Wide borders, Complaints, Kitchen, Covid

 Wide borders can be a bit challenging to quilt.  Oddly enough, I had TWO quilts that came in with wide borders, and even ODDLY-ER (Yes I know that's not a word.  Who cares?) the same border design worked beautifully on both of them.

Yikes - all paper pieced!

The body of this was all done with s.i.d.  There is no quilting I could ever imagine that would improve on that piecing.

The turquoise thread in the border really adds a gorgeous pop of colour on the black.

Applique, with a bit of additional batting behind the leaves for a trapunto effect.

The leaves were all outlined, with added veining.  Background cross-gridding with a tight fill behind the leaves, then a bowknot between the blocks.

A variegated thread was used throughout.

THE COMPLAINT UPDATE

As I reported in my last blog post, I was working on 30 days of continuous non-complaining from my most recent start date of August 22nd.  Holy mackerel!  I finally made it and pulled the plug on Sept. 23rd!  DH might voice a little skepticism over that but I'm sticking with my story.  My first start date was July 12th, and I had to reset eight times, sometimes two days in a row.  When I was discussing this little project with people, several of them kinda screwed up their noses, tilted their heads, and asked me "like....WHY?".  

Actually, I found it to be a really worthwhile exercise.  I discovered that if you start your day complaining (well - me, anyways) it begins a downward spiral where many parts of your life are crap.  Complaining tended to amplify whatever was irritating me, and I'd feel pretty miserable by the time I went to bed.  NOT complaining really helped with that. 

Try it!  Let me know how it goes.  See if you can manage 30 consecutive days in less than 75 days (or something like that).

KITCHEN

OMG, please get me out of the kitchen.  Many many pears were gifted to me.  I've made pear cobbler, pear honey, kale & pear salad, diced and frozen pears for more cobblers, and now I'm getting ready for my retreat with the Beach Girls.  Can you say Peartini?

Apples have been coming at me from TWO neighbours.  I've made apple sauce, apple cake, apple pies, apple cobbler, butternut squash & apple soup, and diced and frozen bags for the winter.  I've also made a few new friends - just call me the Apple-Pied Piper.  Heh heh heh... notice the little Apple Pie pun there?

I've done so many tomatoes that yesterday I finally started putting them in garbage bags.  I quit.  I am NOT doing any more this year.  

The butternut squash are ripening and a few of them have split from the abundance of rain we've gotten the past couple of weeks.  Thankfully, squash will keep for a few months so I can harvest it and ignore it.

You know you've been too generous with people when they stop answering your phone calls.  😆  And don't even get me started on the fruit flies!  Who, by the way, are wine drinkers.

OH, COVID...

I spend a couple hours every morning pretty much wasting the early part of my day.  I read and post to a quilting forum I belong to, read the CBC news, and then I move on to facebook (which has turned into mostly ads - anyone else notice that?)

One of my favorite parts of the news is reading the comments.  An interesting comment caught my eye this morning, about the number of covid cases in Canada vs. the state of Florida, so I had to do some research.  

Yes, our whole country against one American state, as of October 1st-ish.

'Nuff said.  Get your shots!!!

Sad Fur-baby News, Complaint Update, etc...

 So yeah, sad news here last week.  Our sweet dog Sadie took her last breath on the same day as Charlie Watts.  I've been comforted by the thought that she went through the pearly gates with someone who loved music, and she can keep him company. 

DH and I are so grateful for the wonderful care she received throughout her 14+ years from the Caledonia Veterinary Clinic.  Oh darn, excuse me... sniff, crying again. Sniff.  OK.  Let's carry on.

As an old dog she was on meds quite a bit.  It got to the point where DH and I were having trouble keeping track of her pills, especially if one of us had to hit the road in the morning, or went to bed early at night.  Whenever she was on a round of antibiotics I had to resort to keeping a separate calendar that we could tick off for every dose.  Here's an example of twice a day dosing for three weeks.  That's a little whiteboard in the kitchen - it's turned out to be the BEST. THING. EVER.

