Stash Report & Quilting & Movie Review

Stash report

Used this week: 5.5 m

Used year to date: 16.5 m

Added this week: 0

Added year to date: 0

Net for 2011 down: 16.5 m

And what have I used all this fabric on???  The above quilt, which is for the Morning Out class.  I started the quilting yesterday and hope to finish it in time for Monday's guild meeting show & share.  Lord willing and the creek don't rise.  DH is in charge of the kitchen while I'm on these manic missions.  I just ask him to throw food down to me occasionally.

I also finished an Underground Railroad quilt this week.  Love samplers.

And I REALLY love that border fabric.

Last night we watched The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg.  Stinker. Save your money.  They (?) must have paid someone to get a nomination for Best Picture.  I have no idea why the story seemed compelling enough for anyone to invest millions of dollars to put it to film. 

In retaliation for the man movie, I'm looking forward to tonight's Hallmark movie on tv.  I've got my kleenex all ready.

Blueberries faked in cereals, muffins, bagels and other food products - Food Investigations - NaturalNews.tv

Well, this news certainly shocked me this morning.  Check it out.

Blueberries faked in cereals, muffins, bagels and other food products - Food Investigations - NaturalNews.tv

Farmer's Wife quilt

This week I spent mostly quilting this Farmer's Wife quilt. Made from templates - oy, yoy, yoy. I do love sampler quilts, so I really enjoyed this job.

Freeloaders have been stopping in for supper - eating the farmer's leftover corn. I let Sadie out and she will sit on the the porch looking at the geese, while the geese look at her. Then she decides IT'S TIME and she'll take off at a mad run and scare the poor buggers away.

As you can see from the above photo the weather is totally crap here.  Cold, blowy, snowy, stay-in-the-house weather.  In my dedication to the craft I fought my way outside and taught a workshop at the Stoney Creek Quilters' Guild.  The gals made placemats with ribbon borders and tea cozies with kite tail borders.  This was a perfect one day class.  All tea cozies were done or ready for quilting, and everyone finished at least one placemat.  Good job ladies.  Wish I'd remembered my camera.  The class snafus were one set of half squares that needed to be unsewn because they were not right sides together (oops).  Then the sewing machine which kept magically unthreading itself.  There were a few 'what the hell????' moments until we figured out it was an 'easy threading' needle (note to self - don't ever buy those!!!).

Yesterday while DH and I were out at the movies with Luke & Mel, Luke's parents were out visiting Mom at the new 'home'. I hope I am as cheerful as Mom when I'm her age. If I make it to her age.

Movie review: we went to see True Grit with Jeff Bridges. If you are a fan of the John Wayne version you will enjoy this but find parts of it a little too... graphic. If you have never seen a western you will find it interesting and a good way to pass a couple hours.  You probably won't decide westerns are your favorite genre.  You will need popcorn.

White Wholecloth & Bowling with the Red Hats

Every once in a while I get a call from someone with a QUILT EMERGENCY.  This is going to Kenya and still needs to be blessed by the minister, so I did a few extra quilting hours.

Today was Red Hat day.  Our loose schedule is the third Thursday of the month and we all take turns arranging an outing. We went to the new Thai restaurant in town.  Lunch was great but my mouth was burning.  The more I ate, the hotter my mouth got.  I'm glad our wait staff were close by filling up the water glass.  Afterwards, we hit the bowling alley.  We bowled two games, two teams of four.  My team won (no thanks to me).  I think a couple of the gals (on the other team) should be in the minus points category for throwing their balls with two hands from the front line.  Is that even legal???

I thank everyone who has given me encouragement over mom's recent move.  The day went well and mom seems to be settling in all right.  Sis and I went to sign the papers yesterday.  While we were in the office with the administrator, mom was at the monthly birthday party.  They get the cutest cupcakes which are COVERED in a good half inch of icing.  Mom had pink icing all over her nose and mouth - she just dives right in there when there is something sweet on the table.  There was a fella playing the guitar and singing for an hour.  He played some good oldies that the party goers really enjoyed.  It made me wonder what they'll be playing when I'm in the nursing home.  Elton John tunes?  ZZ Top?

What????

I am a Pisces.  I've always BEEN a Pisces.  But in today's newspaper it seems I have moved to an Aquarius.  Huh.  I guess I need to bone up on some different personality traits.

Traditional
Pisces Traits
Imaginative and sensitive
Compassionate and kind
Selfless and unworldly
Intuitive and sympathetic
Escapist and idealistic
Secretive and vague
Weak-willed and easily led

Traditional
Aquarian Traits

Friendly and humanitarian
Honest and loyal
Original and inventive
Independent and intellectual
Intractable and contrary
Perverse and unpredictable
Unemotional and detached

One UFO down and another started & Mom news

New UFO (well, actually now it's a TFUQ). This is the quilt I'll be teaching at Morning Out starting at the end of February. I saw this on Judy Laquidara's site and got her permission to write a pattern. I love the pinwheel blocks that look like ribbons around the outside.

