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

Jungle Walk, Recipes

 This is definitely the CUTEST quilt I've worked on in quite a while.

Jungle Walk by Harebrained Happenings

Here are a few of the blocks...

Today we are celebrating VALENTINES DAY.  Still locked in with the stay-at-home orders, until Tuesday.  Supper tonight will be leftover roast beef, but I'm making a Chocolate Olive Oil Cake for dessert.  This is a new recipe for me.  The Savour Ontario site (apparently I follow them on Instagram?) has never led me astray, so it will probably be very good.  Assuming I don't forget any ingredients which I know happens to all of us once in a while.

Yesterday, being GALENTINES DAY, I had a lovely two hour video cocktail party with the Beach Girls.  If they'd been here for our annual Winterruption get together I would have shared a large jug of Salted Caramel Martinis, but as it was I made a small jug and hic drank it all myself. 

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT POLITICIANS (not that anyone cares what I think...)

In Ontario, the province is getting opened up starting this coming Tuesday.  The government's plan is to transition the Public Health areas into colour coded zones - I think for two weeks at a time. I'm in Haldimand/Norfolk, which is going back to Orange status.  We are surrounded by Niagara on one side - which is going to Grey (really bad!), and Hamilton on the other side which is going to Red (bad!) - both areas keeping MORE restrictions than us because their situations are much worse than ours.  What that means is, like what happened around Christmas, residents of those restricted zones simply get in their car and drive to a more open zone to get whatever they simply cannot live without, which spreads more infection here into our zone.  So, my request to Hamiltonians and Niagrans:  STAY AWAY FROM HERE.  Please.  And thankyou.  The medical officers of health in most of the province think this whole thing is nuts, because the new variants are spreading and they want the stay-at-home orders to remain in effect for the time being.  But hey, why would the government listen to their experts?  

OK, that covers my thoughts on the Doug Ford Conservative government idiots.  Now I shall move on the the United States.

Yesterday, Donald Trump was exonerated for inciting the riot at the Capitol on January 6th.  I kind of expected that, but I am still shocked.  No more than I was when he was initially elected, though.  They have become a country that willingly elects a man who laughingly, sexually abuses women, makes fun of disabled people, feels justified in paying almost zero taxes, etc.  Now, they have no problem with permitting (arguably) the most powerful man in the world to run roughshod over democracy and encourage the murder of his fellow politicians.  What a sad state of affairs.  I was honestly hoping that with the election of Joe Biden things would turn around but that is not to be.  I would no more travel to the USA again than I would go to Iraq, Nigeria, or North Korea.  Not happening, and I know I'm not alone.  Sigh.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  108.7 million cases, 2.4 million deaths, 310,800 new cases Feb. 13/21

USA:   27.6 million cases, 484,000 deaths, 84,727 new yesterday

CANADA: 825,000 cases, 21,200 deaths, 3,046 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 285,868 cases, 6,693 deaths, 981 new yesterday. The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 16th.

HAMILTON:  9,830 cases, 275 deaths, 40 new yesterday

Vintage Quilt Finished

 This is a pretty top that I bought at a local antique/junk barn around the corner from me.  I paid $25 for it two years ago.

I need another quilt like a hole in the head, but I just could not walk away from the poor thing.  It's partially hand pieced and partially machine pieced.  To respect the era I used 100% cotton batting instead of my usual 80/20 blend.  That makes it a little more "flat".

You'll note the Mennonite Mistake (also known as a Humility Block) in the bottom right hand corner - that one pieced corner block is turned the wrong way.

I just happened to have (a common expression which is often heard spoken by most quilters, lol) a pink that was one shade darker than what the maker used for the sashings & border.  It was perfect for the binding, and I'm currently about half way through the hand stitching on that.

Here's the back.  I was a wee bit shy and had to piece in a bit of different fabric in one corner.  Nothing I plan on worrying about, though.  The list of my own quilts waiting for quilting is now down by one!

I had a couple people mention to me that my last blog post had a BIG FAT MISTAKE where I mentioned I was planning to sew through the Superbowl last Sunday.  Ahem.  I am now aware that the big event is THIS weekend, and I'm all prepared.  Two charm paks, one pattern, one card table, one sewing machine.  And a frozen lasagne.

