September...what??

 What happened to the past few months!  Well:

This was the last group project that I organized.  It was for the Binbrook guild and I had "planned" to do a demo on back-basting at the June meeting, to end the season.  All the background squares were either white, cream, grey, or black, with text of some kind.  All the center circle pieces were somewhere between yellow and red.

However, it was scheduled for the day I got home from Quilt Canada in Edmonton.

As you can guess, I did not make it to the guild meeting.  I also managed to pass the virus along to hubby, so we were both sick for a while.  Thankfully one of the other guild members came over and picked up all the supplies and filled in to do the demo on my behalf.  You've gotta love such willing partners.  And in truth, she knows the technique much better than I do anyways.

I was very well behaved in Edmonton and bought basically nothing.  A couple of thimbles and almost no fabric: only one fat quarter and one charm pak.  Lectures every day kept me busy, zipping from the show floor to the conference rooms and back.  Somewhere in there I managed to, ahem, drop my phone in the toilet.  Thankfully it was a CLEAN toilet.  Unused.  Putting your phone in your back pocket is not smart!  I heard the "clink" "sploosh" and thought What the hell? Hoo boy.

I took it apart and gave everything a shakeoff and wipedown, put it back together, then made a call to see if it worked.  That was the point when it occurred to me: I had a toilet-washed phone up at my face.  Eeeuw, gross.  Shudder.  After it dried out it has been working fine ever since.

Anyhow, continuing with the CQA, I've finished the mystery quilt they ran this past year.  I modified the size a bit and altered the border a bit.  Quilting still needs to be done but I'm glad the top is complete.  It certainly is RED.

I've also completed a little quilt using the sample blocks from a 60༠ ruler demo. Sooo often I cut all this stuff out, piece a bunch of blocks, present the demo, then throw everything into a box somewhere.  I've been pretty good this year about NOT leaving more UFO's than what I started with back in January.  I still have some stuff laying around from demos, but not as much as usual. 

Nina got some love from me and the clippers.  Dog grooming is certainly not a strength of mine.  Four and a half hours later...

The little quilt I pieced on SuperBowl Sunday was next up on my list.  All finished now.  I've got TWO charm paks to choose from for the 2025 event.  This size quilt uses 80 squares, so I buy one charm pak and then cut an additional 40 squares from my stash.

Aren't these the prettiest little glasses of flowers?  Cosmos.  So happy.  I needed two little centerpieces for our big social event of the summer.

We had DH's family here in August for a BBQ lunch.  There were 11 of us all together; long distances make these visits difficult to arrange.  I think we had at least three different dates on the calendar, changing from one to another then back again, before choosing another one.  Somehow the pandemic changed our habits and we don't have company the way we used to in the before times. Poor Nina has never seen that many humans!  After person number six showed up you could see her little brain saying "what the hell???".  This visit was especially great because DH's brother recently got married - it was so nice to spend some time with his bride and get to know her a bit.

This is my most recent finish.  I got involved in a challenge with some gals on a longarm forum I belong to.  This is a Potato Chip quilt, so named because you can't make just one.

There are a multitude of block layouts and colourations to work with.  I really like this dark/light version.  There's enough 'colour' in the dark blocks to keep it cheerful while still maintaining the DARK feel.  I'll get the binding on it in the next day or two.

This is a very s.c.a.t.t.e.r.e.d. post - I clearly have not been doing any writing for the past while.  The final update I'll give you today, which I know you are DESPERATE to hear about, is the zucchini. Well, I had three plants.  One of them died pretty early in the summer, leaving me with two plants.  I made an attempt to grow them up a trellis, which was not very successful, but it did keep them off the ground.  I have not been overrun with fruits, the plants have been very well behaved, producing a zuke every day or two.  I'll probably get some zucchini loaves made and put away for the winter but there shouldn't be much produce for shredding and freezing.  

The butternut squash, on the other hand, are big enough to kill someone.  Holy sh*t.

