rose hip

my garden...

1. front entrance..., 2. pretty single rose..., 3. potager with nasturtium edging..., 4. clematis..., 5. "Red Rum" lavatera..., 6. play area..., 7. pretty hydrangea..., 8. antique moss rose..., 9. flower border near potager..., 10. antique moss rose in border..., 11. tea cup and saucer hose guide..., 12. artichokes, camomile and nasturtium..., 13. pretty pink rose..., 14. front garden..., 15. flower border..., 16. backyard deck..., 17. Meadow Rue..., 18. "Queen of Denmark" rose with clematis..., 19. view of potager..., 20. "Queen of Denmark" rose...


...as seen by all of last Sunday's East Vancouver Garden Tour visitors... The tour was incredibly well-attended -- there was a constant flow of visitors in my garden throughout the entire six hours of the tour... I was amazed! I'm sure the fact that the day turned out to be absolutely gorgeous (despite a very poor weather forecast the day before!) helped in the matter... I have to say that I had an absolute blast! --  a day spent in my garden with so many lovely, knowledgeable, insightful, interesting and interested garden-enthusiasts... what a treat! All the work I had put into the garden prior to the tour was so worth this day spent in my garden chatting with so many wonderful people... How rewarding! (Bonus: I also have the most well-tended June garden I've ever had!) I feel so fortunate that my garden was chosen to be part of this most amazing tour... Thank you organizers!

'Hope you're all having a good weekend -- I will be back very soon with more gnome tales...

of gnomes, giants and gardens (part 1)...

...I thought I would have had more time this week to blog about my little quilt above (spot the gnomes and giant!), but alas, I've been a garden gnome myself since I last posted, trying to frantically prepare my garden for a local garden tour which will be held this Sunday; I was pleasantly surprised by an invitation to enter my garden in the tour over a month ago, and in my usual way I am cramming to get it all looking presentable in the last minute!...

As soon as I've whipped up my garden into shape (spot the gnome!), I will be back with more about my quilt, and I'll even take you on a tour of my garden, if you'd like... Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post and please forgive me for not answering any of your emails; as a very busy garden gnome, I simply haven't had time for any blog-browsing nor email-replying... All will fall back into place though after the garden tour... I hope!?...

geared up and rebooted...

...with a speedy spankin' new computer, I can at last show you more of the pillowcase photos I took at the time of my last post. I recently received an email asking me how I affixed the scalloped trim onto the pillowcase which I haven't been able to reply to because I haven't been able to find it again! Hopefully, I'll find it along with many others when I finish transferring all my files from the old computer to the new one, but, in the meantime, I thought I'd include a closeup of the crochet-trimmed pillowcase in my mosaic to help answer the question. As you can see, I hemmed the pillowcase edge, blanket stitched along the entire edge with my yarn, picked up the stitches from the blanket stitching with my hook to start my first row of crochet and then continued with my scallop trim pattern... sweet and simple!

While this latest bout of computer malaise took a toll on my time and patience, I did manage to start a new project which I can't wait to show you -- 'Just to warn you, gnomes are involved! I'll be back soon with some photos...

P.S. I'm so in love with that light gray "lacework" fabric above...isn't it pretty?!

 

hardware woes...

...our printer conked out last week and now our computer is becoming the latest casualty; it's been working very erratically, as if it's slowly shutting down... Today, I only managed to download a few of the photos I took of my pillowcases before it completely refused to download any more...  I feel a final crash is just around the corner!

So, it seems that I'll be spending my next few days computer shopping, installing and all that fun stuff, and hopefully, before the week is out, I'll be able to show you more pillowcase photos... Wishful thinking?!... Perhaps... Do wish me luck!

quick hello!...

...I'm just popping in to quickly say Hello! and thank you for all the kind comments you left to my last post. I've been too busy this week to compose a proper post and tomorrow I'm off to Victoria (our province's fair capital) for a few days. When I get back, I'll update you on the pillowcases I made (sneak peek above) and kitchen chair slipcovers (which are taking forever to finish, Ugh!)... I've fallen terribly behind in replying to my email, so if you've asked me a question and are wondering if you'll ever get an answer... you will, as soon as I catch my breath!.. Talk to you soon...

thank you...

...for commenting on my last post so very, very enthusiastically and profusely! I'm honestly bowled over by your amazing response to my bedding images....Wow! Lately, I have been feeling a bit "sluggish" about things in general, so I have to say that your comments have gone a long way in sparking me up again -- Thank you so, so very much!

To top everything off, I entered the images of my crochet pillows into Sew, Mama, Sew!'s Flower Power Contest inspired by Jennifer Paganelli's most recent fabric collections Flower Power and Pretty Please and... I won the Grand Prize, a $40 gift certificate at Sew, Mama, Sew!'s fabric shop!! I'm tickled pink about winning because I honestly don't think I've ever won a contest... Yippee! Thank you to the Sew, Mama, Sew! board and Jennifer Paganelli who judged the contest and congratulations to all the other winners -- check them all out here...

