let's see what happens

I took the laptop to the store today, they played around with it for nearly 2 hours. Could not find the photo programme. There were three guys who worked on it. Then one came along that said Kasperskey had removed the photo programme. Now why would it do that? We had to take a disc from one of the cameras in the shop and put it into my computer. That did bring up a programme for the pictures, different from my original one but hopefully workable. Let's see if that does the trick for me.

It did work!Elizabeth doing binding.

The show was to raise funds for Honour House, this quilt is a show of respect for our soldiers. I love it.

a table full of quilts!

A table full again.

This is a really nice piece.

Ione caught off guard, she made many of the tops and the redwork pieces.

Plaids and more plaids.

My fondness for leaves is shown in this quilt not done by me :))

Designed and pieced by Ione.

Well that worked and I still have more but that will have to be another day.

I did finish my brown socks a couple of nights ago but things have been hectic on the blog site so I have forgotten to mention that. I'll put them up tomorrow.

It has been a full day so I will say good evening and see you tomorrow night.

Bon Soir.

Quilt show

Mostly photos tonight from the community quilts show in the legion  featuring quilts for Honour House and other  quilts for sale as well as craft items and a tea house so  to speak.
When I asked Ray to go he said no but when Ione sent him an invitation through the mail no less, he said yes. I wonder what she had that I don't LOL.
Unfortunately there will be no photos of the quilt show tonight since the download problem I mentioned last night has affected the downloading of my photos. ARRGGHH!! That definitely means I am going to the shop tomorrow. Ray suggested that I not go today, what does he know LOL . He has no idea how computers work. HMM for that matter neither do I :)))
I may have to leave it there but I think I can write in from the PC upstairs. Speaking of upstairs I have been  up and down those stairs so many time today. Don't you think this is weird , I tried on numerous occasions to forward the embroidery designs for the class on Tuesday upstairs to the PC so that I could add them to  the memory stick. Cannot be opened on the laptop. BUT now that I think of it I'll bet the same reason exists ,that d..... download. I know it can be done as I have been doing it all along. That must be it!!
We'll see about that tomorrow.  Who would think that an anit virus programme could cause more trouble than it is worth.

Oh well enough of that.  We did have a good time at the quilt show and the quilts were just delightful. One lady bought one for $1000 and many were sold. I don't know how well the crafty sections went but will find out on Tuesday. 
We went to lunch with our niece after leaving the show. We were early so we went to Safeway, what's wrong with that? Something is. LOL.
We did get to the restaurant on time , we are alwasy early  but just had to wait a couple of minutes for our niece to arrive. It was a lovely visit and we must have stayed there for at least an hour and a half.
I hope we can do that again in the near future. 
Needless no sewing or embroidery went on today. I will definitely do something tomorrow and perhaps some cutting.  OH hopefully!   unless I spend the day tomorrow fiddling with the computer/laptop. Fate wouldn't be that unkind would it?
Ray called his sister in Thunder Bay tonight , she said it is snowing there, not really surprising , especially to those of you who have lived there. I wonder if it is snowing in Winnipeg. I'll call his other sister and ask her. She is the one with cancer.  Apparently the pain killers are causing really bad mood swings, it must be hard for her and those around her as she is the most even tempered person  I know.

Ah isn't this a cute picture. It was taken in 1935 aboard the MV Andania in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on the way to Great Britain. It is of my mom, my little brother and me. I'm the one in the skirt, the small one. Haha.

Have a good evening, I just didn't think you would want to go without a picture LOL so I dragged this one up from the past.

Hasta la vista....

free at last

I heard tonight that Aung San Suu  Kyi is to be released for house arrest in her home country of Burma. I hope I heard right as she has been under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years because she supports the rights of the people of Burma or Myanmar to establish a Democracy in the country ruled by a of a Military dictatorship.. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She is a woman dedicated to her fellow Burmese and will not deviate from her beliefs even for her own freedom.
I did some embroidery today after we returned from the gorcery store. My friend Helen gave me a CD of Michelle's Designs that she bought at a quilt show. The designs are so delicate and lovely . I thought they may be too small as they are for the 4 by 4 hoop but I was very pleased with the outcome. I made a hand towel for her and if she likes it I'll make another one so she can have two for her towel rack.

