those ideas and adjust them to the materials I had to work with.

These bags are meant to carry almost anything you can fit inside them: books, gadgets, cosmetics bags, wallets, and small items you shop for and don’t need a plastic bag for (as long as you have the receipt).

The inside has two side pockets for carrying things you don’t want to lose in the deep dark bottom of the purse — maybe your house keys, cell phone, shopping list — anything you want to have handy access to.

I got confident enough to make two bags at once, like in an assembly line. I would not have done that with my first few bags. I would have ended up making the same mistakes twice.

You might notice that I have chosen to use Velcro fasteners to close the bag, rather than putting in a zipper. I would have liked the zipper, but I once had a very nice leather bag that I really liked, but when the zipper went, that was the end of the bag. I’ve been using Velcro as fasteners for some time now, and it works quite well. In the photo below, you can see the Velcro sewn into the top inside edge of the bag.

I might have to come up with a new plan for bags to keep from getting bored.

September 2, 2019
by wordsfromanneli 39 Comments

Quilted Tote Bag

Last February at the quilting retreat, one of the ladies had made this beautiful tote bag which my friend and I admired a lot. It had two big side pockets, one on each side of the bag.

After the retreat, my friend got right to work and made a bag from the same pattern. The one pictured below is the second one she has made. I admire her for making a second one after I learned how much work it was to make the first.

She encouraged me to make one too, offering her help (which I would definitely need). We had two sewing days at her house and I was still slow-poking along, but with her help through the hard parts, I managed to finish the bag (below).

For buttons I used the ones the Captain made for me about 43 years ago from deer antlers he had found. Since they are purely decorative, it doesn’t matter that they are not uniform in size or shape.

The bag is reinforced with “Soft and Stable” and this batting lives up to its name.

I struggled with sewing this bag and swore I would not make a second one, but now that it’s done and I have more of an idea what I’m doing, I may reconsider this.

Like anything in life, “It’s easy once you know how.”

March 24, 2019
by wordsfromanneli 36 Comments

Something Fishy

There’s something fishy going on in my house these days. After making a set of eight “fishy” placemats, I felt encouraged by what I learned from the many mistakes I had made. I decided to try two more, and fix the problems I had before.

I made two major changes.

One:

I cut out the all the pieces and had them ready to place. I ironed “Heat and Bond” on all of them and had them ready to iron onto the background, building the scene with all the characters present at once. In my trial runs, I had done the pieces of fish, rocks, and seaweed, one at a time. It was so much easier to have all the pieces ready to put into the scene at once.

Two:

I set my stitch smaller for the applique part where I sewed around the edges of each piece, and matched the thread to the individual pieces rather than using one colour for everything. It’s hard to see the scales on the light blue fish (or any of the others) but if you can enlarge the photo you can see them.

The backing is the same on both.

Take care when using placemats

That have a fishy scene,

The big black grinner prowls around

But tries to look serene.

Beware the Dark Invader

Who lurks by every meal,

He has a constant hunger

Yet nothing does appeal.

The blue fish is too pretty,

The salmon are too fast,

The tiny little tropicals

Don’t make a meal to last.

The starfish are too crunchy,

Their skin is rough and tough,

And all the meat inside them

Is made of gooey stuff.

So Darky’s on the lookout

For tourists diving here

He’d gladly nibble on their toes

Or on their scuba gear.

Their underwater camera

Would fall right from their hands

And Darky could then pick it up

And make his own demands.

He’d slip along the hotel pool

Straight to the swim up bar

He’d swap that camera for a drink

And watch them from afar.

The fun he’d have inside this place,

The shocking looks he’d get,

He’d frighten daylights out of them

Although he’s just a pet.

So when you use the Darky mats

And eat your fancy food,

Be sure to drop some crumbs for him

To maintain his good mood.

***

February 18, 2019
by wordsfromanneli 42 Comments

Snowy Quilting Retreat

It was to be four days of quilting without the worry of cooking or cleaning. We would be served all meals and not have to wash dishes or clean house. All we had to do was sew and take breaks to enjoy the beauty of the lodge and its surroundings.

The view from the lodge is breathtaking.

About a two-minute walk from the lodge was the guest house where I had a room. The stairs were cleared, salted, and sanded. Everything was well looked after on the grounds. We congratulated ourselves on braving the snowy driving conditions to arrive at this gorgeous retreat. Only a bit of snow was left.

But on the second night it snowed heavily before warming up in the morning. The snow was perfect for making a snowman — or for someone to take a dive down the stairs.

I stepped out to go to the main lodge for breakfast, and took ten of the twelve steps on my bum. My camera flew over the railing and I bump-bump-bumped all the way down the stairs. Humiliated, I got up and crept around the bottom of the steps to retrieve my camera, luckily in its case. I shook off the shock and took a step to continue on my way. (Imagine this picture with about six inches of fresh snow covering everything.)

Wham! I was on my back again, this time wrenching my shoulder in an effort to catch my fall.

For the next two days I sewed and watched others sew beautiful things. My project remains unfinished, although I worked on it steadily. I’ll post it another time. But I can show you a few of the things other quilters made.

Placemats.