Summer is Slipping By...

Here we are enjoying our first summer in our "new" house, enjoying all that Mahone Bay has to offer and continuing with smallish renovation projects. Nothing too ambitious that it won't get in the way of Peter's golf games or sailing plans! 

The flowering crabapple just after a rain, it is now full of very tiny "apples'.

The garden continues to surprise us every day. The rhododendrons and roses have been wonderful though they suffered from the high winds and rain of post tropical storm Arthur. Thankfully all the huge trees on and around our property stayed up! Lots of leaves came down and small branches. The town came through pretty well compared to other parts of Nova Scotia and we only lost power for 3 hours, lucky us.

Looking from the PEI side, it sure is an engineering marvel. You can read about it here.

We took a day trip to Prince Edward Island, on the hunt for some upholstery fabric at the Bargain Fabric Outlet in North Bedque, just across the Confederation Bridge. I had never been to PEI via the bridge so that was pretty cool and it was a beautiful day. And I found just the fabric for the two chairs that are desperate to be reupholstered. Now to fins a new smaller sofa and then tackle redecorating the den. But that is too bi a project for right now, maybe in the fall. Right now Peter is painting the downstairs bathroom, which used to be a pantry and enclosed staircase to the back (maid's?) bedroom.

I haven't been doing much quilting, I desperately needed some inspiration. Something or someone to give me a good swift kick and say "just do it". Well, that person just happened to be Kaffe Fassett! I heard last winter from a friend that Kaffe was coming to Nova Scotia for workshops in Amherst at Deanne Fitzpatrick's rug hooking studio. 

Yes, that's Kaffe Fassett getting his microphone adjusted.

We just knew that if Kaffe was willing we could get a bunch of quilters together and bring him to Halifax for a lecture. Long story short the three local Guilds did just that, we asked and he came! We booked a wonderful lecture theatre at Saint Mary's University and sold all 171 tickets. Suttles and Seawinds set up shop with a lot of Kaffe's fabrics and the university bookstore sold Kaffe's latest three quilt books. terrific co-operation from all involved and all without a meeting...just over 150 emails!

So I am back to "work", I have almost finished piecing my challenge for the Mahone Bay Quilt Guild's bi-annual quilt show in October, I have been quilting my redwork quilt as well as hand appliqueing a border for my Antique Flower Vase quilt and I have one last challenge to finsh ( a year later!) for my bee challenges that will hang in our quilt show. 

And then there is the garden, it is a beautiful day here today so I think I will head outside!

The BIG Launch

Sydney Smith, Kate Inglis and Chris "Old Man" Luedecke

You know you are really an author when your second book gets published! We were so thrilled when three years of work culminated in a wonderful book launch for our daughter Kate Inglis last Saturday. And what could be a more special place to hold the launch than the Small Craft Gallery at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax. Friend and banjo player extraordinare, Chris "Old Man" Luedecke sang and played his banjo in between Kate's readings. So special, a prefect combination.

A perfect place to let this book Flight of the Griffons set sail and take Kate on another wonderous adventure.

Kate drew this when she was 6! I am so glad I kept it!

Kate, with braids and glasses, grade primary, Tower Rd School

Look what we started!

Kate has always wanted to be an author, she began at a very young age, perhaps when she was about 4 when she would staple pages together and "write" books! I was so glad I kept quite a few of them and that they are now her treasures. She read at an early age thanks to her wonderful teacher, Mrs. Douthwaite at the All Saints Church of England Promary School in Gosforth, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England (we were there on a year long sabbatical). Kate was further encouraged by her primary teacher, Jane Michaud at Tower Rd School in Haliax, there was no going back now!

Two boys, Ben and Evan - so proud of their Mom.

Kate's first book The Dread Crew - Pirates of the Backwoods, was published in 2009. Flight of the Griffons is the sequel, featuring many of the same characters and introducing some new ones. The illustrations are wonderful, captured perfectly by Sydney Smith. You can find Sydney here and here. There is a wonderful review here posted on the website Finding Wonderland. Books can be ordered direct from Nimbus or from the very best children's bookstore Woozles (yes, they love to do mail orders!).

Needless to say we are very proud of Kate and what she has accomplished - can't wait for the next one - now I need to get back to some quilting!

(There are more pictures from the book launch on my Flickr page here)

More Renovations

First layer of carpet is rolled up, second layer ready to go!

We are gradually making headway with the house renovations. It is a big job but we are making progress. Next on our list after Peter replaced 22 windows was to tackle the floor in our bedroom, get rid of the old carpet and paint the floor.

Second layer rolled, old linoleum revealed.

The carpet was not wall to wall, it was meant to be but it was too small so it was just there! We knew that there was a second layer of carpet underneath, smaller than the first. We moved all the furniture out and proceeded to roll up the two layers of carpet. Our incentive was "spring clean-up" day when we could put anything out at the curb for pick up!

Several layers of printed oil cloth

Closeup of the oil cloth exposing the burlap backing

When we started to roll up the second layer of carpet we realized there was a layer of linoleum. It was quite brittle, no idea how long it had been there. As we started to roll we soon saw more layers underneath. We realized they were a printed oil cloth, at least three different patterns. It was stuck together in several places!

Some of it was "imperfect"!

Not as much variety in the width of the floorboards as there is downstairs.

A few treasures found, a 1964 stamp - the year my family moved to Nova Scotia from Toronto!

It was great to get it all up and out of the house, much healthier for sure! The floorboards in the middle had never been painted so Peter did one coat of primer then 3 coats of paint. We decided to keep it light and airy and I think it worked!

All done!

For now the walls will stay blue, goes well with my "Herringbone Blues" quilt. The quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted by Donna Hazelton (Digby), she did a super job. The walls will eventually be repainted. They were wallpaper at one time and were painted over, as were a number of walls in the house. That is going to be quite the job to strip the painted wallpaper, a job for another day!