 

She's having what for lunch??

 This is a bowl of leftover green beans (DH does not like green beans) and pickled beets (DH also does not like pickled beets, the weirdo) and feta cheese.

This is what I have picked so far today:

That's 5 sweet peppers, 2 lovely tomatoes, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, 2 strawberries (now gone - they were my lunchtime appetizer), a container-thingy of purple beans (which turn green when you cook them), and 3 zucchinis.  I already have 9 zucchinis in the fridge and I gave away 3 yesterday.  I have to go back out again to pick the Roma tomatoes.  And don't get me started on the kale - OMG, so much kale out there. 

This is what I picked two days ago.

That was 7 sweet peppers, 4 zucchinis, 2 lovely tomatoes, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, a few peas, and another container-thingy of purple beans.  Along with a whack of Roma tomatoes which are still sitting on my kitchen floor.  I pick them a little bit green, hopefully before some pest starts nibbling on them.

If food is medicine, then... I should live to be 248 years old.  God save us all, lol.  Which is why I will indulge in some not-so-healthy chocolate later on.

Tonight's supper will be Charlie's Beef & Zucchini.  My friend Sue gave me this recipe years ago - it's one of my favorites (although as you can probably guess...not DH's favorite!).  I suggested that he could make himself hamburgers but he's decided to grin & bear it.  😫 ⬅His face at the supper table.

What I also have in the fridge is about 3 litres of fresh raspberries from the neighbour.  Mmm, raspberries & yogurt for breakfast ❤.  She already gave me that many a week or two ago, which are in the freezer.  

And I've frozen three cookie sheets worth of Roma tomatoes.  The last few years I've been canning tomatoes but I still have several jars from last year, so I'm going to skip all that labour.  I do plan on doing a couple sheets of roasted tomatoes...they are sooo good.  I'm almost out of what I roasted two years ago.  Roasted tomatoes make an excellent base for pizza, instead of tomato sauce.  And I'll throw in a couple dollops whenever I need a bit of tomato flavour, or sometimes I use it instead of tomato paste.  I freeze it in little half-cup portions, which is close to the size of a can of tomato paste.

I've also frozen sheet #1 of diced sweet peppers.  We make a lot of soups/stews/stirfries and, fyi, sweet peppers are very expensive in the winter.  I can save that money for chocolate.

I was wide awake at 3:15 am today and had my nap from 8 - 10 am.  Crazy.  Here was the lovely sunrise, though.  Taken at 6:52 am when I'm sure I was the ONLY person on the planet who'd been awake long enough to have had two cups of coffee already.

QUILTING

And when I get sick of PRODUCE (which is starting to happen most days, some years I'm very glad when November rolls around), I'm working on this lovely quilt:

The stitch-in-the-ditch is all done.  I'm now quilting the motifs in the blocks.

WIP Wednesday, the Colour Wheel, and a Pasta Recipe (sort of)

 Since today is Wednesday you're getting a WIP Wednesday post.  You're welcome. 😁 I've been working on this quilt since last fall.  It's the Colour Me Creative block of the month from Phoebe Moon.  I have one more border to go, then it'll be ready for quilting.

The design is meant to be scrappy, so I chose that black fern print first.  I have a lot of it and it's been hanging around for Y.E.A.R.S.  Like much of my stash, I'm ashamed to say (although I know I have lots of company out there).  When I plunked the colour wheel on it, it did NOT identify in the yellow-greens where I expected it to be.  It matched in the yellow column.  Huh.  So I used the TRIAD guide to pull my other fabrics from reds and blues.  BTW, I purchased my colour wheel at an art supply store.  It was about half the price of a comparable item from a quilt shop.

Out in the garden I've been battling cucumber beetles this year. They killed my first crop of squash.  (why are they in the squash, anyways???)  By the time I replanted seeds I thought the beetles had flitted off to greener pastures, but nooo - they are still here.  The other irritant is cabbage moth.  They're working on the cabbage and the kale.  I think DH is paying them to stay in the kale.  It's definitely NOT on his list of favorite foods.

