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).

Beach Day! and, of course, Zucchini Report

I presume you've been following me long enough that you know all about the Beach Girls.  My longarm compatriots.  People are often surprised that we're friends, and not backstabbing competitors stealing each other's bobbins.  Meh.  Life's too short for that shit.

This past week was our annual Beach Day which generally lasts for three days.  We rarely make it to the beach...but this year it happened!

Diane took us on a mystery outing that lasted all day.  We started at the consignment store in Exeter and ended the day at the Lion's Pavilion in Grand Bend.  There was a very fun band featured and their set was "the British Invasion" (or maybe that's the name of their band?, but I don't think so).  Anyhow, the 2 1/2 hours they played was such fun, starting with the Beatles and ending with the Beatles, and over a decade's worth of music in between.  I felt sorry for the folks sitting around us because we're not really aware of how extraordinarily badly we sing.  And we sang a lot.  With unbridled verve.

In our down time we celebrated a birthday and solved the problems of the world.  😀 As Deb and I were on our way home we stopped at the Restore in Exeter, where I was able to save myself fifteen bucks on clear bags that I use for customer quilts AND I got four c.d.'s at $2 apiece for the drive home.

I won't see these gals again until September at the next SOLO meeting.  Anticipation....

ZUCCHINI REPORT

Picked this week:  18
Picked YTD:       59
Gave away:  lots.  I took a bunch to Beach Day but neglected to count them.  I also made four loaves of Zucchini Bread and forced those on the girls too.

Sensational Solids and Wonderful Winnings

This beauty went home yesterday.

The slightly paler yellow in the wide outer borders is linen.  Very soft, and makes for a beautiful quilt.  On the down side, I found it a bit 'shifty' - think flannel or homespuns.  I suspect it would have been more challenging to piece with too, because of the loose weave.

The maker is giving this to her brother, so she didn't want "girly" quilting, and since music is his hobby that's what went in the wide borders.

Because the cross-hatching was interrupted by the squares, I chose to mark the quilting lines.  And I'm a big scaredy-cat when it comes to worrying about permanent stains.  I used tailor's chalk.  No muss, no fuss, brush or vacuum away.

An added service I offer is binding.  See the "PRICING" page for options.

WONDERFUL WINNINGS

The Caledonia Guild finished out the season on Wednesday with a pot luck supper.  All year the members have been bringing fat quarters for the year-end draw.  Each f.q. = 1 ballot.  The collection totalled 100 f.q.'s, so the pile was split in half and two winners were chosen.  Guess who won a pile of 50 f.q.'s?

GARDEN UPDATE

The asparagus is slowing down, but the strawberries are ready.

Bright! Stripey! and Cheap Entertainment/Red Hats/Zucchini Report

If this doesn't keep her warm and cozy this winter I don't know what will.

Oh, I just love these colours!

Great pattern - lots of movement.

I could get myself in all kinds of trouble now.  The new DSW has opened in Ancaster.  I stopped in after our Red Hat Pot Luck/Pool Party, where we got into complex discussions about things like folding & rolling your underwear.  Which I actually DID when I got home.   :-)

I made up for the shoe purchase by getting free entertainment.  Waterdown hosted a brand new festival this past weekend artsfest.ca, so Teresa and I went to see Ashley MacIsaac , the fiddler.  Whew, he put on a GREAT performance.

And, of course I have free food to go along with the free entertainment...
ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  8
Picked YTD: 33

Easter/Baby Bunnies

Really, these are bunnies for a baby quilt. But Easter is coming up soon, so...

Normally I hate the little buggers because they are out in the garden lopping off the tops of my green beans.  But these are the cutest things I've seen all week.

I quilted around the applique then stitched a bunny pantograph on the rest of the quilt.  

At retreat last weekend I finished piecing these two little tops for the Hospice, then got them quilted and bound this week.  These are 40" square and 36" square, respectively.

And I've been baaaaddd.  It started with the license plate fabric.  My favorites are "stitch my grits" and "kiss my stash".  Ha ha ha.  The purples are for a couple of projects to be done soon-ish.  The aqua batik is for the horrible (!) Paint Chip Challenge / Border Challenge.

I have finished off the birthday celebrations I think.  On Tuesday I had my birthday dinner with long-standing friends from my RBC days, then on Thursday I went to see David Myles in Brantford.  I'm focusing on spring now - I have a flat of various veggie & herb seedlings sprouting down in the dungeon, and I have a seed-acquiring outing planned for this week.  The garlic that was planted last fall is showing little green shoots and the crocuses are starting to open.

Kiss Me You Fool (music) and Quiche Me You Fool (a recipe)

For your listening pleasure, from the days of my youth, by The Northern Pikes:


And from the warmth of my kitchen, here is QUICHE ME, YOU FOOL from the Looneyspoons cookbook.

Here is a LINK to the recipe, although this one calls for fake eggs (!).  Use 4 real eggs instead, ok?

One Custom, One Pantograph

This was an interesting quilt to work on.  The maker added trapunto batting behind the ladies in the alternate blocks.

I stitched around the ladies, really close to the design lines, and they pouffed up beautifully.

I love working on bright quilts on nasty, grey, winter days.