I had to download and install my new ,well not new really, but install again/ renew my Kaspersky Internet Security. I am really a klutz about downloading and installing. It seems to me to take forever and I think it should not take this long. Then I am not really sure if it is done right. So I will take it to my boys at London Drugs to see if I did it correctly. Probably not :(
My embroidery club is next Tuesday and I copied the  instructions for the supply list but the design was not on my letter so I called Kerri and asked her to set up an invoice for me because I had not paid for the class. She said that was okay so now I just have to get all my ducks in a row LOL.
This afternoon I cooked a pork rib roast for dinner. We thought it was lamb when we bought it but the lambe turned to pork on the way home :) With a few spices and a bit of wine the pork rib was delicious. I want some more . So maybe I'll have some more.
My day was very full and I feel good about it.
 http://www.cluckclucksew.com/p/free-quilting-tutorials.html
You might like this site. It is quite cute.
Have a good evening folks.
Guten Abend!! :))

Remembrance Day

It was a lovely day in Ottawa where the National Remembrance day services took place and it was also a nice day in Vancouver for our services. It did not rain which it usually does on November 11th. There were substantial crowds in both cities ,many vets from WW2. There are no longer any veterans left from WW1, the last Canadian WW1 veteran passed on this year.  There were vets from subsequent wars up to and including the war in Afghanistan. It was heartening to see the large number of young people attending the services in both cities. Many members of my own family are veterans including two of my sons who served in the Royal Canadian Navy. My thanks to all of the service persons who fought and died for out freedoms and incredibly wonderful way of life.

Ray and I went out for our mall walk , the mall was so crowded today it was hard to move around but we completed our walk and ran into an old friend whom we had not seen for some time.  We didn't buy anything as the line ups were long and we are not patient LOL.
When we got home another friend called to see if he could come over for a visit. It was interesting to talk to him as he works in the downtown east side and relayed some of the goings on down there.
No I did not sew today , my eyes are so sore, the good eye being the worst. So I will be off the computer too when I am finished.  Who knows what is causing this pain, I did nothing to them and slept well last night , so I need to take it easy for a bit. Maybe they will be feeling better tomorrow.
We have decided to go out for dinner tonight to our regular family restaurant. No cooking hurrah! I will cook tomorrow though , have already planned for it.
Oh I was just wondering if the drops the specialist put in my eyes were the cause of the irritation. Maybe!
Tonight I'll finish the brown sock and send them off to Katie tomorrow.
So good evening  , have a fine one.
Kalispera.

Guild and dinner

Guild night tonight and there are three of us for dinner this time. One friend had an urgent call from her friend to come and see her as her doctor had given her 2 months to live. I don't know that lady but feel so badly about the tragedy of cancer. Recently it seems to be all around us.
I didn't get up until after 9:00 this morning , but that was good because I will be out late this evening. There will be photos when I get home tonight !! So I'll go now and finish this after I arrive back home.
Back home again and Kathy said get on with the blog so I can read it when I get home. But I am late so Kathy you will have to wait  a bit LOL.
We had a nice dinner served by our favourite waitress and of course we don't even know her name. Next time I am going to ask her what her name is.
At guild Ione and I work at the library checking out  the books from our extensive collection. It is a fun job because we get to talk to everyone. Well we joke around with everyone.
The speaker was an art quilter who did amazing thread painting, She had good examples to show and  spoke convincingly of her art. I did not get any photos of her work though.
I took photos of Show and Tell so there are some to show you tonight. I thought some of the guild members quits were quite amazing although more traditional in focus than the speaker's quilts. I am more of a traditionalist when it comes to my own work so I was properly impressed with what the members showed.
I did nothing this afternoon except watch old movies. I am becoming quite a fan. Bette Davis was featured this afternoon. She was failry good looking in her younger years but always the comsummate actress.

