Jungle Walk, Recipes

 This is definitely the CUTEST quilt I've worked on in quite a while.

Jungle Walk by Harebrained Happenings

Here are a few of the blocks...

Today we are celebrating VALENTINES DAY.  Still locked in with the stay-at-home orders, until Tuesday.  Supper tonight will be leftover roast beef, but I'm making a Chocolate Olive Oil Cake for dessert.  This is a new recipe for me.  The Savour Ontario site (apparently I follow them on Instagram?) has never led me astray, so it will probably be very good.  Assuming I don't forget any ingredients which I know happens to all of us once in a while.

Yesterday, being GALENTINES DAY, I had a lovely two hour video cocktail party with the Beach Girls.  If they'd been here for our annual Winterruption get together I would have shared a large jug of Salted Caramel Martinis, but as it was I made a small jug and hic drank it all myself. 

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT POLITICIANS (not that anyone cares what I think...)

In Ontario, the province is getting opened up starting this coming Tuesday.  The government's plan is to transition the Public Health areas into colour coded zones - I think for two weeks at a time. I'm in Haldimand/Norfolk, which is going back to Orange status.  We are surrounded by Niagara on one side - which is going to Grey (really bad!), and Hamilton on the other side which is going to Red (bad!) - both areas keeping MORE restrictions than us because their situations are much worse than ours.  What that means is, like what happened around Christmas, residents of those restricted zones simply get in their car and drive to a more open zone to get whatever they simply cannot live without, which spreads more infection here into our zone.  So, my request to Hamiltonians and Niagrans:  STAY AWAY FROM HERE.  Please.  And thankyou.  The medical officers of health in most of the province think this whole thing is nuts, because the new variants are spreading and they want the stay-at-home orders to remain in effect for the time being.  But hey, why would the government listen to their experts?  

OK, that covers my thoughts on the Doug Ford Conservative government idiots.  Now I shall move on the the United States.

Yesterday, Donald Trump was exonerated for inciting the riot at the Capitol on January 6th.  I kind of expected that, but I am still shocked.  No more than I was when he was initially elected, though.  They have become a country that willingly elects a man who laughingly, sexually abuses women, makes fun of disabled people, feels justified in paying almost zero taxes, etc.  Now, they have no problem with permitting (arguably) the most powerful man in the world to run roughshod over democracy and encourage the murder of his fellow politicians.  What a sad state of affairs.  I was honestly hoping that with the election of Joe Biden things would turn around but that is not to be.  I would no more travel to the USA again than I would go to Iraq, Nigeria, or North Korea.  Not happening, and I know I'm not alone.  Sigh.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  108.7 million cases, 2.4 million deaths, 310,800 new cases Feb. 13/21

USA:   27.6 million cases, 484,000 deaths, 84,727 new yesterday

CANADA: 825,000 cases, 21,200 deaths, 3,046 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 285,868 cases, 6,693 deaths, 981 new yesterday. The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 16th.

HAMILTON:  9,830 cases, 275 deaths, 40 new yesterday

Jason Yenter Quilt and the Caledonia Pandemic Update

This is one of those quilts that scares me a little bit... I used lots of the "stand-and-stare" technique.

I will probably NEVER tackle a quilt like this - so much applique and paper piecing, with an on-point medallion setting.

I think at one point I had seven longarm rulers out - straight rulers, curvy rulers, circles, ...

I also needed chalk, a blue wash-out marker, and the IQ.  Along with some collaboration from the Beach Girls. 

Beautiful back.

In my last post I mentioned that some things had been cancelled with the Coronavirus epidemic, and that the grocery store was out of hand sanitizer.  Here is a timeline of things that relate to me, starting on March 9th.