Anyhow.  Garden pests are the reason I've only picked TWO zucchinis this summer.  The first one was pinky size, so really small.  The second one was P.E.R.F.E.C.T.  I've also got a few nice tomatoes, lovely big onions, enough purple beans for a Helen-sized serving every two days.  We'd been out for dinner to an Italian restaurant on Sunday so on Monday I was still in that mood for tomatoes & parmesan.  Here ya go...very informal pasta recipe:

GARDEN PRODUCE PASTA (serves 4 but very easy to amend)

Assemble:

- half pound of bacon

- 2 cups of dry pasta, my preference is fusilli

- 1 or two leaves of kale

- a couple onions and a couple cloves of garlic

- some tomatoes, enough to dice into about three or four cups

- garden veggies, whatever you have:  peppers sweet and/or hot, zucchini or other squash, peas, beans, carrots, celery, broccoli, etc.  Mushrooms if you have some on hand.

- some fresh basil leaves, diced

- 1/4 c. heavy cream and 1/4 c. parmesan cheese (plus more for serving)

• cut up half a pound of bacon into 1" pieces and cook it crisp in a BIG frying pan, drain off the oil and set the bacon aside on paper towels to drain.
• chop up the kale leaf(s) (mine are huge).  Toss the big fat rib in the compost, or dice it small and freeze it for winter soup/stew/meatloaf/pasta.
• dice a couple onions and a couple cloves of garlic.
• add a bit of olive oil to that big frying pan and saute the onions, garlic & kale for 5 minutes or until everything is getting slightly soft.  The liquid released from the onions should help to scrape the bacon stuff off the bottom of the pan for extra flavour.  Yum.
• dice up some of your garden produce - I used a HUGE green pepper and a jalapeno pepper and a zucchini, but pretty much anything is fair game:  peas, beans, carrots, whatever.
• add the diced veggies to the pan and saute them for a few minutes.
• enough diced tomatoes of any type to make about three or four cups - add them to the pan and cook until they're soft and the liquid is simmering and reducing a bit.
• add 1/4 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup parmesan, the basil leaves, and the reserved bacon.  Stir, throw the lid on the pan and shut the heat off.
• MEANWHILE you will have been cooking about two cups of pasta - I like fusilli because all those little ribs grab the sauce and other bits, so you get a great mouthful in every bite.
• drain the pasta.  You can either add the pasta to the pan with the sauce if the pan is big enough, OR return the pasta to the cooking pot and throw the sauce in there.  Whatever - mix all the contents together.  Serve with extra cheese and a loaf of lovely bread.  Add a salad if you like.

** I do not usually add salt to my food (blood pressure, you know?).  In this recipe the bacon is already very salty, but if you're a 'salty' person, go ahead and add some.  

** This is also a good fridge cleanout recipe for the day before your weekly grocery shop.

Embroidery Quilt, Zucchini, and Laundry

This gal loves doing embroidery and is making quilts for her grandkids.  This one is number four,  think.

Edge to Edge in the center portion, with a separate border.

I still have zucchini in the freezer (which, as you can imagine, DH is THRILLED about, lol).  This was good.  Normally you see zucchini used in a sweet loaf but a savory version was great with soup and made for a nice bite at lunch.

With the weather getting nicer I can get some of the laundry outside to dry.  Save the environment, you know?  You can also use it to track your laundry patterns by counting your socks...19 days since my last dark load.  And why 2 pair of boring socks?  Was I depressed?  I like to entertain myself with these existential questions as I pin things up.  Over the years I have also discovered that apparently I often match the colour of my knickers to my tshirt.

Ha ha ha, it almost looks like they're hanging on the fence. 😆          

I will leave you with a little cartoon...

