A Winter Quilt & A Donation

 This is a beautiful quilt made from a panel.  As you know, Winter Is Coming.

I love this gal's work.  She cut up the panel, did some math, made lots of patchwork, then put it all together.

Even the back is lovely.

Back in the spring my friend and I were horrified about what was happening in Ukraine, and we decided to put our stashes together and make a quilt for donation.

Here's the final product.

A closeup of the quilting - sunflowers.

I also made some placemats to go with the quilt.

I'm pleased to say that I delivered the quilt and placemats to the Hamilton branch of the Ukraine Canadian Congress last week.

That must have worn me out...here's what I just finished.

Ha ha ha, that tiny little thing is for a guild swap - a mug & mug rug.

I've kept up my energy by eating lots of Kale Salad.  My goodness, that stuff is very resilient.  

DH said: (with a fake sad face) The kale is dead.  It didn't survive that cold snap.

Me: Uh, nope, you should go take another look.

DH:  What?  No...it was all droopy and wilted.

Me:  Uh, nope, it has recovered quite nicely!

DH:  mutter, mutter, mutter... 😖

RECIPE FOR KALE SALAD

227 g kale, chopped (massage with lightly oiled hands for a few minutes)

2 apples or pears, cut into matchsticks

56 g sliced almonds, lightly toasted

DRESSING

1 tbsp dijon mustard

4 tbsp oil

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Whisk dressing ingredients together.  Toss kale, fruit, almonds with dressing.

I'll close this post with a pic of my useless assistant.  She was stuck at home on a very rainy Friday instead of playing with her friends at daycare.  She's missing a tail, so she does a piss-poor job of sweeping up threads.

Focus Print Quilts, Medallion Quilt, & Gardening

These are the BEST quickie type of quilt.  Choose some gorgeous fabrics and add a border or two.

They make lovely lap quilts, sofa throws, bed coverlets, or tablecloths.

 I studied this one at great length.  I've never made a medallion quilt even though I've been quilting for 25 years.

It looks pretty straightforward, with large piecing.  I'm definitely giving this a go...

Gardening...I've been eating fresh kale, that lived over the winter.  The crazy thing is, it showed up all by itself last year - I didn't plant it.  Sometimes it pays to be a messy gardener, deciding in November that "to heck with it - it can stay there and die a lonely death under the snow & ice".  I guess it had already gone to seed, and then came back to haunt poor DH. 😆

And I've been picking asparagus for over a week.  Yum!!  Don't laugh...yes it take a few days to collect enough for a proper serving at this time of year.  In June I will probably be begging people to take some.

The problem with leaving blog posts so long in between is that I forget what the heck has been going on. 

• I took a six week writing class which was really (!) good.  Instructor was Deborah Kimmett.   I've been (trying) to write a bit every day, but you know... facebook.  
• On nice days I try and get out in the garden because I'm a fair weather gardener.  
• Hubby had a birthday so I baked a chocolate cake for him.  I got the icing out of the freezer, and checked if he was around to see that the label on it was 2017.  SUCCESS!  I did not poison us!  Ha ha, marital duplicity. LINK to the recipe - Martha Stewart Chocolate Frosting.  This makes enough for TWO double layer cakes, hence a batch that stays in the freezer for, um, a while.  Honestly, I really HAVE to put this in the freezer or I would eat the whole batch.  It's not super sweet, and the dairy makes it sooo creamy - mmm.
• Speaking of the freezer, we're having frozen, uh, stuff for dinner tonight.  He's getting the frozen leftover spaghetti, and I'm getting the frozen ??? that looks like either chili or stew.  Maybe Chili Chili Bang Bang from the Looneyspoons cookbook?  It appears to be vegetarian, but I'm not quite sure...