Dignity Quilt

Have you ever heard of a Dignity Quilt? This is a quilt for a nursing home (or other similar care facility).  It is used when someone 'meets their maker' and goes out, for the last time, on a gurney.

I think this is SUCH a nice idea.  The name of the home was added in the corner.

I used a feather-ish design in the setting triangles and in the outer border.  The blocks and sashing were done with s.i.d.  Which darn near killed me.

The back is sooo pretty.

Honestly, I have some of the NICEST customers.  This was a birthday gift.  See the zippers?  Ha ha - who would love that more than someone who stitches for a living?

So.  The day is starting the way you hope they DON'T start.

• 2:30 am, wide awake
• 2:45, get up for a pee then go back to bed
• 4:00, give up on sleep and get up for real
• 5:00, have oatmeal & pomegranate-lavender-green tea 
• 5:30, finish web surfing, blog and email reading.  Wonder what else to do that is not too noisy and won't wake up DH.
• 5:35, start coffee (which was pre-prepped last night)
• 5:45, wonder why no coffee is in the pot.  Did DH forget to add water last night?  It wouldn't be the first time.
• 6:00, after much head scratching, realize the coffee maker is dead.  It will have to go out the door under the Dignity Quilt (see top of post). OK, OK.  Sorry.  Maybe that's not funny, but it HAS been a long morning already.
• 6:05, pour boiling water through the coffee grounds and make the pot of coffee
• 6:08, smack self on side of head after remembering there is another OLD coffee maker upstairs in the linen closet
• 6:08:32, pour self a cup of coffee and hope day improves...

Baby Quilts

This gal made a couple of baby quilts for a set of twins.

They got matching doll quilts, too.  What a great idea.

Love variegated thread! That dragonfly pantograph is definitely a favorite of my customers.

Yum. Cheesecake for supper - from my postponed birthday shopping trip to the Walden Galleria Mall in Buffalo.

New shoes from DSW. 

I did lots of other shopping too, mostly summer clothes for my upcoming trip to Bali. It was so nice to see all the lovely pastel colours in the stores!  Coral is definitely popular this year. There were a few bargains on winter-wear that came home with me, and they'll come in handy.  When I look out the window in the morning there is still snow on the ground.  I'm not sure why that surprises me because it IS still winter.  I guess I am just sick of it at this point, and getting anxious to see something green popping up.  

I am foregoing my annual retreat with the Binbrook quilters at Creiff Hills this year because the vacation budget will only stretch so far.  That money will go towards batik shopping in Indonesia.  Stay tuned for the April stash report.  Heh, heh, heh.

On the disability front, I am SICK OF THIS CAST!!!  Two more weeks to go before it comes off.  Progress is showing though - I helped with supper last night.  A large pot of water with pasta is impossible to pick up, so DH did that, and he cut the veggies and shredded the cheese.  And he put the casserole in the oven, and took it out when it was cooked.  But I COOKED everything, and assembled the casserole.  And, of course, I chose the recipe, which is where everything begins.  We made Gringo Starr from the Looneyspoons cookbook.  We make a funny pair these days, since he threw his back out last week.  He's crooked and bent over, and I can't pick up anything heavy or hold anything small.  We're the walking wounded.  :-)

Birthday Fabric Sorting

Today is my birthday.  The Universe decided I should NOT go shopping.  She dumped a ton of wet, heavy snow on southern Ontario last night and today.  I have postponed my shoe purchasing until Friday.

Instead, I dove into the pile of fabric that was gifted to me by one of my customers.  She cleaned out her cupboard and was giving this stuff to the goodwill.  When I got over my shock I quickly agreed to take it off her hands.

I have sorted out fabric into piles, enough to make 11 small quilts that my guild members can make up into chemo quilts for the local hospital.  I also needed to dip into my own stash for a couple of meters of fabric, but that's ok, I have plenty to spare.

The pattern I am enclosing in each package is this one from maryquilts.com  Each kit will still need 2 m for backing and about 1/2 m for the skinny strips.

Honestly, I feel like I fell into the honey pot.

Tonight I will close out my birthday with the last few episodes of Season 2 of Downton Abbey, and a nice generous slab of chocolate cake made by darling DH, washed down with a glass of red wine.  Ahh...

Toadstool quilt

This is such a cute kid's quilt.

Toadstools.  :-)
Quilted with 'Bubbles' pantograph.

Liane Moriarty is the next author I am going to follow.  This was a GREAT book.  At the first page I liked her writing, and the story was very intriguing.  You don't normally hear about men being stalked.

