WHY OH WHY DO I SET ANNUAL TARGETS???

 Sigh.  Every January for the past several years I've set some targets for the year ahead of me.  If you don't know where you're going, you will never get there, right?

• Lose 5 lbs.  ha ha ha ha ha...  To my credit, I DID lose 1.5 lbs.  However I have since located those pounds. 😒
• Reduce stash by 80 meters.  ha ha ha ha ha...  I would have been down 20 m., but a quilting buddy passed away and left me two totes that contained about 20 m. 😢
• Finish three UFOs.  ha ha ha ha ha...  Although, I did clean up some sh*t.  Does that count?

HOUSE BLOCK SWAP

I make five blocks every month, with something 'cute' in the window, and give four of them to the other gals in the group.  We have a target date of the 15th each month to have them pieced so they can (theoretically) be delivered by the end of the month.

My January blocks turned out kind of cute.  Dark & gloomy, but cute. I put the goofy faces in the windows because we are all going STIR CRAZY with this awful weather.

I told DH to put on 'real pants' one Sunday a few weeks ago, that we were going for a drive to get the heck out of the house!  As far as guild meetings go, I've had one hellish drive home in the dark from an evening meeting - when I got home I swore I was not doing that again.  In the future, questionable weather will mean I'm staying at home.  Then my daytime guild was postponed for a week because of a blizzard.  We'll see what February brings.

But...back to my blocks:  Since I've been inside, I figured I'd make the February blocks early.  Oh, very bad words.  I remade all the blocks - they were THAT BAD.

Bad blocks on the left, better blocks on the right.

And since my last post, my cooking has not gotten any better!  This was planned as our Christmas Morning Breakfast.  Yes, I'm aware that Christmas is now a distant memory but there hasn't been a lot going on - I'm trying very hard to keep you amused.  A lovely pan of cinnamon rolls.  I prepped them on the 24th - this is what they looked like after they rose.  At this point I put them in the fridge, with plans to bake in the morning.

6 am Christmas morning I took them out of the fridge:  Whoooaaa Nellie!!  WTF??  I was pretty sure that some alien from Planet Zyborg stole my cinnamon rolls and left these in trade.

I'd never heard of 'over-proofing'.  Apparently (?) that's what happens when dough rises too much, and then collapses on itself.  Hoping to spare you from experiencing my angst,  if you're refrigerating dough for baking the next day, DO NOT allow the second rise to happen - it will do that itself in the fridge.

I'm very grateful that DH has low expectations when it comes to my baking.  It has been a long-standing joke that when the smoke alarm goes off then supper is ready.  If you read my last post about my Red Hat lunch you'll agree that this 'joke' is sad, but true!

This, unbelievably, is what they looked like after baking.  And he ate them.  That, ladies, is true love.

I have since redeemed myself with a lovely ham quiche (recipe from Dairy Goodness - you know, the Milk Calendar).  The recipe is actually for Asparagus quiche.  You may have noticed that I've got no qualms about editing recipes to suit myself and my supplies.  😬

Then there's my favorite tuna casserole, with my normal changes/additions (recipe from the Looneyspoons cookbook.  Truly, in my opinion the Best.Cookbook.Ever.)

And I'm two steps closer to heaven after quilting a couple of Binbrook Guild donation quilts.

To end on a humourous (sp?) note:

Janice came by for tea yesterday afternoon.  I guess I was backlit by the sun - she started laughing.  Then told me, between giggles, that I had an inch long hair growing sideways out of my neck. I gave her a pair of scissors and she thankfully cleaned me up.

 

Defiant or Delulu?

 Ha ha, love the word 'delulu' which was added to one of the dictionaries this year. 😄

I was cleaning up the garden yesterday, November 8th and took these photos of some very determined flowers.

Today, November 9th, they're faced with this:

This was the evening horizon on October 30th in Tobermory.  Just, you know, to make you jealous:

I came home on November 1st.  A coupla girls were happy to have me back:

Since then I've completed the quilt I was working on at retreat.  

That quilt represents four years of block swapping at the Binbrook guild - two years of half-squares, and two years of 4-patches.  When you combine those they make Jacob's Ladder blocks.  

Binding and label finished, too!

 Coincidentally, Border Creek Station Pattern Company runs a stash-buster every year.  As I was scrolling through their site I discovered that this was their pattern from 2020 (although they are called Cross-Eyed Switcheroo Blocks on the site...admittedly, a much more fun block name!), so I had an actual pattern to follow.

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I've been OBSESSED with this quilt since I first saw it at Quilt Canada several years ago.  It's by Terry Rowland - you can find her on facebook and youtube.

Look at how cute those blocks are!  Every window has something 'fun' in it.

I have managed to convince four of my friends to join a monthly block swap of houses with me.  The blocks are 4 1/2" unfinished which meant I had to do a little persuading.  When dealing with recalcitrant humans, the dogs have taught me to make cow-eyes while you squeek out a quiet, pathetic whine.  

This helps to make humans go along, even when they're not really convinced.  Because the blocks are small they're a little finicky to make, so I didn't want too many participants.  The five of us are all pretty good piecers and I don't expect any, um, surprises. 

Here's my organizational setup - four ziploc bags (one per person), plus a box for mine, which is big enough to hold the ziplocs until I can distribute the blocks.

Now to go find some more cute animal prints...