The Flag of India, First '22 Finish, & New Addition

 This was such a fun piece to quilt!  It's based on the flag of India and was the last "custom" quilt of 2021.

Much of the quilt is hexagons.

Some applique.  Well, actually all of the hexies, the mountains, and the wheel are appliqued on to the background of sea & sky.

Lots of c/c quilting (Continuous Curve) and s.i.d. around all of the elements.

The strippy blues for the water are very effective.

I always love the back of quilts.

FIRST FINISH OF 2022

This one's mine.  Started on New Year's Day and complete by January 31st.

I purchased the layer cake in 2017 while I was on a bus trip to Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton, Missouri.  I had NOTHING in my stash that would make a suitable border so I crossed my fingers and went online.  Cherished Pieces had exactly what I needed.  With such a lovely stripe I decided to take the extra time and miter the border.

The panto I used is a new one and I like it - looks a little Art Deco-ey to me.

The bonus - 10.8 meters off my stash report!  Woo hoo!

NEW ADDITION

Let me introduce you to Coco, our new family member.  She's a rescue from Mexico, a border collie cross, 10 months old.  She's been with us for two weeks and is VERY skittish.  She's starting to get a little bit comfortable with me, but she's quite afraid of DH.

The challenge with a rescue dog is the lack of history about the dog's circumstances.  We don't know what toys or treats make her happy.  We managed to find a food that she likes, thank goodness.  She still spends the majority of her day laying around/sleeping.  According to the paperwork that's to be expected. We are looking forward to her coming out of her shell...soon, hopefully!

Because she's an unknown quantity we are keeping her on the leash whenever she's outside.  This means we are getting LOTS OF EXERCISE until the day comes when we feel safe to let her out in the backyard on her own.  For now, we worry that trying to get her back in the house might be an issue.  And could she jump the fence?  We don't know.  So for the time being, better safe than sorry.

IN MY SPARE TIME

Sit down.  Really.  I have started cleaning my house.  For the past two pandemic years there have been almost zero people in the house, besides DH and me.  The Beach Girls are coming for Winterruption at the end of the month (well, fingers crossed about that) so I need to get my shit together. This week I washed down all the doors in the house - 18 of them.  Also the cupboard doors in the potties.  Next I will be cleaning the kitchen & dining room chairs along with the table frames/pedestals, and then the kitchen cupboards.

WHAT I'M READING

I recently finished two rather intense stories.  The Breadwinner, about a young girl in Afghanistan, and The Nightingale, about France during the Nazi occupation.  After those I needed a bit of a mental break, so I'm working on The Unhoneymooners which is rom-com fluff.  It's good though - laugh out loud funny.

COVID-19, STILL

World:  Total cases 393,623,786.  Total deaths 5,735,389.

USA:  Total cases 76,458,488.  Total deaths 902,266.

Canada:  Total cases 3,117,218.  Total deaths 34,635.

Ontario:  Total cases 1,050,000.  Total deaths 11,770. 

The latest Covid bug up my ass is the truckers protest.  Do those idiots actually think the population of this country thinks THEY should be in charge of setting public health policy?  FFS.  Have another beer.

Kicking 2021 To The Curb

One of the best memories from 2021 - Beach Day in Exeter.  That car and I are approximately the same age.  I think it's a '57, and I'm a '56.

Lovely scrappy one that I quilted in September.

Margaret's 150 Canadian Women Quilt.  Mine is still only half way complete.

Wow, beautiful vintage blocks!

Ooh, so pretty.  I had trouble figuring out the quilting for this one but I love how it turned out.

Ahem.  How I spent December 16th.  Lined up for 4 1/2 hours at Dundurn Castle's parking lot for a booster shot on the Go-Vaxx bus, with DH and a friend.  It was a nice-ish day considering it was mid-December, but there were gale force winds AND periodic bouts of rain.  After we finally (!) got our shots we went to Lemongrass Thai Restaurant for lunch.  That was my last in-restaurant meal for the foreseeable future, I expect.

 MY BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT

Finally managing to complete a no-complaint-30-days was definitely the top of the list.  That seems to have changed my brain, temporarily at least.  I still complain but I'm quite aware now that I'm doing it, and usually nip it in the bud.  I definitely recommend that long and occasionally painful process of personal growth.  It seems to me now that complaining is simply reminding yourself about your unhappiness about something-or-other.  There is zero point to that.  If you're unhappy about something, either shit or get off the pot.

MY NEW ONGOING HABIT

I could never remember when I did something.  When I talked to someone.  WHO I talked to about something.  I was listening to a podcast about something-or-other (see what I mean???) and apparently our covid isolation has resulted in our lives being the same, day after day after day.  We have no "markers" to isolate events.  My brain cannot flip through it's files and identify "the night at the pub when I met Chloe" as the same day when I got a haircut, for example.  So back in June I started keeping a tiny daily diary on Google Docs.  There are no deep dark secrets there, but I can tell you when I had lunch with someone.

2021 DONATION QUILTS    

These are the quilts I donated to the women's shelter this year.  These four were pieced in October at the Tobermory retreat.

These four have been waiting for a new home for a while.

I am guessing that I donated this one too.  It was supposed to be a gift for someone, but when I went to wrap it I couldn't find it anywhere.  All of these quilts were out in my workroom for photos at the same time, so this must have been inadvertently packed into the donation box too.  If not, then God help me, I have lost a quilt!!!

