Life is Squirrely

Above is a pic of Simone sitting in the base of their cat tree watching a squirrel happily eat, oblivious to the fact that she is being watched by her arch enemy! I had some rather old dried cranberries, so instead of just tossing into the garbage I decided to see if the wildlife in my neighbourhood would enjoy them. Well, it's been Squirrel city around here ever since! Quite entertaining this morning as they chased each other all over the place! A quilting friend of mine kept a squirrel in a nice large cage in her backyard for several years.

The black bird is a decal I placed on the sliding door so Simone knows when the door is open or closed - took her awhile to figure that out. Simone has been highly entertained this weekend which is good as the cats get so bored and feel house bound in the winter. Time for some cat nip I think!

Speaking of being house bound, I crashed Wednesday night and spent several days on the couch, had no energy AT ALL.  Guess I pushed myself too much last weekend. :(. Almost made it through January without collapsing.  On the plus side I wasn't too "sick" (aka exhausted) to work on my Lucy Boston POTC blocks!! Above is the one I finished from last week. I'm in love!! I wasn't sure about the centre fabric and reallllly wanted to use the outer Black dot fabric somehow - so graphic! I think it turned out fantastic!

On the left is another of my favourite fabrics from
my stash, and I had to fussy cut the hexies so they would work (took the original pic upside down, silly me).
On the right is the one I finished last night. I was a bit disappointed that  I couldn't do better on the outer red hexies, but c'est la vie!
I am now officially on the fourth row for this Lucy Boston Quilt - Woohoo!
Word for this week .....

Godwin’s Law - theory that as an online discussion progresses, it becomes inevitable that someone or something will eventually be compared to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis, regardless of the original topic

This was chosen today as the end of copyright for Hitler's Mein Kampf is currently under discussion on CBC radio as I blog. Hmmm, should it be re-published or left alone ? Interestingly, copyright for the Diary of Anne Frank is also under attack this season. Maybe the word for this week should have been copyright!

TTFN

Another Winter week

Well, I survived another week of winter - YEAH. I really shouldn't complain, although it has been COLD, we haven't seen that much snow. Yesterday and today were/are sunny and bright which is a good thing :).  Also, I have a rare weekend "off" as my sister is looking after the Mater. So Friday after work I was over at the Paters. We had a lovely Tourtiere and salad dinner then off to the computer to work up a few emails and a letter or two. We had a wee visit before I left for home. Dad was pleased to get those chores taken care of. Saturday I even got to watch my PBS quilting shows - YEAH ! Then more work to empty out the front hall. Around 3 a colleague from work came round with his buddy and moved out the love seat and a couple of tables from the basement family room. I donated them to a gentleman who finds himself without furniture now that he's suddenly on his own. Win-Win for everyone as I get "stuff" out of the basement I'm not using. Later on of course I had to clean up and put my house all back together ....  Just in case you think I lazed around all day and was a total slug .... no! Here's the Lucy Boston POTC I finished last week ...

Not my usual colours, this one was made from a Christmas gift fat quarter - Thanks Mibs for getting me out of my colour zone, I enjoyed making this one.
This week's word :

Panglossian : marked by a view that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds; excessively optimistic

TTFN

Winter's here !

Bah humbug. Winter, not my favourite season, is here. It was very cold and snowy for most of the week and for once in a very very very long time I did not go to our quilt guild meeting. Wouldn't ya know it my traveling/quilting partner won the door prize that night! We've had a long running joke between us as neither of us have won a door prize in YEARS/ever !!! But, I won in September and now Mibs has won ! Must be our year :) ;) !

Here's last week's Lucy Boston POTC block all finished. I really like this one and continue to be amazed at all the fabric matches I find in my stash! And here is a key chain wristlet I made from the leftovers from my Stash & Dash sewing organizer

And here is this week's POTC Lucy Boston block, also one of my favourites - aren't they all favourites?

So, this week's word is .....

Lugensterine:  lying stones of limestone carved into the shape of various animals.