This quilt was done by one of the guild members, the next one was also made by the same quilter.

I love this one.

My picture taking is not that good , too dark , every time I take pictures in this church it happens. I guess the lighting is not good. It couldn't be my fault of course LOL

Could this whirlygig   drive you crazy. It is beautifully done and hand quilted.

That's it for tonight.

Have a good whatever is left of the evening.

Buona Sera.

Embroidery

I did embroider today , the napkin for my friend. I was such a mess of nerves. I won't take someone else's precious only piece again. If it is not my own fabric it won't be done.  However it IS done.

I took the brown yarn back to Michael's  today and was able to get the second ball. I wrote to the company as it does no good to complain to clerks in the store. They are good people but of course do not know anything about the product.  The company  responded to me immediately which really impressed me. The reason is that the blended yarns ,special colours they call them, are more expensive to make so instead of raising the price of them they reduce the number of meters making the balls smaller. They said the stores prefer it that way, I guess so customers won't complain about the higher prices.  So if you are buying Wool-Ease check the yardage. I cannot say meterage. Oh there I said it!!  Still doesn't sound right to me. LOL.
Ah the eye specialist..... He looked in my good eye and said he thought there was the beginning of  Glaucoma and he wanted me to take a number of tests in six months assuming there will be more to see by then.   Not very good news but then Dr. Finlay said it is a slow mover and since I am getting on perhaps it won't bother me very much. Even he remarked about it being my good eye. The right eye has had several things done to it so it has its own issues. We call it my bad eye.  But for now I can see fine if I am not too tired.
And we went to Walmart again today for three things margarine, Tylenol and one other thing. Significantly we bought more than three things, those three items  cost $135. How can that be LOL. We just have to stay away from stores. They are just like casinos, except that you walk away with something in your buggy :)
By the way do not put WD 40 in your sewing room, you might mistake it for something else and use it on your machine not the blades which must be cleaned if you use WD40 on them, don't be silly Nan we all know that.
Rain all day today, dark and gloomy, a typical November day in Vancouver.  But still lots of colour on the streets, the leaves are falling and the streets are alive with colour both in the trees and on the ground.
The tree I out up on the right side of the page was so beautiful last week , full and very,very red. I have been meaning to take a photo all week but kept forgetting my camera. Today I remembered and you can see I was a bit late, most of the red is gone.Oh well next year.....
Will William and Kate announce their engagement soon. On the Queen's facebook page. Isn't life amazing.
Time to close folks. Have a lovely night stay warm and cozy.
Good night!


.

Sewarama

Well really embroider a rama but hey it is a machine that stitches. I did mention that I have a project to do for a friend on a lovely white napkin. I have been so nervous about it and fussing in my mind of course all the things I should do. Finally I made the decision to do a sample. Why didn't I think of that earlier. Most intelligent sewists would don't you think?
And I found that a sample gives you many options, first you can try out different colours , you will be able to see if your placement is right. Well that is two things LOL. Changing the colours gives you an idea of which colours go together well and which ones suit the design and those that offer you the look that you want.  Oh and there is a third thing, you can see if your stabilzer choices are suitable for the look you are trying to achieve. I think I can go for it tomorrow .

