Leavin' the Country

 I'm killing time...the last half hour before hubby takes me to Hamilton Airport, to get on the bus to Pearson Airport.  In Toronto I'll get on a plane to Heathrow in London.  

The bucket list is getting another item crossed off - I'm attending the Birmingham Quilt Festival.  Today I made a couple little cord-minders - one each for my phone and tablet.

Two weeks ago I was making little 'project bags' for the Singapore family, who are here visiting.  Hubby was kind enough to contribute some very sketchy jeans.

I pieced the outside of the bags on the longarm.

• I loaded batting only, no backing.  
• Basted some gridlines so I could keep things reasonably straight. 
• Sew the denim pieces with 1/4" seamlines.
• Pin the 'fashion fabric' top & bottom pieces, then stitch those with a 1/4" seam allowance.

Once the piecing was complete, I unloaded and cut the appropriate pieces, and constructed as usual.

Gotta go - time to load the suitcase in the car!

Super Bowl Sunday!

 First - the January completion.  This is the top I pieced in the fall up in Tobermory.  It's ready for a label & the washing machine.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  And I used a new-to-me panto which I'm also pretty happy with.

This month I'm working on this.  There will actually be TWO of these.  It's a leader/ender project that I've been poking away at for a couple of years, and I finally finished all the blocks.  98 of them.  Those half-square centers are cutoffs from a baby quilt I made for my friend's daughter.  Setting is 7 x 7 blocks, and they're 7" each, so both of the finished quilts will be approx 48 x 48.

Now for today...I wait ALL YEAR for this.  The lasagne is in the oven and the salad is made (no thanks to me - DH made that).

Here's my setup:

DH will be sitting on the couch, watching the game.  I'll be stitching during the game, and watching the commercials and the half-time show.  The noise of the sewing machine makes him turn the volume up on the tv, so the workaround is a little sound barrier (which is normally my small design wall). Here's a closeup with a couple of descriptors:

Not shown - the martinis.  It's still a bit early for that but don't worry - my setup is within arms-reach of the bar. 😁  Apparently the (ahem, cough cough) leader of the free world will be at the game.  If I have to look at him very much I may end up a little drunker than I originally planned.  I've been so angry at the United States since January 20th that for a few days I couldn't even think straight.  Anyhow - no more air time for him here...going to find my shot glass.

September...what??

 What happened to the past few months!  Well:

This was the last group project that I organized.  It was for the Binbrook guild and I had "planned" to do a demo on back-basting at the June meeting, to end the season.  All the background squares were either white, cream, grey, or black, with text of some kind.  All the center circle pieces were somewhere between yellow and red.

However, it was scheduled for the day I got home from Quilt Canada in Edmonton.

As you can guess, I did not make it to the guild meeting.  I also managed to pass the virus along to hubby, so we were both sick for a while.  Thankfully one of the other guild members came over and picked up all the supplies and filled in to do the demo on my behalf.  You've gotta love such willing partners.  And in truth, she knows the technique much better than I do anyways.

I was very well behaved in Edmonton and bought basically nothing.  A couple of thimbles and almost no fabric: only one fat quarter and one charm pak.  Lectures every day kept me busy, zipping from the show floor to the conference rooms and back.  Somewhere in there I managed to, ahem, drop my phone in the toilet.  Thankfully it was a CLEAN toilet.  Unused.  Putting your phone in your back pocket is not smart!  I heard the "clink" "sploosh" and thought What the hell? Hoo boy.

I took it apart and gave everything a shakeoff and wipedown, put it back together, then made a call to see if it worked.  That was the point when it occurred to me: I had a toilet-washed phone up at my face.  Eeeuw, gross.  Shudder.  After it dried out it has been working fine ever since.

Anyhow, continuing with the CQA, I've finished the mystery quilt they ran this past year.  I modified the size a bit and altered the border a bit.  Quilting still needs to be done but I'm glad the top is complete.  It certainly is RED.

I've also completed a little quilt using the sample blocks from a 60༠ ruler demo. Sooo often I cut all this stuff out, piece a bunch of blocks, present the demo, then throw everything into a box somewhere.  I've been pretty good this year about NOT leaving more UFO's than what I started with back in January.  I still have some stuff laying around from demos, but not as much as usual. 

Nina got some love from me and the clippers.  Dog grooming is certainly not a strength of mine.  Four and a half hours later...

