the Annnual Tobermory Retreat

I spend a week every October with my longarm buds... the Beach Girls.  We come up to Tobermory, on the shores of Lake Huron, and spend five nights in Carol Anne's wonderful cottage.  Normally we are enjoying the food, or the cocktails, or the scenery.  But she has really brought some CLASS to the place this year.
Yes.  It's a heated toilet seat.  The 3 am pee will be so much more enjoyable this year.  And if someone disappears, we will know where to look first.   😆

The Quilt Show BOM 2014 and Apple Pie Help

This was the most wonderful, fun quilt to work on.  And before you ask,

• NO I DON'T HAVE THE PATTERN.  I'm pretty sure you need to be a paid member of The Quilt Show, and it was a limited-time block of the month.
• If you click on the photos it will take you to a film strip with the large version of the pics.

I did stitch-in-the-ditch on every. single. bit. of applique.

For the background quilting in the two borders, I treated them as one border and added the geometric square design to the feathers to tie them together.

I added some cutesey little elements, like the rabbit behind the sheep.

Where the letters had large round-ish spaces I placed the flower motif that was used around some of the appliqued circles.

The patchwork blocks were treated just like I would quilt them in a sampler quilt.

Last week I was telling you about the apples my wonderful neighbours gave me.  I made three apple pies on Thursday and zipped them right into the freezer.  I always make 'em three at a time because it takes one whole box of lard to get six single pastries.  Since I would prefer to give the dog a bath if I had a choice between that and making pastry, and that is not a fun job, I just get it over with.

Yesterday I made three more, and DH stuck around to help with the apple prep, while I did the pastry.  I explained to him that each pie required six cups of sliced apples, and in my head I figured about eight apples per pie = almost exactly what I had left in the bags, with a couple apples left over.
I should have been WATCHING him.  He did two lots of six cups each.  Then I think he decided "oh, f*ck it" (sorry - garage language) and put ALL the rest of the apples in the last batch.

Do you see how HIGH that left hand pie is???  Poor pastry was stretched to it's limit!

Embroidered Applique and Winter Prep

This is one of those quilts where there is not a whole lot of decorative quilting. 

The bulk of this quilt is just stitch in the ditch.  (hah.  "just")
.

 

You can see the quarter-square blocks were quilted with continuous curve.

This is such a pretty border design.  I pulled the little flower motif out and used it in the blocks, too.  This design has a nice wave to the bottom edge, so I suggested to the quilt maker that she might want to scallop the outer edge. She gave me the hairy eyeball at that idea, but seemed to come around by the time she left.

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

The applique is the star of the quilt, so I kept the quilting very quiet, adding only where necessary to keep the empty spaces to a reasonable size.

Some of the design space was taken up with straight line quilting around the edge, and echoed at 1/4".

DH and I spent some time in the garden today, starting the pre-winter cleanup.  This is the last of the green beans, getting a 10 minute steam.  I've frozen them in the past, but they are just ... (can I say crappy?) that way.  This year I am going to dehydrate them.  They will take up much less space.  I can put 'em in a glass jar in the pantry and throw them into soups or stews or casseroles.  We shall see - hopefully they will be better this way.

Tonight was the first ROAST BEEF DINNER of the fall season.  Yum.  With mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, and roasted carrots & onions.  All summer long we eat pretty light meals, mostly chicken or sausage with fresh veggies.  Fall and winter seems to be the time for the B's:  beef, bread, and baked goods.
After supper I made an Apple Betty. (oh, how clever - another 'B'!)  Two of our wonderful neighbours have each brought over a grocery bag of slightly wormy organic apples for me, because they know I like to can and bake, and I will put them to good use.  In the next week or two I will be helping myself to the slightly wormy organic pears from the roadside tree nearby.

If you are looking for a delicious dessert using apples AND pears, try this Autumn Fruit Flan.

