Summer is definitely here and I am loving all the very warm, dry weather with lots of sunshine.  Today was all about berries, quilts, flowers...how much better can it get.

I have picked my first dish of strawberries, just enough for me and so tasty.

Now, I have my favorite little spot in the yard where I love to go any time of the day.  I can enjoy my morning coffee or the cool afternoon shadows and enjoy my beautiful flowers.  Just had too much sun today to get a good picture of the roses in full bloom.

I have a couple new quilts to add to my Etsy Shop.  You can view by clicking here.  It has taken all spring to get decent photos taken.  Here are a couple shots

I was part of a Doll Quilt Swap on the Quilting Board for June.  My partner and I are still waiting for our quilts to arrive.  The post office is not doing anything speedy because they are not happy with their settlement.  I can't post my picture of this cute quilt I made.  As far as other project I added a piano key border to a string quilt so it is now ready to quilt.  I have a collection of summer theme blocks I received through a Birthday Block Swap and I have selected a few to make into summer place mats.  You can see the first one under my dish of strawberries.  I hope to do some more work on them this week.

I hope you are enjoying summer whether it be BBQ supper, holiday at the cottage, whatever it may be, may it be a great time .



The holiday is over and I am happy to be back.  I hope many of you have some exciting summer plans.  We took in some of our local Canada Day celebrations and the fire works were spectular.  Today, we hope our US friends have enjoyed a special July 4th celebration.

The postal strike is ended and what a relief.  It did nothing but create stress for those of us trying to ship parcels, letters, etc. to only find the government had locked the employees out.  We are only received 2 pieces of mail of any value since the workers were ordered back to work. 

I have taken part in the Quilting Board Doll Quilt Swap.  I have a wonderful partner Carron who lives in California.  We have enjoyed many messages to each other trying to figure out when it should be safe to mail our mini quilts.  They are gone off to their new homes but I cannot share a picture of my little darling I sent to Carron until she receives it, soon I am hopeful.  Now I am into the July Doll Quilt Swap with a new partner, Linny of Minnesota.  I have hers nearly done and it is very small.  I can hardly wait to get it off in the mail to her.

Another new adventure for this summer is a Postcard Swap.  I am in a group with 3 others doing a swap of "what is in your picnic basket".  I have never made a postcard so it should be interesting.  I went in search of a large piece of Peltex I had but I am fearful that ,not knowing what it actually was, I have thrown it out.  Oh dear, not a place in my town to buy fabric let alone Peltex.  I will try fusing together some pieces of cotton to see if I can get it stiff enough.  I am looking forward to this.  This is my type of break from making quilts during the summer.

I have done one small Charity project, Chemo hats.  A friend phoned me saying the local Cancer Office didn't have any chemo hats on hand and would I make some for a former employee.  Well they know me, of course and the next day I was off to the hospital to chat with the OR nurses about their cute hats they wear.  One was so kind and gave me one of hers to keep and take apart for a pattern.  I then had to search for some good fabric that would be cool during the summer months and came up with a nice jersey knit, a seersucker aqua cotton, and a red rayon.  I made 12 over the weekend and got  them delivered promptly.

I will share a secret with you.  I made a small quilt and made a mess of it.  I truly mean a real mess.  I even went to Christina of "A Few Scraps" for some help.  Then I prepared to rip out all the stitching I had done.  Shield your eyes, here it is!

See in the bottom left hand corner, that's were the worst is.  I have ripped everything out from the green checkerboard up.  Christina and others have suggested using a white thread on the white background using a dense pattern of paisley, flowers and add some butterflies, snails, worms, etc.  They have excited me and I am madly practicing some dense stitching.  I am not ready yet to go back to this finished item, just might muck it up again.  This is what is so wonderful about blogging and having so many great friends on the Internet.  You can get honest feedback on a problem as well as encouragement to keep working at it.  I would normally chuck this mess but I felt I had done a good job sewing the blocks together and it was worth having a second chance.

I am really tired out tonight so I am going to sign off.  I will try and return tomorrow with some pictures of something I have finished or something new I have started.  I hope each of you have a wonderful evening.

How have you all been.  I am so happy to be here today.  I have some great photos to show you.

Last weekend I went to our local Quilt Show.  It was small but what was on display was just as beautiful as any big show.  There display area wasn't real big so not easy to get every quilt shown but here are some:

The second and last pics were from a mystery quilt run by a LQS.  They were really beautiful and the applique really added a nice finish.  One of the nicest mystery patterns I have seen.  The quilt on the left side of the second picture was done as a first large quilt by a member who took part in a block exchange.  She added all kinds of small appliques and block and put every ones names in a border around each block.  I wish I had taken a better picture of it.  There was another room of smaller items which included, runners, apparel and some nice tables set for coffee and desert.  We had a great afternoon taking several tours of the displays and visiting over coffee.
If you are Canadian you have to watch hockey the past week whether you understand the game or not!  Game #7 on tomorrow night between Vancouver and Boston.  These 2 teams are so closely matched that the game could go either way, in any event, there will be 100,000 plus fans in the streets of Vancouver cheering and watching the game.  I will just say good luck to both teams and move over to a good baseball game.

