Puppy eye candy for no reason

Do I need a reason to post pictures of my puppy, I think not. He is about 6 months old now, yes he is a big boy. We are working in obedience and scent work with him while we are staying at home. He is getting very over excited now when he sees someone come past the house, which is just the lack of socialization in the last month. It worries me all the people saying they want to get a puppy during this lockdown. I follownthe logic but it is really not a good start for the puppy. Puppies need to get out and do new things. It is really really important for them to experience the world while they are young, and you can’t do that now.  OK on with the photos,

There you go, puppy, just because.

I knew this was likely but I am still sad

Last night when I had intended to be blogging I was shopping. I was buying my Wacken 2020 merchandise. I had been putting it off as the only shirt I really loved wasn’t one for the year, but yesterday Germany stopped all large gatherings uuntil the end of August. Wacken is early August. We assumed they were contacting the band’s and traders and that very soon they would tell us. I wanted to be sure I supportednthem while I could. It was horrible having to call 30 students and say no. I wouldn’t want to be calling hundreds of bands and traders, knowing the huge financial impact I was going to have on them. After ruining all those people’s day you gtpet to start onnthe hundreds you employ each year. Shudder, no I don’t envy those running big events. Wacken is a music festival, but it’s not so differnt for the quiltnshow organisers. They all know they are likely to have to postpone or cancel, least I sincerely hope they have realised, but they can’t do anything. If they decide to cancel or postpone before they are forced to then they have a lot of liabilities. If you choose to stop a gathering, however wise that may be, you have to pay costs as though you just changed your mind. If you wait for the governments,  you may still have costs and have to leave it later. Either way it’s horrible. I hope everyone impacted by wacken being stopped will survive it and be there in 2021. Until then I grabbed a list of the bands and will have a listen. Maybe I will find some new ones I like and can buy a CD or two. I am also wondering if I can have a Wacken themed birthday. We have a field, I can get a bbq, I have pork belly. We have no shortage of music, I have Jack and coke, I think I just need to get German pork run and I should be good to go. Just think, this is the one year I can get Wacken to coincide with my birthday so I am going to make the most of it. My take on Wacken ice cream won’t be quite right, I have honey and ginger but close enough I think. Sorry I won’t go as far as emulating the flight, but I might find some tape to put W.O.A on the car. Silly, yes almost certainly, but we have to play the cards we are dealt.

My best wishes to the Wacken organisers, and all others in their position. The stress must be horrible. I hope all will have the support and understanding of their customers/fans. Fingers crossed my shirts will arrive in time for my home Wacken. The other upside is I did want my puppy to be a year old before I was away. I had accepted that with him appearing sooner than expected that wouldn’t be possible. Well now it is.

The ground keeps shifting

I read a couple of articles yesterday explaining that no we haven’t become lazy isolation is tiring. Having read them I think really they say change is hard and frankly that wasn’t news to me. This morning though really brought it home to me. At 7am Iwas scrolling thought my tabs to come and blog. I had a plan for the day, well not much of a plan but still. As I went past I checked for a deliver slot from Tesco, and holy cow there was one. Well several actually. I check constantly and its more or less a routine now. Check fail move on. I was completely thrown by the option to shop. The website is crazy slow, presumabaly overloaded and I barely got my order in in the 2 hour limit. Well I say order, I mean wish list. It was quite stressful trying to beat the clock, and remember what I wanted, I mean I really didn’t expect that to work. So a really nice event becomes destabilising and stressful. Normally a shopping trip takes a lot less than 2 hours and way less thought. This is why people are tired. I am quite sure I am not the only person that happens to. The point of this long rambling start, simple, be nice to yourself. Understand that you are off balance a lot more often than usual, be that from good things or bad.  Take time to do fun relaxing things. I am still making time for my long Sunday bath. With a film, maybe a drink, and whatever fancy products I find. My habit of buying good bath stuff when it is on sale is now paying off.

In other news, I am remembering how much I love cooking, especially baking. Last night I made naan for the first time yesterday and assuming I can buy flour I will be making those again. Simple quick and very tasty. Sady it wasn’t my best chenje lamb but it was satisfactory. Followed by home grown rhubarb crumble. I also got the next part of my quilt designed yesterday, and after my crazy start today I think that is what I will be making today. I had plans for much more intense work but really not the best idea right now. Maybe this afternoon.