                 

Let's wrap up June (since it's already August!) Log Cabin & A Unicorn

Log Cabin - I love the colours in this.  The quiltmaker wanted it quilted "like in the magazine".

That involved feathered swirls in the blocks, from the center out to the corners, and then a simple meander in the rest of it.

No s.i.d. kept the cost down a bit.

Unicorn - this is all paper pieced.  Whoo baby!  

Thankfully the quiltmaker sent me a pic of how she wanted it quilted.  Otherwise I'd probably still be staring at it wondering what the heck to do.

I had to get a little bit of technical help from a longarm buddy who has done this style of work.  The background rays were done with the I.Q., and that was a bit of a challenge too, but in a good way.  I like learning new things.

On the personal front, the garden is coming along nicely.  The zucchini is a bust this year.  In an attempt to thwart the zucchini bugs I planted it in large pots on the patio. Two of the three plants died from wilt.  The third one is hanging in there, so far.  We shall see.  Thankfully a friend has an abundant crop and she's been willing to share.  The bumper crops this year will probably be potatoes and tomatoes.

Pizza and bread made from a big-batch artisanal dough recipe has made a frequent appearance on the dinner table.  In fact, it's pizza night tonight, in celebration of some very expensive mushrooms I picked up at the market.

Since the end of June:

• I had a real haircut from a real hairdresser.  Sooo nice.
• I've had several backyard dinner-at-a-distance with friends and relatives.  The hardest thing is definitely coping with the fact that I cannot hug anyone.
• I've had two massages.  My neck & shoulder have decided they want to compete with my hip to see which body part can cause me more pain.  Aargh.
• I had an honest-to-goodness restaurant meal, on a restaurant patio.  I was very trepidatious but it was long enough ago that I obviously did not catch anything.  Why does Blogger not like the word trepidatious?  Anyone???
• I had a bone density test, then a telephone appointment to review the results (which are good).
• I had an eye exam that had been postponed several times from last fall.
• I was back at the dentist, just for my semi-annual cleaning.  
• I actually received a refund for my trip to Italy that had been scheduled for August 28th.  That shocked the hell out of me, in a very pleasant way.

COVID STATS AS OF AUGUST 9, 2020

I pulled these numbers from the news this morning:

Global:  19.6 million cases, 270,000 daily new

USA:  5 million, 54,000 new daily

Canada 119,500, 220 new daily

Ontario:  40,000, new <100 daily (70 yesterday)

I have to remind myself not to get too cocky over the Canadian numbers vs. the USA.  We are opening up and I KNOW our numbers will be going up too.  Dear God, I hope not to that extent.  I like to think that our politicians have our best interests at heart and will handle things accordingly.  I do, however, have great sympathy for my friends in the US.  I can't see myself ever crossing the border again.

Two Quilts, a Top, and WHY WHY WHY??? Oh yeah - zucchini report too.

This is a cute Yellow Brick Road quilt.

Love that panto pattern:  Ba Da Boom from Urban Elementz.

This intrigued me.

It's a block I've never seen before, so I had to examine it closely.

Oh and here's THE TOP.  Yeah, I can be a real idiot.  One of the guild members brought this top and put it on a give-away table, hoping someone would decide to take it home and give it some love.  Apparently (!) that someone was me.  Aaand, now I have another UFO.

Most of it is very wonky but ... it just has something that appeals to me.   It's a fair size, around 75 x 100.  I won't "fix" anything except a couple of seams that I notice have popped open.

WHY WHY WHY???
Stupid basement.  Actually, stupid washing machine, which walked itself across the floor because the load was not balanced.  And then it pulled the drain hose out of the laundry tub.  Grrr.

PITIFUL ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked last two weeks:   5
Picked YTD:                 22

Summer Entertainment and Zucchini Report

The summer has turned into that beautiful time of year when it's perfect weather during the day... like 25 c., and then nice and cool at night so you can sleep.  Staying indoors with the quilting machine gets hard to do, especially when the weeds are two feet high and the beans are spilling all over the place.