I hope life is improving for all of you who have suffered from the flooding, fires, tornadoes that have been happening in many parts of the world.  I hope everyone has a great weekend and are able to celebrate Father's Day with your favorite Dad.

The winner of my draw for the boxy pouch and fabric is SkippityDoDahQuilts.  Thank you so much for stopping by and visiting my Etsy Shop.  I had lots of viewers visit this week, but not any that took time to post.  I will have another giveaway soon.  You can visit SkippityDoDahQuilts  here, she does some very awesome projects. 

Today we are going to attempt at planting the garden and put out the rest of the flowers.  Boy, we had a risk of mixed precipitation Friday night.  Got down to +3C, pretty scary.  I have to share this funny picture with you, my DH put his tomatoes to bed Friday night with these paper sacks just so they would not freeze; it worked.  I am sure the neighbors wonder about us sometimes.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend .

Amy Bradley has a new fun pattern out and you can have a chance to win it free here on Ruby's blog.  Hurry over as the draw takes place on Friday.

Good Day everyone, looks like the weather is settling down everywhere, we hope.  I promised some news today so here it is, I Have Opened My Etsy Shop, yes, it is open.  Go to Etsy.com and search SamanthasHouse. I haven't figured out how to do a link from here to there. This technical stuff is really hard for me so it takes me time to do things that may only take you a few minutes. 


I have decided that today I should have a giveaway, good idea?  Yes, mostly I want to thank my followers and all of you who come an view my blog or leave a comment.  Having you here just means so much when you start a blog.  So my thank you to you is this

I made one of my boxy pouches and I hope you like the color I chose.  I am sure that anyone can find a good use for this little pouch.  You can use it to carry your small take along projects in or maybe just some cosmetics.  I have included 3 FQs so you can make your own small item and I have wrapped them in a sample of my new ribbon I will use at my Etsy Shop:  SamanthasHouse

To enter you need to be a follower of my blog and tell me what items I have for sale in my shop.  Just 1 entery per person.  I will draw the lucky winner on Sunday, June 5, 2011.  So hurry over to my shop and see what's there and then come back and leave a comment.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be back Sunday to announce the lucky winner.

Hi, I am Hooty and I just flew in at Samantha's House



Well, how is everyone today?  Hope you had lots of sunshine as we did, just a lovely day.  I keep talking about sunshine because a city like Toronto has only had 5 sunny days this spring vs 28 last year and temps at 5 C vs 28C last year!

I love my little Hooty that I designed and sewed up today.  He is about 7x10" and so cuddly and totally child proof....nothing hard....nothing can fall off.  He is made of poly fleece and stuffed with a poly stuffing.  I plan to offer him in my shop which is coming soon.

Our Cancer Society is hosting the Relay for Life this weekend.  I donated a lovely pink quilt that I made from a mystery design by Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville called Double Delight.  Sorry, I didn't take a picture before I turned it over to them.  On another note, we are a Regional Hospital and serving a large farming and ranching community in Southwest Saskatchewan.  Many people now come to our hospital for part of their chemo treatments and surgery when needed.  I approached our local committee about distributing quilts, afghans, shawls and anything else that might bring the clients some comfort while dealing with this terrible disease.  I just received word that they would take on this project and I am thrilled I will be able to direct my quilt donations to our own local people.  Here are 3 I have just taken to them.

I love making string quilts and I sew them to a fabric foundation.  I used a fleece for the backing with no batting.  I love how it turned out.  Here is a closeup

Another smaller string quilt that I added some cute prairie points to

The next one is partially refurbished fabric that I found at a garage sale.  It has a cute light hearted theme in bright colors.

I know many of you readers make donations to various charities.  Doesn't it give you a good feeling of warmth to visualize someone in need receiving a nice handmade gift?  I love it and will make as many blankets as I can get together.  My goal each year is 9 but so far I have only managed 6.

In closing, I want to share my most recent purchase.

Oh, my picture isn't very good.  These are labels printed with "Samantha'sHouse.blogspot.com" that I can sew on my projects that will go into my shop.  I have looked and looked and was thrilled to find these that Michelle custom designed for me.  You can have some too by visiting her Etsy shop "Inked Papers".

I am going to have something special for all my viewers and followers on Wednesday, June 1.  I know you are going to like it so I will see you then.  Have a great week.