The little quilt I pieced on SuperBowl Sunday was next up on my list.  All finished now.  I've got TWO charm paks to choose from for the 2025 event.  This size quilt uses 80 squares, so I buy one charm pak and then cut an additional 40 squares from my stash.

Aren't these the prettiest little glasses of flowers?  Cosmos.  So happy.  I needed two little centerpieces for our big social event of the summer.

We had DH's family here in August for a BBQ lunch.  There were 11 of us all together; long distances make these visits difficult to arrange.  I think we had at least three different dates on the calendar, changing from one to another then back again, before choosing another one.  Somehow the pandemic changed our habits and we don't have company the way we used to in the before times. Poor Nina has never seen that many humans!  After person number six showed up you could see her little brain saying "what the hell???".  This visit was especially great because DH's brother recently got married - it was so nice to spend some time with his bride and get to know her a bit.

This is my most recent finish.  I got involved in a challenge with some gals on a longarm forum I belong to.  This is a Potato Chip quilt, so named because you can't make just one.

There are a multitude of block layouts and colourations to work with.  I really like this dark/light version.  There's enough 'colour' in the dark blocks to keep it cheerful while still maintaining the DARK feel.  I'll get the binding on it in the next day or two.

This is a very s.c.a.t.t.e.r.e.d. post - I clearly have not been doing any writing for the past while.  The final update I'll give you today, which I know you are DESPERATE to hear about, is the zucchini. Well, I had three plants.  One of them died pretty early in the summer, leaving me with two plants.  I made an attempt to grow them up a trellis, which was not very successful, but it did keep them off the ground.  I have not been overrun with fruits, the plants have been very well behaved, producing a zuke every day or two.  I'll probably get some zucchini loaves made and put away for the winter but there shouldn't be much produce for shredding and freezing.  

The butternut squash, on the other hand, are big enough to kill someone.  Holy sh*t.

 

2024 In Pictures...

The apron I made for my egg-providing neighbour.  I know she appreciates these...I popped over there one day for a visit and she was wearing a tattered apron that I'd made her a couple years earlier.  Ever since then I make her a new one every couple years.

I'm lucky enough to have friends who I meet at Mapleview Mall for an irregular dinner date, maybe a half dozen times a year?  We met through our work at Royal Bank ...so many years ago I don't even want to think about it.  Somehow these new shoes managed to come home with me last night.

Today's completed wall hanging, not quite in time for Valentines - the hand stitching won't be finished, but I CAN take it to the guild tomorrow for Show 'n Share.  In the fall of 2021 when things were starting to open back up after the pandemic, our guild meetings were being held in the church gymnasium.

We all had L O T S  O F  R O O M  T O  S P R E A D  O U T.  

I couldn't book speakers at the time, so I did a lesson on one-patch quilts.  This is all 2.5" squares, from stash/scraps.  Any simple shape can be pixellated like this - it makes a fun, easy project.  The first one I made was a Christmas tree, but the heart has been on my to-do list for the last few years.

Did you watch the Superbowl?  My sewing machine was by the tv - I stitched during the "game", then watched the commercials and the half-time show.  I make this "Simply Squares" quilt every year during the Superbowl....it still needs two borders, then it will be ready for quilting.  I buy one charm pak, then cut up another 40 squares from my stash and use all 80 in this top.

I saw a quilt online that was made with those triangle blocks on the right.  I had to google the instructions, then I made a sample for myself.  This is another quilt in my "To-Do" file.

I unthinkingly put my hand up and volunteered to do a quilt ruler demo for my guild.  When I got home I realized that I had to MAKE something so I could do the demo.  This is a Double Four-Patch quilt and I really like the way it turned out - all scrappy, using light (all the creams), medium (all the yellow/golds) and dark (all the blacks).  Hey - did you notice that my NEW SHOES match this quilt?

I'm also doing the Mystery Quilt that is being hosted by the CQA.  Duh - the last mystery quilt took me 25 years to finish...is my head actually screwed on????  Instructions said "do not use directional prints" (whoops - my black is directional).  And "do not use large scale prints for the background" (whoops - my red has large snowflake-ey motifs in different colours).  Apparently I'm a rule breaker?

  

Knowing that I sometimes forget what my intention was when I put something in the freezer, I guess I recognized my limitations last fall, when I wrote the name & page of the cookbook.  lol...  The apples, btw, were from my same egg-neighbour. ❤

 Pretty, calm & sedate Coco.

