New York - 2013

I didn't take a lot of pictures this year. We didn't do much sight seeing.  We mostly rested and walked around.  It was only a couple of days and we just weren't motivated to do a lot.  We did visit the 9/11 Memorial.  I took a video to try to capture the feel of the place.

Here's a picture of the Statue of Liberty from the boat at sunset -- or after sunset.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

This is one of the sail boats docked along the Hudson River.  You can't see how big it is, but it was immense.  Would be fun to take a "ride" in this.

 

And a couple of the videos I took.

 

I almost forgot to show this picture.  We walked from our hotel, along the river, to my office.  here's a nice shot of the new tower from Battery Park near my office.

video test

Big Brother is watching...

From google on my birthday ...



Creepy or cool? I'm not sure.  Of course, I gave them my birth date so I shouldn't be surprised. 

15 Minute Challenge

Well, I certainly am 15-minute challenged this week. I have completely fallen down on the job.  I have the duvet cover sort of pinned. I have the American Jane quilt sandwiched together.  I'm just not looking forward to doing any of it .. my creativity has flown.  I did, however, buy some fabric from Craftsy that was 60% off.

Sorry it's blurry...

I hope you all have had a better sewing/crafty week.  Hop on over to Kate's Life in Pieces and see what everyone else has worked on this week.

15 Minute Challenge

I'm linking up with Kate at Life In Pieces for the 15 minute challenge.  I was certainly "challenged" this week!

Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - more nothing
Thursday - pin duvet cover together
Friday - nada
Saturday - pyjamas, ring bearer pillow
Sunday - nothing crafty
Monday - even more nothing

I had what I consider a productive weekend -- or at least a productive Saturday. Sunday I didn't do any sewing but I did make biscotti and bread.  The biscotti was a recipe I got from Kate! A maple, walnut biscotti.  Yummy! I think that one has made it to the list for the wedding.  I need to decide which ones I'm going to make so I can be ready when it's time (the week before the wedding).

Anyway, hop on over to the 15 Minute Challenge and link up and check out what others have done this week.

Bread

So, I did everything this weekend except work on the duvet cover.  The bread tastes great - a little salty though (at least I've been super thirsty since I ate some so I'm guessing that's what caused it). The biscotti turned out great! (no pics).

I'm thinking I should have made four loaves instead of two.  what do you think?

Pyjamas and Pillows

So I finally did some sewing this weekend .. not quilting (at least not yet) but some sewing! Yay!!

The first thing I made was the sleepy pants / pyjamas that I have been talking about for ages.  I used some of the Christmas fabric my friend Jane gave me.  I think they turned out.  Not a great picture, but you get the idea.

And then I did a test run of the ring bearer pillow. 

The button and ribbon are not centered so I'll have to re-do that part. I'll have to see what my son's fiancee thinks of it.  She may have some other ideas of what it should look like.

Weekend Wonders

or wonder what I'll do this weekend.

Here are some things I'd like to do:

1 - pin duvet cover
2 - make new biscotti recipe
3 - bake bread

Here are some things I need to do:

1 - clean bathroom
2 - do laundry

That's a short enough list.  Let's see how far I get.

Wordless Wednesday

15 Minute Challenge

For sewing, this week was a bust, but I still did a few things sewing related so I'm linking up to the 15 minute challenge anyway.

Here's how my week went.

Tuesday - Nothing
Wednesday - took apart old duvet cover
Thursday - nada
Friday - zip
Saturday - zilch
Sunday - moved fabric around (cleaned room)
Monday - sorted through fabric

A good friend of mine gave me 9 boxes of fabric over the last two weeks and I needed to go through it, decide what I was going to keep, and find a taker for the rest.  I did all that.  Tomorrow night I will give the fabric I'm not keeping to its new owner.

My bedroom was taken over by boxes and a general mess so I focused on dealing with that this past weekend. After doing that, I think I've decided on the backing for the stacks quilt. And I'm definitely going to try making sleepy pants this weekend.  Sorting my fabric certainly makes me want to get moving.  So much fabric, so little time.


I washed the quilt that is on my bed this weekend and every time I look at it, I still love it. The simplicity, the geometry.

And, I probably should have saved this picture for tomorrow, but I couldn't resist posting it here.

 

Click here to link up with Kate at Life in Pieces or to check out how others are doing with their challenge and where they get their inspiration.

p.s. this is my 700th post.

Wordless Wednesday

15 Minute Challenge

Here's how my week went...

Tuesday - sewed the rest of the rows of the sock monkey quilt
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - cut batting for AJ quilt
Friday - nothing
Saturday - basted AJ quilt
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing

So, other than getting the AJ quilt ready to quilt I haven't done much this week.  I wanted to make a quilt for my DIL to give to someone, so maybe I'll finish up the sock monkey quilt.  I need to get the backing/binding which means a trip to Joann's.

I like the "collecting inspiration" theme for this month. I never thought of buying fabric or books as collecting inspiration before; I thought of it as accumulating more stuff.  Although it may seem like rationalization, I think "collecting inspiration" is an apt description and can make my purchases a little more thoughtful.

The things I collect for inspiration are books, magazines, and fabric.  Probably in that order.  I also print patterns from the internet -- I have a whole notebook of those.  My recent book purchases were Growing up Modern and Patchwork Please.  I got these because I like the bloggers who wrote them - Cluck Cluck Sew and Pink Penguin. 

Anyway, to report on how your week has been or to see how others have been doing, check out or link up to the 15 Minute Challenge at Life in Pieces.

American Jane - Basted

Thursday night I cut out the batting for the quilt and rolled it up, the way I saw on the Craftsy class I took (well took part of). 

Then today I basted the quilt.  Like Susan, at Canadian Abroad, I pinned my backing to the floor before doing the basting.  It actually made the basting easier and I don't have any tape so it was a great solution.

Here's the back of the backing

and the front after basting

And now I can start quilting. 

I think my goal will be to do a certain number of lines a night.  I think I'm going to do diagonal lines through each square and then maybe shadow lines around the blocks.  I have some pieced white pieces that I want to hide the piecing.