Fenrir has had an upset tummy the last few days. We assumed it was too many training treats and gave him bland food for a couple of days. Had it not been a pandemic and a major holiday I would have called the vet, but puppy and upset tummy do go together. Last night we found out the issue, he has managed to eat a bit of fabric. Given how closely he is supervised I am grudgingly impressed. I think it was either off a toy or his bedding. It has been a few days of lots of cleaning. Youngster with a tummy upset has very little warning of accidents, so while annoying I can’t really be upset with him. Today he seems to finally be feeling better. I hope he will learn to not eat fabric, but I suspect it won’t be just this incident.

Looking at the pictures I uploaded I realised I didn’t post the finished jigsaw. As it fits the theme thats is a major ovesight. So here it is,

Do zoom in and have a good look. Colin Thompson jigsaws are full of hidden details and repeated textures. I am sure he would design amazing quilts if he wasnt busy with jigsaws. I am trying to convince myself I don’t need his massive 18000 piece one. I am, for now succeeding.

Monday mystery solo robin

It is that time of the week again. For those just joining us we start with a block, any block but I reccomend it be at least 9 inches on at least one side. I reccomend it have straight sides, though there is no need for it to be a square. Then each week I give you 2 pieces of information on what to add to your quilts. A size and a technique. You can start at any time and stop at any time, I suspect I will end up with more than one quilt as I will keep posting while I know lots of people are stuck at home. One person participating said this is like a weird quilt retreat, and yup that’s exactly how I see it too. Here is where we can share ideas and our progress and hopefully inspire each other. Without further ado here is this week’s instructions. Border size,

Add 5″ to two opposite sides of your quilt

And the technique is,

foundation piecing

Well, hmm, I like foundation piecing but really. That seems to have been all I have been doing for weeks. Sigh I suppose that means I am well practiced. Time to design something I think. If you are not so keen on foundation piecing, don’t forget all technicalities count. Maybe piece a little motif to fit in, or pick a really simple foundation. I know I have some of the foundation flying geese left over from another project, could this be the time to use up something like that. Oh, how about those papers for half square triangles. Those are sewn on the foundation of the paper so that should count right? There are  lot of options each week. I hope the research and planning will keep us as busy as the actual sewing.

Hmmm proper Sunday morning

Well first off I hope you are impressed, I know what day of the week it is. We had our penultimate Sunday breakfast today. Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Unless something changes next Sunday will be our last of those for a while, so we are enjoying them while we can. I was also able to try my new flavoured teas, they were finally out of quarantine. The first one was blackcurrent and elderflower, (I wonder if I can make my own blackcurrent and elderflower cordial when my elderflower grows up) and it is lovely. I suspect part of that is it is rediculously unhealthy. The calorie load is crazy, but I suppose in moderation it is OK. Probably helps that I make it more dilute than it says as I have been rationing my squash and am now used to a more delicate flavour. Either way I love it and will probbaly order more. I am terrible for getting bored with what I am drinking then not drinking enough so the bigger the range of flavours I can manage the better.

Yesterday I got my next 2 borders on my Monday quilt. This week I needed a total of 6″ added to 2 adjacent sides with the technique applique. I have gone with 5″ and 1″. The 1″ is almost invisible as it is just a plain black strip and overall will just blend in. The 5″ made use of the mylar templates I ordered, which arrived amazingly fast, thank you www.sewandquilt.co.uk. I fancied another very geometric shape for this week.

I did consider making more of the nine patch blocks and appliquéing those onto the third side, it felts a bit of a cheat though. I also considered reverse applique circles if I couldn’t get the templates. I am really not a fan of raw edge so that only got fleeting consideration. I am already thinking ahead to Monday. What if we get an add to one side, do I add it to the last side of the starting block or to the other side of the circles to throw the starting block further off center. I quite like the idea of my starting block ending up way off in a corner of the quilt. So if we got add to opposite sides do I still try to dodge that untouched side of add there and the other side of the circles. Hmm, but what if it is adjacent sides again then which two. If it was a total of like this week I think I would put a very narrow piece on the side of the starting block then add top or bottom depending on the theme. So many thoughts and I still have to wait till tomorrow. I think I am getting quite excited now and I do love that I can play along. Oddly this was pretty much what this design tool was made for. I just never imagined most of the world stuck at home. I had been thinking of people in remote areas, tight budgets and health issues. Weird how many things can now be repurposed.

