Craziness

First moment of "crazy"
Went one last time to JoAnn's (I KNOW; I'm so bad; like we don't have them in Detroit...)  However, I NEEDED to use my two 50% off coupons which only started today, to buy some duck cloth and Pellon Fusible Fleece to make a couple of bags.  Well, the bar code hadn't loaded on my JoAnn coupon on my iPhone, drat, and so she suspended my order so I could go next door to Five Guys Burgers to see if they had free wifi, nope.  So, a crazy dash across the parking lot to a restaurant in which we once ate to piggyback on their wifi, to reload the coupon (in 90 degree heat today too) to save $8.  Sidenote to those of you who have Smart phones and are wondering why I don't have internet on my iPhone...well, I do, with my Canadian Telus SIM card.  However, we put in our American AT&T SIM card when we're down here, which is a GoPhone plan, and it doesn't have internet, or if it does, I think it's really expensive.

Second moment of crazy
was making a crazy left turn on a 6-lane 50-mph state road, and parking in a closed barber shop, (that I think might just be the barber's house when it's "CLOSED", oops) and and risking my neck by braving the perils of fire ants, spiders, and snakes, to get a pic of "my" jacaranda tree,  ... then later a crazy u-turn on that same state road to go home.

Oh yeah, it was worth it.  And these were taken with my almost-3-year-old iPhone 4!  Might have to walk down there with my HD iPad.

Started off my Sunday just "splendiferously": went to Rosemary Court for Ashtanga, Mysore-style, just wonderful.  Followed that up (after a coffee and scone of course!) with a 3-mile dogwalk as per usual Sunday route.  Mother Nature gave me a gorgeous splash of colour, just like last Sunday with the teal and black Kingfisher.

Third moment of crazy!

White or Giant Bird of Paradise Flower

Stunning colours

The foliage looks so much like Joe's banana plants he grew last year.  He didn't get any flowers, however.  I did not know what exactly this was, so I googled blue flowering banana plant, and voilà!  I found this site.  (Scroll down a little ways.)  Cool. So it is also known as a Wild Banana!

I think that is a pretty crazy-looking (in a drop-dead gorgeous way) flower!

Reflections 2

It occurred to me that I did not stay on topic as I had planned yesterday, but veered off into talking about our "last time" things we are doing as the countdown is happening.

Sniff, sniff!  I decided to pack up my sewing room today.  Of course I'm now assailed by a driving urge to machine quilt my Brrr! Park quilt.  Too bad; the only project I've left myself is my Self Round Robin appliqué and the hand-quilting on that runner that I might just get finished.  I do have a couple of items that have not fit into that Rubbermaid tub, sewing machine caddy, and navy blue toolbox, shocker, I know.  I LOVE that toolbox, bought in the hardware department at Canadian Tire several years ago, it has followed me to many a retreat, and now two trips to our condo!

Reflections on Another Winter in Southwest Florida

It's hard to believe that 4.5 months have gone!  Dayna says to stay until May 1, as the spring is very slow coming this year after the worst winter in recorded history in the Windsor/Detroit area.  However, we have already put the wheels in motion, so to speak, so departure date is April 16.

I finished another book two days ago, and when I entered my usual book summary in my Word document I keep on books I've read, I decided to count up just how many I'd read since we arrived here Dec. 1.  Seventeen!!

Here are most of them; two I gave to Goodwill as they weren't worth keeping, one was a neighbour's, And the Mountains Echoed, and that same neighbour has another, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.  I was pleasantly surprised.  I also read several quilt magazines (love getting them secondhand at guild meetings for 25c and less) and browsed through two quilt books I bought.  I'm well into Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and really really enjoying it.  I am going to keep a notebook handy from today's reading on, as he mentions so many places that I hope to see in Savannah next week.

Woot! Woot!

I WON I WON I WON!!!

On one of my favourite blogs I follow, and a favourite online quilt shop where I have helped clear some shelf space this winter, was a final giveaway of her year of giveaways.  This is Christa Quilts! a blog I've mentioned a few times over the past few months.  She had 14 prizes!!!  I was winner #3 (3 is my favourite number, and my birthdate) and I won a Kona solids layercake! I am SO EXCITED about this, as it's my first win, and I have entered a LOT of giveaways over this winter, all to no avail.

Last night I dreamed this!  In my dream I was telling someone that I never win these blogger giveaways, and I finally won someone's but it was a prize I didn't want.  LOL!!  This is most definitely a prize I DO want!!  I've noticed, in my discovery of Modern Quilting this winter, how the use of solids has become very popular.  I have, like none.  So thanks to Christa's great deals on Kona solids with her old online store (she's now moved to selling precuts through Amazon.com) I have been able to gather, a few a lot of solids:

Confession:  I have a few more coming from her store in the mail!