I played the long game when I was booking quilts earlier this year, and allowed myself some breathing room.  And ta-da... I finally loaded the Singapore Batiks that my niece gifted me many years ago.  My plan was to have the quilting completed before September 1st, but since that is TODAY it obviously won't happen.  It's about three quarters finished.  However, the weatherman is calling for rain this afternoon, so hopefully it will be competed by tomorrow.

I also completed the piecing on a cute little baby quilt for my friend's new grandson.  That will be quilted after the customer quilts-on-board are finished up next week.

My friend Jean took me to a theatre production of 12 Angry Men at the Family Theatre in Cambridge.  I saw the movie years ago, and the stage play was really, really well done.  Afterwards we went to McDougall Cottage for the opening of her artist group's silent auction.  If you want to check out the art and perhaps bid on something as a Christmas gift, go HERE.

I also had tickets with the Beach Girls to see Billy Elliot in Stratford.  Boozy lunches is not normally what we do, but, hey... once in a while you've gotta let your hair down, right?  That was also a fabulous performance.  The kid who plays Billy probably has a hugely swelled head - the applause for him was overwhelming.

On the home front, I brought in 65 heads of garlic.  Heads, not cloves.  Assuming a nominal 6 cloves per head, there are about 400 cloves in this bowl.  It took me three consecutive nights just to peel them.  I decided, finally, to try soaking them in the hopes that would soften the skins.  Yay!!  Success!!

Food processer, olive oil, cloves, ice cube trays.  It'll take me a few nights to get this stuff frozen.  In the winter I'll be glad I did it, though.

And just to make sure I didn't get too bored, I took my little pile of gift cards downstairs to the computer and checked the balances on all of them.  I have a habit of using them and throwing them back in my purse, so I'm never quite sure what still has money and what's all used.  Now I know, 'cause I put little stickers on them with the date I checked and the balance.  Hah!

Sigh.  Zucchini.

ZUCCHINI REPORT (2 week report)

Picked:  6
Picked YTD:  17

I gave two away.  One night I made Eric Eggstrata from the Looneyspoons cookbook.  That used another one.  Link HERE.  I had leftover cooked bulk sausage from ...??? in the freezer.  That is one of those handy things that I use at least a few times every year.  I didn't have cream on hand, so I combined milk and full-fat sour cream.  That is a GREAT recipe.

The Garden, Technology, Book Recommendation, Zucchini Report

THE GARDEN

At this point, the GARLIC is the most prolific crop.  The large heads are from my planned & intentionally planted bed.  The small heads are all volunteers.  Every year I think... no I mean I hope I have managed to cull all that stuff, and every year I find that well, I guess I missed a bunch.

What will I do with all that garlic?

• I'll save a few of the large heads as seed stock and replant it in the fall.  
• Some will be used for PESTO which will go in the freezer in 1/4 cup portions.  
• Some will stay as dried garlic to be used as needed.  
• The balance will get chopped up in one of the kitchen whizzers along with olive oil.  That will go into jars in the freezer and be used when we need chopped garlic for anything (stir fry, pasta sauce, salad dressing, etc).  You need to plan a little bit ahead of time and remove the container about an hour early so it softens up enough to dig out what you need, then put it back in the freezer.  Alternatively you can use an ice tray and freeze small portions, then pop the cubes out and toss them in a container.

TECHNOLOGY

Pretty much everyone I know has a tablet of some sort, whether it's an I-Pad or an Android device.  Me, I'm an Android girl.  My nephew 1-800-LUKE 💓 got me on Android many years ago and I'm loath to change.
Anyhow... everyone also has a cover for their tablet so they can prop it up, which facilitates ignoring their dinner companion(s) as they either peruse Facebook, read a riveting book during mealtime, or ruin their meal by reading the news.

My cool little cover includes a removable keyboard.

It sticks to the flippy cover-thing with magnets, which are embedded in the cover-thingy, and in the back of the keyboard.