• March 9 - WHO declares a Pandemic.  The Bulk Barn will no longer allow shoppers to bring their personal containers.  Toilet paper has been flying off store shelves for at least a week.
• March 10 - I made a trip to Swiss Chalet and Costco with a friend.  I needed an emergency supply of Parmesan cheese and baking cocoa.  You can't have an apocalypse without brownies, right??  My friend SHOULD have bought toilet paper because they had some and it was on sale.
• March 11 - at a guild meeting, I jokingly tried to auction off a bottle of hand sanitizer with a starting bid of $20.00.  No one would bite.  Bummer.
• March 12 - this was the date that Mark Preece Family House sent the email advising volunteers to stay home.
• March 13 - Colleges and Universities in Ontario have closed.  Mark Preece House sent an additional email advising that the House was closing and all guests were being asked to leave, asap.
• March 16 - I sent the revised SOLO invitation to the Ontario longarm quilters, changing our meeting from April to September.
• March 17 - This was a big day, item-wise.  The Province of Ontario declares a State of Emergency.  This closes many establishments and releases additional funding to some institutions.  This was the day of my last face-to-face client quilt dropoff.  My little warning antennae started going ding.ding.ding when she mentioned that she's a flight attendant.  Aaack!! deep calming breath  This was also my last face-to-face social engagement, when I had my friend over for tea & toilet paper (see March 10 item).  She'd been looking in stores for four days, with no luck.  This was also the day the travel agent advised that the final payment in March for the Italy trip (scheduled for late August) was being postponed.  Aaand my optometrist called to reschedule my appointment to mid April.  They have been ordered to close.
• March 18 - the customer booked for Saturday the 21st has emailed to cancel our appointment.  I had invited the tea & t.p. friend for dinner on Saturday, but I cancelled that in light of the current directives to "social distance".  For the life of me, I cannot remember what date we were told to social distance, so I'm going to assume it was March 17th, when the State of Emergency was declared.  I received an etransfer from a friend refunding the theatre tickets she'd bought us for a May 2nd performance.  Tonight I sent a big long email to my Singapore niece (who's actually in Vietnam).  I haven't talked to her since Christmas, so I just wanted to bring her up to date on what was happening here in Canada.  Every time I googled the virus and Vietnam, information was a bit sparse.  I wanted to know what was happening in her neck of the woods, and a little assurance that she and her family were ok.
• March 19 - Singapore niece replies to my email saying that she has no time to update me, they are leaving for Canada tomorrow.  Well, let me tell you...that brought some real tears of relief! She's the daughter I never had and I think about her all.the.time. This morning I had my first Porch Pickup with a customer.  I left her quilt out on the porch but I couldn't miss the chance to chat for a few minutes so I went out (staying away from her) and visited for a bit.
• March 20 - the Canada/US border is closed.  Only citizens (?) and commerce are allowed to cross.  DH's sister and her husband called to let us know they are back home from their winter abode in Florida.
• March 21 - the Haldimand & Norfolk Public Health Department has ordered the closure of all "personal care" establishments.  No haircuts.  No tattoos.  No facials.  Suck it up ladies - we're going to start looking like our real selves soon.  My optometrist called again, and cancelled my new April appointment - now they've been closed "indefinitely".  And speaking of looking like our real selves - I skipped the part of my day when I get dressed in "daytime" clothes.  Ha ha ha, pajama day!!  I got caught though - one of the Beach Girls accidently hit the "video call" button on Messenger and one of them noticed my jammies.  Whoops. It was a fun call, though.  Scrolling through facebook tonight I see the news that an employee at a sort-of-local McDonalds has tested positive.  There go any hopes I had of an Egg McMuffin takeout. wah wah...
• March 22 - the second Porch Pickup happens.  I have another one tentatively scheduled for tomorrow, for a quilt dropoff.  DH and I realize that we must have transitioned to "mature-and-at-risk"...our neighbours did some grocery shopping for us.  💗  The Singapore niece has posted on facebook - they have arrived in Canada.  happy happy  I had a cheque to deposit from the March 19th p.p. so we went for a little drive, and I wore a bright orange latex glove to use the banking machine.

Somewhere in there the upcoming meetings for my three quilt guilds were cancelled, too.  Every day I am GLUED to the news, and to facebook.  I hope that doesn't become a new bad habit.

The Cat Quilt and A Life Update

This was so much fun to work on.

The saving grace was that the maker brought a folder of quilting ideas along with the quilt.

There was a lot of negative space for me to play.

The quilting that replicates the brick floor was a technique I learned in a class with Jodi Robinson.  I've used that design more than I ever expected.

LIFE UPDATE
Things have been pretty hectic around here for the past 6 weeks.  Hubby was helping a friend and had an unfortunate accident that is limiting his activities and requiring physio appointments twice a week.  After breaking MY wrists (one at a time, thankfully) I'm in no position to complain about helping him through his recovery.  Quilts on the schedule are getting a bit behind, but I'm doing my darndest to make sure that any deadlines you've given me are met. I appreciate your understanding. 💗

Away From Home Quilt

AWAY FROM HOME is a book by Nancy Rink Designs.  Link HERE.  If you went to the quilt show in Ingersoll last weekend you would have seen this quilt hanging in the show.

I really love the combination of pieced blocks, multiple borders, and applique.

There was a great deal of s.i.d. on this quilt.

Cross-hatching behind applique is a very time consuming endeavour.

Such a pretty back.

I didn't make it to the show in Ingersoll, but I did get to the Quilter's Tea in Hagersville.  It was hosted by the Haldimand Quilters' Guild.  They had a guest quilter present a trunk show - Ruth Kennedy from Fergus.  I know Ruth through longarm quilting, and she put on an excellent show.  The event consists of lunch, door prizes, gift basket draws, a penny-sale, and grab bag draws.  There were eight people at my table - six of them won a bunch of stuff but I was not among the lucky ones.  Well, it's not like I need anything.  Although it was a bit of a bummer going home empty-handed, at least I don't have MORE stuff to think about getting rid of.  A blessing in disguise.

More Critters On Quilts, and Quilt Scheduling

I showed some "animal" quilts a couple of weeks ago, in the post that degenerated, somehow, into a story about bullying.  Today I am being UPBEAT!

First, we have a moose.

Next, a bunch of sheep.

A butterfly.

A Yeti.

And feet.  This one cracked me up... it's the BACK of the Yeti quilt.

I have to show you the whole butterfly quilt, though.  It's really pretty.

Here's a clip of the back...it's Minkee.  The quilting shows beautifully on this stuff, and it is sooo soft.  Use caution, though.  Sometimes teensy bits of the fluff will pull up to the top of the quilt during quilting.  The Minkee fibers get caught in the twist of the thread.

I'm sure you are all wondering how the, um, procedure went last week.  Fine.  I'm clean as a whistle and don't have to go back for ten years.  Yee haw. 
Scheduling of that was great too. 

• Monday - prep.  No food & lots of toilet.
• Tuesday - colonoscopy then light food for remainder of the day
• Wednesday - guild pot luck supper! 

QUILT SCHEDULING

As you may have noticed, I'm currently scheduling work for April.  Why am I so busy???  Well, I'm not exactly busier.

1. In the past, people would drop off the quilt that was on the schedule, and they would often bring another, unscheduled quilt with them.  I would quilt both of them, even though only one was penciled in on my calendar.  I was forever behind schedule and would spend extra time at the machine in the evening.  NOW, these quilts get added to the queue and I'm working hours that are closer to what I want.  This hasn't improved my housekeeping efforts, but maybe next year I can work on that. 
2. In the past, I would schedule three quilts per week.  This was the BEST. TIP. EVER. and I thank Jane Berry for the suggestion - it's been working very well for years.  However, I am 62 and would like to spend more time piecing and playing in the garden (aka weeding).  So the schedule for 2019 only allows for TWO quilts per week now.  Obviously, that means a longer wait time.  In 2018 I started by blocking off an empty week every couple of months.  One in February to clean the house and enjoy the Beach Girls here for Winterruption.  One in the spring to get the garden cleaned up and planted.  One in the late summer for harvesting & canning of produce.  One for the France trip.  One in October for Tobermory with the Beach Girls.  

After I finish up the December quilts (3 for binding today, then this week will be 2 more pantos and 1 custom) then I'm 'closed' for Christmas holidays.  I have plently of mending that's piled up the last few months. DH had to resort to buying a few new shirts. 😀  I have bedroom drapes to make, and I want to paint the dining room...although that may get hired out because of my bad elbow.  I have several tops of my own that need quilting, and a pile of guild placemats to be quilted for Meals on Wheels.  I think that will keep me plenty busy for two weeks.

BUSINESS TIP

If YOU are a longarm quilter and you want more business, make sure you have some kind of presence on the web.  Several new customers contacted me this past year because they found me by doing a Google search.  I regularly refer people to other quilters when I cannot accommodate their time frame, but I don't know everyone who quilts for hire.  People should be able to find you as easily as they find me.  

Dog Love & Horseradish

I was approached earlier this year by a woman who wanted a quilt made.  It was to feature photos of her beloved companions, and large enough for a queen size bed.

I have no facility here to print fabric of a size that would bring her vision to life, so I directed her to Spoonflower.  That center panel of the dog in the fall leaves measures about 38 x 54.