Nina.  Hellraiser on four paws - now six months old.  My theory:  puppies only have two brain cells, and one of those doesn't work.

Lots of things to be grateful for so far this year. ❤

She's having what for lunch??

 This is a bowl of leftover green beans (DH does not like green beans) and pickled beets (DH also does not like pickled beets, the weirdo) and feta cheese.

This is what I have picked so far today:

That's 5 sweet peppers, 2 lovely tomatoes, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, 2 strawberries (now gone - they were my lunchtime appetizer), a container-thingy of purple beans (which turn green when you cook them), and 3 zucchinis.  I already have 9 zucchinis in the fridge and I gave away 3 yesterday.  I have to go back out again to pick the Roma tomatoes.  And don't get me started on the kale - OMG, so much kale out there. 

This is what I picked two days ago.

That was 7 sweet peppers, 4 zucchinis, 2 lovely tomatoes, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, a few peas, and another container-thingy of purple beans.  Along with a whack of Roma tomatoes which are still sitting on my kitchen floor.  I pick them a little bit green, hopefully before some pest starts nibbling on them.

If food is medicine, then... I should live to be 248 years old.  God save us all, lol.  Which is why I will indulge in some not-so-healthy chocolate later on.

Tonight's supper will be Charlie's Beef & Zucchini.  My friend Sue gave me this recipe years ago - it's one of my favorites (although as you can probably guess...not DH's favorite!).  I suggested that he could make himself hamburgers but he's decided to grin & bear it.  😫 ⬅His face at the supper table.

What I also have in the fridge is about 3 litres of fresh raspberries from the neighbour.  Mmm, raspberries & yogurt for breakfast ❤.  She already gave me that many a week or two ago, which are in the freezer.  

And I've frozen three cookie sheets worth of Roma tomatoes.  The last few years I've been canning tomatoes but I still have several jars from last year, so I'm going to skip all that labour.  I do plan on doing a couple sheets of roasted tomatoes...they are sooo good.  I'm almost out of what I roasted two years ago.  Roasted tomatoes make an excellent base for pizza, instead of tomato sauce.  And I'll throw in a couple dollops whenever I need a bit of tomato flavour, or sometimes I use it instead of tomato paste.  I freeze it in little half-cup portions, which is close to the size of a can of tomato paste.

I've also frozen sheet #1 of diced sweet peppers.  We make a lot of soups/stews/stirfries and, fyi, sweet peppers are very expensive in the winter.  I can save that money for chocolate.

I was wide awake at 3:15 am today and had my nap from 8 - 10 am.  Crazy.  Here was the lovely sunrise, though.  Taken at 6:52 am when I'm sure I was the ONLY person on the planet who'd been awake long enough to have had two cups of coffee already.

QUILTING

And when I get sick of PRODUCE (which is starting to happen most days, some years I'm very glad when November rolls around), I'm working on this lovely quilt:

The stitch-in-the-ditch is all done.  I'm now quilting the motifs in the blocks.

Things have to look up soon, right?? And random stuff.

 I bought a layer cake.  Well, actually I bought a lot more than a layer cake, but we'll leave it at that shall we?  At least this goes with a border print that's been in my stash for many years, AND I have a pattern that will work with all this stuff.  So it's good!  Well, except for the part where I'm not supposed to be buying fabric.  Ahem.

Even Coco thinks some of DH's t-shirts should go in the trash bag.

The last couple of weeks have been interesting. 

WEDNESDAY Aug. 23rd: I was half way through this quilt.  Then BAM the hydro went out while the quilting machine and the computer were all turned on.  No more work that day because the hydro stayed out until 8:30 pm.

THURSDAY 24th:  Quilting equipment was acting weird and kind of schizophrenic so I reached out to my support team.  They gave me a couple of suggestions which did not help.   Blecch.   Then 9:30 pm BAM the hydro goes out again.  And stayed out until 6:30 am, by which time the basement had flooded.  Because of course the generator decided to act like an asshole.

MONDAY 28th:  We had an outdoor guild meeting.  Just a nice social event to catch up and show off our summer stitching work.

TUESDAY 29th:  DH changes the start/stop switch on the quilting machine, and that seems to be the fix.  Yay!  Broken machines are very stressful.  Apparently the first hydro outage fried that little sucker.

FRIDAY Sept 1st:  I get an email from one of the guild members who was at the Monday get together.  Uh huh, she'd just tested positive for covid.