Sadly, though, my keyboard magnets, which sit inside a little divot, are no longer glued.  They float around underneath the backing.  This is VERY irritating because the keyboard does not stick very well, AND since they've escaped from their divots the added bulk prevents the flap closure from securely closing the cover.

I had a little discussion with DH about my dilemma.  I know the guy has many many versions of glue, so I managed to convince him to find a bottle of Gorilla Glue in his cluttered workroom/garage.  My project today will be to slice open the backing, affix those magnets in their respective divots with the glue, then close up the backing and glue the slits closed.  (note to self:  make those slices where you can glue them closed without impeding the magnets!)

Speaking of books, I just finished a trilogy.  If you like distopian novels, and/or stories about pandemics, this was really good, by Megan Crewe. LINK  I don't think anything will ever top Margaret Atwood's MADDADDAM trilogy, but it was good nevertheless.

ZUCCHINI REPORT

No, the situation has not improved.
Picked this week:  4
Picked YTD:  11

Souffle & Recipe, & Zucchini Report

I feel like I finally earned my "adult" wings.  I MADE A SOUFFLE. And it was delicious!
This is from the LCBO Food & Drink magazine.  For those of you not in Ontario, that's the Provincial liquor store.

I have to thank Susan from our vet clinic - she posted this on Facebook several weeks ago, after SHE made one.  I probably need more practice with folding the egg whites in, but all in all I was very happy with it.  I cut the recipe in half, just in case it was destined for the trash.  DH and I ate it all, with a salad.  Definitely making this again. Yum.
Here ya go with a link....
CORN, CHEDDAR & CHIVE SOUFFLE

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Oh, sad.  So sad.  DH even brought more home for me after visiting with a friend.

Picked this week:  3
Total YTD:           7

Summer Blue Quilts, Beach Day, & Zucchini Report

Blue & White quilts are the perfect choice for summer.

This was quilted with "Tracery" pantograph.

Blue & Cream for a little softer effect.

Quilted with "Chocolate Leaves" pantograph.

BEACH DAY
This is the annual get-away celebrated by the Beach Girls (my longarm pack) for two nights to Diane's house.  If you've ever been on any of her bus trips - Diane's Destinations - you know that she is a super organizer who likes to keep her girls entertained.  This year she took us on a shopping adventure to Exeter, St. Mary's, and Coldstream.  I think we all bought stuff we probably don't need, but what the hell. You only live once.
We had our dinner that night at Eddington's of Exeter, and I had a chance to visit for a few minutes with James - the chef who cooked/taught on the trip to France last fall.
Our evening entertainment was spent with Ashes Alley  having a paint pour night.  Paint is not what I'm usually pouring (ahem! 😋).
Here is how it went, in pictures...

1.  Cover everything, including yourself, in plastic, before you start with the paint.

2. Fill a cup with paint.

3. Hold an inverted canvas over the cup.

4. Flip them both.  Warning... don't drop it.  Notice this is being done over a garbage-bag-lined box?

5.  Gently remove the cup.

6. Tip the canvas so the paint can slip-slide over the surface.

7. Watch in awe as the surface transforms.

8.  This is mine shortly after my pour.

9. Here it is the next morning.  It was transitioning during the night, with bubbles of colour coming to the top.

These take two days to dry so Diane is hanging on to them until we get together again at the end of the month.

ZUCCHINI REPORT

Alas, I have not yet regained my Zucchini Crown 👑.  That darned Nancy on Manitoulin Island is still ahead of me.  Grrr....  All season I've been flipping leaves over, checking the underside for egg masses of squash bugs.  These are copper-coloured bunches of dots. The dots are about the size of poppy seeds.  I tear a hole in the leaf, removing the section with egg masses, so I was shocked yesterday to discover a whole flock of little squash bugs.  Bastards.  I managed to murder many of them... squashing them - is that poetic justice?

Picked this week: 3
Picked YTD: 4