I will not be able to go to my sewing groups on Tuesday as I have an appointment with the eye specialist.  I am not happy with the new glasses that I got 6 months ago -at a large expense. I cannot see to read my newspaper nor to do the crossword puzzle both of which are a part of my morning activities. Well I do them but by the end of the paper I actually cannot see what I am doing. So that makes me very upset.  I hope he can solve the problem, surely my eyes have not deteriorated that quickly. The glasses were not a good fit from the start.
Did you realize the manufacturers are making changes to the product so they can keep the prices the same. Well frankly I have not noticed that the prices are the same but I sure have noticed that the yarn I buy does not have the same amount of wool in each ball. I ran out of wool for the second red sock I completed recently and had to purchase another ball. I used to get 2 socks out of one ball of wool and have some left over for darning if needed.Haha, who darns.
This pair of brown ones I am doing is definitely going to be short of wool , so we have to go to Michael's for another ball. There was an article in the paper this morning that stated what I have already noticed. Spaghetti sauce with one serving short in a thinner bottle for example. Do you remember when they shortened the chocolate bar but kept the wrapping the same size.  We are in for another round of down sizing. Watch for it.
Have a nice evening despite the early dark.
Erev tov.

WD40

There has been a talk on one of my lists about WD40 and how it applies to quilting. Did you know that rotary blades can dry out and stick together, I had no idea at all that could happen. Apparently if you spray them with WD 40 it makes them separate and become usable again. It was funny because I had a little bit of information about how WD 40 got its name that I was intending to post here. The inventor of WD 40 tried many time while working on this invention of Water Displacement ,note WD. What does the 40 stand for, it stands for the number of times he tried and failed. Hmm does that recall to mind Robert the Bruce and the spider? So WD 40 belongs in your sewing room I guess.
After housework: the day was beautiful , one of those Autumn days that make you happy to be where Autumn happens.  Of course winter inevitably follows but it has its compensations too.
We went out to Surrey to a large quilt shop that carries yarn and knitting needles.
The store was empty, what a shock but eagle eyes Ray spotted a sign saying something and it had an arrow pointing south. I got out of the car , the sign said 2 doors down. I followed the arrow and came to a much smaller shop. However it was really warm and intimate and I liked it a lot better that the huge one. I told the owner so. She said they had to leave the former shop due to rent increases. That is happening all over the Lower Mainland due to the recession. It is hitting store owners very hard.She said that malls were selling out and rents were going up.  I hope that this shop can keep it together but for sure not on the sale I made today.
 I wanted some Bamboo needles size 4 1/2. They just had size 5 . I bought them anyway because I think I can compensate for the size by the fact that they are Bamboo. Then I bought a cute, cute kit for a baby bib for my new great grandchild who won't be arriving until January.   Who buys a kit for a bib,:)) well obviously some of us as there were several kits available.
Then we went to a very large mall, whatkind of  idiot goes to a mall on Sunday , well lots of us with the big I on our  foreheads. Parking was difficult, driving around the lot was difficult. Lucky us we found a handicap stall, usually they are full all the time too. Too many of us around nowadays. LOL
We decided to have lunch at the food court, Chinese food. I sat down at a table and a huge Asian man came by. He must have been at least 7 feet tall. We have many Asian people in Vancouver , most of them a modest height , and this man was the tallest man I have ever seen. He was tall, dark and  handsome , it was hard not to stare. I had to sneak looks LOL.
Ray loves the big horses Clydsdales, Percherons and Belgians ,he worked with them in the north woods of Ontario when he was young and still retains a love for them. I found a calendar with these horses as the theme ,they are hard to find so I bought it for him.
By then it was time to go home.

Isn't this adorable?

Have a good night tonight.

Bon nuit.

Party time

It's over but it was fun!! from left to right ,standing, Diana, Jan,Nan,Judith,JanKaren. Seated Left to right
Patti,Ellen,Jan. Notice there are three Jans out of nine of us. Good odds :) This photo taken at Jan's house  where we went for dessert after we had dinner . Which Jan you say -the Jan on my left was our hostess.

I'm the short one in the back. This was a retirement party from a long and happy teaching career for Judith the lady standing behind me. We have been together for at least 30 years and holding our pot luck get togethers every two months.   We think the retirees now outnumber the working stiffs. I ws the forst one to retire but that stands to reason as I am by far the oldest.

