Death and Taxes

Let's be honest. Taxes are no fun. For us it is business tax time. They are draining me of my will to live, people!!

Not much happening on the sewing front. Here's a little update.

Compiled a little menagerie, in varying degrees of stuffedness.

Picked up some onesies from H&M, so that I can applique some of the world's most expensive fabric for my future niece or nephew to drool on.

Dug this sweater out of my closet. That's a Kaffe Fasset pattern that I knitted almost twenty years ago, and accidentally felted almost ten years ago. 

 
I still love the design, and there is a fair amount of fabric in it -- could be a good handbag, or knitting basket? Maybe a cushion? Any suggestions?

Pirate quilt? No progress.

Eleventy thousand other christmas-related projects? No progress.

Sew Mama Sew is having their December giveaway day next Monday, and I have a little something that has been waiting for a loving home -- I am thinking giveaway day is the perfect occasion to find one...here's a hint:

Linking up to WIP Wednesday. As soon as I have uncrumpled enough receipts to justify a little break/procrastination, I will be checking out all the awesomeness of WIP Wednesday!

Thanks for visiting, and for your thoughts in this taxing time. (Sorry. It was funny in my head.)

Chez Shea

My biggest accomplishment this week was finally getting to attend the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild meeting - so fun! I have to say, the show and tell was dominated by a lot of ridiculously talented quilters. Seriously, people were pulling out two, three or more quilts of amazing quality. I felt like a serious underachiever with only one (not even a quilt!) item! Just kidding, I was thrilled to be able to show my cathedral windows pillow, all sewn up.

Now it is living on my sewing chair, to keep it away from my crayola-graffiti lovin' children. I think I probably have another cathedral window project in me, but I will never be making a full quilt out of them!

Work continued on the pirate quilt:

I'm kind of making it up as I go along, but my son wanted his name on it, so I paper pieced that this weekend. (And now you know part of the origin of my blog name - Chez rhymes with Shea!) Hopefully this top will grow some more over the next week.

I also made a couple of these Orla Kiely inspired scrappy sprout blocks for Traceyjay.

This week there is a great blog hop going on featuring Canadian quilters, Blogathon Canada

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Plum & June's Monday link up.

Thanks for visiting y'all!

 

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Surf, snow and cathedral windows. (And a giveaway winner!)

I believe that only Canadians will go out and surf in the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean in November ... and so I guess my boys are true Canadians.

That's my boy getting up for his first time on a surf board with his instructor cheering him on, and his dad watching in the background. Yay!!

Yes, it was pretty spectacular weather for November, but the next day was back to normal.

And we saw our first snow of the year driving back home.

Brrr!

Now back to the topic at hand -- after being bitten by the Cathedral window bug a couple of weeks ago, I had to give the cushion a go. I have a little Ikea bolster with a cover that has seen better days, so I thought it would be a good pillow to window-ize, as it's smaller than your average pillow.

It's obviously not finished yet, but I kind of love it.

Hellooo, baby!

And, before I forget (seriously, if I get up and walk away, I will forget!), mr. Random Number Generator says that, in this case, the early bird really does get the worm... The giveaway winner is #1

Congratulations, Elaine! I will be emailing you to get your address.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and everyone who follows or subscribes or reads Chez Roo on a semi regular basis. Elaine is right, it is awesome to have this little community -- I heart you guys.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

 

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Chop chop!

That's what I have been up to.

I saw this at the fabric store, while I was on a completely unrelated mission, and immediately thought of all the birthday and Christmas gifts coming up for little people, and the stuffies/pillows on Sewlandia's blog. Chop, chop, and the next thing I know, it's coming home with me.

I also made a secret something for somebody secret... (sssh, Xmas related). Here's a peek:

That little guy is so cute.

But I can show you these little lovebugs:

Head on over to my giveaway (over here) if you'd like the chance to win this earbud/coin zippy case, and a charm pack of Nancy Drew fabric! You have until Tues Nov 13 at 9pm PST. It's a little thank you to celebrate reaching 50 followers - thank you all so much for visiting and for coming back :)

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

 

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Follower Appreciation Giveaway!

**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**

In appreciation for reaching over 50 followers (!), I'm having a little giveaway for this charm pack of Moda's Get a Clue with Nancy Drew fabric. You can see all the fabrics in the pack here. I love the book print most of all!

And I broke out my Heather Ross Spoonflower fabrics to make a little earbud/coin case to accompany Miss Nancy Drew. I hope you like it!

This giveaway is open to followers, old and new. I am so appreciative of you all stopping by and reading, it is so wonderful to be able to share my crafty obsessions with you. My husband tries to be supportive and appreciative, but he still refers to knitting stitches as "knots" - I know I can count on you guys to speak my language!!

To enter, leave a comment to let me know that you are a follower - just one comment per person please. That's it. Please make sure I can contact you if you win - if you're a no-reply blogger please leave your email in the comment -- eg., nancydrew (at) email (dot) com. International entries are welcome, giveaway closes at 9pm PST on Tuesday November 13.

Thanks again! I will announce a winner on Wednesday November 14.

Other than that, so far this week I just did a little blog revamping ... it's a work in progress, but it does feel like there's a little more room to breathe now. If you take a peek at the top of the page you'll see I added a tab for patterns and tutorials. You can find my Tea Squared Tea Cozy tutorial, and I just uploaded the shark pattern for those people who mentioned that they might like it. I hope to add to that section in the near future.

In other news, here are the latest bloggers in the Let's Get Acquainted blog hop:

Nov 1

Kelly at Live. Love. Create
Wendi at Bethadee Zoo

Nov 6

Gertie from Quilting for England

Christa from Christa Quilts

And there is a new blog hop for Canadian bloggers, Blogathon Canada, from Sew Sisters. Check it out!

Thanks for visiting, y'all, and don't forget to enter the giveaway!

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