Soup's on

This afternoon I enjoyed a foodie and fabric outing with my dad (fabric not so much a stop for him). We picked up wonderful gouda at a Dutch cheese shop out in the country. You can peek in the aging room to see the shelves from floor to ceiling of cheese wheels - 3,000 or so of them! Next we stopped at Victoria Street Market, where I picked up a few treats including smoked European bacon. Mmm ... bacon.

Then after a leisurely lunch (partly to do with the slow service) it was onto my favourite local fabric shop Greenwood, which just got in the awesome Collage collection. Thanks to a couple sweet CFFs who kindly gave me gift certificates for my birthday, I picked up a FQ bundle of Collage and a charcoal Kona for the background that I'll use to make a lap quilt in this fun Tiny Dancers pattern.

I also picked up a wee bit more of the retro whimsy of Fort Firefly to add a border to a nifty quilt combining Fort Firefly and Camp Modern. These colours are perfect for my living room.

After a few more chores it was time to think about dinner. I whipped up a pot of this Ginger Coconut Milk Soup. Mine included lotsa ginger, sweet potato, baby kale and white mushrooms. So tasty and so easy.

Getting things done

This weekend I packed in some solid crafting time, starting with pinning my Moroccan tile quilt. I hoped to get going on the quilting, but ran out of time.

During a recent stop at Fabricland to pick up half-priced batting for an upcoming weekend quilting workshop with some great CFFs that my mom kindly offered to teach, I noticed off-the-charts cute flannel FQs. My mind started racing trying to come up with something to make with them. I recently read a blog post where the woman said she tries not to buy fabric without having a plan for it, and that struck me as being pretty wise. I'm not going to even imagine for a moment I can stick with that approach (there's so much irresistible fabric!!!), but it got me to thinking I should at least try to do that more often (after looking through my abundant stash).

I remembered my friend saying recently that her daughter was upset she had to leave at home her sock monkey blanket, so I figured I could make a travel-sized cuddly blanket for her. I didn't really even know that was a thing until a shot-in-the-dark google search brought me to security blankets and this sweet little one using ric-rac. Can't resist any project with ric-rac! Especially when combined with these ridiculously cute farm animals.

Then I spotted cute retro kitty and floral fabric in my stash and thought they'd make cute pillows to go with the blanket. Unfortunately I discovered I only had a half-metre of each, so instead I picked out these sweet and super girly prints that I've been holding onto for quite sometime.

But I still wanted to make something with the kitty fabric, so I went with a drawstring pouch to put the blanket and pillowcases in. How freaking cute is this bag for a little girl to hide away all her treasures?

I found a string of yellow flowers and sewed them on with a wavy stitch to add a little colour and fun. (Not so much fun for me because I mistakenly sewed the front side of the flowers down and then I lost my focus while ripping out the stitches and had to re-do a line of top-stitching I attacked with the ripper.)

I whipped up another two sets of pillowcases, including these with Jay McCarroll fabric.

Finally it was time to take a break from the sewing machine and head into the kitchen to tackle dinner. I made stuffed peppers with ground chicken, rice and onions topped with bread crumbs. With acorn squash on the side, it was a warming dinner for a cold day.

I hope everyone else had a lovely weekend with lots of time for crafting!