Cheering up with a Baby Quilt

Aren't these the cutest little pandas? The b & w border fabric is minkee - sooo soft!!!

Pattern is Peekaboo Panda by Pastime Pieces (www.pastimepieces.com)

The background was quilted with bamboo. The minkee was used as the backing, as well as the border. Little poofs of it pulled through to the front, so there are lots of tiny black dots which hopefully will disappear after it is laundered.


Busy me!!!  Forty cups of chopped roma tomatoes. From my garden.


New Fruit & Vegetable Strainer Attachment for my Kitchenaid stand mixer. From Amazon.ca. $112.00. It comes with the grinder (which will do meat, too) and the food strainer thingy.


Chopped tomatoes go in the top. Which, being the awesome photographer that I am, I cut off in the picture. Yay me. Anyhow... juice and pulp come out the bottom left and go into the juice jug, and the ick (seeds & skins) come out the right hand side just like little turds, and fall into the bowl for disposal. Hmm.


Cleanup crew.


Seven hours later = 24 cups of seasoned Italian Tomato Sauce.

If you've been following the news lately you know that every person will THROW AWAY approximately 250 pounds of food per year. Lemme tell you - when you spend this much effort and money to make 12 jars of tomato sauce you do not throw it out.

Now, back to the beginning of my post.  Why did I need cheering up? Well, the well has not improved.  Dirty water.  I don't know if it is full of silt, or just the regular hard minerals & iron, but it is DIRTY. We have a cistern on order and hopefully a guy with a digger will come next week to make a very large hole in our front yard. I am thinking that I must have done something to piss off the Universe 'cause it has been ONE OF THOSE YEARS.

• broken arm. Ouch. 
• new pickup truck (can you say $$$$ ?) 
• Mom's broken hip. Not that it hurt me, but I'm the only one who can take her to the hospital appointments. 
• broken air conditioning in my car (more $$$) 
• fried the motor in my quilting machine for the second time in 8 months 
• decided to trade in the quilting machine for the next model up. Now proud owner of Floyd v2.0, a Nolting Pro. Which should not burn out motors. (can you say MORE $$$ ?) 
• now, a muddy well. And lots more $$$$'s. 
• Oh, and don't forget the $$$'s we need so we can attend our niece's wedding in Bali next year. Um, yes, Bali is in Indonesia. On the other side of the world.

30's Sampler & Plumbing

Love, love, love 30's prints.

This quilt gots lots of s.i.d., outlining, and straight line quilting.

It also got a bit of c/c and some line dancing.

I can picture a kitchen in an old house done with these colours.

This is never a good sign when you live in the country.

Muddy water and the well truck.

This has the potential to get REALLY REALLY EXPENSIVE.  I'm glad it waited until after I got home from my summer holiday, otherwise that may have been postponed yet again.

On the plus side, right now we are running all the hoses full blast trying to clear up the water, so the gardens are finally getting a good drink.  On the not-so-plus side, taking a shower is sort of counter-productive.  I'm not sure what I'll tell my hairdresser on Monday if she notices dirt behind my ears.

Some fun on the way home

The trip home took two days. We stopped for lunch in Dixfield, Maine at the Front Porch Cafe.  OMG. More trash and treasures than you could ever imagine. This is a shot from inside the bathroom.  And the food was really good, too.


 At an information booth I met my new best friend.

And we checked out Steven King's house (although we were NOT invited in).  At one of the many information booths where we stopped, the lady at the counter told us her tourist story.  She was in Bangor with her daughter and wanted to see Steven's house.  She stopped at a convenience store to get directions, and the fella told her that he (Steven) had just left after buying his morning paper.  She would find him at this house (which was just around the corner) in his car in the driveway, where he apparently reads his paper every day.  Jean and I did not see him in the driveway, but he was having some work done on the house so the driveway gates were open and there were a couple workmen there.  Honestly, I think he needs some improvement to his eaves troughs.  But he didn't ask for my advice.

En route

**this post is from Sunday Aug. 12th.  It appears I broke my blog for a few days.
Our last full day at the cottage yesterday was drizzly and overcast.  We lazed around reading books, watched a bad movie on tv, played a final game of cribbage then went to bed.  We left today in the rain and made two touristy-type stops on the way.  Jean is a cemetery junkie, so when I saw this sign I had to turn around.

At the winery (which was, MY stop, in case you were wondering) the owner explained that the HA HA is from the sound of the loons that live in the marsh around the cemetery.

Tonight we are staying in Bangor, Maine so I should get to Steven King's house.  :-)

Lazy days at the beach

Yesterday Jean & I went to the local craft store, where we purchased nothing.  Bad for the local economy.  Feeling guilty, and somewhat hungry, we continued down the road in the other direction where we had the neighbourhood market gardener rustle us up some carrots (which he pulled out of the ground while we watched), a zucchini (cut off the plant while we watched), and a head of broccoli (harvested with his pocket knife).  Five bucks.  We danced back to the car then drove a little further to the field of recently harvested potatoes.  Out came the plastic bag I keep in the car, and we wandered through the field picking up leftover spuds until we filled half a bag - enough for us for three days, and plenty for the cottage gals who had gifted us with fresh green beans earlier.  A swim at the beach later on made the day PERFECT.

Jean got the room with the cottage-style closet.  :-)

And you can see that we found the NB liquor store.  We needed something to wash down all the veggies.

Touristing

The cottage gals took Jean and I out to PEI on Tuesday,where oddly enough, we started at a quilt shop.  After ice cream cones for lunch (very nutritious, no?) we stopped at Mary's Bake Shop for supplies .   Many pit stops got us a zillion pics of sand, surf, and lighthouses.  We stocked up on breakfast jams at the Preserve Company, then headed around the corner for New Glasgow Lobster Supper.  I had salmon, but Jean enjoyed every morsel of her lobster, (and the 382 mussels she ate).  We were part of a group of 14 from the cottage family so we were a little surprised that only us four girls were interested in the Ceiledh.  That was a fun experience - a girl and two guys playing fiddle, banjo and guitar, with a step dancer thrown in for good measure.
On Wednesday a longarm quilter friend of mine popped in and we all went over to Hopewell Rocks to watch the tide.  The drive was very interesting - the Chocolate River is very (!) brown, but sadly does not contain chocolate.  On our way home we stocked up on groceries, gas, and wine.  A rotisserie chicken will save us from having to cook too much. The fresh garden green beans gifted to us by the cottage girls will keep us healthy!!!

Laundry

The weather cleared up nicely yesterday.  After we took care of our laundry we went for a walk down to the wharf, then swimming.  After reading for a while in the HOT sun we took another walk, down the beach this time.  Supper was leftover fajitas & ceasar salad washed down by a bottle of red wine.  Afterwards it was time for another LONG walk down the beach with the girls who own the cottage. Today they are including us in their trip over to PEI for shopping and an all-you-can-eat supper.  Pants will not fit tomorrow.

Seriously???

Yup.  First vacation ever.

Cottage

Jean & I have arrived at the cottage in Murray Corner, NB.  We did PLENTY of cross-border shopping during our three day drive.  Now, it will be all about sun, sand, surf, and the occasional cocktail.

Departure

Leaving Waterdown and heading for the border.  I was running fashionably late (as usual).  We landed in Holyoke, MA around 7 pm after a few wrong turns.  I missed a cutoff or two.

Stash expansion

A visit to New England Quilt Supply did a bit of damage to my wallet and lots of damage to my stash report.