Applique Tulips & I'll be in Markham tonight

Another gorgeous applique quilt.

This was done by the same gal who did the applique with Dresden Fans.

I need to hire her... I'll certainly never have the patience to make one of these for myself.

If anyone is looking for me tonight, you will find me in Markham.  I'm presenting a trunk show for the quilt guild and I'll be talking about batting.  Exciting!  Informative.
7:30 pm at Markham Guild of Village Crafts building, 11 Church St., Markham, On.

Psst. Want a Quickie??? And Best Before Dates. And Stash Report.

This is a great way to use a couple of beautiful fabrics.  The center panel is a full width.  You can make a small baby quilt by using .75 m. of fabric which makes the center about 30" x 40".  You can make a throw quilt by using 1.5 m. of fabric, making the center 40" x 60".  Please forgive me for mixing my metric and imperials, but that's the world we Canadian quilters habitate.

A narrow, dark border frames the piece, then a wide outer border adds a punch of colour.  If you want to get all fancy about this you can add some raw edge applique.

Make this in the MODERN style and add some piecing on the back.  Cool.

BEST BEFORE DATES
Since Hallowe'en is over I went to the dermatologist to have some lumpy bumpys removed.  Good Lord!  $300.00 for two little things.  One she cut out of my leg then stitched up.  The other got freezer-burnt with liquid nitrogen.  That nasty thing swelled up into a huge (!) blood blister that I am continuously draining. Still.  Five days later.  Gross.  Two days after the dermatologist, my foot spontaneously spasmed and bruised when I took a piece of pie over to my favorite chair.  Honestly.  Now I have a huge black & blue toe.  I am starting to think of myself as that weird container in your fridge that is all fuzzy and green.  It maybe used to be spaghetti (?) but it sure isn't now.  I should put on my reading glasses (since I can't see shit without them any more) and check the inside of my lip for the Best Before date.  I'm pretty sure I expired a while ago.

STASH REPORT

Finally, a finished top.
Used since last report 10.75m
Used YTD 61.5m
Added since last report 0.  Zero.  Yay.
Added YTD 26m.
Net 2013 (- 35.5m)

At the Caledonia guild we started a monthly Scrappy Club to help us deal with our surplus of fabrics.  I started this at our first meeting in August.  The palette is blues, greens, and muslin.  I'm almost the LAST one to finish this project, but since I also made the biggest one I'm not necessarily as pokey as you might think.  This is a queen size that is now in the TFUQ pile.  It's a free pattern - Boxy Stars - from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville website.   The link is here.

Dresden Fan with Applique

Some quilters just looove applique.  They love it enough that they will sit down for many, many hours, tracing leaves & flower bits.

That border treatment is so pretty.  It would also make a stupendous scalloped border if it was flipped over and faced the other direction.

Setting triangle with a block design modified to fit.

I love Dresden Fan and Dresden Plate blocks.  I think it's the circular motif idea that appeals to me so much.  I have one D.P. quilt of my own all finished. There's another top ready for quilting that is, um, marinating in the cedar chest until I have some spare time.  (You can see both on the separate page for UFO Challenge 2011.)

Sunday I headed up to Elora for a SOLO meeting. (Southern Ontario Longarm Operators).  It was one of the biggest meetings that we've ever had, I think.  75 people confirmed, less the usual number who have to cancel at the last minute.  I love these networking sessions.  I get to meet up with some old friends I haven't seen in a while and there is always a diet lunch HUGE pot luck.  There was a swap sale, then the meeting covered topics such as favorite tools, keeping quilts flat & square, marketing techniques, and of course, show & tell.  Even though I have over 13 years experience in this field I still come away with great information.  You cannot exist in a rabbit hole and expect to stay current.  Even with the internet.  :-)

B.S. REPORT
Picked last week: 5 (4 small ones went into soup, 1 LARGE one was traded for a dozen eggs at the farm behind us)
Picked YTD 23

BS Tidbit of the week:  I have to take some pants in because I've stayed away from alcohol and dessert and lost a few pounds.  ha ha ha ha ha.

Blooming 9-Patch

The weather in Tobermory is always fun.  Monday was rain & wind.  Tuesday was pounding rain and wind.  With ice pellets.  Wednesday was nice & sunny for most of the day.  Thursday was cold & rain.  A bit south of us they had six inches of snow.  I was VERY glad that missed us!  The drive home on Friday was sunny, and then for an hour the roads were all wet but it was still sunny.  Huh?  Then we hit the rain.

