Meet NINA ...or What Was I Thinking?

 Coco the rescue from Niagara Dog Rescue in the back.  Nina the rescue from Hamilton-Burlington SPCA in the front.  Two dogs who don't exactly like to wear Santa hats, lol. 😂

DH and I haven't had a puppy in probably 20 years.  Clearly I forgot how much work they are.  Most mornings Nina's been yipping & barking to go out between 5 and 5:30 am.  Did I mention that the dog crates are in the master bedroom?  She has been very good about going back to bed after one of us takes her out, but only for another hour and then she's up.  

We've had her for one month and she's definitely settled in - she and Coco are happily playing with each other.  By that I mean that Nina (being a puppy with only one brain cell) hops at, barks at, nips at, and barrels full speed at Coco, and Coco is more than willing to play along.  

The resemblance here cracks me up.  I guess we should've named her CHEWIE.

In between outdoor bathroom visits (no, not for me!) I HAVE been able to get some quilting done.  These have gone to Martha House, a women's shelter in Hamilton.  The quilt on the far right has been on my UFO list for y.e.a.r.s.  I started it back in the 90's - I didn't like my fabric choices (I was a know-nothing newbie at the time, AND this was a mystery quilt) and didn't like my quilting (again, a know-nothing newbie back then).  When I pulled it out two weeks ago I realized that although the fabric selection is not great, it's not as bad as I thought.  ** I ripped out most of the quilting and requilted it with a nice, generic, geometric design, and it looked ok in the end.  Should I have been surprised that after 25 years I still had enough of the fabric on my shelves to do the binding?

Three of those panels were free - I picked them up at the guild from the TAKE-IT table.  And I got another one at the December meeting!  Uh, obviously I'm not the only one who has fabric they really don't need.

A quilting buddy also dropped off a batch of kids quilts that she's made over the years, so I had quite a stack to deliver.

We had our Christmas dinner last night with 1-800-LUKE and his lovely wife.  Now we can stay in our jammies (probably taking turns having a nap) until Wednesday when friends are coming over to meet Nina.  Technically they're coming for dinner, but the puppy is the real attraction around here right now, certainly a bigger attraction than my cooking.

As I have for the last several years, I'll spend New Years Day stitching with a friend.  This year I think we'll both be working on the mystery quilt hosted by the CQA.  The mystery quilt is open to everyone, whether you're a member or not, so join in! These are my fabric pics.

That black fabric is a one yard piece that I purchased in November at Dollarama.  It was $4.00.  For one yard.  Four dollars.  Who knew that Dollarama sold quilting cotton???  It's in the aisle with wool and stuff and the selection changes...from store to store?  I don't really know.  I was in downtown Hamilton (when I dropped off the quilts) and went to the Dollarama in the mall there - they were selling Star Wars fabric, both the white fabric and the black fabric.  Even though I have so much fabric that I will never use it all, hunting for more is always on my list of favorite things to do.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, hoping that you and your loved ones have a joyful season.

** If you want to be good at something, you have to be willing to be bad at it first.  Quote from, I think, Richard Bach's book ILLUSIONS.  Excellent book.

A Winter Quilt & A Donation

 This is a beautiful quilt made from a panel.  As you know, Winter Is Coming.

I love this gal's work.  She cut up the panel, did some math, made lots of patchwork, then put it all together.

Even the back is lovely.

Back in the spring my friend and I were horrified about what was happening in Ukraine, and we decided to put our stashes together and make a quilt for donation.

Here's the final product.

A closeup of the quilting - sunflowers.

I also made some placemats to go with the quilt.

I'm pleased to say that I delivered the quilt and placemats to the Hamilton branch of the Ukraine Canadian Congress last week.

That must have worn me out...here's what I just finished.

Ha ha ha, that tiny little thing is for a guild swap - a mug & mug rug.

I've kept up my energy by eating lots of Kale Salad.  My goodness, that stuff is very resilient.  

DH said: (with a fake sad face) The kale is dead.  It didn't survive that cold snap.

Me: Uh, nope, you should go take another look.

DH:  What?  No...it was all droopy and wilted.

Me:  Uh, nope, it has recovered quite nicely!

DH:  mutter, mutter, mutter... 😖

RECIPE FOR KALE SALAD

227 g kale, chopped (massage with lightly oiled hands for a few minutes)

2 apples or pears, cut into matchsticks

56 g sliced almonds, lightly toasted

DRESSING

1 tbsp dijon mustard

4 tbsp oil

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Whisk dressing ingredients together.  Toss kale, fruit, almonds with dressing.