I've been dying to get my hands on prints from Jennifer Paganelli's new fabric collections so this is all so very perfect -- the only problem is that there are so many beautiful prints to choose from! From the moment I first saw her designs, I've been a huge fan; I absolutely love her way of using vintage-inspired patterns and injecting them with the most wonderful vibrant color palettes (nothing muted here!). I'm pretty sure I will be not be able to hold myself to only the gift certificate once I get going at Sew, Mama, Sew! ...

In the middle of all this excitement, I finished the pillowcases to match the bedding in my last post; I still have to take some photos of them so I can show them to you. These might have to wait a few days though because we are expecting a house guest on Friday (my oldest daughter's student exchange partner from Quebec), so we decided to give our kitchen a much needed lift; we've painted it and now I'm in the middle of making slipcovers for the dining chairs -- a very labor-intensive job I might add when you have to make six of them...Yikes!

Before I run off to my slipcovers, I just wanted to also tell you that I posted the crochet patterns for the flower squares and the flowers I made a while back in my sidebar because I receive a lot of request for these patterns... I hope they are easy to understand and, if not, drop me a line and I'll happily help you... Happy crocheting!

floral...

...what can I say?...I like flowers and I love seeing them everywhere! Now that these crochet pillows are finished, I am working on pillowcases to match all this -- I will show you soon, but first, more of the above:

Just in case you're wondering, all this happy riot of yarn color comes from scrap yarn lying around my house and abandoned yarn balls found in thrift shops...

Happy weekend!

baby turns 7!...

 

...our youngest, Nico, had her 7th birthday this weekend -- life is zipping by so fast! I was hoping to finish this doll along with a wardrobe exclusively made for her to give Nico as a birthday gift. Alas, time ran out... again! (If you read the post about the doll, you'll see that I also tried to finish this same doll for Nico's 6th birthday last year -- aren't blogs great for keeping track of progress or, in my case, lack of it!)

So, by Wednesday of last week, knowing that there was no way I'd be able to finish the doll and clothes idea, I opted for Plan B: making something for her with the adorable little girl print in the photo above. When I first spotted this print a while back, I knew I had to get some because it so reminded me of Nico -- of all my daughters, Nico is the one who most loves to play with toys and things -- whether it be dolls, trains, pompom and sticks, whatever -- she sees a game in all objects! She also loves to play "let's pretend" and, of all my girls, she is by far the girliest! I have to say that, before having kids, I thought it was a given that all children equally love playing with toys. How wrong I was! My oldest, Stefania, when she was little could not have been any more different than Nico: she barely registered any interest in toys as she was far more interested in trying to climb up all the walls in the house! 

Because Nico likes to make a "nest" out of her bed (she loves to "accessorize" her bedding with bits of fake fur, old blankets, cushions, scraps of fabric, etc... ), I thought a pillowcase would be the perfect (quick to make) idea. I sewed up a simple pillowcase and decided to embellish it with a crocheted scallop trim made out of a fine cotton yarn, something I admit I've been wanting to try out for a while now... Nico was absolutely thrilled when she saw it, and I'm thinking now that I just might make pillowcases for all of my daughters as birthday gifts this year!

sidetracked...

 

...by beautiful balmy spring weather...so much so, that I decided to dig out a little "potager" in the backyard! Since I didn't get close to finishing all the things I mentioned I would like to finish in my last post, I only have a little sneak peek above which shows what I've done so far. More will come soon, although there are Easter preparations to think of now! I was hoping to put together a special Easter post...hmmmm, but I don't know If I'll have time to do so... If time does run out on me as it inevitably does and I don't post, I hope you all enjoy a lovely -- hopefully balmy -- Easter weekend!

spring cleaning...

 

...my basement workspace...Oy! It had reached such an insane level of messiness -- it had gotten to the point where I was walking on a floor foot-deep in fabric, I could no longer find a clearing on my 2 1/2 m long work table so cluttered with stuff, I would regularly scream when looking for thread because the spools were so hopelessly tangled together, and on and on...you can only imagine...or maybe not, because I have so much fabric that most sane people would probably find it hard to imagine until they could actually see for themselves the sheer extent of my obsession!  My children are always asking me if we can open a fabric shop in the basement so that they can be cutters and cashiers (one of their favorite pretend games)!

Luckily, Alexandra, my 10-year-old daughter, agreed to help me wade through the mess, pile, sort, organize, etc... We've been at it on and off for the last three weeks, and are finally starting to see a better organized, neater and cozier space take shape. Now, the trick will be to try and keep it that way!

