Art Installation in downtown Edmonton

Yesterday morning when I biked to work - this installation was not up, but a wonderful surprise to the people whom pass this corner of Edmonton was to find this:

The large panels and all the hearts are fabric, the larger panels have heart cut outs that were hand stitched on the edges. Each of the fabric hearts were cotton fabric - I did not see any duplicates and the front and back fabric were all different. 
People were invited write their own advise on the provided tags. Extra tags and pencils were in a pouch in the centre of the fence that had the hearts and as you can see from the pic - there were many already attached and ready. 
I am unsure if the creator of the piece was hoping that the participints would take a heart - but I think that may have been the case as each one is on a large safety pin with beads.
It rained last night and I was worried the installation would be ruined, but it looked unharmed this morning when I rode past. It rained again tonight - right after work - by the time I got home, I looked like a drowned rat! 

OK, you cannot tell from these pics, but my clothing is WET and my hair was poker straight when I left this morning and has gone all curly from the rain. Boo. 
I hope the installation still looks OK, perhaps I will write up another tag and pick out a heart for my backpack tomorrow.


Have any of you even set up an installation? I love this one on the corner of downtown Edmonton - it is not a good area of town and to see this lovely work of art - well, it made my heart swell. I could not believe how many people all stopped even in the short time frame that I was there, to take pictures and check it out. I talked to every person that came up. Everyone loved it and seemed as in awe as myself to see something so fabulous on what is usually such a sad corner.


For those of you that know Edmonton, this corner is by the downtown police station, on the corner that used to have the York Hotel that was torn down. This building for those of you that do not know Edmonton, this was a scary place. They even had multiple signs that boasted that you had to leave your knives outside. Eek! 


If any of you have done something like this, or seem something similar - please leave me a comment, I would love to hear all about it.
Cheers,
Carolyn


**Note - this was added the day after this post when live.
I was showing this post to Mr Hunter and I saw the picture where it clearly states to take a heart if you leave a tag. Funny - I took all the pics and without out reading the sign, knew to leave a note, guessed I should take a heart - all I had to do was read the sign! Silly me!
I got a heart this morning on my way to work. 
Cheers,
Carolyn

Quick house update

These pics are a little old, but here is an update none the less.

The drywall is all up in the living room, but not mudded. The room that is going to be the new master bedroom at the front of the house is almost ready for drywall. After the drywall goes up in this room, we will mud, sand and paint them - I think the next step is to complete the flooring then we can gut and finish the old master bedroom which will become the spare.

Here are the pics for you.

This is the new master.

The living room

The entry to the old master and the future closet. The Door is not installed, but behind it is the bathroom. Total disaster in there.

The open door on the right is the way into the new master.

Here is just a pic to show how well used the kitchen is.

What do think?

Cheers,

Carolyn

Another tasty recipe - Mid-Eastern Chicken Thighs

This is pretty rich. But it is pretty tasty. It is another one from AllRecipes.com 
You can go directly to the recipe by clicking here, or snag it from below. My notes are below as to what I did different.
First of, a couple of pictures:

Mid-Eastern Chicken Thighs

Prep Time:
10 Min

Cook Time:
35 Min

Ready In:
45 Min

Servings  (Help)

USMetricCalculate

Original Recipe Yield 6 servings

 

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 cup sliced onion
• 2 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs
• 1 tablespoon garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 cup fat-free, reduced-sodium chicken broth

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned lightly brown, about 7 minutes. Remove onion from skillet, and set aside.
2. Increase heat to medium-high. Season one side of the chicken thighs with half of the garam masala and curry powder. Place the chicken seasoned-side down into the skillet, and season the other side with the remaining garam masala and curry powder. Continue cooking chicken until browned on both sides, about 4 minutes on each side. Pour in the red wine and red wine vinegar. Simmer for about 30 seconds, scraping up and browned bits from the pan. Stir in the prepared onion and chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer the chicken thighs until no longer pink in the center, about 20 minutes.

Nutritional Information 

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 331 | Total Fat: 19.7g | Cholesterol: 106mg

Notes: Under this recipe there is a comment by the person whom submitted it. The person advises that she removes the chicken after the 20 minutes cook time and hard boils the sauce to thicken it. As well, the person mentioned that use more then 1/2 cup red wine as well as almost double the spice. 

I as well used more wine and spices, I did not have red wine vinegar so I used balsamic vinegar. I think I used more soup stalk as well. I didn't measure it out, but it looked like 1 1/2 ish. I removed the chicken after the 20 min, boiled the liquid but it was not thickening up for me - so I whisked in just a tiny bit of cornstarch. Then I through the chicken back in to reheat and served on white rice.

Mr Hunter advised me that I had really hit the mark on this one. lol. It was pretty good and the chicken was delicious!

Cheers,

Carolyn

Bud Light Lime Mojito review

Have you guys tried this new beer from Budweiser? It is so good. It does not even taste like beer - more like a chianti. It is fantastic on a hot day - although I would personally drink it any time. Very refreshing with the lime, but with the sweetness from the mojito. 
I would say your summer was completely wasted unless you get to drink a couple of these per weekend. Besides, do we not deserve a treat after working in the garden? And or after working all week? Or just because we are awesome? ha ha. Just try it, you will be happy you did.

Happy summer!
Cheers,
Carolyn

Buttons and beads

I was able to pick some pretty sweet Groupons for Beadworks a couple of months ago and took my friend Anna for a little fun shopping. The deal was $50 dollars worth of beads for $25, so I got one for Anna and one for me. It was great fun. We ran over to Fabricland as well and got some thread and buttons. 
Here are my new treasures.

Have any of you read the Quilting Arts book - the one that shows the different techniques? There is one in there that shows all these beads and buttons. I want to make two small maybe 6" squares, one red to purple, the other green to brown. I got little alphabet letters to spell out h.a.p.p.i.n.e.s.s and s.e.r.i.n.d.i.p.i.t.y
What do you think? Waste of pretty beads, or cool idea?
Cheers,
Carolyn

Hot Pad finish

I finally got that hot pad done that I started months ago. I used the cherry blossom from the back yard be my inspiration for the quilting.


OH well that is embarrassing! I did not take a picture of the completed top! HA, here are my drawings on the top with my Frizion pen. 

And here is the completed back.

The back looks nicer then the front anyways. ha ha
Cheers,
Carolyn

Bee blocks

For the Let's Bee Together bee - I did not get my April fabric until April 30th. I was able to make what I think is a pretty cool block. We could make anything we wanted as long as there was star in it. Here is what I created with what I was sent.

For the Orange You Glad bee group, the request was for a wonky coin block. I had never made this before so it was fun. Here is that block:

Have you ever made a coin block quilt?
Cheers,
Carolyn