This is a completed UFO. Yaaay. I did this after Christmas and now it's waiting for a home. The top was made by one of my customers - I gave her a grocery bag of my scraps and a few weeks later she brought me back two tops. It isn't particularly pretty but it has some really cute prints in it. Gives it quite a bit of charm.

And, on the MOM front: Mom finally has a bed at a long term care facility. In spite of the snow (!) we'll be moving her on Thursday. The new place is really nice, where she'll have a private room with her own bathroom and two choices of entree at mealtime. Even the front lobby is large and inviting with a big aquarium and lots of reading material. We have the moving plan figured out to (hopefully) cause the least amount of distress. I can't risk TELLING Mom she's moving because she will decide she is just fine where she is and she's not going anywhere! !. So I will bribe her (ok, lie to her) and tell her we're going out for lunch.  If you are silently tsk tsk-ing me, just wait until YOUR Mom is 90, then come talk to me.  My sister is meeting us at the new place and she will take over getting Mom settled and have lunch with her in the new dining room. While she is doing that, DH and I will go back to the old 'home' and collect her personal items & her chair & table and relocate them to her new place. At some point in there sis & I will be signing all the paperwork, which includes (seriously!) an authorization for the beauty parlour.  When I get home after that I will most likely fall into a pail of Vanilla Martinis (equal parts vodka and Navan liqueur {which you should only buy at the Duty Free because it is kind of expensive}).  I don't know who is going to do this for me when I'm old.  Kinda scary.

Something a little non-quilty

It's not ALWAYS about quilting around here.  Sometimes one of the neighbours comes over with a bunch of felt letters in a ziplock bag.  I figured that in my condition (see previous post) I would probably spell something wrong.  But no, everything looks ok.

DH is suffering from the plague.  Usually sick men, I mean they're usually sick, or all sick, or... I mean when they are UNWELL they are normally a big pain in the arse.  DH has been so sick he's either in bed or the bathroom.  Not much trouble at all.  I'm making the second pot of turkey soup tonight.  Thank goodness for Christmas leftovers.  I spent Boxing Day tearing apart the leftover turkey, making stock and four turkey pies for the freezer.  Handy, huh?  Yesterday I whipped up a batch of buttermilk & cheddar scones, which are mostly gone.  Tonight we will have to have brownies with our soup.  :-)

no template tutuorial & big sobby mess

When I need a shape I don't have, I make one out of paper.

Pin it on and stitch around it.

Here, I've filled in with Ribbon Candy.

Curlycue feathers around the outside.  Pretty.

The big sobby mess is me.  I'm a Pisces, so I'm emotional at the best of times.  

I have been trying to get my head around the most awful thing.  There was a murder last week - brutal, multiple stab wounds, sexual assault.  The victim was my high school physics teacher.  She was ... 73?  

I was in school for 14 years, if you include kindergarten.  I only remember 3 teachers.  (I apologize now, to all my friends and relatives who are teachers.  I know how hard you try.) Mr. Sabourin, the french teacher.  Mmm - school girl crush.  Mr. Dalgleish, my teacher for the 2 years I was in the enrichment program.  He used to do fun things with us, trying to keep our interest and challenge our thinking.  And Mrs. Gleave, rest her soul.

I have thought of that woman so many times over the last near 40 years it is silly.  I'm pretty sure everyone who knows me has heard me say:

     "I had a physics teacher in high school who always used to say 'a short pencil is better than a long memory' ".  She was SUCH a character.  Didn't think twice about embarrassing her students (me included).  But funny, too.  She used to check if we had comic books hidden behind our textbook if she actually caught us READING our textbook.  The only day she ever missed class was to stay home for the vet when her horse was sick.

My friend lost her husband to cancer a few days ago, much too young.  I feel so, so, sad for them.  Then the shock of the murder - it was just all too much.  I'm not sleeping well, I'm distracted, and still can't think about Mrs. Gleave without imagining the horror of her last hour on earth.  Then squashing out a few more tears.  I don't understand who would do that?  Why?  I just don't understand.  It is so senseless, and so ... permanent.  A life gone forever.

Your new year's video laugh

UFO Challenge & my New Year's Post

Check the UFO page (see above) for my January project.
While I was LOOKING for my January project I also found some more, um, treasures.  Seven more black & cream blocks (I thought I only had 5) which is changing my plan for that little UFO project.  And several extra blocks from our bed quilt (which has been on the bed since 2003).  I'm not sure what I will do with those, so I reburied them in the scary place where they came from.  Bad Helen, bad.

Today it's very warm (11 c.) and pouring rain.  But we have friends coming for dinner, so that will bring some sunshine, figuratively speaking.  The house is clean, I washed the car yesterday (hence the rain), and removed all the window screens and cleaned the windows.  That is a great way to start the new year.

Rabbi Bernard Baskin is a wonderful Hamiltonian who has an occasional article in the local paper.  Part of his latest column says the following:

"May you recognize the difference between what you will need and what you will want, and may what you want not spoil the delight of what you have."

That is definitely going up on my wall to keep me grounded this year.  Happy New Year to you.