I'll close this post with a pic of my useless assistant.  She was stuck at home on a very rainy Friday instead of playing with her friends at daycare.  She's missing a tail, so she does a piss-poor job of sweeping up threads.

A Quick Catch-up

Where I'm going tonight.  Might come home with a new t-shirt!

I made a couple of pear & raspberry galettes to thank the ladies who gifted me with the fruit.

Coco trying to coerce a treat (?) out of one of the trainers at doggy daycare.

What I did to her AFTER daycare. 😁  PetValu in Binbrook.  $12.00.  Excellent value!

 

I've spent a lot of time this week getting ready for my annual week-long retreat with the Beach Girls in Tobermory.  I was a little stressed when I realized I couldn't possibly finish everything packed in the box.  My solution?  Add a couple more projects. 😜  I would say that I need to have my head read, but I don't know if that's politically correct.

  

Today I also had to go vote at the early poll, and then do a Costco run for retreat supplies. Food actually.  Is that considered supplies?  FYI, Saturday afternoon is not the smartest time to go to Costco if you like wide open spaces.  Hubby stocked up his supplies for a bachelor week - hazelnut straws, Doritos chips, BBQ nut mix, Clamato juice, apple pie, ...  At this point it's uncertain which of us will put on more weight in the next seven days.  The Beach Girls at least eat some green stuff too (although I think I got the hairy eyeball from one of them when I said I was making kale salad).

Two Modern Quilts & ....

 These were two beauties that both wanted the pantograph Modern Curves.  

That's such a striking quilting design and it shows up really well on solid fabrics.

And, HEY!  I MADE A QUILT!  This was for a young man who's gone off to university.

Here are the strips of geese.  My original intention was to use a border print as sashing between the rows, but I didn't like the look, so I opted to stick with the solid black.  These are 4" x 8" geese made using the Quilt In A Day ruler.  Definitely one of my favorite rulers.

DOG STUFF

You may have seen this goofy pic already if you follow me on facebook or instagram.  A few people have suggested that we get another dog to help Coco relax, so...yup.  Being a crafty girl I made another dog.  Since this was taken I have brushed out this much fur AGAIN.  TWICE MORE in fact.

Here's another fun one - this one's from daycare.  Obviously neither one of these goofs has gone to Etiquette Class.  Elbows on the table??  Helloooo!

KITCHEN STUFF

Oh, hubby, hubby, hubby.  After one of my weekly chats with the Beach Girls I mentioned to DH that three of them have air fryers, and they were pretty surprised that I didn't have one.  Well, hubby doesn't need more than one reason to go shopping. 

 

I used it last night to bake frozen shoestring fries and onion rings and they both turned out pretty well.  Better than in the oven, as in crispier.  I don't think it did anything to make them healthier though.  That would require an act of God.  In a pointless attempt to make him repent I was reading the recipes to him that came in the little book... lots of sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and fish recipes.  All on his personal list of "foods to avoid", ha ha ha. 

I'll close with a bit of beauty from Sept. 8th, courtesy of The Universe.

SUNSET

MOONRISE

COCO does a blog post

 Friday.  My favorite day of the week!  Mommy takes me for a drive so I can go play with my fourpaw fur-friends.

OK, now that I've burned off some steam it's Break Time!

Meh.  Don't like that pool.  More space in this one.

Self-explanatory? 😂

It's a dog's life... 🐕

New Collection of UFO's in 2022

 I'm sitting on the back patio, 8:30 on Friday evening.  Current temp is 24c with a feels like 30c.  Saturday and Sunday are both forecast to be 30c with a feels like 40c.  Given a choice between this heat or late January temps of -20c I will take this.  In the wilting heat of the day I'll stay inside and do whatever is on my necessary list but as it cools down a bit in the late afternoon I'm back outside.  I'm blaming this love of summer for my new little crop of UFO's.  The first one was a test run of the Modern Curves pantograph that two customers wanted.  At some point I plan to reload it and quilt it again on the crosswise grain - I think the resulting grid will be kinda cool.  Very 60's op-art-ish.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this...tote bags maybe?  Super cute fabric though.

As the Program Chairperson for the Binbrook Guild (fancy title - I was actually the ONLY Program person, ha ha ha) I made some samples of a fun quilt and shared a pattern for the ladies.  The first sample is made using a layer cake.

This second sample is made using a border print.

