Defiant or Delulu?

 Ha ha, love the word 'delulu' which was added to one of the dictionaries this year. 😄

I was cleaning up the garden yesterday, November 8th and took these photos of some very determined flowers.

Today, November 9th, they're faced with this:

This was the evening horizon on October 30th in Tobermory.  Just, you know, to make you jealous:

I came home on November 1st.  A coupla girls were happy to have me back:

Since then I've completed the quilt I was working on at retreat.  

That quilt represents four years of block swapping at the Binbrook guild - two years of half-squares, and two years of 4-patches.  When you combine those they make Jacob's Ladder blocks.  

Binding and label finished, too!

 Coincidentally, Border Creek Station Pattern Company runs a stash-buster every year.  As I was scrolling through their site I discovered that this was their pattern from 2020 (although they are called Cross-Eyed Switcheroo Blocks on the site...admittedly, a much more fun block name!), so I had an actual pattern to follow.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been OBSESSED with this quilt since I first saw it at Quilt Canada several years ago.  It's by Terry Rowland - you can find her on facebook and youtube.

Look at how cute those blocks are!  Every window has something 'fun' in it.

I have managed to convince four of my friends to join a monthly block swap of houses with me.  The blocks are 4 1/2" unfinished which meant I had to do a little persuading.  When dealing with recalcitrant humans, the dogs have taught me to make cow-eyes while you squeek out a quiet, pathetic whine.  

This helps to make humans go along, even when they're not really convinced.  Because the blocks are small they're a little finicky to make, so I didn't want too many participants.  The five of us are all pretty good piecers and I don't expect any, um, surprises. 

Here's my organizational setup - four ziploc bags (one per person), plus a box for mine, which is big enough to hold the ziplocs until I can distribute the blocks.

Now to go find some more cute animal prints...

In the Dark (or how to entertain five longarm quilters when the hydro goes out)

 Retreat is half about socializing and half about productivity.  I was plugging away and got the braid border finished for a Round Robin.

I finished the Block of the Month for the Binbrook guild (two blocks, really).

I also finished a sample block to see if my instructions were workable, for the house block swap group:

We were enjoying ourselves in the afternoon sunshine:

When all of a sudden - POOF!  NO HYDRO!

We looked at this for a while:

Then, we decided that since my laptop was charged up I could show them my pics from Birmingham Quilt Festival.  EXCEPT...(there's always a "but", right???) the laptop wasn't charged up - it was down to 25% because I'd left it turned on.😖  However, fearless leader Diane had brought a power pack with a zillion cords, so we plugged the laptop into the power pack and were back in business.  That lasted for quite a while, until the laptop swore and walked out, like a bad loser.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  By now it was dark and we had to entertain ourselves like the little 12-year-olds we are at heart. 

We could have given up and gone to bed early, but... WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!

There are a few Jays fans in the group and there was a game on, that couldn't be watched.  But also couldn't be missed.  More technology brilliance - hotspotting from a phone to a tablet got the girls a watchable screen until the bitter end.

Supper never happened because the hydro was out until 2 am.  We had sandwiches from Monday's leftover salmon using the rye bread that was intended for the ruben sandwiches that were supposed to be supper.  We finished it off with cheesecake, which has the magic ability to shut up anyone who was thinking about complaining. 

Is It October Already?

 I have temporarily exchanged my horizon, from this:

to this:

so I could spend time like this:

and like this:

I'm planning to get the borders on this:

I've also convinced four friends to join me in a monthly House Block swap, to copy the Terry Rowland quilt.  So stinkin' cute with all those little critters in the window(s):

Blocks will be 4 1/2" unfinished:

sample made by Janice:

Good lord, it looks like a bomb went off in there. 😳  We were cutting kits for donation quilts, to be made up by members of the Binbrook guild.

Stay tuned.  There could be more goings-on to share this week...