LONG AWAITED DAY

I always look forward to the day when I can hang out the wash to dry on the line.  Today was that day!  We had had sufficiently warm weather earlier this week, but the slab of cement to stand on for hanging out the wash was covered with a big snow pile until this morning.  I had helped the melting along yesterday by chopping at the pile and washing some away with the hose.

There was a lot of laundry piled up waiting to be done:

That's a lot for just two people!

Here are loads #5 and #6 on the line.  The first "summer" laundry day is such an event I always take a picture!

Before that there were four loads of whites on the line.  That included all of our bedding.  Yesterday I "unexpectedly" did the spring-cleaning of our bedroom: washed walls, windows, rubbed the furniture with orange oil, took off all the bedding and the eyelet valances, vacuumed the spring and mattress, vacuumed the rug, washed the mirrors.  Wow!

I was very stiff when I got up this morning.  You know the cure for stiffness from unusual exercise (cleaning all that in one day was unusual exercise): it's MORE of the same!  So I worked really hard today--that included finishing the window washing on the main floor.  Some had been done earlier this week, and now that spring cleaning job is finished!  Yay!

A clean house makes me feel so good!  

Oh, and I scrubbed the balcony floor.  That's 7' x 44', so it's not a small job.  I hook up the hose by the back door, thread it through the window, run it to one of the living room windows that looks out on the balcony.  Spray, scrub with a push broom, rinse well.  Tiring work!  But, oh, it looks so much better with the winter grime removed, and the accumulated bird leavings scrubbed off!

I'm cutting and sewing a "Disappearing Four Patch" lap quilt.  It would have been nice to sew today, but the next three days are forecast to be cold and rainy.  That's good sewing weather.  I'll post a picture when the quilt top is together.

Now for a glass of cold water, a cookie (?), a book and my feet up on the coffee table in the sun space.

"WINDFARM"

Today I finished the small quilt I'm calling "Windfarm" because it's all pinwheels.  This pattern was in the March/April issue of Quiltmaker, but in that form there were several different colours of pinwheels.  That made it tricky to piece because each center of block pinwheel had four "blades" of another colour surrounding it.  Each of them, in turn needed to match the colour blades in the blocks surrounding the current block.  A little hard to explain, and much, much harder to do as you are making the blocks.

My version uses just two colours of pinwheels, vastly simplifying the process.

This will be a donated "comfort quilt" either here or in Arizona.

I was so enthusiastic about this quilt when I started making it, but was very thankful that I had made just twelve blocks when I sewed it together.  It was a beast to sew together as each quarter of each block had four bias seams.  It was really hard to get the blocks sewn together properly.  So this quilt is a "one off."  I won't make another in this pattern.  Funny how some patterns just match up beautifully and others give a lot of trouble!

Yesterday we had a year-end windup: a Show and Tell with snacks that we invite friends to come see what we've made.  It's always fun and was especially nice this year.  I forgot to take my camera, so I'll ask Cathy to send me some photos to share.

This morning we took delivery of a lot of plants, trees and shrubs from Jeffries Nurseries in Portage la Prairie, Sask.  The driver arrived when we said he would, our neighbours helped with two fork lifts and two drivers.  In about 45 minutes it was all unloaded and placed in the greenhouse.  The driver did such a good job that I am going to call the trucking company to tell them what a good driver he is.  See you later.

THE BIG MELT

The snow has been melting very gradually, until today.  Now the BIG MELT in on!  Here's the end of our driveway and the road out front:

But it's not to wet for the Dear One to be out in the landscape pruning off the old, dead ends of shrubs and perennials.  Just happy that it's warm enough to be outside!

SPLIT 9 PATCH FINISH

Just now I finished putting the binding on a Split 9 Patch quilt, one of the UFO's from the fabric closet.  This is a quilt that I demonstrated last summer at IDA, our local quilt store.  That's always a fun time.  I set up my sewing machine, a design board and start making blocks.  There's a handout showing each of the steps in the process and quilters drop by during the day to pick up a set of directions and watch the process.  It means I go home with quite a few finished blocks that need some more blocks made and then they can form a quilt.

There were some of these Split 9 Patch blocks in the fabric closet, and this is the second finish of those UFO's.  Two other projects ended up in the burning barrel, a Jacob's Ladder (9 blocks of varying sizes) and a failed denim bag.