I'm also in the midst of making 20 flannel pillowcases for the hospice in Leamington.  And I've purchased 7 1/2 m. of fabric to make a Christmas quilt as a gift for someone.  But when it's nice outside I can't get myself to stay in the house and sew.  (or clean, but we won't go there, hmm?) 

At least once a week sleep eludes me - something wakes me up at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.  I lay there and I lay there trying to go back to sleep.  Sometimes I'll get up and read.  But usually what I want to do is go down to my workroom and turn on my sewing machine.  I never do though.  I assume that I'd wake up DH and since he doesn't sleep much better than me it wouldn't be fair to steal any of his precious shuteye.

Here's a shot from 5:47 am in mid-July.

In dogland, we're going to dog classes twice a week.  DH is doing most of the work with Coco, hoping to improve their relationship.  We're making tiny strides.

I did put her to work:

Coco helped me harvest the volunteer garlic.

Then she cooled off in the pool. 

 I haven't warned her that the potato harvest will start soon.

Two Pretties from May, and life-in-general

 Here's a gorgeous, soft & gentle quilt made by Margaret (of the Kawartha Margarets 😄).  She manages to seriously tackle several UFOs every year.

Margaret & I talk almost every Tuesday just to keep up with each other's lives.  It's nice to get a parcel in the mail from her and send back something interesting in return.  Those boxes don't usually contain a whole quilt, but sometimes...

As you know I love scrappy quilts.  That shot of pink running between the columns adds a great touch.

I've never made a braid quilt myself, but it's on my list.

One of the items on my to-do list for the last few years has been to GET TO THE LAWYER.  That was finally taken care of, so we now have proper Power of  Attorneys for both property and medical, and we have updated wills. 👍

Coco has been having a great deal of fun at Doggy Daycare. 

But I'll tell ya, she's not good for anything later on.

My plan for today is to try and get the garden planted.  I don't think I've ever been this late with it before, and there's no really good reason for it.  I've been out there quite a bit pulling weeds.  Apparently what I should have been doing is pulling a weed out and sticking a cabbage seedling in.  I've been eating lots of asparagus (pulling weeds out of that patch, too!).  The other day I made an asparagus quiche for the first time and IT IS DELICIOUS.  Recipe here.  I substituted dried basil for fresh, but otherwise I followed the recipe.

I still have lots of fruit in the freezer from last summer, so I decided to make a cherry/strawberry pie (since I was in the kitchen anyways making the quiche).  I made a full batch of pastry which splits into 6 x single pie crusts; I used one for the quiche and two for the pie.  The others are in the freezer, keeping the fruit company.  Now, half a block of lard has settled on my butt.  I guess I will have to move my diet to another day. 

Two More "Same But Different", Movie, Book, Dog

 Here are two more quilts of the same pattern, but different colour choices.

The pink quilt got a fun back too - made with a floral panel.

Whenever I go to a quilt show I hang around the aisles where they've hung all the quilts that were made at a workshop, so you can see the "same but different" quilts.  I've learned a lot about colour by paying close attention to how other people make use of their fabrics.

MOVIE:

I watched West Side Story and did not enjoy it.  It was depressing.

BOOK:

I finished reading The Diamond Eye.  It was good.  Except for the people who died, everyone lived happily ever after.  ha ha ha

DOG:

OMG, Coco loves doggy daycare.  When I took her last week she was whining in the back seat all the way there.  I thought maybe she needed to poop and I almost stopped at the side of the road.  I didn't (see:  proof right there that I'm a bad dog mom).  When I got her out of the car at the trainers' she was CRAZY to go see the handler, wagging her non-existent tail, rolling over for belly rubs, and jumping up in excitement.  After my little burst of joy at her happiness, I felt a bit like chopped liver.  Sigh.  Taking here here (The Canine Bond) was definitely the right thing to do to help her get out of her anxiety after the traumatic move from Mexico.

Coco's the little one on the right, with one of her new friends. 

SOCIAL OUTING:

Yes.  I went OUT.  The Beach Girls met in St. Jacobs for a celebratory birthday lunch.  Afterwards we hit the outlet mall, and then drove three minutes over to the Market.  I've never been to the market that I can remember.  We got a bonus deal on blueberries so the next time you see me I might have a slight purple tinge. 

And speaking of food, I made a batch of DELICIOUS Maple Buttertart Bars.  If you're like me you might scratch your head a bit over the cranberries, but trust me - these are delicious.

What I should be eating: