The Sweetest Thing!

Hi Everyone!

 Hope all of you are doing well. I'm sure you are all starting to work on your fall projects. I have a few fall projects in mind and will start them soon. Today was my day off and the day was beautiful. I decided to call my mom and asked of she wanted to come for an adventure with me. Mom loves to go on adventures so she was game for a little car ride.

This one of the Signs for the Lolly Gobble.

 We live in Sooke and I was needing some candy. I love candy and have my favorite shops that I go to for some of my favorite sweet treats. It was nice and I have a road trip buddy. I pick up my mom and we start the hour long drive to beautiful Sidney. Here on Vancouver Island this is a cute little town that has tons of secondhand book stores, great restaurants and my favorite candy store. Candy makes me smile and you can forget your troubles for a while. The store that I love is called Lolly Gobble Sweet Shop. From the moment you turn the corner it looks whimsical and so happy and inviting. My heart always races with happiness. Then you walk in and you see the most amazing selections of candy. Every time I have gone here the staff are friendly and so helpful. Today I met Ann the owner. You can tell she loves candy and her pride and happiness comes through in her store. I over heard her talking about licorice with a customer. I had no idea there were so many difference kinds and she knew what they all tasted like. I was impressed. She knows her stuff. The lady she was helping was not to sure about trying it but Ann gave her a taste and the woman was so happy she bought some of the new licorice. This is a store that wants you to enjoy what you are buying and I love that. They also do candy bouquets. These are so cool. What a great idea for those who have allergies and those who need to be careful they have sugar free ones as well. This is shop that is a must see. The bouquets are a must have. Hint hint Halloween and Christmas is just around the corner. Oh I forgot to mention Ann is a quilter and was very happy to let me take photos of her shop for my blog. Next time you are in Sidney stop in to Lolly Gobble and pick up something for that sweet tooth we all pretend we don't have. The addresss is 9774 Third Street Sidney BC. The website is www.lollygobblesweets.com
Now for the fun stuff. The photos. Thank you Ann for letting me share your store and for all the candy recommendations.

This is the outside of the store. I love it!

My favorite view. This photo is taken from the entry of the store, Makes me smile!

 The Bouqets are AWESOME! These can be ordered and delivered anywhere in the world via fed ex or locally here in Victoria! What a great idea.

Now a tour around her shop. There is great selection of British Import Candy and all your other favorites. Sorry if some of the pictures are blurry they were taken with my iPhone as I did not have my camera with me.

The British Import section.

This is all the different Licorice this shop has.

This shelf contains my FAVORITE candies. The Bon Bons on the top shelf.

It's all going to the dogs!

Every year our company sends their managers and assistant managers to conference. This years conference is in Turks and Caicos. It's a hard job but some one had to do it. We usually stay at the Sandals or Beaches resorts. The cool thing about this chain of resorts is they give back to communities they are in. So every year the managers and assistant manager have to fund raise. This money goes towards local community projects that while on conference they work on. In the past we have rebuilt conch farms that have been destroyed by hurricanes, built bee boxes so a small community can harvest and sell honey, built library's we even brought one community computers. I had the honor of going on a trip to Jamaica and the project I worked on was a green space for kids to play in. It was one of my most memorable moments. I always like to help fund raise. Each person that goes has to raise money to help with the projects. My sister kindly went through he stash and donated some fabric for us. So we have some fabric now what should we make that is quick and easy? Then it hits me. Let's make some bandana's for people's dogs. We sent an email out and for $10 they could get a bandana with their dogs name embroidered on it. We did not think it was going to be as popular as it was. We got orders from all over Canada. All in all I have made over 30 of these bandana's. I even had my machine going at work. I'm finishing off the last 6 today and hopefully that is it. It's for a great cause!

An amazing gift

Hi everyone! Hope this long weekend is treating you all well. In my everyday life I'm a travel agent. It's a great job that is made better by the people I meet and work with. I had a co-worker named Jeni. She left us to go and get married in England. I miss Jeni but I gained her family. Yup! I love her family and will do movies nights with her sister, visit her Oma and help plan the family vacations. A few months back her mom whom I call Moma Fisher was in the shop and we got to talking about quilting and hobbies. She mentioned to me a quilt that a friend of hers had given her unfinished quilt many years ago. I love quilting as do all of you.So of course my curiosity was killing me. A few more months go by. Moma Fisher comes into the shop with the quilt. My heart stopped!! It was a hand pieced hexie's!! I was ohhhing and ahhing over this beautiful quilt. When Moma fisher told me that I can have it. I was so surprised and excited. I happily excepted the gift and can't wait to finish it.

Cross Stitch Give Away

Hi Everyone!

With fall just around the corner. I thought I should have a give away. If your like me does what you are working on change by the season? When fall comes around I enjoy doing hand work. I have a duplicate cross stitch kit. So I thought why not have a give away on my blog.

The kit is from one of my favourite design companies. Bent Creek.

Kit includes everything (except the frame) to make this adorable snowman. It is also stitched on linen. So if you ever wanted to try stitching on linen now is your chance. Its easy to enter. Just be a follower and leave a comment with your favourite thing to work on when fall arrives. If you want to share this give away that would be awesome as well and will get you a second entry. The winner will be picked September 7 by Random Person. It may be my mom or a friend I text randomly.

