Opinions please

I'm really determined on this thing. I have 28 blocks now. I know I won't be happy with 36. That will be enough widthwise but not lengthwise. So I have two options.

1. I can make all but 3 blocks as above. For the 3 blocks I'm missing I have enough fabric to make the background block if I attach the pieces it down the middle. Then I can make the quilt one row longer, which is perfect.

2. I can take the half background pieces I have and make a half block to put top and bottom of the quilt.

My preference would be to make the full blocks. I'm thinking if I scattered the joined ones throughout the quilt (of 42 blocks) the 3 different ones wouldn't really show... I hope. But would it be better to make a half row to and bottom so there are no seams?

This is driving me mad... I even dreamt about it *LOL*

So what do you fellow quilters think? Would you join to make full blocks or would you make rows of half blocks.

I sprang forward last night UGH.

Guess we all did except for those smart people living in Saskatchewan.So getting up this morning was a pain. I know I'll be exhausted by the end of the week, I always am as my body adjusts even to an hour, but there's so much I wanted to do this week. I want to go tomorrow morning to make sandwiches for the homeless. We do it the third Monday of each month but the women get together at 9:30am... double ugh. Then on Tuesday I have to get up again to go to my class at 10. I'm not a morning person in any way, wish I was.

I'll just play each day by ear.

Smartorstoopid

Another email quiz for everyone. I got 15 which means I'm 3.8 points stoopider than the average person. This quiz goes very fast. You have 8 seconds to answer before it goes on to the next question. Unfortunately it doesn't give you which answers you got wrong but I think I know cause at least 3 questions I had absolutely no idea of the answer. Click on the link below.

SMARTORSTOOPID

So what else have you been doing Shirley?

Well, I have no idea where the last week went to. I'm working on the 2nd Catalicious pattern... that reminds me, I'm out of gray.

We also watched the Academy Awards although every year we say we haven't seen any of the movies nominated so why watch. It was so nice to see Sandra Bullock win an Oscar. It's true none of her movies to date have been Oscar type movies but the one she won for looks SO good. We're going to rent it as soon as the shelves in the rental store fill up again.

We did manage to rent The Hurt Locker. Wow... I thought I didn't want to see it cause I'm not crazy about war movies except for the old ones where there's no blood and guts and always a romance going on. But this movie was so good! It was the directing, but the acting was so good. I could feel what all of them were feeling partly because of the way it was filmed. Awesome. I think everyone should see it to get an idea of what our soldiers are up against on a daily basis and how they feel and react. And the attitude of the locals watching them too. Even though it is ultimately about war it was the personalities that I found interesting.

Off to answer some long waiting emails and then going to sew... again... on my daughter's blocks this afternoon. I'm at 25 I think. Here's where I was the other day, at 16. Not a great pic, sorry.

 

Dining Out

Once a week my husband, the big spender, and I go to a local restaurant for dinner out. It usually costs us around $22 total. At least he doesn't make me eat McDonalds.

So last night we went out and I noticed they've changed the menu. No meatloaf. Hmmm... Well, this fish dish looks good, seasoned rice, nice looking vegies, breaded fish. Except I've never heard of this fish before. It sounded very fancy for $10.99. What it is?

Catfish! Blech!!! I didn't even know they could catch catfish around here. It's a lake fish isn't it? Not a salt water fish? Oh blech, blech, blech. So I ordered the open face turkey with rice instead. I still get the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

Went to my bible study yesterday. Our minister scours the used book shop and thrift shop. So what do I see on the table with the other bibles?

Okay, so now do I wonder who's preaching? Or do I wonder what he thinks of the rest of us *LOL* Actually I browsed through it and it looks neat so I ordered it (second hand of course).

Woke up to rain this morning. Now the sun is shining and it's getting a bit warmer - til the sun goes down anyway. Oh! And I was looking in the garden and what do I find? Rhubarb! I didn't kill it! It was just hiding from me cause it needed a break *LOL*


I've got 22 of the 36 blocks done for my daughter's quilt. I'll be SO glad to get it put together so I can quilt it and start working on something for me - after I make a birthday one for her husband by mid May.

Catalicious Quilt Stitch In Block 1

I finally finished it! This is the first block.. I'm a month behind as usual of course, of the Catalicious Quilt Stitch In from Red Brolly  I just LOVE Bronwyn's designs.

I'm making this for my daughter so instead of Brutus the cat I had to change it to gray and black in honour of her cat Rilo. This is a "baby picture" She's nowhere near as small as that anymore and she isn't full sized either. She's a Maine Coon Cat. Her mother was medium sized so hopefully she won't grow too big either. We don't know who the father was. The mother was a rescue cat and was pregnant when she came in to the facility.

I can't wait to get started on the next one. This time I did prewash the background fabric. I'm so used to not washing fabric cause I like that quilty look that I forget when I'm embroidering I need to or it shinks and gets all wrinkly when I wash out the lines. Oh well. The rest of the quilt will be quilty so why not the designs?

I've also put a new book up on my Book Picks Blog. I just finished reading Emilie Richards Lover's Knot and I can't wait for the next one to come in at the library. I've ordered it in and it's available at 2 other libraries in the system so should be here in a few days.

And, since I'm taking a Greek Mythology course I decided to put my assignments on my Shirleymac's Writing blog. It's so fascinating. I love myths. So far I've done 3 assignments and gotten 100% on all of them. Pretty good for an old lady *LOL*

Our nice weather is over. All the people who jumped the gun and put out flowers last week are out of luck. It's been almost down to freezing the last two nights. Poor tulips haven't bloomed yet and are drooping too cause they needed to be covered. The wind and rain last night was beyond amazing. I'm surprised we didn't lose power. Now it's sunny, which isn't supposed to last, so I'm off for a walk while I still have the chance!