I made the extra blocks and put the quilt together.  Then I picked out borders.  Here are  two possibilities:

It looked to me that the blue was a "hands down" better choice.  So that's what I went with.  The first time I applied the borders they were too "wavy."  That happens when a border that's a bit too long is sewed to a quilt.  They needed to be taken off and be shortened.

I took a short cut and ripped them off.  Yikes!  Yes, just remove a bit of the seam, take hold of the quilt top in one hand and the border in the other and give a good hard pull.  The border will separate from the quilt.  I should have pressed the borders after that maneuver, but forgot to do that.  That meant that one side of the border was longer than the other.  Now that's not too bad if you sew the longer edge to the quilt.  That will make the borders nice and snug on the outer edge.  Three of them were sewed on that way; the fourth had the stretched outer side to the outer edge.  Well!  That was quite a few missteps along the way.  But I went ahead and made the 3 layer quilt sandwich.

 Yesterday at the town quilt club meeting I got most of the machine quilting done.  This morning I finished up that step, made the binding (same fabric as the border) and got that applied.  I sewed it to the back of the quilt, folded it over to the front and top stitched it down.  All that needs to be done now is to snip off the thread ends on the back of the quilt.  The back is also from the stash, a large piece of polkadot flannel, cut in half and a fairly large piece of blue flannel.  The blue flannel is in the middle, with a wide strip of polka dot flannel on either side.

This next photo shows the border with the binding, and the variegated thread stitching on both sides:

Another finish, this one two weeks ago, was a pair of hand-knit socks, a Christmas gift promised to Lola in the Christmas gift exchange of the town club.  She chose the yarn and I knit this pair after returning from AZ.  I hadn't sewed in the end thread, just in case they needed some adjustment.  But they fit beautifully just this way.  I finished them at the club meeting two weeks ago and they went home with her.

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW

Today I am trying out something I haven’t done before—using my new iPad to make a blogpost.  AND I want to learn how to import a photo from the camera.  So here goes.
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Well, that was a bust!  Couldn't find the way to get a photo taken with my iPad to the blog post, written on the iPad.  Someone will know how to do that--I'll ask around.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON THIS DAY

We got up this morning to another new layer of snow!  This is a winter that just won't quit.  And we are all so ready to see some green!  I thought about complaining.  Then we watched the latest chapter of The Kennedys on CNN.  So much talent, so much promise,  So Much Tragedy!  It's heart wrenching even now. fifty five years later.

On the day JFK was killed I was in my first year of teaching.  It was a Friday afternoon, near the end of the day.  My fifth grade class was busy with an art project.  The principal came to our room and delivered the dire news.  Who doesn't remember where they were and what they were doing when we heard the news.  If only. . . .

When that program ended we turned to CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and watched the last part of the service in Humboldt, Saskatchewan.  This was a community service following the dreadful accident on Friday that killed 15 members of the Humboldt Broncos Hockey team.  What we saw of the service was very good.  The politicians in Humboldt had decided that the leaders of faith--the pastors of the various churches there--should be in charge of the service.  There were hymns and prayers in the part of the service that we watched.  One of the hymns was "What a Friend we have in Jesus."  Would you hear a hymn like that sung in a memorial service in Toronto--or any other major city.

Could it be that being sophisticated means losing something deeply basic and comforting?

Also, this afternoon I finished reading one of Jodi Picoult's latest books, Small Great Things.  I heartily recommend it!  I hope that many people read it and take its message to heart, a message that is desperately needed in these times of deep divisions and hatreds.

HOW I WILL MISS HER!!!

My dear, dear friend Marcy died yesterday.  It's an awful blow to everyone who knew and loved her.

I knew Marcy for just short of six years.  In 2012 Jim and I bought a condo in a gated community near Phoenix, AZ where my sister and brother-in-law lived.  I knew that community very well from having visited there and walked extensively through the village.  I had researched it for some time on line and when we made an offer on a unit it was Marcy's listing.  That's how we came into contact.

The first year we stayed there for just six weeks so it wasn't until later years when we extended our stays to four months that I got to know Marcy.  The clincher in our relationship came when she asked me to teach her how to sew.  She had had a bad experience in "Home Ec" but really wanted to be able to make clothing for herself and for gifts for friends and family.  We usually spent several hours once a week creating first simple things and then increasingly more complex items.  She has appeared on this blog a few times, celebrating her finished projects, most recently the rather complicated jacket that she finished early in February, just before we left to come back to Alberta.