Please, if you are playing along send me a comment and some photos, we really would love to see what everyone else is coming up with. If you are not already playing along you can join at any time. Just make yourself a starting block, with straight sides and I reccomend at least 9″ on at least one side. No your block doesn’t need to be square or rectangular but yes you do need straight sides, well I think you do feel free to prove me wrong. Dang it I am now pondering designing this whole thing as circles. I think it is possible though I don’t think you can make it as you go along, you would need to draft the whole thing then make it, but it would look very cool.

Finally the border is nearly done.

I had an odd thought today. I keep seeing people posting on Facebook about things like petrol prices. I just noticed I have no idea. I haven’t seen a petrol station in over 3 weeks. I am told it’s really cheap at the moment, but realistically it could be really expensive, I have no clue. It is a pretty odd feeling. Food sadly I do know the price of and boy is that going up fast. I hope between growing more and supporting local businesses I can help keep that down a bit and support small businesses where I can’t.

I decided to lay out the circles in had made so far as a mock up of the next border.

I am very glad I did, I don’t need anywhere near as many circles as I thought. They take enough time and effort it would have been annoying to have surplus. I am also loving the drawers I set up erm, two years ago. I need some stabiliser to keep this flat when I stitch it. There in the drawer marked stabilizers and fusibles was exactly what I needed. It is a little thing, but after years of not having things sorted it was lovely to just go to the right drawer and find what I needed.

I am also happy to report the simnel cake is a success, we will eat the evidence of that. Oh and I  nearly forgot the best thing that happened today. We woke up to 2 boxes of fruit and veg on our doorstep. A lot of people complain that orders take 3 or 4 days, I love that it arrives, is great quality when it is a surprise when it does come. It does suffer from some substitutions but even so it’s wonderful and makes me happy.

Busy busy, but what got done

You must have had one of those days when you have been on the go all day but when you stop at the end you can’t see much for it. I have had one of those days. Laundry did get done, and I am loving having a washing line. We did progress getting the balcony cat proofed. I did water the plants and planted some weird things in the greenhouse. Oh and we had a telephone dog training session. Other than that the only thing I reallky have to show for today is a Simnel cake, and I don’t even have all that now.

It’s tasty and for me simnel cake is essential at Easter. I didn’t have any candied peel but it’s close enough. I did also make use of my Mylar circles to make some more parts for the Monday quilt. I am optimistic that they will be done for Monday, but far from certain. Partly because I am toying with a bit of hand sewing. It’s something I don’t do often, it will hurt my hands a lot, but it may be the only option for some of what I want to achieve. It’s a tough decision.

Mornings start too early

Those mornings when your bladder wakes you an hour before your alarm. Made worse when it turns out that also woke the puppy, who then also needed the toilet. Spending my first half hour of the day cleaning a dog crate isn’t honestly fun. Yes it is part of owning a dog, especially and puppy, and despite his size he is still less than 6 months old. Worse when he is sure it will help the cleaning process if he mounts me of plays with my arm. I do wonder if the cats have been teaching him how to help. Actually we suspect he may be a cat, he is fluid like a cat, adores fish and needs to sprawl over the most comfortable spots and be as in the way as possible. He could be a very rare breed cat.

This is what I will be working on today. Before you worry the left hand side is surplus and will be trimmed back once the quilt is assembled. I like to leave myself some wriggle room when a design gets to the edge of a quilt, often until after the quilt is quilted. Quilting can cause some distortion and some flattening of the pieces so trimming after the quilting can give me more precice edges. This quilt wont have borders the designs just flow off it, which makes it a higher risk. It also has a lot of curved seams, another risk factor. Hence large spare parts on the edges of my pieces. I have a lot of registration marks so there should be no trouble assembling things correctly even with the rough edges.

I guess rather than talking about making quilts I should get on with the doing.

