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.

 

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.

Focus Print Quilts, Medallion Quilt, & Gardening

These are the BEST quickie type of quilt.  Choose some gorgeous fabrics and add a border or two.

They make lovely lap quilts, sofa throws, bed coverlets, or tablecloths.

 I studied this one at great length.  I've never made a medallion quilt even though I've been quilting for 25 years.

It looks pretty straightforward, with large piecing.  I'm definitely giving this a go...

Gardening...I've been eating fresh kale, that lived over the winter.  The crazy thing is, it showed up all by itself last year - I didn't plant it.  Sometimes it pays to be a messy gardener, deciding in November that "to heck with it - it can stay there and die a lonely death under the snow & ice".  I guess it had already gone to seed, and then came back to haunt poor DH. 😆

And I've been picking asparagus for over a week.  Yum!!  Don't laugh...yes it take a few days to collect enough for a proper serving at this time of year.  In June I will probably be begging people to take some.

The problem with leaving blog posts so long in between is that I forget what the heck has been going on. 

• I took a six week writing class which was really (!) good.  Instructor was Deborah Kimmett.   I've been (trying) to write a bit every day, but you know... facebook.  
• On nice days I try and get out in the garden because I'm a fair weather gardener.  
• Hubby had a birthday so I baked a chocolate cake for him.  I got the icing out of the freezer, and checked if he was around to see that the label on it was 2017.  SUCCESS!  I did not poison us!  Ha ha, marital duplicity. LINK to the recipe - Martha Stewart Chocolate Frosting.  This makes enough for TWO double layer cakes, hence a batch that stays in the freezer for, um, a while.  Honestly, I really HAVE to put this in the freezer or I would eat the whole batch.  It's not super sweet, and the dairy makes it sooo creamy - mmm.
• Speaking of the freezer, we're having frozen, uh, stuff for dinner tonight.  He's getting the frozen leftover spaghetti, and I'm getting the frozen ??? that looks like either chili or stew.  Maybe Chili Chili Bang Bang from the Looneyspoons cookbook?  It appears to be vegetarian, but I'm not quite sure...

Elephants & Gardening & More Covid (and a little stupid humour)

 This elephant was great to work on.

All ruler work, as you can see, except for a few bits of tusks & toes, a wrinkly nose, and a shaggy tail.

This was pieced by the same gal who did this Unicorn quilt.

It made me think of the crazy elephant jokes we heard on our honeymoon, from another honeymooning couple at Blue Mountain.

GARDENING

After crabbing about mending hubby's pants a few weeks ago, the Universe decided to even the score.

Uh huh.  These are MY pants.  Sigh.

I decided to get all girly with my repair. 🌻

Bloodroot, which is alway nice and early.  

A bit of a change from daffodils which I also love.

The big news for me today - the asparagus is up!!!  Tomorrow I'll make a pot of soup from the last frozen packet of the 2020 crop, then it will be time to start pulling out all the recipes for fresh cuttings.  Mmm mmm...

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  140 million cases, 3 million deaths, 832,800 new cases April 16/21

USA:   32.3 million cases, 580,000 deaths, 82,000 new cases yesterday

CANADA: 1,106,000 cases, 23,541 deaths, 9,346 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 413,000 cases, 7,698 deaths, 4,362 new yesterday.  Ontario has been reporting record high numbers this past week. 

HAMILTON:  15,146 cases, 344 deaths, 247 new yesterday - a new record high.

I've been stewing and steaming most of the day over the Ontario Government's handling of the pandemic this year.  Yesterday the Premier announced the 4 week stay-at-home order would be extended by an additional two weeks, to end on May 20th.  I'm all in favour of this - don't misunderstand me.  But he could have done so much more, and much much earlier.  With the current lockdown, big box stores were finally limited to essential goods only, so apparently Costco and Walmart have cordoned off the fluffy goods we don't really need.  

Hubby and I have gotten our first shots last week, which was such a relief.  But in all honesty, we are in a great position to stay at home and stay out of harm's way.  I feel so badly for essential workers who should have been prioritized for vaccines - the dental hygienist, the grocery store cashier, the day care worker, the assisted living employee, ad nauseum...  And as far as essential goods goes, if we don't have vaccines for the Amazon employees, should Amazon really be open?  Putting their staff and the shipping company employees at risk so we can order a kite, or a set of magic markers?

If I were Doug Ford I would be in a coma by now from lack of sleep.  I truly feel sorry for him having the pandemic drop in his lap, but he has an excellent crew of scientists and medical experts who have advised him and warned him for months about where we were headed.  Because he did not heed their advice we have indeed landed where we don't want to be.

OK - off my soapbox.

STUPID HUMOUR FROM OUR HONEYMOON

Q: How do you get an elephant into a VW?
A: Open the car door, put the elephant inside, close the door.

Q: How do you put an elephant into a fridge?
A: Open the VW door, take the elephant out, close the VW door, open the fridge, put the elephant inside, close the fridge.

Q: How do you get 4 elephants into a Volkswagen?
A: 2 in the front and 2 in the back

Q: How do you know if there are 4 elephants in your fridge?
A: There's a VW parked outside your house.

Embroidery Quilt, Zucchini, and Laundry

This gal loves doing embroidery and is making quilts for her grandkids.  This one is number four,  think.

Edge to Edge in the center portion, with a separate border.

I still have zucchini in the freezer (which, as you can imagine, DH is THRILLED about, lol).  This was good.  Normally you see zucchini used in a sweet loaf but a savory version was great with soup and made for a nice bite at lunch.

With the weather getting nicer I can get some of the laundry outside to dry.  Save the environment, you know?  You can also use it to track your laundry patterns by counting your socks...19 days since my last dark load.  And why 2 pair of boring socks?  Was I depressed?  I like to entertain myself with these existential questions as I pin things up.  Over the years I have also discovered that apparently I often match the colour of my knickers to my tshirt.

Ha ha ha, it almost looks like they're hanging on the fence. 😆          

I will leave you with a little cartoon...

                 

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