This is how I'll be spending New Years Day.  I saw that quilt pic on the internet somewhere - if I had any idea where I would certainly give the maker credit.  I sat down for an hour and ciphered out the measurements and drafted the instructions.

I'm supposed to have a friend over for the day, but we've changed that plan - she will stay home and sew.  The covid numbers are absolutely on fire here right now and we both prefer to stay healthy if we can.

COVID-19

Oh, what the hell.  I was hoping there'd be no more point to this part of my post, but the Universe seems to have a different idea.  Here are the numbers for today.

World:  Total cases 282,617,000.  Total deaths 5,413,000

USA:  Total cases 53,105,000.  Total deaths 820,458

Canada:  Total cases 2,031,000.  Total deaths 30,251

Ontario:  Total cases 697,000.  Total deaths 10,200

In Ontario our daily case numbers have gone from, well, here...  a picture is worth a thousand words.  The highest number since the pandemic started was on Christmas day at over 10,000.  Today is 8,800.  This might explain my earlier remark that booster day was probably my last in-person restaurant meal for a while.

I cannot end the year with a depressing topic like our covid numbers, so how about a cute cartoon?  Here's hoping 2022 will be an improvement over 2021 and 2020.

 

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!!!

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.

 

Kaffe Sampler & Pants Mending

 I've said many times that I love working on sampler quilts.  This purple Kaffe - definitely wanted to keep this!

It was very difficult to see while I was working on the borders and the sashing, but the quilting shows nicely on the back.

Here are a couple of the blocks.

PANTS MENDING

Well, of course I want to talk to you about this.  Isn't mending every quilter's favorite thing to do?  No, I didn't think so.  Usually when DH asks me to mend something that he has CLEARLY been so careful with, I tell him to just add it to the pile.  Well, dammit.  That response didn't work this time.  He said that he N.E.E.D.E.D. these fixed, sooner rather than later.  Blecch.

Yes he blows through the knees on most of his work pants and adds lots of decorative little holes in assorted random places everywhere else.

If, like me, you mutter several un-ladylike words when faced with putting patches on the knees, the little tip I got from Mom many, many years ago is to open up the side seam.  Not the side with 14 rows of stitching - the OTHER side with a regular seam.  That is really quick to do with a seam ripper.  Then you can open up pretty much the whole leg, stitch the patch on, and then sew the seam closed again.

It doesn't make the job any more fun, but it will save your sanity.

Then you can go back to your OTHER favorite (?) thing - paper piecing some minis.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  119.7 million cases, 2.6 million deaths, 454,000 new cases March. 13/21

USA:   29.4 million cases, 534,600 deaths, 53,000 new cases yesterday

CANADA: 913,300 cases, 22,400 deaths, 3,105 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 318,000 cases, 7,153 deaths, 1,747 new yesterday. 

HAMILTON:  11,241 cases, 295 deaths, 83 new yesterday

Officially An Old Broad!

 First, here is the little Superbowl Sunday quilt, completely finished.

It's so pretty, thanks to the Moda Charm Square pack.  

I did learn a valuable lesson, though.  Don't write out a quilt label while you are messaging with the Beach Girls about March appointments for haircuts.  You WILL put the wrong date on the label.

I figured it was close enough that I was not writing out another one.

BIRTHDAY!!!

In the middle of a pandemic, I managed to have my 65th birthday yesterday.  Yay me!!

As I have been saying for months, YES, I had Bailey's in my coffee (and a little Kahlua, too 😉).  I waited until 10 a.m. and celebrated with the Beach Girls on a video chat.  The super-special part was an in-person gift dropoff, which was in addition to the extra bits that came early in the mail.

I also had a long-time customer drop off a gift a few days early, with explicit instructions to wait until my birthday before I opened it.  Hah.  This made me laugh out loud!

Where on earth she found that notebook... ???  She is well aware that I have a penchant for shoes so this did not disappoint. 😁  The bottom of the shoes are covered in sparkly stick-ons, so now Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes is stuck in my head.  Love Paul Simon  💗. I called and left her a slightly drunken thankyou message, which apparently made HER husband laugh.  Sigh.  Oh well.  I've embarrassed myself in worse ways.

My standards have really dropped with Covid lockdowns, going on a full year now.  My request for birthday dinner ... Swiss Chalet.  Hah!  DH and I worked together this afternoon and made a cheesecake for dessert.  We didn't kill each other, and the cake is extremely good.

My first retirement project is all lined up and paid for...it's a 6 week writing class, starting the end of March.  If I manage to learn something, maybe there will an improvement in the quality of my blog posts.  Fingers crossed.

COVID-19 UPDATE

There are a couple of gals from somewhere around here who are booking quilt trunk shows/lectures and running them on zoom, so I paid my $10 and spent 90 minutes watching Victoria Findley Wolfe.  Well worth the money, since we can't go anywhere..

WORLDWIDE:  113.9 million cases, 2.5 million deaths, 369,000 new cases Feb. 13/21

USA:   28.5 million cases, 512,300 deaths, 73,000 new cases yesterday

CANADA: 870,500 cases, 22,000 deaths, 2,068 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 305,000 cases, 6,960 deaths, 1,147 new yesterday. 

HAMILTON:  10,457 cases, 283 deaths, 28 new yesterday

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