Officially An Old Broad!

 First, here is the little Superbowl Sunday quilt, completely finished.

It's so pretty, thanks to the Moda Charm Square pack.  

I did learn a valuable lesson, though.  Don't write out a quilt label while you are messaging with the Beach Girls about March appointments for haircuts.  You WILL put the wrong date on the label.

I figured it was close enough that I was not writing out another one.

BIRTHDAY!!!

In the middle of a pandemic, I managed to have my 65th birthday yesterday.  Yay me!!

As I have been saying for months, YES, I had Bailey's in my coffee (and a little Kahlua, too 😉).  I waited until 10 a.m. and celebrated with the Beach Girls on a video chat.  The super-special part was an in-person gift dropoff, which was in addition to the extra bits that came early in the mail.

I also had a long-time customer drop off a gift a few days early, with explicit instructions to wait until my birthday before I opened it.  Hah.  This made me laugh out loud!

Where on earth she found that notebook... ???  She is well aware that I have a penchant for shoes so this did not disappoint. 😁  The bottom of the shoes are covered in sparkly stick-ons, so now Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes is stuck in my head.  Love Paul Simon  💗. I called and left her a slightly drunken thankyou message, which apparently made HER husband laugh.  Sigh.  Oh well.  I've embarrassed myself in worse ways.

My standards have really dropped with Covid lockdowns, going on a full year now.  My request for birthday dinner ... Swiss Chalet.  Hah!  DH and I worked together this afternoon and made a cheesecake for dessert.  We didn't kill each other, and the cake is extremely good.

My first retirement project is all lined up and paid for...it's a 6 week writing class, starting the end of March.  If I manage to learn something, maybe there will an improvement in the quality of my blog posts.  Fingers crossed.

COVID-19 UPDATE

There are a couple of gals from somewhere around here who are booking quilt trunk shows/lectures and running them on zoom, so I paid my $10 and spent 90 minutes watching Victoria Findley Wolfe.  Well worth the money, since we can't go anywhere..

WORLDWIDE:  113.9 million cases, 2.5 million deaths, 369,000 new cases Feb. 13/21

USA:   28.5 million cases, 512,300 deaths, 73,000 new cases yesterday

CANADA: 870,500 cases, 22,000 deaths, 2,068 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 305,000 cases, 6,960 deaths, 1,147 new yesterday. 

HAMILTON:  10,457 cases, 283 deaths, 28 new yesterday

Vintage Quilt Finished

 This is a pretty top that I bought at a local antique/junk barn around the corner from me.  I paid $25 for it two years ago.

I need another quilt like a hole in the head, but I just could not walk away from the poor thing.  It's partially hand pieced and partially machine pieced.  To respect the era I used 100% cotton batting instead of my usual 80/20 blend.  That makes it a little more "flat".

You'll note the Mennonite Mistake (also known as a Humility Block) in the bottom right hand corner - that one pieced corner block is turned the wrong way.

I just happened to have (a common expression which is often heard spoken by most quilters, lol) a pink that was one shade darker than what the maker used for the sashings & border.  It was perfect for the binding, and I'm currently about half way through the hand stitching on that.

Here's the back.  I was a wee bit shy and had to piece in a bit of different fabric in one corner.  Nothing I plan on worrying about, though.  The list of my own quilts waiting for quilting is now down by one!

I had a couple people mention to me that my last blog post had a BIG FAT MISTAKE where I mentioned I was planning to sew through the Superbowl last Sunday.  Ahem.  I am now aware that the big event is THIS weekend, and I'm all prepared.  Two charm paks, one pattern, one card table, one sewing machine.  And a frozen lasagne.

It would be nice if I could be all newsy-like and tell you what I've been up to but...yeah, I got nothin'.  I'm doing a LOT of reading and a LOT of tv watching.  I did order seeds tonight - normally I go on a field trip to the seed store and spend a lovely hour or two wandering the aisles.  Do a little inner eye-roll when my bill adds up to almost $100 (saving sooo much money!! pfftt.) then head on home with my treasures.  This year I am doing a parcel pickup and my scheduled date is MARCH 8th.  WTH?  sigh. Ontario is still under stay-at-home orders, which should be ending late next week I think.  However this morning I read two different news articles, and one of them indicated the government is second-thinking and may leave the orders in place for a while.  I guess we'll find out when we find out.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  106 million cases, 2.31 million deaths, 349,200 new cases Feb. 2/21

USA:   26.9 million cases, 460,000 deaths, 129,600 new yesterday

CANADA: 801,000 cases, 20,702 deaths, 4,022 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 280,000 cases, 6,435 deaths, 1,784 new yesterday The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 11th at the moment.

HAMILTON:  9,470 cases, 265 deaths, 63 new yesterday

Newsy 2021 Post

Santa brought me a new tablet so I've been having my perpetual challenge with technology, trying to transfer over all my "stuff".  Today's project is DROPBOX, setting up the auto transfer of all photos from the tablet to the cloud, and from there I transfer them to the desktop.  The desktop has folders for each month of the year, and folders for my personal quilts, trips, special events, guilds, etc.  This kind of filing system is the easiest way for me to locate items, although I must admit I've had the occasional "oopsy" where I've moved something inadvertently and then not been able to figure out where I sent it.  I didn't want to do a blog post until I had this project finished...why?  I don't know.  Just because.