 TTFN

 

Slow moving Sewer

Yes, I am a slow moving sewer (NOT a sewist, I hate that made up word!) It's January and it's snowing out there. Drats!  Now that I need to arise @ 5:45 AM each work day morning my evenings are diminishing to almost nothing. Once the cats and I are fed, the kitchen cleaned up and everything readied for the next morning I'm just too tired to do much of anything else. 5:45 is NOT my natural wake time, and that takes me to this week's WORD OF THE WEEK ...

 Chronotype - the propensity for an individual to sleep at a particular time during the 24 hour period. I have a quilting friend who, now that she is retired, has become an extreme nighthawk. She sews well into the late night, 2, 3 or even 4 am! then sleeps until noon or later. Oh how I wish!  Soon ...

So, my sewing this week is an incomplete POTC block :( . I got this far last night and stopped. I was tired and couldn't decided if the final hexies should be blue down or up. Will decide today.

That's all from me this week. Comments are welcome and easy to do - don't just be a blog browser!
TTFN

First project for 2016 !

 It's a "Stash and Dash" fold over organizer. The pdf was free for a short time from www.ByAnnie.com. Being free I scooped it up of course ;). My friend Mibs (yup, that's her name) and I did a wee excursion to one of our local quilt stores where I found the outside sewing theme fabric.

The selvedge theme fabric I used for the inside was picked up 2 summers ago (?) at Stitch-it Central in Ingersol on one of our sewing road trips. Glad I kept it for a "special" project, I think it looks great. The red polka dots come from Fabricland - if you're a reader of my blog you'll know that I love red! The organizer pattern called  for mesh fabric for the pockets but I chose to use plastic.

This is the pocket on the back. Not sure what I'd use this pocket for- who knows.

I also chose to use some of my sewing themed charms as zipper pulls. The top zipper pull is a thimble,

the middle zipper pull a pair of scissors,

and the bottom pocket got a mini sewing machine zipper pull!

I'm so pleased with a) I finally got into my sewing room and spent some quality time sewing
b) I made myself something useful. I'll use it to carry around my Lucy Boston POTC prepped blocks.

Word for today:

Oryctics - branch of geology relating to fossils

TTFN

 

Happy 2016!!

It's NOT one of my quilts, but it is lovely and apropos. I think the maker/creator is Ann Fahl.  She did a lovely job and I hope she doesn't mind my sharing it with you. I had a quiet New Year's eve and since it is finally snowing here I suspect it will be a quiet New Year's day. Just fine with me - maybe I'll even get into the sewing room yet this holiday season!!

Looking back it appears that I did have a fairly productive 2015. Somehow it didn't feel like it maybe because I spend so much time browsing the internet and seeing everyone's lovely work and their productivity. Must say I have truly enjoyed these 2 weeks off work - I could easily get used to this! Mustn't  think this way, still a minimum of a year yet to go ... My turn will come soon, just hope I don't lose my quilting mojo before my retirement days begin! I have over 2 dozen POTC blocks made and on the design wall now and managed to get 8 POTC blocks all prepped and ready to sew in the new year - yeah!!

I was a bad bad girl already .... I broke my perennial New Year's resolution (To NOT buy any more fabric - ha ha ha ha ha!) The pile of fat quarters on the left are Christmas reds and greys - for next year for ME ! I deserve a Christmas runner and I'm going to make me one! The pile on the right are some French General reds - for more POTC blocks as I don't have enough red yet - can never have too many reds ;) !

So the top three on the left are for another POTC block, and the turquoise with scissors is just because it was tooooo cute! And the 5 black & whites will probably become more POTC blocks, not sure.

So I'm going to start something new on my blog. I do quite a bit of reading (articles/blogs etc) at work, and frequently come across words I'm not familiar with. When I was a student - long long ago in a galaxy far far away - I kept a little black book where I noted words I read which I didn't know. At the end of the week I would look up the definitions. So now at work I keep little slips of paper with all these words and definitions, and they are getting out of hand! So now I have an online file and have decided to share these words/phrases with you. They will be random/no context, just words for you to enjoy!

Schatzkammer = treasure room

TTFN