I've also been finishing up a few of things which I can't wait to show you...hopefully early next week. See you then!

ma pivoine...

...all the way from France, painted by ultra-talented Bridget; I've been pining over her work for quite a while now and I finally decided that I had to do something about all that pining... but which little masterpiece to choose from so many?!... After a lot of back and forth, I finally decided on this lovely "Pivoine et Papillon" or "Peony and Butterfly" miniature.

It now very happily graces my bedside table so I can start off my day admiring its simple beauty. The author of this lovely French blog pens that Bridget's work is "a little British" -- no doubt, but I also think it is very French in its most exquisite detail work... Take a look for yourself here and tell me it isn't easy resisting those scrumptious macarons!

ah, to be Irish...

 

...for the longest while now, I've had a real soft spot for all that is Irish; if you'd asked me in the last ten years what would be the country I would most like to visit, I would have immediately, without any hesitation, answered "Ireland". My Irish holiday is yet to happen, hopefully in the near future...

Now my children's school is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and to mark this very special milestone, the school put on a fabulous show last week filled with great dance, song, poetry and even a touch of the circus... Because the school is very multicultural, one of the acts showcased all the nationalities present in the school; it was probably the most touching moment of the entire show as children dressed in an incredible array of traditional costumes walked onto the stage... I know I had tears in my eyes!

When I first found out that my 6-year-old, Nicola, was to be part of this act, I thought it would be a perfect fit because I have five traditional Polish girl's costumes like these (one of them being my own when I was a little girl) lying around the house (just in case you're wondering what I'm doing with all these costumes, I should tell you that I am of Polish descent!). However, Nicola wasn't chosen for the Polish costume because, well you guessed it, there is a little girl at the school more authentically Polish! Nicola, on the other hand, was assigned to represent Ireland; my husband's maternal side of the family is Irish so my children are what you would call, one-quarter-Irish -- Yippee for the touch of Irish in my family!

Now, how was I to dress her? A quick search on the internet led me to rather complicated looking Riverdance-like dance costumes which I was not really into making at this point... However, a longer search led me to the Irish overdress and an Irish costume which wouldn't be too complicated to make started to take shape in my mind. Luckily, I found the loveliest green cotton velveteen in a gorgeous shade of green (remember, I LOVE green!) to make the overdress, some cheerful cotton for the skirt and, of course, a woolly clover... If any of you know more about traditional Irish costumes, I'd love to hear about it -- but, for now, here's my version:

 Irish clover,

Irish jig,

 



and Irish mischief!







Happy St. Patrick's Day!

blah...

...that pretty much sums up my last week -- I was spinning in a zillion directions, trying to finish and start things at the same time and, of course, I didn't get very far, only very frustrated... Happily this week, I'm in a better groove, taking things a little slower, working on finishing up a few patchwork coverlets like these which I first pieced together a few months ago... How about you?... are you starting on new project ideas in anticipation of spring and Easter?...

As you can see, I'm still adding to my heart pillow collection  -- I've given some away to my family, friends and, of course, as a blog giveaway... but they're still piling up around the house because I love making them. (I'm having visions of my house becoming like the Ikea ball room, except instead of balls, it would be filled with heart pillows!) I'm thinking that I just might just have to stock my empty Etsy shop with a few....

Last week, in the middle of my blahs,  my little chair-painting-pillow vignette above which is in my living room did put a smile on my face. The poppy painting (a thrift shop find) is one of my favorites; I zinged it up a little by panting its frame in that shade of green which I'm so in love with these days... I'm always looking for it when I'm buying  fabric, yarn, whatever.... but  I never see enough of it?!... Luckily for me, St Patrick's Day is just around the corner...

"I heart you" winners...

...the bowl,

...the shuffle,





...the first lucky pick,





...the second lucky pick,





{drum roll}



...and the winners!






Congratulations to Lavender Dreamer  and Kirsten from Ude På Landet!

Thank you for commenting so abundantly and appreciatively...WOW!.. I only wish I could send you all a heart! I love doing giveaways for many reasons, but especially because I get to "meet" so many more of you who take the time, in what I'm sure are very busy days, to check in on my blog... I have been away all last week (without internet), and now that I've settled back home, I'm relishing the thought of slowly going through all your comments and exploring all the new blogs that have come my way via this giveaway... Thank you from the bottom of my heart for encouraging me so ardently in all of my crafty pursuits!

Beata

"I heart you" giveaway...

 

...Babushkas are sent off, and now it's time for me to give a heart away!... Simply leave a comment here, telling me which one you like best -- I'll send you more photos of the hearts if you should win so you may see all of them more clearly, and if need be, change your first choice. I will be back on the weekend of Feb.28 - Mar. 1 to announce the winner....Good Luck!

P.S. If I receive a lot of comments, I will most certainly be willing to part with more than one heart!