Monday mystery solo robin

Well it looks like Monday morning has happened again, and despite the update to lockdown, most of us will still be staying at home. So on with the quilting. For those of you just joining us you can start this quilt at any point, and work on the instructions in any order. You can start today with any block, but I do reccomend one with at least one side 9″ or bigger. Some shape with straight sides will be much easier than a circle. Every Monday I post a new instruction but don’t feel you have to keep up and do Every week. You can just dip in whenever. Equally if you start now and need more than one instruction in a week you can just scroll down to another Monday.

Now we need this weeks doom, erm I mean fine and inspiring instruction. Did I mention I found last week really hard. This week we will be adding  borders,

Add 8″ to one side of your quilt

I actually drew the same as we had last week so This was the second choice.  The technique this week is,

Bears paw

Hmm, well that is pretty simple again, though it doesn’t need to be the block of that name. Applique paw prints would work, or pieced if you are up to it, don’t forget the claws. You could distort or recolour the traditional block. Or maybe break it apart. I think we are quite lucky to get this block and a good size border this could be fun.

Finally rectangles done

I can’t say I enjoyed this week’s challenge. It really has challenged me. Such a simple sounding technique but I  just couldn’t see a way ahead. When I  did I made more mistakes than I would have thought possible. So many of those seams were sewn and unpicked two and three times. However it is done, and I am happy with the result. I am very much hoping next week’s will be easier for me.

Hoping for rain overnight for the garden and if tomorrow is cool again then I will be happy to get lots of sewing done.

Wow, what a difference location makes.

VE day yesterday was amazing, mostly due to hwere we live and the people around us. Our streeet was decked out with bunting, mostly home made and some of it amazingly creative. I especially liked some paper bunting. I know the fabric nut liking the paper, but it was so crisp and their technique so clever. Also it showed the spirit of making to. What have I got and how can I make it fit the bill. It also tells me that when I get around to making mine I might be best to use a single layer of either interfaced or very heavily starched fabric as I like the sharp edge so much. Yes, I forsee needing to own bunting, and a really good door wreath and lots of fairy lights, it’s just that sort of place.

I had save (aka quarrentined) May’s gin club box for the day. Wonderful idea and an amazing gin this month. It struck me that had things not gone the way they have I would never have discovered this gin. I had planned to make the gin boxes quarterly I only kept them on becasue of the virus. This month is a the first gin made in Monaco. My goodness, if this is their first I can’t imagine what will come next. It is one of my favourite gins now. I have realised I much prefer the more subtle gins. Last month was a good flavour but just too much flavour. With most things I like over engineered and subtle as a brick, not gin. With lunch I had the gin with it’s supplied Sicilian tonic (also excellent) and for the afternoon I went with the cocktail of the month, the Race car. If you want to try the gin club, just let me know, I can give you a discount code for your first month. This was my 5th box and I feel even the weakest have been very good value, if you like gin.

About 4pm the people in the street did bring their afternoon tea out into their front gardens. It was amazing to see so much closeness and community while everyone kept away from each other. I wish every community could work like this. It makes a massive difference to the quality of life and costs nothing. Being a good neighbour and supporting the commuinity is so good for everyone. It doesn’t mean you need to be sociable, putting a bear or a rainbow in your window, saying hi when you pass is still participating and being part of the community. Each person does what they can.

Poor Fenrir managed to stand on a thorn while he was out for his walk. He is mostly a silent dog but that caused some fuss, and I really can’t blame him. Well over an inch of thorn through your foot would make anyone make a noise. I was so proud of him claming down and letting me deal with it. We were worried he would wriggle and struggle, but no as soon as he knew he had communicated his problem and I was on it he settled down and let me remove it. These last two weeks he has really made great progress. He is getting less excitable and listening faster. I am starting to have high hopes that when we are let out he will deal well with society. It is very hard for him not getting proper socialisation but with luck he will remember what we did before lockdown and adjust quickly when things change again.

Our afternoon tea was a little sparse, we had no bread so no sandwiches, and I still didn’t get as far as making brownies, but I did find a cake in the freezer which we enjoyed. I did get as far as making the rest of the cream into icecream. Another batch of coffee and a batch of orange. It will be very hard to go back to commercial ice cream. Even the good ones are not a patch on home made. I think I will worrk the icecream maker into the ground. I am really looking forward to trying some sorbets. When I did the fruit and veg order I picked up a couple of mangos, thinking they could be ice cream or sorbet or just part of fruit salad. As I am now out of cream mango sorbet is sounding very very tempting. Oh on the subject of fruit, yesterday morning I had breakfast in the garden with the Red Arrows. Well they flew over while Iwas eating so I am counting it as with them. Yes, that was a late breakfast I said it would be a lazy day.

Today I really have to suck it up and make borders. No I am not wildly excited by my plan for them, but it is the plan I have and really it’s not likely to get better at this stage. I need it done so I am ready to move on on Monday. Wish me luck I am going in.

Hard to blog the quiet days

Some days really just move along, which is good actually. Days being routine and effective is a very good sign, it just doesn’t make for great blogging. Yesterday was floor day, and they were all cleaned. Lunch was the rest of the bread with ham and then jam. Oh my goodness the local jam from the bakery is amazing, we will need to place another order soon. The afternoon was quilting, dog training, exercise followed by risotto. The risotto was a bit of a joke, we really like it but I don’t often make it. I am not really sure why as it isn’t really a lot of work but in my head it’s a harder work meal. However when people went for stocking up on rice they didn’t buy the arborio rice. I saw that and thought yay we get risotto. Last night I tried a new recipe, and I think it was another success. That seems to be one of the big pluses of lockdown, I am trying more new recipes, and mostly they are very successful and get added to my note book. Usually that’s prompted by needing to use up a few things. If it expands my meal options I think it is all good.

As I wanted asparagus for the risotto I had to make a fruit and veg order, so this morning I can have a fresh fruit salad for breakfast and our random freezer lunch will be supplemented by melon. Our fruit and veg comes from our usual local greengrocer who has now taken on extra help to get everything delivered. It is great, you place and order and the next day a box arrives, simple and convenient. I am still sad that Waitrose abandoned us, but I am loving our local suppliers. For today we have several businesses delivering afternoon tea, and a couple offering alcohol. I did consider the delivery cocktails but honestly I can make ones as good here. I am planning to have my cocktail of the month later from my gin box.

Today will be a mostly lazy day, but I may finally get started on this week’s borders. I think I have a plan now, but still not certain.

Still no rectangles

This week has really stumped me. I think I have a plan for the next borders and I hope they will be done in good time, but it has been a lot harder than I expected. As I wasn’t doing that today I had to find other ways to fill my time. I baked bread for lunch, which we are really enjoying. I got the rest of the laundry done before the weather turns. Of course now it will be sunny for the foreseeable future, but I am still pleased to have made good use of a couple of good drying days.

For my birthday we ordered and ice cream maker. It is something I have wanted for years but once I decided I was going to wait and get one that had a compressor I new I also needed a bigger kitchen. Well I have that kitchen and we will have a hard time getting ice cream this summer so now was the moment. They said it would be 10 to 14 days to arrive but showed up today. I just happen to have some cream at the moment, rude not to test the machine. Our first batch is coffee, and if I say so myself rather good. Yes it is very soft right out of the machine, and I expect it will be very hard once it has been in the freezer but it is also very tasty. Most importantly I can start making sorbet with the fruits we grow. I have a recipe for Apple and sloe I am desperate to try, and a lot of frozen apple and sloe. Sounds like the start of a plan to me.

The quilt on the frame is coming along well, after I managed to lose the screw from my bobbin case. It’s happened before but now I have a floor where I could actually find it. Finding it made m my day, usually that is the end of the bobbin case. Tomorrow is floors and more quilting, maybe a little sewing if I settle on a plan for this border.

It sounded so easy

I thought this weeks border would be simple, maybe too simple, maybe finished Monday kinda simple. Boy, was I wrong. My initial ideas were very simple, although I did have half a thought to do something like the circles. I started getting some ideas down on paper.

The first ones are the ones at the bottom of the photo. The first is a simple piano key border but with black to help break it up. OK but maybe a bit boring, so maybe variable size pieces. Nope still a bit boring. I considered the random rectangles, could it be pieced….sanely? Applique again? Hmmm I  like it but it has issues. The next two designs I really like, but are they going to be in proportion with the rest of the quilt? The coloured pieces, left blank in the drawings, would only be 1″×2″. It would stop the border being too heavy, but does it make to too light.

A couple of hours of other jobs while that marinated in my head and I came up with a couple more options.