This event was held in a lovely restaurant with a French name Cordon Bleu which was /is on a very dark and deserted street. Quite creepy really as the restaurnant was the only lighted building on the street. Almost a film noir literally ;) I felt quite odd standing on the street waiting for Diane to get the van and come for me.  That was the end of my movie career LOL.

The menu was  lovely. I had a salad with warm brie and rack of lamb. The salad was delicious but the rack of lamb was out of this world, so tender and juicy and more than delicious. Scrumptious!!

We had a wonderful time there and the service was excellent.

At the restaurant

Ellen,Nan and Jan the younger LOL.

Diane always takes me to the pot lucks and she took me last night in her van. It was already dark when we started out and really dark when we came home so Diane walked me to my door. I use a cane now to keep my balance so I do appreciate the help.

Good friends like flowers precious and rare, false ones like autumn leaves found everywhere. 

Diane always quotes this little poem, hope I got it right haha. As I have said before Memory Fades!!

!!!!

I slept badly after I got home even though I was very tired. So tired my computer stayed off, hard to

believe isn't it. That did not bode well for today. We went grocery shopping, came home for lunch and I could not keep my eyes open so fell into bed for the afternoon. NO sewing- fiddlesticks.

I am reading a very good book -The Island- about lepers from Crete who were shipped to the island of Spinalonga which was Greece's  main leper colony from 1903 to 1957 when there was a cure found for the symptoms of leprosy and the colony was closed down. The story is the tale of a family whose mother was exposed to leprosy in her job as a teacher and both she and the boy who infected her were exiled to the island never to leave again. It is a most interesting story ,an easy read and well written by Victoria Hyslop.

I am taking the night off :))))

You too take the night off and have a good one. Kalispera.

chips

Eating chips because I am hungry and won't be eating dnner until nearly 8:00 tonight. It is my pot luck group and we are taking Judith out for a retirement dinner at a delicious French restaurant in North Vancouver down Lonsdale. This is the first time for me at that restaurant. I'll tell you all about it either later tonight or on tomorrow's blog. I expect it to be very yummy- according to Jan it will be.
Got a call from Tom's today saying that our class which is usually on Thursday has been moved to Wednesday as Thursday is Remembrance Day . Wednesday is Guild night for Kathy and me, but Tom's said they could hold it from 10:00 to 1:00.  Kathy just came by with some thread I ordered from Tom's , she was attending a class there without me   :( . Michelle said, Where's Nan? We are definitely a pair there.LOL  Kathy has the 11000 and needs to go for different lessons than I do with my 6600. Kathy's lesson today was stippling on the embroidery module. There that's Kathy's day haha.
Remembrance Day is very special to me because my dad was a veteran of WW1. He was in the European theatre of was for the whole four , fighting in all the major battles. Amazingly he survived it. I think that was because he was in The Royal Horse Artillery and had to take care of the horses  even though the horses had to drag up the cannons so he must have been at the front. Still if he had not come through the war I would not be here LOL> Thank you daddy!! Of course my dad has not been wth us since 1976 but I think of him every day and I think of my mom and brother as well.
Now for my day...... I went to the hairdresser  for a cut and she gave me a different hairdo that looks like I went through a windstorm. I'll get Ray to take my photo after I dress for the occasion tonight. Some may think I look cute :))))
Ray waited for me so we went up and walked the mall  for at least 30 minutes. I made it around the whole mall which is a big one. Not every day I can do that but I am happy on those days that I can get around like that. We had some soup and coffee at Tim Horton's.
Then I downloaded  a free AVG programme for my upstairs PC. That is such a slow   process but it is done  for a year now.
Afterward I pressed the binding for my SBS quilt ,rolled it and bagged it all for Lauren to quilt. Done,done,done Hurrah!!
Now all that is left to do is to get ready for tonight.
Have a great one folks. I may get back to you later. With my picture LOL.