It would be nice if I could be all newsy-like and tell you what I've been up to but...yeah, I got nothin'.  I'm doing a LOT of reading and a LOT of tv watching.  I did order seeds tonight - normally I go on a field trip to the seed store and spend a lovely hour or two wandering the aisles.  Do a little inner eye-roll when my bill adds up to almost $100 (saving sooo much money!! pfftt.) then head on home with my treasures.  This year I am doing a parcel pickup and my scheduled date is MARCH 8th.  WTH?  sigh. Ontario is still under stay-at-home orders, which should be ending late next week I think.  However this morning I read two different news articles, and one of them indicated the government is second-thinking and may leave the orders in place for a while.  I guess we'll find out when we find out.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  106 million cases, 2.31 million deaths, 349,200 new cases Feb. 2/21

USA:   26.9 million cases, 460,000 deaths, 129,600 new yesterday

CANADA: 801,000 cases, 20,702 deaths, 4,022 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 280,000 cases, 6,435 deaths, 1,784 new yesterday The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 11th at the moment.

HAMILTON:  9,470 cases, 265 deaths, 63 new yesterday

Newsy 2021 Post

Santa brought me a new tablet so I've been having my perpetual challenge with technology, trying to transfer over all my "stuff".  Today's project is DROPBOX, setting up the auto transfer of all photos from the tablet to the cloud, and from there I transfer them to the desktop.  The desktop has folders for each month of the year, and folders for my personal quilts, trips, special events, guilds, etc.  This kind of filing system is the easiest way for me to locate items, although I must admit I've had the occasional "oopsy" where I've moved something inadvertently and then not been able to figure out where I sent it.  I didn't want to do a blog post until I had this project finished...why?  I don't know.  Just because.

This was my New Years Day Sewing Marathon project, a Block of the Month from the Binbrook Guild 2017/18.  Each pattern was made twice using the opposite colours.  That was a fun exercise.  I had 16 blocks complete but I wanted four more to give the quilt a rectangular shape, so I pulled two of the block patterns and made them again with different colours.

Apparently I cannot follow graphic instructions which resulted in a NEW BLOCK.  lol... 

Normally Janice comes over and spends the day with me, sewing and (ahem) drinking and having dinner.  Sadly, covid made that not possible so I had to sew & drink alone.  Hubby had dinner with me, thankfully.

Within a week I had the blocks together into a top, and here it sits waiting for borders.

Major news event from 2021 that will remain burned in our memories for a long, long time include the insurrrection on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol.  Egged on by Donald Trump, thugs broke in and disrupted ("disrupted" is a very weak word to explain what happened) the vote count that cemented Joe Biden's win of the presidency.  Worries that the actual inauguration on the 21st would be also be disrupted were, thankfully, unfounded.

2021 CHALLENGES

Me, personally, I have perhaps foolishly, joined a few challenge groups again this year.

• Lose five pounds.  Last year my goal was TEN pounds and that turned into a major fail.  Overall I was ok with my fail, because so many people struggled with weight GAINS during the pandemic, and staying on track prevented that from happening to me.  Year over year I was only down 0.6 lbs., so not even one full pound was lost.  And my sanity was saved by the distractions and deliciousness of the breads, cakes, pies, crostatas, rolls, and creamy cheesy casseroles.
• Get rid of 2021 things in 2021.  Unbeknownst to me, DH had already started thinning his  many many piles of collections and saved items.  For example, we have, I think, three broken office chairs in the basement.  Why?  Oh, Helen, don't go down that rabbit hole.  Not today.  Yesterday I put cardboard box #1 just outside of my workroom doorway so as I find things for the Goodwill I can easily add them to the box.  Coincidentally there is a whiteboard on the wall there too, so we can track our progress.  Items counted will be thrown away, given away, and donated.  At the moment the filled cardboard box won't be able to go anywhere because Ontario is still under STAY-AT-HOME orders.  But someday...
• Stash reduction of 50 m.  Last year my target was also 50 m. and it was easy-peasy, especially with all the covid lockdowns.  How's a girl supposed to shop?  Last year my total year over year was down 108.5 m.  I anticipate no difficulty with this challenge, at all.

Next Sunday is the Superbowl.  

Quilters' Math:  tv football = piecing & cocktails

I have not yet settled on a project but it may be a small quilt using two charm paks from Missouri Star Quilt Company that I bought in 2017.  These are pretty pastel florals by Moda.  I need to drag the card table & sewing machine up in front of the tv so I don't miss any of the commercials.  Supper might be nachos using the corn chips that were in a Christmas gift basket.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  98.983 million cases, 2.12 million deaths, 600,790 new cases yesterday

USA:   25 million cases, 417,000 deaths, 168,000 new yesterday

CANADA: 746,000 cases, 19,065 deaths, 5,965 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 257,000 cases, 5,764 deaths, 2,417 new yesterday  (3,555 on Jan. 11th was the highest, so our numbers are finally dropping!  The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 11th at the moment.  I expect it will be extended.  My understanding is the daily average cases need to go below 1,000 before the order will be lifted.