This was my New Years Day Sewing Marathon project, a Block of the Month from the Binbrook Guild 2017/18.  Each pattern was made twice using the opposite colours.  That was a fun exercise.  I had 16 blocks complete but I wanted four more to give the quilt a rectangular shape, so I pulled two of the block patterns and made them again with different colours.

Apparently I cannot follow graphic instructions which resulted in a NEW BLOCK.  lol... 

Normally Janice comes over and spends the day with me, sewing and (ahem) drinking and having dinner.  Sadly, covid made that not possible so I had to sew & drink alone.  Hubby had dinner with me, thankfully.

Within a week I had the blocks together into a top, and here it sits waiting for borders.

Major news event from 2021 that will remain burned in our memories for a long, long time include the insurrrection on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol.  Egged on by Donald Trump, thugs broke in and disrupted ("disrupted" is a very weak word to explain what happened) the vote count that cemented Joe Biden's win of the presidency.  Worries that the actual inauguration on the 21st would be also be disrupted were, thankfully, unfounded.

2021 CHALLENGES

Me, personally, I have perhaps foolishly, joined a few challenge groups again this year.

• Lose five pounds.  Last year my goal was TEN pounds and that turned into a major fail.  Overall I was ok with my fail, because so many people struggled with weight GAINS during the pandemic, and staying on track prevented that from happening to me.  Year over year I was only down 0.6 lbs., so not even one full pound was lost.  And my sanity was saved by the distractions and deliciousness of the breads, cakes, pies, crostatas, rolls, and creamy cheesy casseroles.
• Get rid of 2021 things in 2021.  Unbeknownst to me, DH had already started thinning his  many many piles of collections and saved items.  For example, we have, I think, three broken office chairs in the basement.  Why?  Oh, Helen, don't go down that rabbit hole.  Not today.  Yesterday I put cardboard box #1 just outside of my workroom doorway so as I find things for the Goodwill I can easily add them to the box.  Coincidentally there is a whiteboard on the wall there too, so we can track our progress.  Items counted will be thrown away, given away, and donated.  At the moment the filled cardboard box won't be able to go anywhere because Ontario is still under STAY-AT-HOME orders.  But someday...
• Stash reduction of 50 m.  Last year my target was also 50 m. and it was easy-peasy, especially with all the covid lockdowns.  How's a girl supposed to shop?  Last year my total year over year was down 108.5 m.  I anticipate no difficulty with this challenge, at all.

Next Sunday is the Superbowl.  

Quilters' Math:  tv football = piecing & cocktails

I have not yet settled on a project but it may be a small quilt using two charm paks from Missouri Star Quilt Company that I bought in 2017.  These are pretty pastel florals by Moda.  I need to drag the card table & sewing machine up in front of the tv so I don't miss any of the commercials.  Supper might be nachos using the corn chips that were in a Christmas gift basket.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  98.983 million cases, 2.12 million deaths, 600,790 new cases yesterday

USA:   25 million cases, 417,000 deaths, 168,000 new yesterday

CANADA: 746,000 cases, 19,065 deaths, 5,965 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 257,000 cases, 5,764 deaths, 2,417 new yesterday  (3,555 on Jan. 11th was the highest, so our numbers are finally dropping!  The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 11th at the moment.  I expect it will be extended.  My understanding is the daily average cases need to go below 1,000 before the order will be lifted.

HAMILTON:  8,611 cases, 232 deaths, 71 new yesterday

Winterruption Recap

This year Winterruption took place from Feb. 13th to Feb. 18th.  Since Feb. 13th is GALENTINES Day, I made us all tiaras.  These girls are such a fun bunch, we wore them every night. 💓

These pics are actually from the 14th, which we spent running around having a fun time in Brantford.  We went to:

• Rose Hill Liquidators
• Value Village
• Zanders Restaurant
• Michaels
• Just Like New (which actually has a different name, but still a vintage shop)
• Butcher & Restaurant Equipment & Supplies

Lunch at Zanders was quite late because I had a heck of a time getting these girls out of Value Village!  I have to say, it's a nice large store and Karen & I both scored big with Tupperware.  That night we had an easy charcuterie board supper, along with soup.  If you can see the glass plates we're using, those were my mom's which she probably received as a wedding gift in 1944.  They are such a throwback - they're partitioned, and one of the sections is an ashtray.

They forced me to eat cake (which let's face it - was not much of a struggle!) since my birthday is at the end of this month.

Saturday was our day "in" when we mostly sewed.  This is the quilt I pieced during the SuperBowl, using three charm paks that came from Missouri Star Quilt Company a few years ago.  I needed to add 16 squares from my stash.  I still have two more charm paks from that trip, in soft baby colours...who knows how long it will take me to use those.  Oh yeah, AND two layer cakes, AND a cutting template.

I finished the top (at this point it's been cut diagonally twice, then had borders added).  I really like the bright, bold colours in this.

After the girls left on Sunday I loaded it on Pretty Boy Floyd (my longarm) and quilted it.

Fun variegated thread on top.

Bright yellow backing shows off deep teal thread.

Hopefully this afternoon I'll get the binding cut and applied, then I can call 'er done!

Deb & I see each other at a monthly guild meeting, and Karen & Diane see each other for random outings, but the FIVE of us won't be together again until the SOLO meeting in mid-April.  We always breathe a big sigh of relief when Mother Nature accommodates the driving dates for Winterruption with decent weather.

...until April!