NOT MUCH...

Not much going on here lately, just the regular activities, including meetings of the two quilting groups, the town and the country.  I was teaching "Disappearing Four Patch" at the town group this past week.  When I demonstrate a technique I like to make a lap quilt, at least 40" x 50" as a sample.  These blocks were started in Arizona and came home to Alberta with me to be finished.  This afternoon I made the last one.  The blocks are sticking to my "design board," a batting covered 7' x 3' piece of foam insulation that I nailed to the wall--very handy.

This week I'll sew them together and add borders.  Probably a narrow dark red, then a wider beige, same as the background, and then bind it in either a dark red or a dark blue. This quilt will go back to AZ with me in the fall to be a donation quilt from the group there.  We make quilts and give them to the Fire Department and to The Love House, a refuge for abused and abandoned children.  I love it that they receive a quilt that is their very own, to keep for good.

I also finished the first of a pair of socks, shown recently being "ravelled" back one more time.

Dear Son #1 called this past week for a chat.  I asked him what he'd like for his birthday this year--his birthday is in January, so I'm pretty late with that.  But he promptly answered, "A hat," meaning a knitted hat.  His sister made him one for his birthday, but he'd like another.  He already has a few that I've made for him, including one made for our trip to Chile in '11, made from Chilean wool that my friend M. brought back from her trip there.

So I went to my stash and picked out two coordinating greens and started knitting.  At this point it doesn't look anything like a hat.  I suspect it's a proto type and not the finished version.  I won't publish a picture until after he has it, so it will come some time in the future.

My birthday comes up this week and a real treat is planned: we have tickets to go to Rosebud for a performance of "Wingfield Unbound," one in a series of very funny, one- actor plays about a fellow who moves from Toronto to a rural farm and the trials and misadventures he finds there.  We've seen a few plays in this series and find them very enjoyable.  They are available in DVD format also.  I'm really looking forward to that.

EARLY MELT

Our property is at the low point on the road in a section of a little over a mile, so all the spring melt runoff is heading our way.  That's good news: it will fill up our dugout, the manmade pond near the greenhouse, about 1 acre in size and about 12 feet deep.  We water our plants during the selling season, and our landscape all summer from that source.  It's free--except for the electricity for the pump; and it's agricultural runoff so it contains fertilizer.  Plus, it has not been treated so it's free of chlorine, etc.

Today, late in the afternoon the culvert under the road could no longer handle the amount of running water.  It's quite a sight.  Here's the area just south of our driveway.  Just to the right of the tree trunk you can see a slight disturbance in the surface.  That's where the culvert is, and the water is slowly swirling into it.

There's a lot of ice around yet, and that's probably why the water is so slow going through the culvert.

Here's a view of the end of the driveway with the water running across the road.  I took these pictures shortly after the sun had set, just a little while ago.

A closer view:

Another sign of spring--today during our morning walk M. and I saw a flock of geese winging north.  Next up: that first early robin.

Of course, we are aware that, statistically, this area has the highest amounts of snowfall during the months of March and April.  That snowfall is a significant contributor to the amount of moisture we get for our growing season.  Will these warming trends do away with that?

A QUILT RETREAT

This past Thursday, Friday and Saturday I went to my very first quilt retreat.  About time!  I've been quilting for 24 years and been a member of two quilt guilds for 13 years.

This retreat was held in the rural school--an old building just a few miles out into the country, that has been kept up and updated, added to, and is used as a community hall.  There are lots of windows and lots of lights in the ceiling, so it's an excellent place to be quilting.  Attendance varied from 13 to 17 women, all with their sewing machines and packs of projects.  Here's an album of some of the quilts shown at the retreat:

The first three are Monica's and they are finished tops, not complete quilts.  All very beautiful!  The fourth picture, the brilliant orange and purple quilt is Shirley's.  It was a Jinny Beyer kit that she thought about for some time and then finally bought.  She kept track of her time and it added up to 25 hours of preparation and 75 hours of sewing.  It was completely finished, layered, quilted and bound.  A perfectly stunning quilt!

We played a game that was new to me: Strip Poker (quilter style!).  Each person brings four, width of material, 2 1/2" strips of floral (specified) fabric.  There is a set of three dice, each with four possible instructions: C, R, L or a big black dot.  The dice are passed around the table clockwise and each person throws to find out what action she needs to take: Place a strip in the Center, give one to the person on your Right, or on your Left, or the dot: keep your strip.  Gradually the pile in the center grows.  When you have given away all your strips, you are out of the game--unless the person to your right or left has to give you a strip, or two.  At the end the last person having any strips wins the pile in the middle.