I took a butternut squash with me.  One our retreaters likes to open the bar REALLY early (well, really early in my opinion).  Rotary cutters are a little dangerous if you're shit-faced, so to nosh on with our afternoon cocktails, I made Butternut Squash, Cranberry & Goat Cheese Crostini.  The recipe is here.  These were very (!) good.  The rest of the BS was chopped and roasted when I baked the salmon. 

After I finished my Mondo Bag, and got my guild B.O.M. finished, and made three little cell phone wallets, I finally got back to my Blooming 9-Patch.  This quilt was started here at this cottage back in July. The blocks are finally all stitched into rows.   My thighs were killing me because I was up and down so many times picking blocks up off the floor to stitch together. My next step is to add the setting triangles then stitch the rows together and add the final border.  Closer... closer... closer to completion.

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Well, hell has apparently frozen over.  DH went out and picked zucchini while I was away.
Picked this week:  2
Picked YTD: 46

BS REPORT
Picked last 2 weeks:  5 (2 for soup, 2 given away, 1 cooked in Tobermory)
Picked YTD: 18

Project Completion

Woo hoo!! Our group project is complete.
We each selected our colour preference. Then we gave each other 32 squares of the requested colour. The bags are MONDO BAGS by Quiltsmart. Each pattern includes the premarked iron-on interfacing. These are now our official shuffle-stuff-to-tobermory totes.  After we all sighed "finally" we proceeded to move on to our own stuff.
Yesterday's weather was AWFUL. We didn't so much as stick our heads out the door. Rain. Ice pellets. Gale force winds. Today was sunny and cool so we ventured in to town for a walk and to replenish the alcohol supply. We tried our luck at scratch & win lottery tickets too. Nope. Scratch & LOSER.
Off to sew...

It's All About the Food

A week in Tobermory was on the agenda for this week. With the Beach Girls. Breakfast today was Eggs Benedict by Karen. Yum. Tonight I am on tap to make baked salmon for dinner.
Stay tuned for more food news. :-)

What a Difference One Line Makes (and more cooking blah blah blah...)

What a beautiful quilt - love the prairie points inset in the border!  As it appears in this photo, the quilting just didn't look... finished.  The yellow and the blue/green rectangles looked... poochy & sloppy.

I added one line of stitching in each piece, and VOILA.  Perfect.

DH and I went for our daily quasi-regular walk with Sadie.  For weeks now, I have been eyeing the wild pear tree at the side of the road.  Since DH is a foot taller than me, I sent him splooshing through the mucky ditch to grab me some pears for an Autumn Fruit Flan.  The recipe is from the Milk Calendar many years ago and I cook up one of these flans at least once a year.  Delicious.  Recipe HERE.

Since he was scavenging for me, he figured he would also scavenge for our niece.  Our pockets were completely full of stolen food by the time we got home.  She was bemoaning the fact that she cannot find FRESH edamame at any of her local markets.  Now that we've scraped up this bag of soybeans (with a bit of gravel) off the side of the road, she can grow her own.  The farmers have been harvesting and their grain bins are not exactly sealed.  There are always little piles at the side of the road.  Click on this LINK for your Wikipedia lesson on Edamame.

When I picked up my quilts from the Simcoe Fair (along with my big fat CHEQUE :-) ) I stopped at the orchard again and got 10 lbs. of Spy apples.  Here is one 5 lb. bag, all closed up with pastry.  Yum yum yum.  I will be making 3 more pies today with the other 5 lb. bag.  Sheesh - I should get a life!

Any suggestions for the leftover pastry trimmings?  I always throw them out, but it KILLS me because there is enough here for at least another bottom crust.  I assume that rerolling this would make it tough and crappy, like store-bought pastry. Yes?  No?

Yesterday while I was slaving away over a hot needle and a beautiful quilt, DH was up in the kitchen staying busy.  Holy smackeroonies!!  You readers should send your hubbies over here for lessons.  Fresh pizza dough made for the crust.  Fresh sauce made.  Toppings of bbq chicken, bacon, red, yellow & hot peppers, onions, and lots of mozzarella.  And the bonus part - I wore off all the calories running up and down the stairs to find the spices that were all clearly labelled, but apparently invisible.

The zucchini and BS reports will arrive later...