Progress

.... albeit slow progress.

I've been avoiding my Self Round Robin for many weeks.  First it was just the thought of how to find the perfect appliqué for the four corners.  But I managed to narrow it to 2 or 3.  Then I found a couple of others, and decided on one.  Enlarged it.  Nope.  It didn't adequately fill the space, and it was too much of a repeat of the centre.  Back to searching.

Here is my quilt so you can remember it:

I put it on point during Dayna's visit...at the end of February, egad!  I'm not a big fan of appliqué, and doing all that I did on Seaside Rose kind of makes me cringe at the thought of what I've got myself in for. However, I LOVE it on point, and I AM excited as to how it is going to turn out, despite the somewhat daunting task of doing all the appliqué, which I will do by machine.  The centre block is by hand.

So today I did not turn on my machine.  However I have spent some time prepping the appliqué, and I'm only half done.

Gosh, this glass dining table is a gem as a lightbox!  I'm modifying a pattern from April 2014 "American Patchwork & Quilting" magazine.  I am so far behind in this guild project, it's not even funny.  Sigh.

Today we spent a bunch of time running errands, and when we got home, I spent time on the computer, putting together and printing out a comprehensive Condo Closing List much like that we have for closing our house in the Fall.  I also booked our Charleston hotel and investigated a couple of dog kennels in Savannah.  I am so excited because we are going home a different way this time, and taking an extra day. This is so that we can stay in Savannah, Georgia, on the first day, and then Charleston, West Virginia on the second.  From Charleston to Detroit it is only 6 hours, so an easy final day.  I know that Detroit/Windsor is within a day's driving distance of so much of the eastern US, but it continues to amaze me just how close. 

And, I finished The Tiger's Wife this morning.  Excellent.  I just loved her use of language, the symbolism, and the deep connection between grandfather and granddaughter.  I loved the interweaving of stories within the novel too.

Off to trace some more flower parts!

Summer Daze

Woot! Woot!  Another finish!  I finished this last night but I wanted to get a daylight picture.

By the way, it's the top only that's finished; I will quilt this happy quilt on my longarm.  Think I might do this one first, as I plan to do a gentle all-over meander which is nice and easy, so a good way to get back in the swing of quilting on a longarm.

These colours are just so not-in-my-stash, but I absolutely ADORE them, and this quilt has that graduating or stepping action in the pattern, which I just love.  Your eye just travels over the quilt, eating it up, like you lick a fast-melting ice cream.

Here is the original December picture.  Even rolled as they were, those colours just call to me, singing of summertime.  I got this pattern and kit from Guildcrafters Quilt Shop in Berkley, Michigan.

Someone else LOVED the new fabric.  Honestly, she DOES!  Every time I get new fabric which is not rather often, or start a new project, Bella just HAS to get her 2 cents' worth of fur on it.

Purring mightily away, scrabbling a bit on the pattern sheet. . . mmm!  Nice scratchy sound.

This was a cool way of constructing, similar but a little different to that in a Trip Around the World quilt.  You sewed strips of fabric together, making two strata, 17 strips long by 44" wide.

Bella wanted to be in the picture to check out the front balcony!

Then you cut the strata apart in 4" strips.  Here you see my strips all cut.  The sun shining through an ornament made a pretty pattern on the wall and floor, no?  (It's not dog snot, just so you know.)

You then sewed all the strips into one gi-normous long strip of 340 squares!  Once that was done, you undid a seam every 21 squares, with a few squares discarded here and there (4 in all) to create each column.

What I thought was cool (and thank you to whoever did the math to figure out the repeat pattern) was that the columns were not in order.  You got Column 1, 5, 9 and 13 off the first four 21-square repeats.  Then the pattern system was established.  Too smart!!

I do see why people pay for patterns rather than spend the hours figuring out the math or system for quilts like this.  I read somewhere that a quilter wondered who would pay for her pattern, but yes, there are people who do not want to spend that kind of time figuring.  They would rather get right to the cutting and sewing stage, so will happily pay to skip the figuring part.

Here it is on the design wall, waiting to have the columns sewn together.

Quilt Details:
Name:  Summer Daze
Size:  56 X 70"
Pattern: designed by Guildcrafters Quilt Shop
Fabric:  100% cotton, several from Dear Stella Fabrics

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was actually April 3, but I have been a little remiss in writing my blog.  This year I treated myself to a few prezzies, as they say in England.  Ha!  Great opener!  I love it when my brain is ahead of myself.  Look!