At our gathering that meant one of the women won 60, 2 1/2" strips.  The kicker: next year that winner must bring to the retreat a quilt made from those strips.  It was lots of fun, with exaggerated groans and cheers as the fabric changed hands.

I did lots of work on two sample quilts for my friends who have a wholesale fabric business.  One is finished and the other one will be complete by the end of this week.  Displaying a quilt made from the sample fabrics is a big help in stimulating sales.  Here's the one finished: front:

 and back:

QUITE A SIGHT!

This morning I took my first cup of coffee to the living room, opened the curtains and was treated to a beautiful sight: the moon just as it set on the western horizon.  I quickly picked up my camera and went out on the balcony to capture the image.  Wished I had been a few minutes earlier when a bigger portion was visible.  It was a beautiful  luminescent pearl!

TWEAKING THE SOCK

I'm making a pair of socks for my friend, Marcy in AZ.  By our last week there the first sock of the pair was finished and I asked Marcy to come try it on.  The foot part fit very well, but I noticed the leg part was a little short and a little tight.  I "unknit" the sock to the ankle and reknit it with needles one size larger.  I also added four stitches to the round, in the purl section between the cables.

Yesterday I finished the sock again, this time with a picot edge rather than a ribbed cuff.  The picot edge didn't look right; it needed about five rows of stockinette before the picot row.  So I "unknit" that part.  Then thought to try the sock on.  It was really too big around the leg.  I doubt that Marcy's legs are any bigger around than mine, so the sock needed to be "unknit" right down to the increase row.


A cable pattern could be a little difficult to pick up from a ravelled section, so I found the row I wanted to "unknit" to and picked up all the stitches with the smallest size dpns that I have.  They're a U.S. size 0, a metric size 2.00 mm.

After that it was easy to go from there.  This is the third time through this section of this sock!

Another thing I realized from trying on the sock was that I wanted to knit one more repeat of the cable before finishing and binding off.  I'll post a picture when this pair is completed.

Those stripped socks that I was working on?  They were finished the day before we left, as they were a present for my sister.  I just didn't find time to take a picture of them.

A PRODUCTIVE DAY

Today was a holiday for most of U.S. and Canada.  In the U.S. it was President's Day, the current form of what we celebrated in February when I was growing up: Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday.  Though, as I remember it, we did not have a day off from school for either one, and I think it's now a Federal holiday, so most people, including teachers and students, have a day off.

When we lived in Salem, Oregon, we took the kids to a mountainous area one time on President's Day and went "tubing" down a slope.  It was fun, but was a little too warm that day, and we all got soaking wet from the melting snow.  We warmed up by going to the Organ Grinder Pizza place in Portland for supper.  That was a memorable day!

Here in Alberta it was "Family Day."  We didn't take the day off because we had already enjoyed a very relaxed Saturday and Sunday.  Plus, the weather was beautiful--a good opportunity to get some work done!

Today, as so often happens after a night of sleep cut short--my day started a 3 a.m.--I had an unusually productive day.  I don't know how that works, but it often turns out that way!  I spent some hours in the kitchen:

I finally got around to making a pot of "Best Cheesy Broccoli Soup"--a recipe that I've had for some time, don't even remember where it came from.  You can see we've lowered the level somewhat.  It was delicious!

After lunch I just had to take advantage of the fabulous weather: blue skies, strong sunshine and no wind combined to make it a perfect time to do a quick window wash.  This house is built into a berm, and the windows that would be too high to reach are very easily taken care of because there's a balcony surrounding that side of the second floor.  In the back, the second floor is ground level.  

If you look carefully at that photo you can just see the imprint at the top of the window of a bird's wing.  What you can't see, because of the sun shining through is that there is an imprint of the whole body and other wing beneath that.

Birds must be very dusty!  There were several imprints of bird impacts on the living room windows.  I'll have to ask S. if she found any dead birds on the balcony while we were away.  It's always such a pity when that happens!  I feel so sorry for the birds.  Quite often they can just careen off the window and be gone, but sometimes they lay stunned on the balcony for several minutes before shaking themselves off and leaving. Occasionally it's the end of that bird's life. 

SORRY, BIRDS!

A TERRIFIC GIFT

My friend S., who started quilting just 2 1/2 years ago, has defined her area of interest: she loves to appliqué, and she makes some amazing appliquéd quilts.  Her latest project is a birthday present for a grandson who will be two in March.

She simply used her own ideas for this project, very loosely based on pictures she's seen. I think any two year-old would be thrilled with this play-mat, let alone a two year-old who has "vroom-vroomed" since he could toddle around!