After she received her package of fabric in the mail she went shopping for the additional fabrics that would create the top, and she got a lovely backing fabric to co-ordinate.

It took me a whole day to applique the names.  First I had to select a font and print the names in true size, and make a pattern with layout for the size of available area on the quilt.  Once that was done I made fusible fabric letters with Mistyfuse, which is my favorite fusible web.  Then machine blanket stitch around the letters.

This was quilted with a very quiet design so the dogs maintain center stage.  I was really happy with the end result, as was the customer and her husband.

HORSERADISH

Oh, my good-God-Almighty.  Making horseradish is not for the faint of heart.

I've been getting bored making the same stuff in the kitchen, so I went through some of Margaret's recipes that she shared from her Hello Fresh boxes.  One of them does mashed potatoes with Dijon mustard and horseradish.  But I ran out of horseradish several months ago.  So I stopped in at the grocery store and the only bottle I could find - first of all it was a plastic bottle, which is on my no-fly list these days.  Second of all it had a list of ingredients a mile long, which is ridiculous for such a simple condiment.  A while back my neighbour Sophie mentioned that she had HR in the garden, and if I wanted any I was welcome to it.  An organized person would have taken advantage of this during the nice weather, but we're talking about me here.  Of course, I waited until the weather was below freezing, with gale force winds.  I dragged DH out for a walk (oh, nasty and cold on the way home - lemme tell you!!) and we got Sophie to show us where the plants were.  DH obligingly dug up some roots for me and we went on our way.  Cleaning and peeling and dicing were easy.  Grinding was easy.  DO NOT STICK YOUR NOSE IN THE CONTAINER OF GROUND HORSERADISH.  According to all the recipes I found, adding the vinegar sooner will keep the HR mild.  Waiting three minutes (!) will make it hot.  Mine turned out half & half hot/mild because there was quite a bit of ground root stuck in the grinder.  So even though the vinegar was added to the majority as it was expelled, the remnants were added several minutes later.  As I found out, sticking your nose in the container of ground horseradish is stupid.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Anyhow... I have survived to tell the tale, and the potatoes were delicious.  Consider yourself forewarned.

Vintage Dresden Plate & Quilty French Floors & Zucchini Update

Boy, I have a lot of catching-up to do, quilt-blog-wise.

This vintage Dresden Plate was quilted back in mid September.  I love vintage quilts - never met one I didn't fall head over heels for.

There were a couple of blocks made with new fabric, just to get a useable size of quilt.
Yes, those plates are a little wonky.  The centers aren't round.  The plates aren't centered.  But it is so pretty!  As requested by the owner, there is not too much quilting here.  Stitch-in-the-ditch around sashings, and inside & outside the plates.  Loopies inside the wedges, and motifs both in the corners and in the centers.

Pretty, pretty on the back.

French floors as related to quilts: 
1) Chevron.

2) Square in a Square.

3) Checkerboard Border - reminds me of Courthouse Steps.

ZUCCHINI REPORT
What the hell?  How can I be doing a zucchini report in November?  Well I got sidetracked and never finished back in September. 
When I was in France, there was zero chance that DH was going to pick zucchinis.  So when I got home... guess what?  Eleven more.  And a couple of them were, not surprisingly, pretty large.

Picked end of season:  11
Picked YTD:              127

Today's plan for supper is to make a big pot of vegetable soup and a Butternut Squash Tart With Fried Sage.  Some of that zucchini is coming out of the freezer and jumping into the soup pot.

Fruitful Abundance quilt, Crazy Book, and Zucchini Report

This is Fruitful Abundance, a class that was run at Quilt Junction.  The maker is a bit of an overachiever and completed hers waaay before the others in the class.

She had three requests with the quilting - one was to keep the 'folk art' feel and not overdo the quilting.

The second was to add a bird to the vases, and the third was to quilt a running leaf vine in the outer half-square border.  There is a TON of s.i.d. and outline quilting on this.

So, on to the Crazy Book story.
Y'all know, sort of, Diane - leader of the Beach Girls.  One day last summer I was having a glass of wine and talking with her husband (let's call him Bill) about goodness-knows-what, and he mentioned that he had a book I might be interested.  When he finally remembered who the author was I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped, because "Bill" never struck me as someone who would follow Deepak Chopra.  I've read one of Chopra's books and it was about the chakras.  The next time I saw "Bill" he handed over his copy of You Are The Universe, and made it abundantly clear that he wanted the book back.

