Entertainment

Excellent dance performance after the wedding ceremony.

Sleep!!!

Oh, delicious sleep until the birds woke me up at ...6 am maybe? This is a pic of where I'm waiting  for the other sleepyheads. Yesterday's shopping trip was a bust for me. The batiks I was finding were around $25  for 2 m. pieces and there was no bartering to be done. Pooh. Although, really, it is NOT like I need more fabric. Lunch at Bridges in Ubud was very good! And owned by a Canadian, to boot.
Last night just about everyone had arrived from countries hither and yon. The meet and greet included a buffet featuring a suckling pig. I wandered off to bed at 9 pm.
Today's schedule: breakfast for members of the bride's family, afternoon wedding , then party, party, party.
Yum - my coffee has just arrived. More news later...

Sightseeing

Tuesday night was a trip to Tanah Lot to see the sunset. There is a large tourist market and a temple there, but the attraction for us was the landscape that has been carved out by the surf, leaving large cliffs where tourists can watch the sun go down. You can also watch the silly tourists who trap themselves across the little causeway when they don't realise the tide has come back in. Ha ha, thankfully it was not me!
Watching the sunset must have helped with the jet lag because I slept soundly last night from 9:30 pm until 4 am. Yesterday I spent the day ON VACATION and lounged by the pool, swam, investigated the beach, read a book, and enjoyed a couple of cocktails. Mmmm, nice.

Sleep

Ah, a delicious, solid, 5 hours sleep. With my head on a real pillow, not squashed against the window of the plane.  I turned my light on at 4 and read for a while.
I must find out where the chanting was coming from at 6 a.m.? By the time that stopped the birds were up and making a racket so I resigned myself to getting an early start on the day. Next mission - search out some coffee. I am pretty sure the chanting was not coming from one of us guests.

Bali

This is the view from my balcony. Yup. That's my pool. And my Indian Ocean, too.  This place is freaking beautiful. The surf is really (!) loud and as you can see, it is right outside my room. I am so tired - if it keeps me awake tonight I will honestly cry.

Hong Kong

I left home 22 hours ago and am waiting 4 hours in the Hong Kong airport for flight number 2. It is 5:30 am here and none of the coffee shops are open yet. I have already been apologetically denied entry to the "fancy" lounge where Mary (grandmother of  bride) is waiting because I am flying economy. And they confiscated my wee scissors that came with me for embroidery. Damn. The weather is warm though!! :-)

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

This is what will have to wait until I return.  It has been patiently waiting until my cast was removed, and now the poor thing has to wait again.  This has wool batting - it gives a lovely poof that really defines the quilting.

If you are bored, here is a LINK to the villa where I will be staying in Bali.  We have 5 bedrooms in our villa.  If you want to see the whole place (I think the wedding has booked four of the five villas) then click HERE.  Please note - this is not how I normally travel.  Usually I go on a bus and stay at motels with a convenience counter in the lobby offering stale muffins for breakfast and paper cups for the coffee.

**OMG - THIS IS MY POOL**

My brother is already in Bali with his wife - they went on Tuesday and missed the bad snowstorm in Alberta.  My nephew and his wife left last night and will still be in the air when my plane departs. The bride's grandmother (my brother's m.i.l.) and I leave tonight.  She lives about 10 minutes away from me so we are traveling together. Flight number one takes us to Hong Kong (15:40 flying time, breakfast and dinner), then flight number two takes us to Denpasar (4:45 flying time, lunch).

The hydro in Indonesia is different voltage so I will have to borrow someone's converter to charge my smart-ass phone, and hopefully (?) I can add one or two blog posts while I'm away.  It is still bugger cold here but it will be hot, hot, hot there.  Oooo - excited!!!  I spent yesterday trying on clothes to see what I could still squash my winter-chubby arse into.

If you have not been keeping up (!) I am going to Bali to attend my niece's wedding. 