OK, now, everyone, sing along with Joni Mitchell: 
Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But LEAVE me the birds and the bees
Please!

of Braids and Bread

I am probably the only quilter on the planet who has NOT made a braid quilt.  I just love 'em, though, and one of these IS on my to-do list.

When the maker and I were discussing the quilting, she decided on NON-feather designs. The border design was the idea-maker for the design I placed in all the 'braid' pieces.

I drafted that braid pattern in the IQ all by myself.  (ouch - sore shoulder from patting my own back) And it's continuous.

Now that AUTUMN is officially here, it was time to start the bread-making season off right.  This is Herb & Cheddar bread.  Loaf #1 was gone on day #1.  Do ya wonder why my clothes all look just a little bit tight by March?

If you are looking for more cooking tips...

The Farm/House Quilt and the Impending End of Summer

I had a lot of fun working on this quilt.

In the little green strip below the barn I quilted in a row of mice.

There are birds on the roofs of the barns and houses.

In the 'Big House' block there is a rabbit sitting under the apple tree and a row of flowers in the front lawn.

For those of you who like to live with your heads in the sand, do you realize that Wednesday is the first day of Autumn?  The only good thing about that is the tomatoes will finally stop.  There is NOTHING worse than picking the roma tomatoes (which are pretty much on the ground because the plants sprawl) and sticking your bare hand into a rotten tomato.  gross!  yuk!  eeeuww! 

Summer's End

By Judith Viorst

One by one the petals drop

There's nothing that can make them stop.

You cannot beg a rose to stay.

Why does it have to be that way?

The butterflies I used to chase

Have gone off to some other place.

I don't know where. I only know

I wish they didn't have to go.

And all the shiny afternoons

So full of birds and big balloons

And ice cream melting in the sun Are done.

I do not want them done

The Things We Forget

It's the annual fall retreat at Margaret's, for the Bobcaygeon Quilt Show.  My food contribution was a turkey I pulled out of the freezer (to make room for the leftover tomatoes!) with an added side dish of sausage/apple/pecan stuffing. One of the other girls did the veggies and potatoes, and another handled the dessert. All food groups were covered. ☺
I went down to my room tonight to get out of the "real" pants and put on the yoga pants, and realized that I forgot to bring a fresh top to wear home tomorrow. Yup. Getting old & forgetful.
I have done NO sewing. But I have, now, finally downloaded the library app so I can get books online. Feeling very techno-weenie.  Next, I may figure out how to change the TV channel so I don't have to watch any more baseball.

Japanese Lanterns & Final Zucchini Report & What-the-hell-have-you-been-doing?

I seriously love my job sometimes.  This quilt was just a beauty to work on.

Sashiko pattern in the red borders.

A continuous circle pattern in the black border.

A brick design in the beige 'ladies' border.

Mmm.  Diamond & Circle in the black border.

I used a modified portion of the Diamond & Circle to fill in the black background area behind the large lanterns.

A panel on the back, which needed to be centered.  Always a bit of a challenge, that.  This is really close - within 1/2".  Yay me!

ZUCCHINI REPORT
As I explained, the zucchinis are toast.  In a manner of speaking.  The last 5 tiny stragglers were picked, to give me a grand total...
TOTAL PICKED 2015: 105 ZUCCHINIS.

Now I have moved on to the tomatoes.  I am NOT doing a tomato report.  Find some other idiot for that chore, ok??

There has been lots of this going on.

On Thursday night my poor cooktop look like this.  Aaargh....

I was making so much tomato sauce that it was bubbling up pretty close to the top of the pot.  Then, I realized "uh oh - it's going to boil over... should I take it off the burner or turn the burner down?"  By the time I asked myself that little question it was already too late.
 Tomato sauce EVERYWHERE.

Last night, DH felt sorry for me and cleaned up.    Thank you, sweetheart.

In case you are interested, so far I have canned...
Onion Soup - 7 quarts
Amaretto-Peach Butter - 5 1/2 pints
Plain sliced peaches - 3 pints
Salsa - 6 pints
Seasoned Italian Tomato Sauce - 12 1/2 pints