To make the drawing easier I changed scale. The previous had been 1 square to 1″, these are 2squares to 1″. The coloured sections are now 1.5″ x 3″. That feels more in line with the rest of the quilt. I don’t love the design anymore though. I like it, but it isn’t the one I really fell for, so now I am waiting. To see if this grows on me, or I run out of time, or I think of an alternative.

I have also been quilting, I have a customer quilt in progress. I know there are more customer quilts on their way so I want to be ready. I just don’t know what will arrive when. It makes giving customers a time scale very difficult but does make things exciting for me. I never know when a package might arrive or which quilt it will be. For those wondering, yes incoming quilts are quarrentined. Not only that, they will be over quarrentined. The worst case I have seen for cardboard is 3 days, the worst for plastic 9 days and the worst for fabric 1 day. As most customers use a layer of plastic in the packing any arriving will sit 9 days before I bring them into my workspace. Given things will have been packed days weeks or even months before they arrive that shouldn’t be needed, but I  am taking a very careful approach to everything. I would advise doing the same when quilts come back, I would hate to be the way anyone caught Covid.

Tonight’s dinner was an experiment. I had wanted to have smoked salmon for my birthday but I could only get trimmings, which I am not a fan of as breakfast. I saved them with the idea of making some sort of pasta sauce. I knew I wanted a creamy sauce of some kind and searched online for some ideas. I picked one I thought I could tweak and it was a great success. I need to find my recipe note book and write it up before I lose it. It will become a regular feature on our menu for a while at least. Probably however long I can get salmon trimmings at a good price.

Ugh, Mondays, oh and Monday mystery solo robin

Amazing, lockdown can’t remove that Monday morning effect. Despite the days blending together Monday still likes to stand out. Yesterday Fenrir decided to chew the towel he had as bedding. I thought I caught him doing it before any went in him. Seems I was wrong as we have puddles of poo this morning. A two man clean up operation and a dog to shower. Just glad we have a walk in shower near an outside door. I didn’t want to walk that through the house. I am guessing the cat who woke me at 5.30 was trying to get me to clean up the stink. Sigh. Mondays.

I think I need the fun bit of Monday morning now. Let us see what the cards have in store for the week ahead. Our border size this week is,

Add 4″ to two opposite sides of your quilt.

The technique we need to include is,

Include rectangles

For our diamond challenge I think kites would probably also count. My first thought it piano key, but that seems a bit of a weak answer. Maybe I could go kinda bargello looking, or a brick pattern. I have to wait for some deliveries today so I am hoping I can work on these borders will I watch the front window. I guess I could go for something that would look like my applique border but with rectangles. That might be fun. I could possibly piece something like that. Hmm OK this has potential. I just need to think…..and maybe coffee.

Lazy Sunday

Hmm, actually now I come to thing about it not quite so lazy. I spent all morning cleaning and sorting cupboards. I guess that is one of the home jobs I have been putting off that everyone is apparently working on. I also got the chance to clear and clean the quarrentine zone. Less stuff is coming in now, well the deliveries that do are bigger and all clear at the same time. Tomorrow I have one such arriving. No idea what time so I need to be ready early.

This afternoon has mostly been knitting and dog training. Yes he takes up a lot of time at the moment. The lockdown has made him much more excitable and we really want to get on top of it before he needs to go out in public again. Not easy to achieve but we will do the best we can. I am also trying to make sure he has all the skills he would have learned in puppy classes which he will be too old for once we get out. He will need to go straight on to more adult classes.

Dinner didn’t thaw in time, so the surplus dinner from last night came in very handy and tomorrow we will have a roast. I have never been worried which day a roast happens so it is all good, in fact I would say a win. I hadn’t expected the leftovers to stretch to 2 dinners and I had been wondering how to fit the second into my meal plans. Now Just my Sunday night bath and then to sleep, to dream of what we might get for the Monday quilt tomorrow.

Don’t forget you can start at any time, and if you are playing along please do send in some photos.

