First - the January completion.  This is the top I pieced in the fall up in Tobermory.  It's ready for a label & the washing machine. I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  And I used a new-to-me panto which I'm also pretty happy with. This month I'm working on this.  There will actually be TWO of these.  It's a leader/ender project that I've been poking away at for a couple of years, and I finally finished all the blocks.  98 of them.  Those half-square centers are cutoffs from a baby quilt I made for my friend's daughter.  Setting is ..read more

 I was asked to make a Christmas table runner.  This was pretty easy to do, using my 60 degree ruler and 1.5m of border print fabric. I cut two 10" swaths along the length - if you look you'll see there is waste fabric * in between and along the top because the swaths need to be identical sections of the print.  Using the 60 degree ruler, cut triangles.  This makes an 'uppy' and a 'downy' set of triangles.  You can see from the finished piece above how to put them together.  * we all know there's no such thing as waste fabric, ha ha ha I also finally made mys ..read more

I'll start off with a little quilty-stuff, then move on to the topic du jour. Pieced at Tobermory retreat but not yet quilted:  Started an embarrassingly long time ago, finally quilted, and heading to the hospice as a guild donation: TOPIC DU JOUR Dad died of a heart attack when he was 72.  He was a tough guy.  A contractor, specializing in drywall I think.  I was one of those teenagers who paid zero attention to the people who really had some import in my life, so I don't honestly know.  As a teenager I slept until noon, by which time he was more than half way thr ..read more

 What happened to the past few months!  Well: This was the last group project that I organized.  It was for the Binbrook guild and I had "planned" to do a demo on back-basting at the June meeting, to end the season.  All the background squares were either white, cream, grey, or black, with text of some kind.  All the center circle pieces were somewhere between yellow and red. However, it was scheduled for the day I got home from Quilt Canada in Edmonton. As you can guess, I did not make it to the guild meeting.  I also managed to pass the virus along to hubby ..read more

 Spring is crazy around here. (You'd have to live under a rock to not be aware that I like to garden.)  My body has been talking quite loudly: "Lady - what the fark do you think you're doing??? You sat on your ass all winter watching tv. I can't do this stuff - and if you make me, you're gonna pay!" And yes, I'm hurting. Bursitis in my shoulder, an awful knot in my shoulder blade, golfer's elbow, and a bad knee. Oh, and whatever is wrong with my neck, that I woke up with yesterday. Sigh. HOWEVER, I still manage to get out of bed every morning, and for that I'm grateful. In earl ..read more

The apron I made for my egg-providing neighbour.  I know she appreciates these...I popped over there one day for a visit and she was wearing a tattered apron that I'd made her a couple years earlier.  Ever since then I make her a new one every couple years. I'm lucky enough to have friends who I meet at Mapleview Mall for an irregular dinner date, maybe a half dozen times a year?  We met through our work at Royal Bank ...so many years ago I don't even want to think about it.  Somehow these new shoes managed to come home with me last night. Today's completed wall hanging ..read more

Aah, New Years Day. 🎆 Time for a reckoning.  I set some targets every year so there's an endpoint where I'd like to find myself.  I don't manage to fulfill ALL of my goals, but taking a few minutes early in the year to think about where I've been and where I'd like to go does help to give me some focus. This is a quilt I started several (!) years ago.  It's a Bonnie Hunter leader & ender pattern TO THE NINES from one of her books. Occasionally we have enough sleepover company that I need to put the sofabed to use, but I didn't have a quilt that looks nice in that room AND ..read more

 Coco the rescue from Niagara Dog Rescue in the back.  Nina the rescue from Hamilton-Burlington SPCA in the front.  Two dogs who don't exactly like to wear Santa hats, lol. 😂 DH and I haven't had a puppy in probably 20 years.  Clearly I forgot how much work they are.  Most mornings Nina's been yipping & barking to go out between 5 and 5:30 am.  Did I mention that the dog crates are in the master bedroom?  She has been very good about going back to bed after one of us takes her out, but only for another hour and then she's up.   We've had her f ..read more

 Yes, I mean recovery from Covid.  (I have not entered a 12-step program to disengage from my sewing machine.)  It's October, which means a week in Tobermory with the Beach Girls, and that seemed to me like a perfect place to recover! I figured a Limoncello Spritz would be a very healthy cocktail, right?  Served with short rib crostinis for our afternoon cocktail hour.  Sadly (or not??) the spritzes weren't a huge hit, so Deb and I had to drink two each.   We've done some practice with our Zentangle skills... There's still one more wedge space to fi ..read more

 Janice and I are spending our last five days in Italy quarantined in our hotel room.  Because I have Covid.  I tested positive on Friday morning, and yes, I feel like total crap.  I've had the worst headache, that does not want to go away without drugs.  Tylenol to the rescue.  Janice is NOT sick, but because she's traveling with me she is automatically considered infected too. I'll share a bit of our LAST day out... The 5th was a free morning so we wandered around town, went to the post office so I could mail some postcards, and did some shopping. In the after ..read more