HAMILTON:  8,611 cases, 232 deaths, 71 new yesterday

Comfort and Blessing Quilt and 2020 Year End Posting

 This was the last custom quilt of the year.  I love working on sampler quilts.  This is Comfort and Blessing by Piecing The Past Quilts.

Lots of s.i.d. with some common elements throughout the blocks.

It's a little easier to see the quilting on the back.

Here's a shot of the borders.

This is such a pretty pic of a sunset on December 10th.

Hmm.  What else?... Christmas was quiet with just DH, Sadie and me.  I had to cook a turkey, which I'd almost forgotten how to do.  Normally 1-800-LUKE takes pity on us and invites us for dinner but this year we all stayed safe in our cocoons.  Although we did have a nice driveway visit with Luke and his wife a few days beforehand.  Oh, I miss hugging people. 😢  New Years Eve tonight will be the same thing - two people and one furbaby.  To celebrate kicking 2020 to the curb we're eating junk - frozen appetizers (along with some veggies - I do have some standards).

New Years Day is normally spent in person with a friend who comes over and sews with me, and then she stays for supper.  This year of course, no go.  We'll stay in our own messy sewing rooms and keep in touch with messenger video chats.  The two of us are always part of a bunch of quilters from Ontario having our New Years Day Sewing Marathons, so lots of emails and photos will be flying back and forth.  I am putting DH in charge of supper.  It will be pork tenderloin in the crockpot, with some kind of veggies and some kind of potatoes - I'm leaving that all up to him.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  83 million cases, 1.8 million deaths, 444,400 new cases yesterday

USA:   19.8 million cases, 343,000 deaths, 229,300 new yesterday

CANADA: 579,000 cases, 15,600 deaths, 7,476 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 182,000 cases, 4,500 deaths, 3,328 new yesterday **record numbers, AGAIN!

HAMILTON:  6,057 cases, 168 deaths, 156 new yesterday

The provincial lockdown didn't happen on Dec. 24th as anticipated.  The Province delayed it until Dec. 26th.  Stupid, stupid, stupid, not that anybody asked my opinion.  The Premier decided to let people "shop" and get together for dinner.  I think he also wanted to let religious people have their church services, since they are a big part of his electoral base, but he didn't say that - that's just my thoughts.

Besides that, the latest asinine behaviour was the Minister of Finance for Ontario.  

Keep in mind that the government of Canada AND Ontario have instructed all of us to stay home and travel ONLY FOR ESSENTIAL REASONS.  So, what does idiot Mr. Phillips do?  He goes on a two week vacation to St. Barts.  AND posts fake videos on his twitter feed to make it look like he's enjoying Christmas at home.  Dickhead.

His boss, Doug Ford, the Premier of the Province, tried to tell us that he didn't know his minister was down there. Huh. But as soon as he found out he told him to come home.  Huh.  However, the next day, Ford has to backtrack and admit that well, yes, he DID know,  but not until after Phillips had already arrived there in St. Barts.  So he was going to give Phillips "what for" and wouldn't tolerate that kind of thing "any more".  So...clearly not firing the idiot.  

THEN... we find out that this same idiot had gone to Switzerland for a vacation in August.  WTF?

OMG.  I need the head exploding emoji here. 

To recap:

• the Minister of Finance took a trip out of the country but pretended he was still in Canada, all while the REST of us have been told to stay home and stick to ONLY OUR HOUSEHOLDS.
• his boss, the Premier, pretends he didn't know.
• then his boss, the Premier, confesses that he lied - he DID know.  (my word not his - he would not be honest enough to say that he lied to us)

The final note to this story is that Mr. Phillips has resigned his position as the Minister of Finance.  Probably as soon as he got off the plane in Toronto.  I figure Doug Ford threw him under the bus and made him resign.  Doug has already had so much bad press over the Covid  response that he really cannot afford any more shit going down.

Dear Universe, 

Could you please have a cannabis cookie?  

We really need 2021 to be a bit more reasonable. 

Thanks, xxoo, Helen

Using Beautiful Focus Prints, and a Covid Update

Remember back in the old days before covid when you could have company?  And occasionally someone would have "one too many" and need a nap?  These are perfect.  Pick a great print and add some borders.     

These quilts make a nice throw for the couch.

They would also make a nice quick gift.

If you can't get in to your longarm quilter in time you can easily do straight line stitching on these with your domestic sewing machine.

I've finished up my 2020 customer quilts and am taking a couple weeks off.  Yesterday the fur-baby got a bath, so she's nice and clean for Christmas.  And I started the Christmas baking.  I also have a couple little things I want to sew for small gifts.  I'll take care of those projects in between listening for the dinging of the oven timer.

