More Firewood silliness, QOV

Paw sez no supper fer me 'til after the chores 'r dun.

Another Quilt of Valour heading out the door.

I've been reading a pretty funny book by Stuart McLean: Extreme Vinyl Cafe. There is a chapter in there about funeral arrangements. I have already told my quilting friends and DH that I expect someone to play "I'll Get By With A Little Help From My Friends". I am still waffling over whether I want the Beatles' version or Joe Cocker's version. I may demand request them both. But now I think I also want the Chicken Dance. I think it would be fun to watch (from wherever I am) all 5 people at my service doing a dance just for me.

The lottery was 41 million dollars a week or so ago. I sent a promise out to the universe that if I won I would take my guild shoe shopping: to DSW at the Walden Galleria Mall. I guess I didn't sent a loud enough message. Maybe YOU could send a message too - if I win big I'll rent a couple of buses and we can all go. What a hoot - a zillion women in there with a big blank cheque. The thought of that should send you to bed tonight with a big smile on your face.

Another top finished - added new sidebar list

I finished another top at the guild UFO day - bow ties I've been working on for several years. Since I'm compiling such a stack of quilts ready for quilting I am moving them to a new sidebar list. I've called it Tops Finished, Unquilted. Or TFUQ for short. Warning - do not sound out the acronym in polite company.

I laughed when I received this parcel in the mail. That's a lot of stamps.

Applique Quilt

I had the pleasure of working on a really beautiful quilt last week. It took the owner 12 years to complete the top. I am intimidated by quilts like this - if it took THAT LONG to complete, it is not something I want to do a bad job of quilting, ya know? This is all hand applique. Most longarm quilters will tell you the same thing - we make absolute crap money when quilting a top like this. I didn't lose my shirt, but the collar and cuffs are definitely gone. Hand applique quilts are not seen very often so I do them for love, not money. (well, a bit of money - after all I still have to bring home the puppy chow). Stitching around all the applique is very very very time consuming. And hard on the back.


Speaking of puppy chow: we watched Hachiko - A Dog's Story on Saturday night. When I saw that it starred Richard Gere I knew it would not be all that good (the guy can't act for sh*t) but I give it a 3-kleenex rating. Sadie loved it. We had to put her leash on so she didn't push the tv over. Back in the old days dogs couldn't see tv properly. Obviously the designers of BIG-ASS tv's felt sorry for them and fixed the problem. Now to clean the nose prints off the screen.

Panel Quilts

These two quilts are made from panels - cut apart and sashed. Too cute! The first one is all chefs. I quilted that with swirls in the sashings.

The second is all sewing ladies. That got a treatment of hearts. I just love the variegated thread on black fabric. These quilts were just pots of fun to work on.POST-RETREAT WEIGHT LOSS UPDATE
Lunches of salad & hard boiled eggs maintained for three days. Down two pounds. Yaay!

Wednesday night: out for supper to the Erie Beach Hotel for a perch dinner. Uh oh. One peanut butter/chocolate chip cheesecake ordered for dessert.

Thursday: unseasonally WARM weather is prompting summer-like behaviour. Uh oh. After a nice long walk (good girl!) we went to Hewitts Dairy for ice cream cones. Mmmm - small Strawberry Cheesecake cone.

Friday: my weight shall remain a mystery today. I will save the scale for tomorrow. Maybe I will spend another 6 minutes on the torture machine today?

Home again, Home again, fiddle-dee-dee

The retreat was wonderful, as usual. I am having a hard time typing because I can't reach the keyboard - too much food, now my tummy is in the way.

We were a group of 16 and went to Crieff Hills in Puslinch, On. Three meals are provided, but we bring our own healthy ahem snacks and equally healthy ahem alcoholic adult beverages. We are there from Friday morning (ok, noon for me) until 2 pm Sunday. The only exercise we got this weekend was running from our rented facility to the dining hall and back. It POURED cats & dogs. And Charlotte who likes to get me lost in the woods was not in attendance this year.

