Oh Boy!

You are probably wondering why the picture of the Fisher Price Doctors kit. Yeah it's been a while since I have played Dr. but today someone we all know and love is not playing Dr. but the real thing. Myra is having emergency surgery today! It would be really neat if you would all leave a little get well message, so when she gets home and back to the computer she will have a little surprise. Notice how I wrapped the Dr. stuff in a qult? I will let her tell you the details when she's back an well.

And it never fails, she always gets sick when we are busy working on deadlines - wish me luck!!

The next photo is an invitation we got in the mail this week and it's also a clue to what I have been frantically working on this week. It's all in the hands of our trusty quilter...maybe we should send her some good luck messages too :)
Unfortunately we can not join the staff at Robert Kaufman at Market next weekend :( oh well, the invitation was so nice to get!!

There will be a whole lot more NEW stuff coming over the next few days. Thanks for watching.

GET BETTER soon Myra!

~c

Surprises are the best!
I wanted to blog so badly this weekend but we were working from a secret location from Friday - Sunday! You know her as our guest blogger, she is an "employee", our friend Karen. This trip was a spur of the moment type trip but we just couldn't resist going to Ignace ON. We had a lovely 6hour drive, with visits to three fabric shops; Oma's in Grunthal, Cottage Country in Keewatin and AJ's is Dryden. Oh what fun! You really must take a trip to all those stores, they had great stuff.

So the best part of this trip was the surprise. Karen told no one that we were coming! There is a large group of ladies in Ignace that have supported us from our very first teaching trip. The plan was to work like crazy all day and evening on Saturday. Then on Sunday this group would be meeting to have a sewing day, that is were the biggest surprise came to be. We casually walked into the room "asking for directions" you should have seen the stunned look on their faces. "What are you doing here?", we stayed to chat and catch up and then we hopped back into the car and headed home.

The second and third pictures are photos from Karen's screen porch...not a bad place to work hey? What a view!! We did so much and were SO inspired I don't even know what to tell you. The things we learned and accomplished in one day was overwhelming. The last picture is of another special "surprisee". Karen's friend (and ours too) from Stonewall MB (yes she only lives 2 hours from us and we drove 6 to surprise her!) was at Karen's for the weekend. She didn't know we were coming either! We had a fabulous time of creativity, inspirations & friendship. Thanks Karen, Judy & the "Ignace sewing group" for allowing us to crash your party!!

p.s we worked on the website, so with any luck that new home page should be up and running shortly ;)



~c

Back to School


Ahhh...do you hear that....exactly, it's quiet here today. Our kids started school yesterday, grade 2 & 5. This is a snipet of our annual back to school photo. The kids were happy to go back, my daughter more so than my son, but they booth had GREAT 1st day back. So what did I do yesterday? Myra and I spent the day working. It had been a really long time since we had a day to do some errands, meetings, a photo shoot a yummy lunch and lots of talk.

We have this beautiful walk way in Winkler along 15th street. We took many photo's along the garden path. Across the street is our local park and all of a sudden a looked over at the park and there was a group of mom's watching us. I told Myra "they probably think we are crazy! "Well not two minutes later a mom walked over...it just happened to be Myra's cousin! She said she thought that had to be Myra...who else would be taking pictures of quilts? So we walked over to the park to continue our photo shoot. Next we took a photo of our pattern Crayon Box and right on cue this sweet little girl runs into the photo unknowingly of course, just playing! So we landed up chatting with some of the mom's in the group, they were very interested in our quilts, especially the baby quilts. Yes, that's right, I am not showing you ALL the pictures we took yesterday, you will have to wait on those.

In that mom's group was another young lady, whom Myra and I got re-acquainted with. Yes, she's younger than us but I knew her from our Church, so we played a short version of the Mennonite game and off we were, many connections. Then we found out what she is up to, and architect and photographer. She gave us some great photo tips and then asked to use our camera...SURE!!! The last picture is one that Tracy took. Let's just say it's a sneak peak of a new and upcoming pattern :)

Well that was our day...I hope if you have children that have gone back to school, that you too have a nice quiet day.

~c

Shaking the family tree.

(I apologize for the lack of pictures, and tons of text, but this post is still somewhat quilt related.)

I am beginning a post today, that I have thought about for a long time. Two years ago, two separate events occurred that made me stand back, and look at things in a new perspective. Since that time, I have always pondered the question. Is my creativity in fabric a talent? Or is it in me from my Heritage? Now don't doubt me for a moment when I say that I believe everyone has their own special God-given talent, but I still wonder if being artistic in fabric can be a part of our very complex DNA.

The first eye opening event that happened, was a family gathering. It was a one of those huge, extended, bringing-people-from-all-corners-of-the-earth, types of gatherings. And I didn't attend. But not to worry, my mother was there, and came home with a wonderful file of family info. Thanks to her cousin from Alberta, I now had one part of my family tree...that can be traced all the way back to 1480. My 9th Great Grandfather was Jakob Harnasveger, from Amsterdam, Netherlands. From there, his decedents are the famed, Gysbert (Geijsbert) Deveers. (They must me famous...otherwise why would you pass down that name for the next four generations?) But what caught my eye, was Gysbert Deveer III. He was born in 1600 in Amsterdam, and his listed occupation was 'fabric merchant'. WOW! My great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather sold fabric! This is where I could sit and ponder deep thoughts for hours. What did his fabric look like? Where was it made? What were the colors? What were the designs. What would he think of me, generations later, working in the same industry? So is my love of fabric a random coincidence, or is it a shared love? Whatever the answer, I suddenly felt some connection to my family tree.

Last night, I had a chance to sift through more of my family history, and I made another discovery. My family lived in Danzig Prussia for several hundred years. I had never heard of it, so I looked it up. What a fascinating story of Danzig! It was called the Free City, and I wish that I would have had a chance to visit it. It was destroyed by the Nazi's during WWII. But I did find our Prussian coat of arms. Finding our Coat of arms taught me two things about my family.
1) They must have been quilters. Look at that center crest, it is clearly a scrap quilt.
2) They had great abs...even for old guys.

So, what is your opinion? I know people who have a musical talent, and you can see that it runs in their family. So what about creating with textiles? Is that also something that can run through your blood? I will keep pondering that for a while.

And maybe sometime soon, I will share with you the other event that brought about this train of thought. And it has to do with our family treasure chest.

myra