Progress

I have started planting up my second raised bed. I seem to accidentally have 100s of baby leeks. How does one end up with surplus baby leeks, simple follow the instructions on the seed packets. They said sow thickly and implied not all would germinate. To be fair i can’t be sure they all did. However I thought it was a pack of 100 seeds and I have more than 400 baby leeks so something went exceptionally well. I have planted some of them and I am now considering leaving the rest of the spares on the verge outside my house and see if someone adopts them. I don’t even particularly like leek, just leek and potato soup. It’s better than the alternative at least.

I have also move on with the show quilt, the one with the crazy amount of flying geese. The revelation I had does seem to have solved my issue and I am hoping this section is only 30 units not over 100. Might go a little bit faster. I am still need to finish the quilt on the frame, but I didn’t feel up do not after processing the shopping delivery. As expected a lot of the wishlist was unavailable, but some things did arrive so for the next few days we can eat like kings. After that we will have to start thinking. I will worry about that then, for now I just need to make sure nothing fresh goes to waste.

Odd sort of a day

This morning I could’t work out what to blog. I try to keep the blog pretty upbeat, and to be honest I am generally enjoying the stay at home so it isn’t hard. This morning I just wasn’t feeling it. The reason was I had been trying to finalise my last Waitrose order. I can deal with the shortages, and the per item rationing, but their group rationing has driven me crazy, especially when they only tell me at checkout there is a problem. The last straw, and yes this is a silly first world issue, was chilled coffee counting against my milk eggs butter ration. I wasn’t that upset to not have them, they would have been a treat, but considering them in the same group as those basics baffles me. Sure long life milk and fresh milk are clearly the same group I get that, but cold coffee?! They alert me to this by taking the eggs off my order at checkout. Seriously, this is the best way you could come up with to handle this? Other stores, and indeed other items at Waitrose, have a pop up to say no this is not allowed, that is so much less frustrating and easier to fix. I said above, last order, well other than the fact I haven’t seen a delivery or collection slot in over 3 weeks, I am not sure it is in my best interests to order from them again while they are making it so difficult. I really feel for any families trying to do shopping for a week or more from Waitrose. I don’t think it would be possible to get that many meals given their current rationing. So I think from now on I will be sticking with the independant stores and hope that I might be able to get some of the cupboard basics from Tesco occasionally. Tesco have a bizzare substitution / deletion system, but were so mcuh easier to deal with. Either store you do have to accept you are putting in a wish list, not a shopping order. You are telling them what in your dream world they would bring and each item they manage is to be celebrated.

That brings me on to the real message of this blog post. A friend said to me we are surfing, we are riding a wave that we can’t change. We might as well make the most of the ride. That really made sense to me. Big potentially dangerous but also scope to be a beautiful and fun time. We just have to ride this out and really most of us are doing pretty well. You are reading this, I assume this indicates you have a means to do so. At the moment most people are still in their homes still able to choose what to do there. Is it what we had planned, not even faintly, is it really that terrible to stay and home and entertain ourselves, not really.

This afternoon I got an email to say the mylar templates I ordered have shipped, I am really hoping they arrive quickly and I can get on with my Monday mystery solo robin. If not I can’t decide if I go with plan B or if I play catch up again, there are benefits to both. For tomorrow I will work on the quilt I was planning for Sandown. I say was because I am not sure I want to go to an event like that so soon after the 12 weeks of isolation, it feels pretty risky. The quilt will keep and can go next year. It was for this years theme but I don’t think that is make or break for it. I have 3 more weeks to decide so I will see how things look then and for now work on the next section. I am pleased to say I finally came up with a way to do it that I am happy with. No seams in odd places or really horrible matching.

Finally, I would like to thank my local greengrocers, The Worlds Best Greengrocers. They have been doing delivery and getting a lot of flak for taking a few days to deliver. I can plan ahead it’t not a problem, they are working their socks off. I loved how easy their web site was after Waitrose. Quick easy and I have high hopes I will get a good percentage of the wish list I gave them. Even better their produce is fantastic quality. Sometime in the few days a box of fruit and veg will arrive to surprise me. I also like that they tell me what number I am. I know from local lists they have over 300 people to deliver to before me and I think I can check each day what numbers they think they will get to in the day. It gives me a feel for where they are at and I really appreciate it.

If you are working on the Monday quilt please please tell us how it’s going and share some photos, I know I am curious and I bet I am not the only one.