UFO Progress Report:

• Dresden Plate quilt - the top is together, as you can see. Now it has moved into the 'needs quilting' pile.
• Bow Tie quilt - the blocks are sewn together. On my next UFO day I will be pressing and adding border(s). There may be a pic of that quilt showing up soon.
• A zillion scraps accumulated over the last decade - I have started on a Mile-A-Minute quilt. With luck you will see a pic of that before I die. I am planning to start lying on my UFO listing in the sidebar.Lunch for the next few days will be a healthier version of bread and water... as in salad with hard boiled eggs and cheese. Add a glass of water and a calcium pill to top up the nutrients. I was VERY good today and got on the torture machine for 6 minutes (yes, I have silly string for muscles and fall down after 6 minutes) and burned 28 calories. I ask myself frequently what the point is. I'm still waiting for an answer. Reading the nutrition label on the monstrous bag of cheesies that came on retreat with me: 27 cheesies = 300 calories. What's 27 x 18 x 300? Plus 289 potato chips. And several cookies and a couple'a coolers. Six minutes on ANY machine is not going to evaporate that.

It's time to blow this pop stand!

It is the annual retreat at Crieff Hills in Puslinch from Friday through Sunday. My plan (!??) is to complete a bow-tie quilt, a dresden plate quilt, and maybe ... make some mile-a-minute blocks. I spent the day calculating yardage, washing fabric, and ironing itsy-bitsy scraps. I'm mostly packed and waiting for the alarm to go off in the morning. I will give you a further report next week.

Sayonara!

The Secret Life of Machines - SEWING MACHINES

C & T Publishing had links to these youtube videos. Lots of really interesting information, if you have time to watch.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Postcards, Dog Grooming, Moonshine

First I will give you a couple of postcard photos, in case you don't care about the rest of my blog post. Hard to believe, but possible I guess.Here is Sadie carrying some extra baggage. She is DEFINITELY in need of a trim but it's still winter and we don't want to give her the full treatment at the groomers.DH gets out the dog clippers. Sadie is really not sure where that extra part came from?Oooo - poor Sadie. That looks like a $5 cut from First Choice Hair Cutters - your ears appear to belong to two different dogs.Dog grooming is obviously not a career choice. Lets go back to making moonshine.

Happy Birthday to meee....

This past Saturday was my birthday and we're not discussing which birthday, ok? I find the more I (ahem!) mature, the more I value my women friends. You may notice the high percentage of 'shoe' cards in the photo. And you can easily tell which one was from DH.
I spent my day at a SOLO meeting (Southern Ontario Longarm Operators) in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I was a little bummed out over the weather. We've had absolutely NO snow for months, but this week we get a huge forecast for 20 cm. with 70 km/hr. winds. This prevented three of my out-of-town friends from coming - they were to come early on Friday and spend the night, then all of us go to Saturday's meeting. I had this whole pajama party planned. pout pout. The fourth out-of-towner made it down on Saturday and was able to spend some time with her b & s.i.l. in Ancaster, AND come to the meeting.

The meeting at Jane Sandercock's (with assistance from Kristyn McCoy) was a huge success. Jane now has 3 Gammill machines so we were able to play. Jane will be teaching Longarm Quilting both at her studio and at the new quilt shop opening soon in St. Catharines. She had a thread rep from Aurifil Threads there tempting everyone with her luscious wares. Quilters who become longarmers pick up a new addiction and turn into thread junkies. Honestly?... Jane had more thread than the thread rep.

We had show 'n tell, show 'n help me please, info about classes by the CMQA, talked about batting, talked about thread, gossiped, and ate. Pot luck - yum. Debbie brought a birthday cake and candles, for moi, and they all sang. Jane and Kristyn made me wear a birthday crown so I would remember who was Queen for the Day. They also gave me a beautiful bouquet of Gerbera Daisies.

However, my ORIGINAL comment was about my women friends. I had the best day with the girls. Most of us work in isolation and sometimes the creative well runs pretty dry. Spending these precious hours with like-minded souls gives us a chance to vent, question our abilities, find a better way of doing things or decide NOT to do some things. It was interesting to hear Jane talk about her struggle with building a web site - I am going through the same struggle. Technology - ick!

The day ended all too soon but hopefully Jane will have us all back again... soon.
THANK YOU JANE!