Surprises from across the pond

Birthday goodies from across the pond

Yesterday, it was my birthday. (Let's not discuss the  numbers.) But, boy! Was I ever spoiled by my family.
On Friday, I made my way to the post box to find a very special birthday present from Miss B.
She sent some lovely surprises from the UK, including a Tilda charm pack, some yardage, and a package of angel wings to make the Vintage Angel from Tilda's Winter Wonderland.
She also tucked in a folding Cath Kidston shopping bag and the sweetest little needle case, shaped like a holiday caravan.
My son was equally generous. He gave me a gift card to go Etsy shopping.
I feel pretty blessed and loved. They know me so well.
To round out the birthday treats, my husband took me to Sunday brunch, and gave me tickets to the Stratford Festival to see The Man of La Mancha when it opens this spring.
(Should spring ever arrive.)
It has been so continually cold, I have been working on several crafty projects instead of getting out and about. My creative space was starting to look way too lived in, so I decided to tidy up. There were little scraps sitting in pile on my sewing machine table, along with a embroidery hoop.
Well, one thing lead to another and before I knew it, I had made a little wall decoration featuring a polar bear tucked into a quilt made from the little scraps of my precious (and some might say obsessively hoarded) Tilda stash. This decoration is framed in an embroidery hoop and is one of the really sweet ideas in Pretty In Patchwork Holidays.
I opted to make it less Christmas-y, so it can stay on the wall of my sewing room all year long.

Polar bear tucked in for the rest of this long, long winter

Surprise, surprise, my studio is only slightly less messy than it was before I made the polar bear.
Sigh. Such is the creative life.

A new Tilda website on the www!

My sewing angel sitting in the garden

Sew Pretty Homestyle tablemats

Teaspoon lady and a bug

Tilda's World has a new presence on the World Wide Web. It is really pretty.
This is a new web site which is being created and maintained by the Tilda design team. 
The web site is as beautiful as the books. There is also a blog section. 
I am looking forward to seeing what they'll be posting. 
The opening post is pure eye candy, and just the thing to chase away the winter blahs.

Another day, another polar vortex

I get it, this winter of ours is simply not interested in leaving. It has it too good around here.

I haven't been baking much lately. But today, as a blizzard swirled around the kitchen window, I decided I needed to smell the delicious aroma created by the union of apples and cinnamon. Also, having the oven on helps take the chill off the kitchen. That's nice when it is -26 C outside.

This is not an overly sweet tea loaf, but the streusel topping makes for a sweet finish. You can omit it if you like, but it takes a lot away from the olfactory experience.

Serve with a hot cup of tea, and pretend spring is just around the corner -- not cowering in fear under a log while winter rages on forever. 

 Apple Cinnamon Streusel Loaf

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup light sour cream

1 apple, peeled and chopped

Topping

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup flour

4 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

4 tbsp rolled oats

1.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a loaf pan.

2.      Combine apples, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

3.      Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter together until light and creamy.

4.      Add eggs, one at a time. Beating until mixed well. Add vanilla.

5.      In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Stir together. Gradually add to egg mixture, alternating with sour cream in two additions, beginning and ending with flour. Beat for two minutes.

6.      Place half the batter in the pan, covering with half the apple and brown sugar mixture. Top with the rest of the batter and add the remaining apple and brown sugar mixture.

7.      Mix the topping ingredients until they resemble large crumbs. Sprinkle on top of the loaf.

8.      Bake for 1 hour. Cool for 30 minutes in the pan on a wire rack. Turn out of the pan and cool completely.

Great Tilda titles I know, love, and own...

The Craft Cafe, a great facebook group -- I am lucky to be a part of it -- is not exclusively devoted to the creation of Tilda things, but there are a lot of us who are major fans of Tone Finnanger.

Recently, a new member asked me if I had a list of the books. She has some, she said, but she isn't sure she has all of them.

I am not sure I have all of them either, but I have a goodly number of them. So, I created a bibliography based on my library of Tilda titles. In the interest of public service, I will share it here.

I will also pin it on my Pintrest board, Tilda by Tone Finnanger.

This isn't quite as bad as my slavish devotion to Donny Osmond back in my TigerBeat days, but I have to concede, it is getting there.

Tilda makes me happy. Does Tilda make you happy too?

Lovely mail and other fun I've been having lately

Fabric pretties from a lovely friend

 It has been a long hard winter. I am about done with it. Winter, is of course, not done with us -- yet.
Weather aside, it has been a challenge to fight the urge to hibernate and keep creating. We creative types just solider on -- with a lot of help from our friends.
Yesterday, after a day of frustrating things, the kinds of things that happen to each of us, I hiked to the mailbox, over the foot high snow drifts. There, I found the key to the package compartment. And in the package compartment, I found a cheerful package from Wendy, a crafty pal and fellow fabric fancier from across the pond. She sent me a generous gift of some Tilda fabrics and some of the Gutterman range called Summer Loft. Neither of them are to be found easily in Canada. I love them, so I will take forever to cut into them. Crazy, I know, but that is the way it is.