She lives in Singapore, which makes Bali a nice quick little hop on a plane for her.  The wedding takes place on Thursday, I suspect hangover remedies will be exchanged on Friday, then I fly home on Saturday.  On the return trip we sleep over in Hong Kong because the flights don't line up.  I may do some shopping?? 

The last flight, from HK to Toronto is, again, 15:15 hours.  Departs HK at 5:05 pm, arrives Toronto at 8:20 pm.  Ha ha - how to turn 15:15 hours into 3:15 hours.  Hopefully 12 hours worth of wrinkles will disappear, too.

Gingham Stars

Here is the pretty gingham quilt finished.  There is a clear pattern of colours - they run on the diagonal but I didn't notice that until I took these photos of the completed quilt.  Mistakes are much more apparent in a photo, too.  It must be the distance you gain with a small image.

That little flower design in the cornerstones is so pretty.

I always love the backs!!

Prep for the Bali trip is well underway.  The alarm has been going off at 4 am the last couple of days.  Yesterday was a bust - I didn't roll my arse out of bed until 5:30, but today was better at 4:30.  Tomorrow and Saturday I'll set the clock for 3 am.  Insane?  Hmm, probably.
On my way to the hospital on Tuesday to have my cast removed (yesss!!!!) I stopped at the mall and bought a couple of new summer nightgowns for the trip.  The weather forecast is BEAUTIFUL!!!!  Hot, sunny, and little chance of rain until next Saturday.

I tell ya, I am so sick of hearing the forecast here - chance of flurries - every stinkin' day.  I look out the window and the sky is deep grey/blue - the storm sky.  Sick of it, I tell ya!!!
My arm is out of the cast but into a brace.  The bone is still healing so I'm scheduled to go back to the fracture clinic in a month for more xrays.  It sure feels good to put a naked arm in the bathwater, though.  And putting an ice pack on feels like heaven, too.

Today is Red Hat day.  Hopefully eating Chinese food won't be too strenuous, nor going to the movies.  En route I can stop at the liquor store and pick up the vodka that will travel with me (never go anywhere without it, ha ha) and hit up the bank for US cash.

Right now, and it has become the new norm, both kitchen sinks are FULL of dirty pots, pans, cooking implements, bowls, juice jugs, etc.  DH is great about cooking but not so great about cleanup.  I put him on notice the other day that I really needed some help, after I broke the THIRD glass in a five hour period.  I am sooo looking forward to a bit of strength returning to my arm because the dirty kitchen is not my favorite thing.  He made me laugh when he commented on how much more dust we've had this winter.  He's thinking that we have really had more dust.  Um, no, Sherlock.  There just has been no cleaning of the dust.  You're probably sitting and reading this, thinking "Whatssa matter with you?  You can dust!!  That's not heavy work."  True.  But after working, especially when ruler work has been involved, I hurt.  The arm and wrist and hand ALL hurt.  So I've been saving my energy for income-producing instead of Suzy Homemaking. I'll get back to the housekeeping soon enough, and in the meantime we will just have MORE DUST.

Star Quilt - St. Patrick's Day GREEN

In honour of St. Patrick's Day, here is a lovely GREEN quilt.

The stars were lightly quilted with continuous curve.  In the past I would have done this freehand, but here I did this with the IQ.  So much easier on my poor wrist, which is still in a cast (but only for 2 more sleeps).

Love the matching border design, eh?

This is how I spent yesterday - International Quilting Day.  As you can see, it is a little box which holds.... secret information for now.

I currently have a large to-do list that must be cleaned up before next Saturday, which is when I leave for Bali.  Today I think I will finish the tax prep so I can make a visit to the accountant next week.  If the plane goes down and the taxes are not done, DH will just have to reconcile himself with the idea of jail time.  They are currently in such a state of disarray no one else would EVER figure out what I've done so far.