Keep on keeping on everyone!

Red and White

Hi Everyone!
Can you believe that summer has come and gone. I am a little sad to see summer go but my favourite time of year is just around the corner. HALLOWEEN! I love to carve pumpkins. I have not been super active on my blog so those that still follow me. Thanks! I must say it is weird when you run into people that seem to know so much about you and i don't even know their name. It catches me off guard but then I am happy that they take time to read my blog of randomness. I stopped blogging for a while as I was getting ready for a quilt show. I picked a project that was massive and I had to learn new techniques in order to get it done. I also wanted to keep my project on the down low. Those who know me knows it is next to impossible for me to keep any thing on the down low. Last September The Cloth Castle here in Victoria set the theme for next years Quilt Challenge. The theme for 2012 was Red and White. I love Red and White quilts. Like most of you, I have to be inspired to make something. Once I have it in my mind there is no stopping me.(unless i get bored!) A few years back My sister Natasha took me to Quilt Market in Houston.. While I was in a class the teacher held up a quilt and I loved it! I had to buy the book. I now had a mission. Find that book and buy it! Well at sample spree I found the book. Almost had to throw a few elbows as it was super affordable.You know quilters at a sale.

In this book they talk about how in 1920's in the newspapers they would have quilt blocks in the paper. So this book Roaring through the 20's has recreated those blocks into Paper Pieced blocks. Have I told you yet that when I bought this book and up until I opened it I never paper pieced in my life. I have only been quilting a few years. Natasha just shook her head at me and patiently taught me how to paper piece even though she does not like. I tried the first block with scrap fabric to see if i would enjoy it. let me just say I was hooked!So off I go I buy all my fabric. I'm going to do this quilt and it is going to be Red and White. The first day I started working on this quilt was September 5 2011. I got two blocks in and I hear a few words of wisdom from across the table from my sister "Hey Miriam, you pre-washed all you fabrics right...)This was my first moment of OH MY GOD! No! I was so excited to get started. Off i go and just bought the whole bolt of the red as good lord who knows how much I'm going to mess up. I better be prepared. I just started working away and hoping I don't get bored or frustrated.I got myself a zip up binder and had each block and its paper pieced patterns in sheet protectors. I would just grab the binder and go!

Block 1 : Persian finished September 20.

Block 2 : Mollies Choice Done September 18

Block 3:The Phil'ippines Done September 22

Block 4: The Double Star Done Sept 20

Block 5: Rambler Done Nov 19

Block 6: Doubl'e T Done Nov 19

Block 7: Odd Fellows Chain Done Dec 8

Block 8: Ladies Delight Done Dec 31

Block 9: Birds Nest Done Dec 31

Block 10: A very Old Saw Tooth Done Jan 4

Block 11: Eight hands around done Jan 15

Block 12: Crossed Canoes done Jan 15

Block 13 : Mrs.Clevelands Choice done Feb 15

Block 14: Blindmans Fancy done Feb 18

Block 15: Palm leaf done Feb 25

Block 16: Wheel of fortune done March 24

Block 17: Barristers Block done April 5

Block 18: Ocean Wave done June 7 (over 20hrs plus for this one block)

Block 19: Wild Goose Chase: Done June 20

Block 20: jack in the box done June 20

Boarder started June 30 done August 9

Those are the blocks to the quilt that i like to call Big Red. it took me 11 months, over 300 hours and 3 bottles of retayne to set the red. Here is the finished quilt.

Here is Big Red at the quilt challenge. Finished August 20th

I was worried I would get bored and frustrated. The only part of this quilt that made me walk away was when my binding was 5 inches too short. We all know what that feels like, don't we.
The quilt challenge was August 25. It is a very relax show. People come and vote for the quilts.

Helping set up the show

There was some very hard competition this year. I was so surprised when low and behold. I got first place for the large quilts.

 The Cloth Castle who puts the show on every year has some great photos. Here is a link the there facebook page.Cloth Castle Facebook page Like it :)
Also my good friend over at Quilting Along The Gorge has a great post. She also has some great photos of a class we took together. Next years challenge is going to the Dreseden Plate. Never made one but have already started doing some research. That's all from me. Thanks for reading!

Year End Ball

Hi Everyone! Hope the summer is treating everyone well. I have been so busy. At work June 30 brought our year end. We are and Australian company so July 1st is a new business year for us. With the new year come the celebrations from the year that just ended. We have a black tie ball. All the shops in Western Canada go to Vancouver for an awards gala. This is our time to relax and have some fun. For me this also means dressing up. Not my favourite thing to do. This is always a chore for me. Dressing up always makes me feel uncomfortable.The shop I work at is in Victoria and the fun part is taking the float planes from Victoria to Vancouver. Here are some photos from the plane on my journey from Victoria to Vancouver.

Goodbye Victoria, Hello downtown Vancouver. This flight only takes 30 minutes. So much nicer then the ferry.Now it is time to get ready for the ball.

My shoes and jewelry. Yes my thimble is there.

My bosses watch.

My co-workers. Lisa,Jason and Arlee

The Westshore girls. Lisa Arlee and myself

My co-worker Paul and myself

 Thanks for coming along with me to our year end ball. Until next July.