I DID have some big excitement, which let me tell you - has been pretty scarce these last many many many months.  I have a friend who is distantly acquainted with a painter I have loved for a long time.  She discovered this painter had donated a piece of art to a fundraising silent auction.  Super!!  I checked out the bids - there were a couple on there already, so I threw my hat in the ring too.  Well, of course I got bidded up.  So I stealthily waited until the last 30 seconds and placed one more bid and yee-hah!  Success!  Sorry for all the exclamation marks, but I was VERY EXCITED!

Here she is, Catching Fish by Sandee Ewasiuk.  

COVID-19 UPDATE

Worldwide:  76,912,000.  Wow.  Almost 77 million cases, 1.7 million deaths, 700,000 daily new cases.  

USA: 17.8 million cases, 317,700 deaths, 189,000 new yesterday.  

Canada:  511,000 cases, 14,200 deaths, 6,000 new yesterday.

Ontario:  155,900 cases, 4,150 deaths, 2,300 new yesterday.

Hamilton:  4,885 cases, 136 deaths, 98 new yesterday.

• The U.K. has locked down the south of England due to a variant of the virus, which apparently spreads much faster.  I thought it was spreading plenty fast as it was, but I guess I was wrong.  Several countries, including Canada, have stopped incoming flights from there until something (?) happens with this issue.
• Hamilton, which is the city next door to my small town, is in lockdown effective today.  Numbers have been escalating and the hospitals are on alert to cancel surgeries, along with whatever other measures they take when they're worried about incoming patients and lack of patient beds and staffing levels.
• The whole province of Ontario will be going into lockdown, apparently, effective December 24th.  The official announcement will be made later today, so at the moment I don't know if the timing is 24th morning, or 24th midnight.  
• Vaccinations have started in much of the world but it's going to take a long time for that to get us out of the mess we're in.  I understand that politicians want to save the economy by keeping everything open, but money doesn't help you when you're dead.

Stack & Whack, putting the garden to bed, and a Galette w/recipe

Here are two same-but-different quilts.  The blocks are the same, but the quilts have different settings.

This one has no sashing, and plain alternate blocks.  A dark and a print border.

This has sashing with cornerstones and an outer print border.

OMG that is a beautiful print.

I chose an Asian-style pantograph to pair with the Japanese fabric.

 GARDEN REPORT

DH dug all the remaining potatoes.  We had a bumper crop this year, in spite of the dry summer.  Watering every week produced some great tomatoes and the wonderful pile of 'taters.  

IF YOU LIKE CABBAGE:  I put in six cabbage plants back in May (?).  As I harvested them I left the plants in the ground and let them continue growing.  I kept harvesting from those six plants until last week when DH ripped them out so he could rototill.  Through the summer these were small enough to manage - perfect for soup or a quick coleslaw.  

PUTTING THE GARDEN TO BED

Every couple of years we add something to the garden to keep a nice soil tilth and lots of nutrients.  DH went to the local mushroom farm and got a trailer load of mushroom compost.  He also had a HUGE quantity of leaves.  I was downstairs in my sweatshop quilt studio, minding my own business, when he came in and asked "if I wanted to help with the leaves?".  Um, no?  Ha ha, that didn't fly!

After the leaves were down it was time to top them up with compost.  I am a very smart woman who has managed to never learn how to drive the tractor. 😁

This will have all winter to break down so we can feed ourselves again next year.

My to-do list today has pie-making hi-lited.

On one of the pandemic-stock-up shopping trips, a few bags of walnuts came home from Costco.  Walnuts only keep so long before they start to go rancid, so I put two bags in the freezer, but I'm still trying to use them a bit more often.  I found the walnuts.org web site and marked a few recipes.

KALE, BUTTERNUT SQUASH & WALNUT GALETTE

As I showed you last week I have that volunteer kale plant I've been working with, and I had some butternut squash already roasted, sitting in the fridge.  I also had two single crust pastry doughs in the freezer, left over from when I made the peach pies this summer.  I managed to whip this up for supper in practically no time!  Since I didn't have gruyere cheese I substituted with cream cheese and it was delicious.  I ate the last leftover piece this morning for breakfast with a runny egg on top.  Yum!

On a side note, cooking shows are often screening on our tv.  I mean, what else is there to do these days?  Anyhow... we were watching America's Test Kitchen (?) and they were making a galette. 

Hah!  I pointed out to DH how lucky he is that he gets fed this kind of stuff all the time.

COVID NUMBERS

Worldwide:  total 54 million, deaths 1.4 million, new 628,136

USA:  total 10,977,635.  Deaths 245,460, new cases 159,021

Canada:  total 293,183.  Deaths 10,977, new cases 4,613

Ontario: total 95,964.  Deaths 3,387, new cases 1,248