Bali is a full 12 hours ahead of us which will mean major jet-lag.  Apparently a body can only acclimate by one hour per day, so I have been trying to get a jump on that.  Today the alarm went off at 5 am and I was up by 5:30.  Poor DH.  I have not yet informed him that Tuesday will likely be 4 am.  And Thursday will be 3 am.  Maybe I should have gone the other way and ADDED an hour to the days, but I don't think I could have stayed in bed longer and longer.  That would also throw a monkey wrench into Red Hat day coming up on Thursday - I can't see myself hopping out of bed and running over to the Chinese restaurant to meet the girls for... breakfast?  euwww

mornings

I love coming downstairs in the morning and walking past Floyd.  (In case you did not know, Floyd is the quilting machine.)

The windows in my room face south so I have a great view of yesterday's work.  This quilt is so lovely - all pastels with GINGHAM (one of my favorites).  It has some really noticeable staining from a wood shelf it was living on for several years, so I hope that will come out with a good wash in Oxyclean.

If you have any sure-fire tips for removing these stains please let me know.

Dignity Quilt

Have you ever heard of a Dignity Quilt? This is a quilt for a nursing home (or other similar care facility).  It is used when someone 'meets their maker' and goes out, for the last time, on a gurney.

I think this is SUCH a nice idea.  The name of the home was added in the corner.

I used a feather-ish design in the setting triangles and in the outer border.  The blocks and sashing were done with s.i.d.  Which darn near killed me.

The back is sooo pretty.

Honestly, I have some of the NICEST customers.  This was a birthday gift.  See the zippers?  Ha ha - who would love that more than someone who stitches for a living?

So.  The day is starting the way you hope they DON'T start.

• 2:30 am, wide awake
• 2:45, get up for a pee then go back to bed
• 4:00, give up on sleep and get up for real
• 5:00, have oatmeal & pomegranate-lavender-green tea 
• 5:30, finish web surfing, blog and email reading.  Wonder what else to do that is not too noisy and won't wake up DH.
• 5:35, start coffee (which was pre-prepped last night)
• 5:45, wonder why no coffee is in the pot.  Did DH forget to add water last night?  It wouldn't be the first time.
• 6:00, after much head scratching, realize the coffee maker is dead.  It will have to go out the door under the Dignity Quilt (see top of post). OK, OK.  Sorry.  Maybe that's not funny, but it HAS been a long morning already.
• 6:05, pour boiling water through the coffee grounds and make the pot of coffee
• 6:08, smack self on side of head after remembering there is another OLD coffee maker upstairs in the linen closet
• 6:08:32, pour self a cup of coffee and hope day improves...

Baby Quilts

This gal made a couple of baby quilts for a set of twins.

They got matching doll quilts, too.  What a great idea.

Love variegated thread! That dragonfly pantograph is definitely a favorite of my customers.

Yum. Cheesecake for supper - from my postponed birthday shopping trip to the Walden Galleria Mall in Buffalo.

New shoes from DSW. 

I did lots of other shopping too, mostly summer clothes for my upcoming trip to Bali. It was so nice to see all the lovely pastel colours in the stores!  Coral is definitely popular this year. There were a few bargains on winter-wear that came home with me, and they'll come in handy.  When I look out the window in the morning there is still snow on the ground.  I'm not sure why that surprises me because it IS still winter.  I guess I am just sick of it at this point, and getting anxious to see something green popping up.  

I am foregoing my annual retreat with the Binbrook quilters at Creiff Hills this year because the vacation budget will only stretch so far.  That money will go towards batik shopping in Indonesia.  Stay tuned for the April stash report.  Heh, heh, heh.

On the disability front, I am SICK OF THIS CAST!!!  Two more weeks to go before it comes off.  Progress is showing though - I helped with supper last night.  A large pot of water with pasta is impossible to pick up, so DH did that, and he cut the veggies and shredded the cheese.  And he put the casserole in the oven, and took it out when it was cooked.  But I COOKED everything, and assembled the casserole.  And, of course, I chose the recipe, which is where everything begins.  We made Gringo Starr from the Looneyspoons cookbook.  We make a funny pair these days, since he threw his back out last week.  He's crooked and bent over, and I can't pick up anything heavy or hold anything small.  We're the walking wounded.  :-)