I was kind of getting into the book because some of the concepts were pretty mind-blowing.  Here's a page....

and the following page....

Even though I found myself having to reread a lot of it, it was pretty interesting.  Sadly - as it progressed, it was getting to be more and more like this, which required MANY page rereads.

I finally gave up around page 200.  But I appreciated the way it changed my perception of a lot of things.  I had that book for a year.  Diane would laughingly ask me occasionally how I was doing with it.  So I'd remind her that every page required THREE reads before I'd "get it", so Bill was just going to have to be patient.  I think he was glad to get it back when it was returned at Beach Day.

On to something that is much more understandable for many of us...

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked last two weeks:  27
Picked YTD:                 86
Gave away last two weeks:  6  (What?  Only 6?  sigh.)

9 Reasons Why Your Longarmer Might Be Late With Your Quilt In The Spring, and My Fave From St. Jacobs

I don't know where you live, but HERE we had a bit of nice spring weather and then we got blasted TWICE with more winter.  Now that the temperature is finally Helen-friendly, I check the Weather Network and see that the pollen counts are off the charts - which explains the sneezing and stuffy sinuses.  Nevertheless... I love spring!!! When the weather gets warm and I can strip off the jacket, scarf and mitts I have a difficult time staying indoors.

9 REASONS WHY YOUR LONGARMER MIGHT BE LATE WITH YOUR QUILT IN THE SPRING

1.  The asparagus is up and needs to be cut every morning.  Harvesting (heh heh, I love that term) is best done before noon, when the plant is fresh after a good night's sleep and has sent all it's energy up into the world.

2.  Lettuce has reseeded itself from last year's crop.  This needs to be inspected every day and overcrowding dealt with by judicious harvesting.  Don't buy baby greens from the grocery store... take those thinned out babies into the house, rinse them off and store them in damp paper towels in the fridge.  Eat later with a light salad dressing.  Yum.

3.  That damned garlic is at it again, sprouting everywhere it shouldn't.  Large clumps need to be dug up, separated, and replanted where they belong.

4.  Oh, the lovely peas you planted during the nasty rainy and cold weather are up.  Yippee!  Now to weed... you can't do that until the peas are sprouted 'cause you would be courting disaster.

5.  The Raspberry patch needs to be corralled.  Raspberries spread by runners and they will end up taking over whatever space they feel entitled to.  Chop off the offenders and rip them out, or transplant them into pots, to share with a friend.  DH and I used to throw a plant swap every spring.  We'd barbecue burgers and hot dogs.  Guests would bring side dishes along with transplants from their gardens.  It was a big horticultural free-for-all. One of the guys brought a zillion garden gloves from Costco. He had only recently moved and had no plants to share, but he was able to take home enough to make a really good start.  One year our neighbours came on their lawn tractor, and contributed a huge landscape rock. This type of event is best done in the spring or early summer because that's when we're all dealing with the over-abundance.

6.  Strawberries.  See issues with 3. Garlic and 5. Raspberries.  These things are EVERYWHERE.  Again - dig 'em out and either transplant or share.  Your friends will love you.

7.  Oh, your quilter has discovered the CILANTRO seedlings and is perhaps rolling around in them.  Just like 2. Lettuce, this will reseed itself into beautiful large patches of spicy, lemony, goodness.  On the downside it also must be weeded, as you can clearly see.

8.  Johnny Jump-Ups. 😊😊😊😊😊  These little violas are completely edible.  Bake a cake!!  Decorate it with petals!!  Your friends will think you are completely off your rocker.

9.  We cannot forget the Useless Assistant.  She wants to go for a walk.  How can you refuse on such a gorgeous day???

MY FAVE FROM ST. JACOBS
I always have a good time with the Beach Girls, and St. Jacobs was no exception.  I was disappointed that my quilt was not hanging at the show, they had it laid over a small table, which does not show it to it's best effect.  However there was not one single inch of space left in the building for hanging quilts, so I understand why it was displayed that way.

My favorite was absolutely this Dresden Plate.

Appliqued and hand embroidered.

Hand quilted.  So often I'm disappointed with hand quilting because there just isn't enough quilting. (Not that anyone cares what I think.)  But this one?... gorgeous!

Oh, love.

Kudos to Dorothy Sittler, whoever she may be.  Beautiful.