Happy June! (or Good Lord I'm Sick Of Politics!)

 

After You-Know-Who's inauguration in January sh*t started happening.  Every morning I was glued to the news sites, my jaw dropped, often in shock saying "honey - did you see this???".  I kept thinking that once Trump got that (whatever executive order he'd just signed) out of his system things would quiet down and politics would go back to normal.  But no!  There was more!  Every single day!  

After four+ solid months of this I've decided to give it a rest.  The USA is not my country, and I cannot do anything to effect any kind of change down there.  I made a committment to myself back in 2016 when he was elected the first time that I would not travel there, and that still stands.  My two personal biggest issues are their free-for-all gun laws, and the steady withdrawal of women's rights.  But there are so many more drastic changes in progress that I can't even keep track any more.

I'm still planning to read the news over my coffee & breakfast in the mornings, but no more wasting my life until noon - which is what I have been doing.  Stupid, giving up my time to keep track of him and his antics.  WE'RE DONE, DONALD.  I'M DIVORCING YOU.  YOU'RE FIRED! 😆

The quilt above was a challenge for TWO guilds.  The Binbrook Guild had a President's Challenge to work with circles.  Any kind of circles.  Circle quilt, circle fabric, appliqued circles, pieced circles, quilted circles, whatever.  Maker's choice.  The Caledonia Guild let us buy a 5" strip of fabric for $2 that had to be used in any quilt with a max perimeter of 80" (I think 80"??).  80" would be too small for my intended space, so I played along anyways and simply disregarded that rule. 😯  The fabric is the mottled turquoise/green used for the appliqued leaves.  

The design was copied from a Dover copyright-free book on Art Deco designs.  I'm pretty happy with it, it looks nice hanging on the wall.  I didn't win the challenge in Caledonia, since I admittedly did NOT adhere to the rules but that's ok - I wanted to play anyways.

That was finished in February.  Next up are the March finishes:

These are the two small leader/ender quilts I've been working on for several (!) years,

Cute labels:  

Here's a Disappearing 9-Patch that took me several years to get around to finishing.  I don't like anything about this quilt except maybe the border. 🙈

The Super Bowl Sunday quilt is finished. I always like the way these turn out.

In April I made a big bag to carry a Tupperware Cake Carrier, as a birthday gift...both the Cake Carrier and the bag.

I also made a BARN QUILT.  Diane (beach girl, you know) made arrangements for us to have an early Beach Day at her place.  We took a class with KADI BARN QUILTS (check 'em out on facebook).  I still have to hang mine - I think it's going on the wall of the front porch.  Maybe this coming week.

In May I managed to get this little quilt pieced.  It's mostly from fabric donated by a customer and will end up going to the women's shelter with my other donation quilts later this year.  The pigs-on-motorcycles border fabric is from my stash. Cute.

There's also been a lot of this in May...

I'll close out this post with two of my favorite memes this year.

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. 

Same but Different, Coco updates, More UFO's

 I love seeing the same quilt made two different ways.  These are customer quilts, but this pattern is definitely on my "to-do" list.

Example #1 - dark geese with light background.

Example #2 - light geese with dark background.

COCO UPDATES

• She's still terrified of DH.  I keep reminding both of us that we should expect to have 14 years with her, so calm down.  If it takes a year for her to get comfortable, then so be it.
• We go out in the backyard in the afternoons now.  She kinda plays but not for very long.  She HAS barked at me a couple of times out there.  The first two or three barks really made me laugh - you could tell she hadn't used her vocal cords for quite a while.  You know how weird you sound first thing in the morning?  Transition that to dog barks. 😄
• Morning walkies can be a bit of an adventure.  She likes to pick things up, carry them for a while, drop them, pick them back up, repeat...  She also likes to eat dirt.  Ick.  That can't be good for her, can it?  She also likes to eat grass (which might explain the middle-of-the-night puking).
• The most recent "normal dog" event - twice now she's gone and picked up one of her toys from the dining room and brought them to her bed in the living room.  Is she corralling them?  Maybe.
• She looked like she had fun at doggy daycare this week.  
• I washed the floors on Easter Sunday.  OMG they were filthy with dog drool.  And that's all we're going to say about my housekeeping.

MORE UFO'S

Yes I need to have my head read.  I have two more ufo's on the go.

I'm working on a quilt for Ukraine with a friend of mine.  We're each making blocks, then we'll assemble them into a nice sized quilt (double bed size I think).  It will go to one of the refugee families.

Working on those blues & yellows has temporarily interrupted my other recent UFO.

I have 98 of those little blue/grey half-square triangle blocks, which are cutoffs from a baby quilt I made a few years ago.

JANUARY 2022

The are getting the log cabin treatment until they hit 7" x 7".  At that point I will make two baby quilts from them.

APRIL 2022

And speaking of Ukraine and the atrocities being wrought by the Russians, I just started to read The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn.  It's too early to say good/bad but it's about a female Russian sniper.
 

Very Simple Yet Very Effective and Some 2022 Plans

 Here are a couple of November quilt jobs.  Both of these are made with simple blocks, and the end results are great.  Both are also very scrappy - my favorite!

#1 - 9-Patch blocks

#2 - Half-Square Triangle blocks

This is my New Years Day project.  I've been stitching a bit on this every day.  The rows are ready to sew together.  Maybe tonight I'll start that?

Today was one of those days where I was having trouble getting motivated.  To be honest though, many days are like that.

In the past week there have been THREE mornings when I slept until 9:30, and NONE when I was up at 5.  Today was a 9:30 day, and a girly-bath day when I allow myself the luxury of soaking in a hot tub with epsom salts and some lovely fragrant oil.  Me, a coffee, and a good book. If you do a little ciphering you'd figure out that it was after 1:00 when I finally got dressed.  Today's book is  What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad .

With the province kind of locked down again the ennui is in full force.  And the weather has been rather unco-operative so I haven't gone for a walk for a couple of days.  Thank goodness a friend popped over yesterday - we had a nice visit on the front porch.  The Universe gave us some beautiful sunshine but it was a cold wind.  I brought a couple of quilts out for us to keep our legs warm.

What I DID manage to accomplish today:

• updated the Caledonia Guild blog
• downloaded a year's worth of bank statements and made my TFSA contribution for 2022
• put the new-to-me laptop from 1-800-LUKE into the gifted laptop case from neighbour Doug
• had breakfast, lunch, supper
• changed the sheets
• did a load of laundry
• did some admin work on the SOLO facebook group
• paid the internet bill
• called a Binbrook guild member about the block swap - what to do in January when we most likely won't have a meeting

CURRENTLY GRATEFUL FOR:

• DH, who has been doing a lot of cooking.  A HUGE batch of hamburger soup, Chicken Parmesan which was very good, a LARGE but not huge batch of vegetable soup, biscuits.
• hobbies to keep me occupied. 
• the friend who popped in and who ALSO brought me a loaf of her sourdough bread.  Yum!!!
• neighbour Doug, who is the world's best scavenger.  He happens to be married to my egg supplier, who I am also grateful for. 💕
• a good sized house with two t.v.s so I can watch the news while he watches his bang-bang-shoot-em-up shows.  The upstairs t.v. room is also a nice place to escape to for a nap.  Or when, in the midst of a pandemic, you feel like the sharp knives are too easily accessible during a conversation which is quickly degenerating into a domestic.

TARGET ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR 2022 (we will NOT be referring to these as "resolutions")

• at least 5 donation quilts - I normally have no difficulty with this target.
• net stash reduction of at least 50 m.  Also not usually difficult.
• finish at least 3 ufo projects, another goal that should be easy to meet.  I need to do another ufo count - I don't think my sidebar list is accurate.
• find some floor space in the room I laughingly refer to as my office.  I need to sell the old floor speakers, clean then sell a nice toaster-oven, get rid of some boxes of junk, and OMG we have so much electronic stuff (cables, plugs, routers, thingies) that need to go...
• lose 5 pounds.  Ha ha ha ha... I said that last year too.  The year before I said 10 pounds!  Crazy woman. Pfftt.  Actual pounds lost is negative 2.  Yup, that's a double negative.

FALLING DOWN A RABBIT HOLE

1. at the niece's recommendation, I watched The Maid on netflix , which is very good.
2. I noticed that it's based on a book.
3. I looked for the book through my online library.
4. I FOUND the book, which has a wait list.
5. I noticed there was a recommendation for another book called The Maid and downloaded that instead.
6. I spent a week reading the story of Joan of Arc.  This was also a very good book, although a little more gory that what I'd normally read.  It is a war story, after all.

COVID 19

I can't seem to get away from this topic.  Someone I was talking to thinks it will be a major issue until 2023.  Dear God!  They are probably right, though.  It's quite difficult to get a test these days because the health system is overwhelmed.  The general guidance is that the Omicron variant has symptoms very much like a cold or seasonal flu.  Most reported symptoms are sore throat, cough, runny nose (also nausea, night sweats, lower back pain).

World:  Total cases 306,689,375.  Did you get that number?  306 Million.  Total deaths 5,488,000.

USA:  Total cases 60,062,000.  Total deaths 837,504.

Canada:  Total cases 2,532,885.  Total deaths 30,812.

Ontario:  Total cases 877,000.  Total deaths 10,398. 

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.

 

TWO of my own finished and the Garden Terrorist

 I set a few challenges for myself every year, in a feeble attempt to accomplish something.  Otherwise, Facebook, you know?  This year's UFO portion was to finish any three UFOs, and I completed that at the end of May.  I already showed you the Vintage Tulips a couple months ago - that was #1.

#2 completion is the sampler quilt that the Binbrook guild ran as a block of the month from 2017 through 2018.  I managed to finish it in only three years!  Woo hoo!

The objective was to make each block twice, but reverse the colours on the second one.  So, take your lights and swap for darks.  It was a fun exercise and I was very happy with the end result.

Here's a lovely shot of the back.

And a closeup of the quilting in the blocks.

My third finish is the X's and O's that I've been dragging around with me to endless retreats for several years.

The front is quite busy but the plain squares show the quilting motif very nicely.

This is a better photo of the pretty, delicate border design.

I'm more than half way through hand stitching the binding, so I'm calling this one finished.

The remaining items on my Challenge list include several projects that I want to get started on, as well as making sure I get at least five donation quilts ready before the end of the year.  Last year I took quite a stack to Martha House and I'll probably take this year's there too.

THE GARDEN TERRORIST

I always know that summer has truly arrived when as dusk descends I notice the white noise of frogs and toads singing in the background.  My friend's husband Larry - we call him Mr. Science & Nature - explained to me the difference between frogs and toads.  Frogs are water creatures, whereas toads live on land.  In pre-covid times when I had the luxury of going OUT somewhere in the evening, it was always fun to come home in the dark and notice the little toads hopping out of my way as I'd come up the walkway, from the driveway to the front door.  Then approaching the porch and before I opened the front door, I would check the upper corner where the walls and the roofline meet to see if our resident bat was lurking up there.  (I learned that little habit the HARD way.  Use your imagination!)

My little TERRORIST friend lives on the back patio.  This year I was ready for him so I paid very careful attention when I was mucking about in the flowerbed.  I saw him before he hopped away, and avoided having to explain to DH that "no, it's ok, I'm fine, nothing to see here".

Then not a half hour later, the little bugger.... !!!!  Scared the POOP out of me.