The pantograph is a perfect match for the appliqued flowers, and the variegated thread works really well with the quilt design.

Yesterday DH and I had a date with 1-800-LUKE and his wife for an afternoon matinee and then dinner.  We went to see Saving Mr. Banks, with Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson.  Good movie - I give it a 2 kleenex rating.  I was born in 1956, so Mary Poppins came out when I was 8 years old.  I grew up on Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  And I can spell it, too.  (ha ha)  I was tsk tsk-ing through the whole flic over the author's nasty behaviour with the Disney writers.  Spoiler alert:  they all live happily ever after in the end.

Afterwards, at dinner, DH made some joke about being a sensitive man.  Then I said that Nick Lowe has a song called Sensitive Man.  I was in love with Nick in my 20's when he released Pure Pop For Now People, and I guess I'm still in love with him today.  I just discovered that he was married to Johnny Cash's daughter.  Huh.

Vintage Tulip Quilt and Saturday Nights...

I really appreciate working on vintage quilts.  It's so nice to have them finally get out of the cupboard.

This was quilted with s.i.d. along all the blocks and around all the applique and embroidery.  Setting triangles got the cute little tulip/heart motif.  It took sooo long to do the s.i.d., I cannot imagine how long she worked on the applique and embroidery.

Pretty back.

Summer entertainment on Saturday night.
Step 1:  cocktail

Step 2:  recipe & music (excellent c.d., by the way!)  Notice that the recipe is printed from the internet.  I find myself using the cookbooks less and less.  But I need to get things organized somehow because I can never remember WHERE the recipe I want is located.  Book?  Printed and in the recipe box?  A WORD file on the hard drive? Pinterest?

Step 3:  garden bounty and a sharp object

While the tomato paste was baking I enjoyed my pretty flowers and weeds.  Cosmos, trumpet vine, black eyed susan, queen anne's lace, goldenrod, ornamental grass.  I have picked some gorgeous bouquets out of the ditch.  Another of my favorites is chicory with blue flowers, although I restrained myself this time.  I'd hate to ruin the beauty of them in my lawn.  Pfftt.  We're at the time of year when the grass is all brown but the weeds are so tall I'm tripping over them.

Out in the veggie garden I had to rip out my cucumbers.  They came down with blight and the leaves all turned an icky yellow.  They started to infect my BS (butternut squash) so I decided to protect the squash.  I currently have enough zucchini and cucumbers in the fridge to make a batch of relish that will last the next two years.  I can live with store bought cukes.  The tomatoes, as you can see, are starting to come in. 

After I get the relish in the pot my next canning job will probably be the Orchard Fruit Chili.  I prefer this over regular chili sauce - it's made with brown sugar instead of white, and cider vinegar instead of white.  It has a more mellow flavour, and it's sweeter with all the fruit.

And, what you've all waited a whole week for:
ZUCCHINI REPORT

Picked this week:  8
Picked YTD:  34

windows

Two weeks ago I removed the window screens for the winter.  They have been sitting there staring at me ever since.  I like to take Sunday to do the crappy housework house blessing jobs, so yesterday I washed 14 screens.  Then I washed 11 of the windows to remove the dirt and mould.  By then I figured I might as well wash the dog, too.  Now I know why mom wanted me to marry a RICH man.  sigh.

Ain't she cute?  Her tail won't stop wagging long enough to get a good picture, but that is O.K. by me.

I used every ratty garbage towel in the house by the end of my little cleaning tirade (those towels that are not fit for public viewing, but you keep for dog paws and such?).  After three hours of scrubbing and wiping and toothbrushing out the little crevasses of the windows, my recently-healed wrist actually HURT.  I think that is the first time I've really noticed it, outside of when I'm trying to do a plank exercise.  The darned thing hurt for the rest of the night too, so I had to watch the one-kleenex rated Hallmark movie with two glasses of red wine.  Self-medicating, ya know?  Since I got so much exercise up and down the ladder, scrubbing, etc, etc, I decided I could have a bowl of potato chips too.  Don't want to get too skinny for my pants, heh, heh, heh.

Anyhow... after the house blessing, I loaded up a few Kate Bush cds and turned on Floyd.

This is a beautiful, scrappy, HAND PIECED top.

OMG.  Look at the stitching.  Can you say "perfect piecing" ?  I spent a few hours doing the stitch-in-the-ditch work.  Today I'll finish up the s.i.d. and start the borders and stars.

November Stash Report

A few years ago my friend Margaret gave me this cute little Halloween bear. Poor guy was shivering his hat off on Friday.  Note to self - put away the halloween stuff and get out the Christmas stuff.

Now that we've had snow, and it's December, I can put the new Christmas quilt on the bed. If DH and the dog ever get up. 
 
I know there are people out there who just LOOOVE Christmas and are quite happy to start the season in the middle of November.  I am not (!) one of those people.  I boycott radio stations that start playing Christmas songs before December 1st.  I heard Feliz Navidad the other day and I had to shut the radio off.  A few years ago that was on the radio so much I cannot stand to hear it any more.  Although some of the spoof songs are kind of funny.

STASH REPORT

Woo hoo.... 
used this month 17 m
used YTD 94.7 m
added this month 0
added YTD 74.75 m
net 2012 (- 19.95 m)