Birthday in lockdown

Spoiler alert, it was great. OK for those who wanted the longer version, it started a bit grey but I had kept a couple of deliveies to open. My merchandise from Wacken 2020, I wanted it to be Wacken fo my birthday. For those who don’t know Wacken is a music festival in Germany, it is my holiday every year. Until we moved it was very much my home. The one place I could go to relax. For obvious reasons it has been cancelled this year, but they handled it so well. We saw the German goverments statement that all large events were stopped until the end of August so we knew it was coming, but we thought it would take a few days for them to talk to bands and traders then they would tell the fans. The organizers told us the next day, that is serious organization and care for fans, trust me a lot don’t handle it half as well. Possibly becasue of that, or more exactly because they always try to do the best for all the fans, the fan response was to buy merchandise. So these shirts and hoodie are only round one, I am also getting the cancellation special shirt. For my birthday they confirmed we can just trade in our tickets for next year too, how amazing is that.

After admiring that haul I opened my Neals Yard jumbo bottle of soap and some alcohol hand sanitiser. If we are going to be using this stuff in huge amounts for the forseeable future then I will make sure I have some nice ones as well the the purely functional. I was also really pleased with a card that arrived in the post, complete with a Captain Tom postmark. I was hoping I would get something with it on, and I did. I also recieved a mug, with me and Fenrir on. It’s a really nice size with a handle you can really get your hand into. I do like a large and easy to hold mug.

After years of experience we know ordering food on my birthday is risky. Well maybe I can’t call it a risk as it is certain to go wrong. Over the years we have had burned food and missing food, off food, and hidden chili, but it happens every year. This year we orderd a box from the local bakery. Mostly local produce and some yeast, how is that foor a birthday win. As predicted it went wrong, the sausage rolls didnt arrive. Mind you everything that did that we have tried so far was amazing and today they deilved the sausage rolls in time for lunch so not really too bad. Turned out my bread I made Thursday was actually nice. Felt very dense and heavy but tastes fine and slices nicely.

We spent the day playing board games  which is something we havent done in ages. We also spent a lot fo time with Fenrir who was on his best behaviour all day. We walked and played and wore him out. He is starting to get used to using his nose in in scent training classes. He isn’t a natural at it, he would rather use his eyes, but he is getting better and we can leave him more complex trails. It does also seem to be helping him get more restraint and focus which was actually the point. Along with the games I had a couple of the homemade run truffles.

Dinner was steak and chips with the January gin club gin. I even managed to fit a couple of ice cubes in the freezer for the first time in months. As it was a special day I broke out the new gin glass. The gin club keeps telling me to use one so I finally bought one. I won’t use it a lot as I am not good with stemmed glasses but it is nice to have for special ocassions.

Oh yes, my icecubes are often large spheres. They cool drinks really well and melt much slower than cubes so dillute the drink less. The moulds are also smaller and easier to fit into the freezer which for me at the moment is a big factor. We just had our monthly delivey so the freezer is very full. I didn’t get as far as making brownies, but apparently birthdays in lockdown last a week so I still have time for that. The day ended with my supervisor cat dragging me off to bed and tuking me in, she is a total professional about things like that.

1…2…3…testing….testing…

Is this working again now? Yay seems so. I had another glitch yesterday where it just kept eating my post. I now have a 3 try limit of things like that. After the third waste of effort I get too annoyed and rush what I am doing leading to more problems. Simpler to just leave it and try tomorrow.

All I actually wanted to say last night was where does the time go. I remember having breakfast, with the last of the bread I made. I trained the dog, cooked lunch, trained the dog, did some exercise, cooked rum truffles for Friday, cooked dinner did a little knitting and some dog training and poof the day was gone. I did also get 2 more rows on my apple core quilt, which is being a bit of a pain in the rear. I have never had to clip the curves on apple core before, but something about these fabrics mean I do. Not just one clip eithernits taking 3 to get some of it to work. I did ask around, I started to doubt my own memory, but no apple cores didntnneed clipping, except when they do. Weird. I would say the fabric is less stretchy that would stop the smaller side sitting nicely, but I have done batiks with no problems and they are generally as firm and non stretch as it goes so I have no idea.

Today should be floors day, but I managed to sleep like a pretzel and eveything hurts. Discretion being the better part of valour I will skip the cleaning and just worry about the baking. I am thinking pizza for lunch. Ideally with less smoke. The oven on really hot smokes enough to scare the dog. As I have the time I might run up another loaf too. One of those things, if I am doing one I can do 2, and I can heat the pizza stone while I cook the bread. After that I think more work on the Apple core. Oh and I need to get the pet food out of quarrentine and into the larder. The longer delivery times means I have to carry a much bigger supply of food for the beasts. I am very glad to have the larder. In the old house I think we would have had to have it in the bedroom.