THE COMPLAINT UPDATE

In my last post I mentioned that I'm attempting (hah, pfftt!) to go 30 consecutive days without complaining.  I've had to restart another couple of times since my last blog post, so the most recent start date now sits at August 22nd.  This current 14 day stretch is the longest I've managed in one straight run.  Previously the maximum stretch had been nine days.  It seems that every time I've caught myself slipping up, I've been in conversation with a girlfriend (or several) and the conversation turns to crabbing about something.  Sometimes I start the crab session, sometimes I just join in with whoever's carrying on about whatever.  Very broadly, the complaints have tended to be about husbands (no real surprise there, as anyone who is married will tell you!) or regarding some area of politics.  There's a federal election coming up soon, which is driving a LOT of complaints.  I have gotten to the point where I'm much better at having a discussion instead of ragging on in misery.  Will I get through another 16 days?  I'll keep you posted.

GARDEN UPDATE

Whoo baby!  All those leaves and the mushroom compost certainly paid off.  We are drowning in potatoes, many of them volunteers that overwintered through that thick blanket.  I've got butternut squash big enough to kill somebody.  The zucchinis are still producing, and the cucumbers are only now deciding to give up the ghost.  I have to start doing something with the tomatoes this weekend.  Some of the slicing tomatoes are the size of my foot, and even the romas are big, fat and round.  

FUN TRAVEL

I finally made it up to the Kawarthas to see Margaret.  It had been over two years since we'd seen each other.  We spent some time tooling around the lakes in her boat, ate lots of junk food, spent an afternoon at Kawartha Quilting, and generally caught up.  Her neighbours kindly provided some entertainment and threw a wedding in their backyard.  FYI they still play The Macarena at receptions. 🎵

I'm catching up on as much social life as I can because it'll be another long, lonely fall and winter season I think.  Covid is not going away anytime soon.

Colour, Christmas, & Complaints. (And Covid, I guess.)

 This is the hard 'C' post, pronounced 'K'.

Colour.  This one is self-explanatory...wowsers.  I love it!!

Christmas.  Actually it's Winter, not Christmas.  But that would ruin the alliteration.  A great strippy quilt.  This was fun to quilt.

Love the crochet doilies!

Complaints.  I'm running a personal challenge - 30 consecutive days with no complaints.  This started on July 12th, and I'm now on my FIFTH start date.  At this rate I will still be trying in 2022.  Interestingly, the first two restarts were because I was trying to one-up somebody; "Hah, you think that's bad...".  Also interesting is that not complaining (on those rare days when I seem able to do that) forces me to find a new way to talk about something.  Instead of expressing a complaint I will talk about an issue with a view to correcting or eliminating the irritant.  Mind you, any discussion around politics really does include complaints.  So how I should handle that is a good question.

I had a few conversations with friends as to when something actually becomes a complaint.  Is it when I think something, or only when I say something?  And is stating a negative-fact (as in "you left a mess on the counter") also a complaint, or can that be reworded in such a way that it becomes a conversation topic rather than a complaint?  Does the tone of voice dictate where that falls?

Most people I've mentioned this challenge to have been pretty intrigued with the notion, as in "why on earth would you do that?".  😆

Covid.

Ontario - 378 new cases on Saturday.

USA - averaging 100,000 new daily.  In June they were 11,000 per day.  Yikes.  Delta variant.

World - 201.8 million cases, 4.3 million deaths.

Personally, hubby & I have had both shots and I am working my way back to normal.  I've had a few customers who came in the house.  I've had four restaurant patio meals.  I had a friend over for dinner, and we have another couple coming here tonight for dinner.  I've been away with the Beach Girls overnight.  I'm getting a HAIRCUT next week.  And as you will see in the pic below, I'm back to making the girls interesting cocktails.  This time it was Rhubarb Martinis.