Sunday was a fun day around here.  Actually, it started more than a week ago, when DH began ripping apart the office.  And the basement.  And my quilt supplies storage area.  He ran an internet cable from the office (at the west end of the house) over to the big-ass tv (on a different floor at the EAST end of the house).  The first time he ran out of cable and had to start all over again.  And every trip to Lowes or Home Depot means another wad of cash.  Anyhoo... yesterday was tech installation by our darling nephew.  If you think you just plug televisions into the wall and change the channel?... you are living in the dark ages.  We now have a computer attached to the tv so we can surf the web!  Hah!!!  I can CONTROL the tv with either the new computer keyboard, the mouse, or...I can use my TABLET.  OMG.  And long after our nephew left, we were able to watch a movie without phoning him for help.  Hah!!!  Mind you, we have two pages of idiot notes, which we referred to a couple of times.  But still - at our age I think that's pretty good.  I tease my nephew and refer to him as "1-800-call-Luke".  Um, don't phone that number.  It's not real, ok?  And there are too many digits.  You'd probably get a phone sex connection or something, and be totally pissed at me. 

Last week was Red Hat day and after lunch we went to one of the gal's houses to play cards and watch a movie.  As I said about technology, we could not get the DVD to give us sound in her lower level, even though we had several remote controls to choose from.  We had to go upstairs to the kitchen zone and watch the movie there.  Not that it was any hardship - it was actually better to be at the kitchen big-ass tv where we were close to the pie.  And, I remember several years ago when my brother added a ton of technology to their family room - his wife could no longer watch tv unless he was home.  DH and I stayed there for a week when we had our hardwood floors refinished, and we couldn't figure it out either.  We read a lot of books that week.  Lord help us over the next 20 years...

Medallion quilt

This is the beautiful medallion quilt I've been working on.  It's not very big but there was a LOT of ruler work.

This center section is actually a pre-printed panel.

This medallion motif was the basis for the designs that were placed in the pieced border.

Designs made to match the above medallion.  I love my IQ computer system.

The back of the quilt included a matching medallion.  It is not exactly centered, but I got it pretty darned close.

Ah, Family Day.  DH made paninis for lunch.  Garlic butter - yum!!!  I had mine with pickled beets that I made last fall.

Walks must include many, many, tinkles.  Like Hansel & Gretel leaving a pebble trail.

Dog walking is all about following verrry closely with our nose whoever was here before us. Ha ha, it was so windy Sadie's tail is blown practically up over her head.

THE WALK is my normal exercise but some days in the winter I just will. not. go.  That is how I broke my wrist - it had been so bitterly cold for days on end, I had ants in my pants and needed to go DO SOMETHING.  Hence, the skating.  I think spring is on it's way, though.  The rain pounding on the windows woke me up this morning.

Stack 'n Whack

This was the scene out the front window last Sunday.  Wow.

OK, here's the S'nW.  Too cute - bug fabric.

I added butterflies to stay with the insect theme.

A nice pinwheel design went in the pieced blocks. 

The cast on my arm is making stitch-in-the-ditch and all other ruler work very difficult.  whine, whine, whine  The quilt I'm working on right now is pretty small and has LOTS of s.i.d., so I can't work too long.  I would have put it off, but it is a birthday present for this gal's sister, and since the birthday is one day before (or after?) mine (which is on Feb. 27th, if you want to send me something, ha ha ha) I feel like I really need to get it done. 

So, last night DH and I watched yet ANOTHER movie.  The Paperboy with Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, and Zac Efron.  Interesting movie.  Includes sex and violence and impossible to understand dialogue.  I turned on the closed captioning half way through because I was missing most of the story.  Yes, it was worth the $5 rental fee, but honestly - turn on the cc at the beginning. 

So far, since I've broken my wrist, we have watched Life of Pi, Skyfall, Silver Linings Playbook, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Taken 2, To Rome With Love, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, Hope Springs, The Bourne Legacy, The Words, and Looper.  And I've watched season 1 of Downton Abbey.  I have a permanent divot in the couch.  And I miss cooking.  Really.  :-) 

I'm making progress though.  I cut my own meat at the guild dinner Wednesday night, and I did a piss-poor job of vacuuming yesterday.  Today?  Who knows what mischief I can come up with.  Maybe I'll clean the tub.

Winter 2013 Beach Day

Beach day has always happened in August.  Well, occasionally late July.  By an interesting turn of events, we were able to schedule a WINTER beach day, here in Caledonia.  I had drafted a finely tuned schedule for cleaning, bed making, and grocery shopping.  Then The Universe decided to plan for a huge winter storm.  Plan B required the gals to arrive a day early.  They are living with a little more dust than they should (seeing as how they are company) because my schedule got thrown out the window.  They really don't care too much, as long as I keep them well lubricated with alcohol.  Thursday arrival found us drinking Captain Billy's Koolaid.  (I use ginger ale instead of cola.)  Yum.

Just LOOK at that weather on tv.  Brrr.

Oat pancakes and Baileys for breakfast, along with a little apres-breakfast shopping in my stash.
 

We had an afternoon SKYPE session with the missing beach girl.  Wine all around.

Just like our usual Beach Day at Diane's, we will not go to the beach.  :-)