SATURDAY 2nd:  We had 1-800-LUKE and his wife here for dinner.  I spilled a whole mug of fresh HOT tea in her lap.  Oh, dear God.

SUNDAY 3rd:  The internet is out A.L.L.  D.A.Y.  Puhleeze... people can't live like that!!

Have you been reading news stories about how fast fashion is not sustainable and is really bad for the environment?  You may rest assured that that does not apply to me.

I made a lovely batch of Peach Marmalade.  One of the recipes without added pectin, where you have to watch the temperature and when the jam gets to a certain temperature it's ready to put into jars.  Uh huh...after I gave away two jars I decided to have some myself on toast.  Oy vey...that stuff is hard as a rock.

the Sewing Watch, a Beautiful Border, and Strawberry Biscuits

Waaay back in 2013 my Singapore niece was married in Bali.  If you have insomnia some night, you can scroll back through my blog and find my stories about that.  BUT, on the way home from Bali I had a layover in Hong Kong.  While strolling around, killing time, I wandered into a little gift shop and saw a watch that was clearly made JUST FOR ME.

It was originally equipped with a red, fake leather band.  Which lasted about two weeks.  Seriously - that's no joke.  Two weeks.  On one of my adventures with Beach Girl Diane to a quilt show somewhere in the USA, I found twill tape printed as a measuring tape.  That self-made watchband lasted almost 10 years, but it truly needed replacing this year.  And what did I do as soon as the new band was installed?  I dropped the watch on a ceramic tile floor.  🫣  Had to take it in to the watchmakers and get new guts installed, which cost me $65.00.  How much was the original watch, you ask?  About $20.00.  (we will not add on the $5000 wedding trip cost).

This was a fun quilt I worked on last winter.  Love, love, love those borders.

It's high season for strawberries now.  My freezer still holds a large bag of berries from LAST year.  A few days ago I was awake at 4 am, so by 6 am I was getting hungry.  And I wanted sugar (which seems to be a companion to insomnia???).  Hmm.  What to do, what to do...

Strawberry Biscuits.  Very good. (**)  Used up some of the frozen berries.  The biscuits were totally gone the next day.

(**)  Recipe was adapted, because y'all know how I like to cook healthy, if I can:

• replaced 2/3 cup flour with Whole Wheat Flour.  
• for the buttermilk I used leftover whey from when I made yogurt a few days ago.  There wasn't quite enough so I topped it up with sour cream.
• I whizzed up a handful of walnuts in the food processor and added them to the mix, for the Omega 3's.  If "bad" food is on the menu I can at least try to get some good cholesterol, right?
• Slightly smaller size - I made 12 biscuits.  Although that didn't help much, as we still managed to eat all of them in the space of about 30 hours.

This message was brought to you by my cutting garden.

 

It's 31.4c in the shade

So, yeah.  This is not where I am.  It's where I WAS on the weekend - up to visit my friend Margaret in the Kawarthas.

We went to the Lindsay quilt show one day, ate too much every day, hung around the dining table gossiping catching up, and of course sewing.  I got this stitched together - it will be the center of my version of the guild Block of the Month.

Here is the whole quilt, made by my Program partner.  I donated the quilting. The guild will give this to Glanbrook Community Services to assist in their fundraising efforts.

It's hard to see the border quilting...a side light helps.

THE GARDEN

Fresh veggies are on our plates... lots of asparagus.  And look at all that fresh lettuce!  

I am a messy gardener who would rather pull weeds or cut flowers rather than deadhead stuff.  Which means that after the lettuce is finished, I turn a blind eye to the flowers.  Then I turn TWO blind eyes to the seedheads that are blowing all over the place.  The benefit to that is early spring lettuce that I didn't have to plant.  DH rototills the garden but he leaves this swath where the asparagus comes up.  And it's coincidentally full of lettuce.  For many years I would start lettuce seedlings in the basement under lights, until I finally realized that those plants were edible at the same time as the lazy-man version.

Up in the top left of that photo you can see the garlic is looking very very happy.  In front of that, today I planted onions & beets, then some beans over to the right.  Yesterday I put in cabbage seedlings.  About 10 days ago I planted pea seeds but so far they are still hiding.  Unless Peter Rabbit is eating them as they sprout. 😒

Now, I'm taking a break and having a "Mommy's Special Drink".

Here's your giggle for today...