Wednesday 24 December 2014

Merry Christmas from Madame Muriel

Madame Muriel is stopping by to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2015.


Monday 15 December 2014

and the winner is .......

Clare. Please send me your mailing address to drewsgrands@hotmail.com and I will get the pattern and goodies off to you right away!

Tuesday 9 December 2014

FLAG

I received this pattern back in September. It was my intention to stitch it and pass it on right away.
Life got away with me and it did not happen.

It is ready to be passed on. There is something extra with this one.
The person who received this pattern will receive a package from me containing gifts starting with the letters F, L, A and G. You must agree to do the same thing when you are ready to pass it on.

Here is a photo of the pattern and the packaged gifts I received. I won't show you what's in the packages. Your package is wrapped and ready to go.

If you are interested in stitching this pattern next, please leave a comment at the end of this post and I will draw a name on December 15th.

I cannot find my photo of my finished piece. If I do I will add it later. 

Thursday 25 September 2014

Crazy Busy Life

What a crazy life I lead. There are never enough hours in a day or days in a week. Poor Muriel must think she lives in a whirlwind.

In late August, Beatrice and I took Muriel and off we went quilt shop hopping. We spend the day in the Kingston area. We visited with our sweet friend, Rebecca and went for lunch at a great deli. Rebecca and Muriel get acquainted.


We visited three lovely quilt shops. All of the owners were delighted to meet Muriel and happy to have her photographed in their shops while we browsed the fabrics and bought more stash.

Stitch By Stitch

Quilt Thyme

Wilton Creek Fabrics



Shortly after, my youngest son and his family came for a visit to Trenton. Our DIL and grandkids had never seen the view of our city from the top of Mount Pelion. We took the morning and did the tour. Of course, Muriel had to come along. I wanted to introduce her to our beautiful waterfront city.

This cannon has been there since the 1800's. When I was a junior in high school, I belonged to the History Club and one of our projects was to scrape and refresh the paint on this cannon. I wonder how many coats of paint have been added since then.

Muriel on the Cannon

Playing with Mom

Playing with Dad

Overlook with the kids and grandkids


View of the Trent River to the north


View of the Bay of Quinte to the south.


View of the streets from the Mount.


View of the paper mill and the Trent River.


Muriel on the post with the Bay of Quinte in the background. The bay leads to Lake Ontario.


Muriel on the commemorative sign


Family in front of the sign
.

Our next stop was the Bleasdell Boulder. There is not another rock any where near this size for 26 miles but this monster is in the bush all by itself. It had apparently been rolled there by a glacier.

Muriel on the boulder


Grandkids acting like cave men at the boulder


3 generations strolling down the path.


Oh and stitching. Yes I did a bit of stitching.

Here is my finished Ursula Michael "Let's Visit Canada" on 32 count white lugana with DMC 321.


I LOVE it.

I am not sure if I will frame it or quilt it.

Thursday 4 September 2014

Muriel and the Stitching Weekend

WARNING PHOTO INTENSIVE!!!!!

Muriel has finally been able to attend a stitching get together. She was starting to complain about how many quilt shops she had been to and after all, SHE is a stitcher.

Before I show you the fun of the weekend, here is a photo of Muriel actually getting some stitching done.


She is sitting in a very quiet spot on my antique sewing machine nestled amit the scissor frogs and their scissors.

What a fun weekend we had! The most wonderful women comprise my stitching friends.

                                                Angie, Christin, Bonnie, Barb, Clare, Judie
                                                 Beatrice, Sheila, myself, Muriel and Dani
                                     Fran has slipped into the photo and Dani is taking the photo.
                                     Missing from the photos were Ann, Beth, Kim, Pat and Bernie.


 We laughed and talked and ate and stitched for 4 days.

There were the most wonderful treats. My coffee table was full at all times. Someone sneaked in a basket of grapes so we could pretend we did eat healthy too.


 Muriel  had her share of treats.


During one meal time, I went downstairs to get some things from the fridge. Look where I found Madame Muriel - nestled between a bottle of Steam Whistle, a bottle of Reisling and some of my DH's home made beer.

I guess the place got too noisy or she got thirsty and I forgot to give her a drink. She was unusally mum about her trip to the downstairs fridge.

Here I am researching different fabrics looking for one for a specific project. There are some wonderful enablers!


Modelling the quilted table topper I am working on.


Dani and Christin celebrated their 20 year friendship on the weekend. Great excuse for cake!


Several of us had matching t-shirts.

The comment has been made that Madame Muriel (in the photo) should have a t-shirt too. I think that is beyond my capabilities! I have been asked where we got the T-shirts. They came from our LNS. The link is below.

And the stitching commenced

Sheila
Judie
Sheila and Judie
Barb
Barb, Sheila and Beatrice
Clare
Angie, Clare and me looking at my Desert Mandala
Ann McDonald (our LNS owner and friend)
Bonnie
Angie
Christin
Clare and Sheila discussing the frog infested RR I had completed

All of this stitching and eating and talking and hosting exhausted me. Dani caught me having a little afternoon nap!



Till the next adventure from Muriel and I, keep on stitching.

Tuesday 26 August 2014

Muriel takes a road trip

It was a beautiful sunny day. Beatrice and I decided it was the perfect time for a road trip. We headed west to Port Hope. We remembered a lovely quilt shop Cozy Quilts that we had stopped at a couple of years ago and decided to stop in. The shop has been relocated. What a lovely setup she has.The shop was beautiful and the fabrics and finished quilts were amazing. The owne r(Shahena Fredricks) was the sweetest, friendliest person. We chatted with her for a considerable amount of time and she never made us feel unwelcome.
We explained Madame Muriel to her. She loved the idea. Here she is with Muriel and me.


While Beatrice and I shopped, Muriel wandered the shop. When I checked my camera at the end of the day I found several shots of Madame. Here she is in the threads.
.

Next, I find she was in the pile of fat quarters admiring the wonderful colors.


After all that shopping, Beatrice and I were ready  for some lunch. We went to a lovely deli called Basil's. Muriel had to have her photo taken with the backdrop.

 She looks like she is sitting on the chair in the photo lol.

Our next stop was Herma's. Muriel loved all the glitz and glitter and insisted on being photographed everywhere.

On the store sign


On the sculpture outside


On top of the angel sculpture

On the Spode tea set


In the crystal Christmas tree



Amongst all the glittery jewelry



 and snuggled into the chocolate.


I insisted that she have her photo taken with the Canadian Maple Syrup.


Our next stop was Primitive Design. What a unique and interesting store this was.
There was the most awesome stuff everywhere.

Here is Muriel on the carved dragon


On the carved Indian


Resting with me on the awesome throne



and posing with me and Optimus Prime. You can barely see her over my left shoulder.


Along with Optimus Prime, they had BumbleBee and Megatron. I was very excited to see these artworks and they did not disappoint.My grandsons were very impressed that I had my photo taking with the Prime.



Beatrice is posing with an elephant made from driftwood.


What a fun day we had. All three of us were tired and ready to go home. A stop at a local ice cream shop ended our adventure.

Muriel says she is happy to rest for a few days.

I've been working on my nutcracker stocking with little show as it's all backstitching. I have decided to concentrate on it for a while as I would love to have it done for my grandson at Christmas this year.