Log Cabin type blocks for the President

My lucky customer was the president of her guild, and this quilt was put together from her President's Blocks.

Huh.  (whining)  I never got blocks when I was pres at my guild.
On her work order I wrote down 'Simply Squares' as the quilt name, but a Google search didn't give me a pattern for this, so I'm not sure what the pattern is.

The leftover fabrics were given to her too.  What a great back!!!

I spent Sunday at the Caledonia Fair in the quilt guild booth.  I took my sewing machine and worked on my Scrappy Club quilt.  This will take me forever, at this rate.  These are some of my 36 blocks.  A link for the pattern: Quiltville - Boxy Stars.

So - life in the country is plugging along...

• the computer is dying and I must call Michael (our computer guy) to see if a little surgery will fix the problem.  Probably not.  It'll most likely need replacing.  Pffftt.  There goes my 2014 shoe collection.
• my digital camera has already died.  Right now I'm using my phone to take pics, which is great, but OMG it is sooo faaar to go upstairs and get it out of my purse all the time.  Then I have to tuuurn it on.  Then I have to waaait for the photos to upload to Dropbox.  Then I have to mooove them to my photo program.  Then I have to eeedit/crop.  And THEN, FINALLY, I can post them to my blog or email them to whoever.  This lengthy process easily adds 5 minutes to the routine.  Seriously.  Who has that extra time in their day???

OK.  Enough bitching.  On to the garden:
ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week 2
Total YTD 42
I think the stragglers that are still in the fridge are getting shredded today and going in the freezer.

B.S. REPORT
Picked this week 3
Given away - all 3 (DH was whining that he was on BS overload and was not eating any last week.  He may not know it yet, but sorry honey - you're getting overloaded again this week.  Heh, heh, heh.)
Total YTD 9
BTW - I checked out the butternut squash at the fair and mine would have competed quite well.  Size alone would have won me a prize - some of my buggers are HUGE.

BS Tidbit of the week:  my language skills are excellent and I finish the crossword puzzle every night with no Googling of clues.  ha ha ha...

Christmas Star Quilt & How Husbands Amuse Themselves

Yup. Christmas is coming.

A beautiful, scrappy, star quilt.

Quilted with a ribbon and star pantograph.

Husbands are so much fun, aren't they?  I was out for the day, but I see he managed to feed himself lunch.  Hallowe'en and Easter are his two favorite seasons.

After lunch it was time for some amusement, I guess.  "Hmm, I think I'll pull the fireplace out today."  Seriously??

Is he taking a rest?  A nap?

It's hard to tell where the black t-shirt ends and the black arm begins.  He needed TWO baths after this job.

Really, there is nothing like being married to a handy guy.  As Red Green says:  If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.

9 Patch Quilt and Stash Reports (fabric, zucchini, b.s. with a recipe)

Here we go with another 9-patch quilt.  These are so pretty, especially when they have a great colour combination like blue & white with just a touch of red.

I quilted this with Baptist Fans and two border treatments.  SID along the borders keeps everything nice and crisp.

STASH REPORT
I have been very good!
Added since last report 2m
Used since last report 3 m
NET YTD (-24.75)

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week 0.  Seriously???
Picked YTD 40

BS REPORT
Picked this week 1
Picked YTD 6
BS tidbit:  I have such a well-behaved dog, she always comes when I call.  ha ha ha ha ha...

This weeks squash went into this WONDERFUL BS Tart with Fried Sage Leaves.  OMG it was sooo good.  The link is here.  DH and I ate the whole thing for supper.  It's probably not the best thing for my cholesterol, but it was Saturday.  Next time (and there will definitely BE a next time) I'll make a salad to go with it.

The easy part was using frozen puff pastry.  Make sure you buy the good one that is made with butter, NOT the cheap one made with hydrogenated vegetable oil, or whatever crap they put in our food these days.  The honey/hot pepper reduction was very HOT when I did the taste test out of the pot, but on the tart it wasn't hot at all.  And it needs to be warm to pour nicely.  Next time I might use 2 hot peppers instead of one.  As I was making this, dashing outside in the pouring rain to pick the required 12 fresh sage leaves, I was wondering what it takes to make a person decide to try frying sage leaves and then adding them to a recipe.  They are smoking better stuff than me.  :-)

The Flying Zucchini Brothers

To celebrate the end of zucchini season, in partnership with Disney & the Muppets, we bring you THE FLYING ZUCCHINI BROTHERS...

Workshop in Goderich

This is work done by Becky Goldsmith.  I love, love, love her stuff.

She's half of Piece 'O Cake Designs.

I was up in Goderich to take a workshop with her when I spotted this roof.

OMG.  Is there a quilter in the world who would NOT want this roof???

I am not going to show you my awesome work accomplished in the class.  One stem, one leaf and one circle.  Very exciting stuff.