Wendy's Tilda card

Wendy also sent me some adorable Tilda paper craft sheets, along with a pretty card she made.
I am blessed to have such nice people in my life. The package lifted my winter spirits. Thank you so much, Wendy!
Another thank you to my wonderful partner in all fabric crimes, Sandra. She shared some fabric I greatly admired from her stash to create a present for my sister, whose birthday is later this month. I found a tutorial for a mug rug on Wild Olive. This involves a lot of handwork, which I love, and English paper piecing, something I find very relaxing to do in the evenings while watching TV.
When you have a moment, check out the Wild Olive blog. It has a lot of cute projects and very easy to understand tutorials.
As we prepare for thunderstorms, and possible flooding tomorrow (!) I am preparing to start a new project.
Stay tuned.
I will find a way to get through the rest of this winter. I will!

The Owl and the Pussycat, a mini quilt by me. Currently on the cover of A Needle Pulling Thread's Baby Gifts Issue.

A mug rug, a trial run for a birthday gift I am making for a special sister.

Some scraps are too precious...

The Spring 2014  issue features two projects by me!

 This April, I will be at the CreativFestival in Toronto. I have been asked to do a trunk show of projects that use fabric remnants and scraps. As we all know, scraps are the prize in the cereal box to those of us who are slightly to addicted to fabric. This is something unassuming about scraps and remnants. They weren't intentional. They weren't really an integral part of the calculation of  yardage. Some people even (gasp) throw them out.

I collect them from all over. I have raided the scrap bins of friends and dived into remnant bins at quilting shops. I know the secret thrill of finding a gem -- nay -- a treasure -- amongst what others considered wastage.

And now I get to share how to use them up with other people who likely have the same affinity for the fabric flotsam and jetsam of the creative fibre life.

Here's the problem: at the moment, I have few examples. My stock of finished projects were wrapped as Christmas presents, or donated for charity sales.

 So, I have been holed up in the sewing room, making some things to talk about in the CreativFestival's Needlework Nook.

I will be doing a presentation, and then we will be doing a little pincushion project.

Tilda turtle, a work in progress....

In order to get ready, I have been pawing through my scrap stash, particularly my very cherished stash of Tilda fabric scraps. I have been doing hexies and pentagons, which met up in a turtle pincushion, based on a design by Anni Downs, an Australian designer. 

I love turtles and I actually have about 150 of them in various figural forms. This little guy will be a treasured part of the collection.  

I also did a Tilda patchwork teacup, because, you know, that is just cute.

Next up, a patchwork hoop-la. It calls for 1.5 inch squares -- so that's challenging.

The scraps just keep on coming....

Look, it's a Tilda teacup!

Getting ready for my scrap-tacular trunk show!

The winter of our discontent...

Ice laden branches

We had a huge ice storm three days before Christmas. The ice weighed down the trees and then took out the power lines.
The power was out for nearly 30 hours (thank goodness for the gas fireplace). We cooked on the gas barbecue. The tea was awful. Just sayin'
It was a big surprise for this gal, who ALWAYS seems to be sewing at almost the 11th hour at Christmas.
Since there was no power for Bernie, I did some hand sewing. I played around with pentagons and hexagons. I made small, medium and large Tilda patchwork ball decorations. I used my clip Ott Light. I clipped it to the front of  my hoodie and worked away. The light was more than adequate to work with.
During the daylight hours, I was able to do more involved hand sewing  So far, my medium Tilda Winter Wonderland polar bear has legs attached. But, I had to set him aside to, you know, re-enact pioneer living by cooking outdoors in day light, and finding batteries, which we apparently hide all over the house...

Hockey on backyard rink

By Christmas Day, everything was back to normal. Although, many trees in our area did not fare well. We lost our backyard juniper tree. It was laden with ice -- it is estimated that 55 cm of frozen rain fell. The trees were coated in ice and the branches were so heavy they could not withstand the wind that followed. Many trees in our area lost branches and some cracked down the middle.
The juniper It isn't harming anything at the moment, so we will leave it for now and remove it in the spring. Right now, the birds don't care, they still perch in the split tree when they need a rest.
Miss B is bound for the UK to take up a teaching position, so I did some projects for her to remind her of home. She promises to find me some Tilda stuff and Cath Kidston off cuts. That is the only reason I am okay with all of this.
I hope everyone is having a good new year so far! I am hoping to be a better blogger in this new year. Honest.

Tea cup present for Vicky

Pink Penguin lunch bag for Miss B

Waffle weave cotton blanket with quilted bands. UK bound!