My Irish Roots

Seeing as it's March I decided to look at my Irish families. One of them I know a lot about, a second I know nothing about, the third I have a family tree made up by an old fellow (my dad's cousin) now deceased. My problem is I was never much interested in that family. I loved my dad but I just didn't click with his mother. Maybe it had something to do with the "switch" she kept on top of her refrigerator. But starting to look at this family I've become fascinated. They arrived in Ontario early.. probably early 1830's. I know they came from Enskillen in Northern Ireland (near Belfast). I also knew from a Will I had found that they were very poor... although, ashamed to say it I saw my grandmother as a miserly penny pincher. Now I see her differently. Her family had a difficult time and money was not easy to come by.

I thought perhaps they'd come with the Peter Robinson immigrants but they didn't. I found them listed as living here but not in the groups of immigrants. Then I learned that Peter Robinson was looking for Irish Catholics, my family was Methodist so wouldn't have qualified. I also thought, like everyone else, that the potato famine was in 1848/1849. It wasn't. The first crop failures due to the blight were in 1821. Also linen had been a large industry in Ireland but with the coming of the Industrial Revolution in England Irish linen was no longer needed and left many families without a livlihood. Also the British wanted the landowners in Ireland to have x number of British tennants which pushed the Irish off the land they were working. It's really all very sad. The British saw the Irish as little more than uncivilized barbarians - the same way they viewed the Scottish. Makes me ashamed of the British parts of me.

The photo above is what a log cabin would have been like at the time this family arrived although there would have been no second floor or window. The cabins were one room with a dirt floor. There would be windows if they could afford glass, otherwise there was only the door. This family actually started off in a shanty which was even rougher. There were no windows and only canvas to cover the door which didn't keep out the weather or the wild animals. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like. It looks from the census that perhaps by the 1850's they did have a log house.

Our weather has been wonderful here. Nice and sunny... but I keep thinking about the "In like a Lamb, Out like a Lion" thing. We may suffer for this. When the sun shines I can see all the dust and streaks inside the house so have been spending a good amount of time cleaning... well since the Olympics ended anyway. 

Quilt wise I'm still slugging away at my daughter's quilt. I just realized, though, that if I used stablizer on the back of the appliqued rings that means when I pulled the stabilizer off I weakend or even broke some of the stitches. So I'm going back and doing a second row of stitching.  It's a pain but better safe than having to be constantly mending it.

I'm also working on the first Catalicious embroidery from Red Brolly. She has the second one out now so I better get busy. I'm almost done but I know it will take another couple of nights to finish completely. I'll post a photo when I'm done.

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. First of all this is our new boat, Caileag (wee lass in Scottish Gaelic). My husband's airplane is done but he can't fly it for awhile so I suggested we get a small boat just for something for him to do. Well, it's not exactly small but it's not large either. It's 17 feet. It's an older boat (1976) but has an overhauled motor and is in good condition. We live on the Ocean, which I don't want to boat on, and there are a bunch of arms of the Fraser River to explore plus some nice lakes so I think we can have a good time with it for a couple of years. Thirty-six years living here and we haven't taken full advantage of the beauty.

We haven't gone into downtown Vancouver to visit the Olympic venues. We had every intention and then saw the crowds. We were hoping the novelty would wear off and we could go during this second week but nothing's changed. There's up to a 60 min line up to just get on the skytrain to go there, and apparently the line up is longer coming back this way. Then there are line ups of 1 - 4 hours to get into the venues depending on popularity. The Heiniken House closed it's doors to admittance at 3pm on Sunday. My husband has a friend who waited 4 hours to get into the Irish venue (a pub) and then paid $9 for a glass of beer. It would almost be faster and cheaper to go to Ireland *LOL* So we've decided that if we were young, like our daughter, it would be an exciting thing to do, but I get tired easily and my husband's health hasn't been the best so we're going to stick to enjoying the Olympics on TV.

I haven't been quilting much. I did a few more blocks on the wedding ring quilt. Then I realized when I'm pulling off the stablizer I'm also weakening the stitches holding the curves in place. I may have to double stitch all of them.

My daughter wants me to make her husband a Boston Red Sox quilt. I've been searching and searching for fabric. Then I did a search for a quilt top and came across Susan Freeberry's blog and there it is! It's exactly what my daughter wants. I looked to see where she got the panel... she made it. Ugh. I know I could do it but Angela had the brilliant idea of using a T Shirt instead. How smart is that? So I went looking for one. Couldn't find what I wanted but I found a throw pillow that's 17" with the exact same official logo that Susan used, It's appliqued onto the pillow so I ordered it and will use it for my center.

Not much else happening here. While watching the Olympics I'm working a bit each evening on my cross stitch. I love it but it will be awhile before it's finished.

On Tuesday the Olympic Flame arrived in South Delta. It went right past my daughter's house so we headed down to watch the excitement. I did take video with my new camera. Unfortunately I didn't know I couldn't film holding the camera sideways so to watch the video everyone would have to tip their heads to the left *LOL* So I still captured these photos from the film... the first is the Olympic Flame passing by and, luckily, we were standing on the corner where the flame switched from one runner to another so I got that too.

This is a bit shaky but I was holding the camera the right way when the trucks leading the runner passed by. You can hear the excitement. I don't know how to post a video on here but you can see it on You Tube here:

Olympic Torch Parade

Over the next couple of weeks we're hoping to take the sky train into Vancovuer to see the various venues put on by the different countries. We're paying for all this in our taxes.. if we can't afford tickets to events we may as well enjoy the rest of the excitment.