I love my quilty friends.  I got an email "I had a really good pumpkin crop this year.  Would you like some?"  Hell YES!!  One is already missing and in the kitchen - ready to be murdilized by my chef's knife.

Here we go - one large-ish pie pumpkin, maybe 8" across.  Cut, seeded and boiled.

The skins just slip off at this point.

I cranked up the Kitchenaid food mill and got about 5 cups of puree.

Whee... bread dough.

Yum, yum, yum.  Pumpkin bread from this recipe.

Afterwards, I made pumpkin cranberry squares from this recipe.  They went to a meeting with me last night and the only ones to make it home were in my stomach.  Oops.  Sorry DH.

2 Christmas Quilts

It's never too early to get your Christmas quilts ready.

I used a pretty Christmas tree motif for the background and borders.

I really like the offset design on this quilt.

It was quilted with a poinsettia motif in the blocks and border.

I am still posting pics from work done in August, and here it is the middle of September.  I can't recall having such a distracted summer in like ... ever.

• Tobermory for a week in July
• helped start a new Scrappy Club at the guild in August
• 5 days in August, Grand Rapids Michigan
• 2 days in August, Caledonia NY
• 3 days in September at Margaret's in Ennismore
• 2 days in September at Diane's in Zurich

I've been harvesting more tomatoes - 7 more quarts of sauce were done Friday night.  I finally got to bed at 1 am.  While I waited for the pressure canner to cool down I watched 2 more episodes of Sons of Anarchy.  Thursday night was 4 loaves of zucchini bread.  Yum - that will sustain me through the winter.  Saturday we had friends over for dinner which gave us the opportunity to use up some of our fresh tomatoes on bruschetta and a lovely tomato/pepper/onion salad.  I think we went through half a bottle of balsamic vinegar. The menu for the night was:

• bruschetta (from garden)
• veggies & dip
• steamed green beans (from garden)
• roasted carrots
• roasted butternut squash (from garden)
• mashed potatoes (from garden)
• Dilly Beloved Chicken (from Eat Shrink & Be Merry)
• Tomato/pepper/onion salad (from garden)
• cupcakes (from our guests)

Weatherwise, things are definitely cooling down.  I added a second quilt to the bed the other night when it went down to 5 or 6 c.  Brrr.  The zucchini is just about toast - I have a few small ones left out there, but the last 3 I picked are probably the end of the notable harvest.  However - the Butternut Squash is INCREDIBLE.

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week - 3
Picked YTD - 40

New this year:
B.S. REPORT (butternut squash)
Picked last 2 weeks - 5 (roasted 2, soup 1, gave away 2)
Picked YTD - 5
Today's BS tidbit - I have cleaned and dusted the office.  Ha ha ha ha ha.....

Kawartha Retreat

I'm at Margaret's in the Kawarthas for a long girly weekend with two of my Caledonia quilter friends. What do you think of her little present for me? She is such an enabler. :-)

Half Log Cabin Quilt and Summer Canning

I love the colours in this Half Log Cabin quilt.

There are lots of modern fabrics in here, so I used a funky flower quilting design.

Nice back!!

Oh lordy, how much do I love my neighbour???  She's been feeding me raspberries for the past couple of weeks.  I begged her for two more cups worth so I could make Peach & Raspberry Jam - she sent me home with at least eight cups worth, AND she picked them for me.

The garden bounty is keeping me busy.  This is the Orchard Fruit Chili Sauce that will hopefully last me the next two years.

Saturday's Labours (appropriate for Labour Day Weekend).
Eight jars of jam and six jars of chili sauce.  No you're not crazy - two jars of jam are in the fridge because they didn't seal. 

 I am guessing that I give away too much stuff after I make it.  I had to break down today and buy another box of jars.  Tomorrow we (that is a REAL 'we' - meaning I'm putting DH to work, too) are making Italian Tomato Sauce, and I didn't have enough jars.

On our way home from cross-border shopping Thursday we stopped in Grimsby and bought another nine litres of peaches.  OMG they are good.  But I already had a 3 L basket in the fridge - so here I was, up to 12 L of peaches.  I used a half dozen in the chili sauce, but still... Aack. 

So.  Every day I read Judy Laquidera's blog at PatchworkTimes.com.  She cooks, quilts, knits, lives in Texas out in the middle of nowhere, and she raises chickens.  She is the reason I have a pressure canner, the reason I make my own bread from scratch, and the reason for my burning need to get the pasta maker.  On reflection, she is costing me a lot of money and time, but that is a topic for a later discussion. Recently she was writing about dehydrating fresh produce.  We had the raspberry neighbours over for supper last week and I was relating some of what Judy wrote about.  Well, it turns out they have a dehydrator they've never used and they forced it on me loaned it to me.  Now, RIGHT now, I have 3L of peaches busy dehydrating away on the kitchen counter.  I will share some of those, along with some of the jam, in appreciation.  Good neighbours are a gift from the Universe.

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  3
Picked YTD: 37