When Marcy was born the doctors told her mother not to let her siblings bond with her because they thought she wouldn't live more than six weeks due to congenital heart problems.   Her mother, good for her!, ignored that advice and Marcy was cherished as part of the family.  Marcy survived not just six weeks, but babyhood, childhood, adolescence and well into adulthood.

It wasn't easy for her.  She was often unwell, but had an indomitable spirit.  She truly maximized her life, becoming very involved with family, with friends, with church and with community.  She did a great amount of volunteer work.  Marcy loved to take classes and learn new things.   She also loved to travel.  She loved to help people, even some annoying, demanding people whom others would have dumped!  Marcy made the world a better place!

Marcy said the nicest thing about Ron that  I've ever heard a woman say about her husband.  One day when she was talking about the blessings in her life she numbered among them: "I have a husband I just adore!" And she let her friends know that she loved them also.  Marcy had a great heart!

Unfortunately, her physical heart was not doing well.  The last four months of her life were a daily struggle.  The doctor at UCLA who specialized in her particular problem had suggested an operation designed to give her better quality of life, although it was an experimental procedure.  After resisting for quite some time, she and Ron finally agreed to have the procedure done.

I asked all my friends to join me in praying for her on Wednesday.  She faced the operation with courage and calm.  On Tuesday evening at 9:45 p.m. she wrote to me: "Tomorrow is my surgery date.  God is with us and is in control.  I love you and will talk with you after the surgery.  Bonnie will give you updates tomorrow.  Marcy"

The operation did not go as we all had hoped.  Marcy never regained consciousness and very early Thursday morning she passed on into the next life.  Bonnie said something to me yesterday that struck a chord, "For the first time in her life Marcy has a whole body."

I'm so sad that she is gone.  She was only 53 years old, but had really lived those 53 years.  For Marcy herself, I'm glad.  She's free of pain now.  She was the most truly Christian person I've ever met and I have no doubt about where she is now.

Bless you, Marcy!  We love you!

WE GOT IT DONE!

Every year after the plants that overwinter in the solar space are moved to the greenhouse, S. and I need to scrub up that space for summer use.  Today was the day.  There was not that much to do in the greenhouse, I was available and the sun was shining brightly, warming up that space.  Actually, we had left the doors open all night to insure that it was warm enough to work in.

The "solar space" is the area underneath the balcony that we had enclosed many years ago with walls of windows.  The glass is double glazed, but clear and lets in the full spectrum of sun's rays.  It serves as a good area to overwinter several plants and also for the smaller plants that have been seeded and now are a few inches tall.  It's a kind of intermediary space between the basement room with its benches and grow lights and the full greenhouse.

We started at 10 a.m. and worked like ???--like we were twenty-year olds!    Jim and I had swept up the worst of the dirt earlier and this morning S. swept the windowsills and the floor and then vacuumed the floor.

Even after the sweeping and vacuuming it was very dirty:

This year S. and I worked out our best arrangements yet.  One of us dropped hot, soapy (Palmolive dishwashing liquid) onto a 3 x 3 tile area, and another tile area and then scrubbed up the tiles in 3 x 3 tile sections with hot soapy water and a stiff scrubbing brush on a long handle. That saves going down on our hands and knees for scrubbing.  If any stains remained we "blasted" them with Fantastik with Bleach.  Poof! the stain scrubbed up.  Then the other on of us using the small shop vac vacuumed up the soapy water and OOOH, just lovely--all clean!

We worked really, really hard until 11:30 and reached the halfway mark.  Time for a cup of coffee and a cookie!  Then we were back at it, just as hard, having switched jobs.  By 1 p.m. the whole place was slicked up!  Jim helped us carry the "summer furniture" back into this area.  Looks wonderful!

This is the southern facing side, now sporting two day beds.  And this is the western facing side, with a futon, a rocking chair, a coffee table (used as a footstool) and a pretty comfortable upholstered chair.  On the far side is a nice wooden desk with a chair.

All we need yet is a lamp beside the futon and a hanging plant in the corner.  We spend lots and lots of time here on spring, summer and fall afternoons.  It's a very pleasant space that looks out over the blooming gardens in summer and also allows us to keep an eye out for customers coming to the greenhouses.

It left behind somewhat of a mess in the t.v. room where all the solar space summer furniture is stored over winter.  Guess what's next on the To Do List?