Friendly visitor

When we looked out of the front window early yesterday morning we found a very large, wet and dirty, dog looking at us. As soon as I opened the door he decided he had to come inside and it took all my strengh to change his mind and direct him to the garage. He was a very friendly, huge, Saint Bernhard,who seemed to be lost. But he did have an up-to-date tag and all it took was one call to the Municipal Office in Listowel to get the name and phone number of the owner, who happened to live about 5 km from us. If took a few more calls, but by mid morning she came and took the dog along. I like dogs, the bigger the better, and the kids are after us to get another puppy, but we have not decided yet. What difference it makes to have an up-to-date tag on the dog. When Riley took of during a thunderstorm last year, it took a few weeks and some luck to get her back, all because we were too busy ( or too lazy) to put her new tag on her collar. The last week has been rainy. Laurence is anxious to get planting, but it will take at least a few more days. More rain is coming down as we speak. Since there were no chores to do and no planting in the for seeable future we decided to visit Jeanette and Tony for a few days last week. Laurence wanted to go to an auction sale in the area and I helped Jeanette to clean up her flower beds. I had made up a short list of plants I thought I needed and I came home with most of them. Her clematis were at the wrong place and have a better home here and her largest hosta's needed to be divided. A visit to Moire's garden, a garden center in the area, helped to fill in the rest. Everything has been planted. All it needs now is some heat! Yesterday morning I finished the binding on this I Spy quilt and in the afternoon I took it over to the proud grandmother of the baby for who I made it. This morning I cleaned up the quilt room and now there are no more excuses to start on a new project. I also finished another pair of socks. The yarn I bought somewhere on my travels and the pattern is out the book knit.sock.love by Cookie A. This is one of her easier patterns. I like to switch from an easy pattern to a harder one. I never make the same pattern twice if I can help it.

Depressing!

This is what it looked like outside the front door this morning. Last week I bought a flat of pansies and put some of them in pots to fill the urns. I was told that they can stand some frost. Let's hope that is true.By now the snow is gone, but it is still cold. And the weather for the coming week does not look too promising. Everything is ready for planting to start and Laurence is getting a little antsy to get going.

Nothing to show on the quilt front. I'm still machine quilting a Smile quilt. And I found out again, why I do not do more of it. My back and shoulders are protesting and that is a sign to slow down some more. Maybe by the time I'm finished it has warmed up enough outside to work in the garden. The started bulbs in the house are doing well. I will have a lot of begonia's.

45th Annual Relief Sale Dinner

I have been busy making kids' quilt tops. This one I finished quilting this morning and it will go to Japan. All it needs is the binding. Three more to go, two for Smile Quilts and one for a gift. The machine quilting did not go too badly, but it it still hard on my back. I have to take it in small steps.

Yesterday was the annual dinner for the Mennonite Relief Sale at Bingeman's in Kitchener. This is a sure sign that spring is not far off! The hall and food have all been donated and all the work is done by volunteers. Not a small job, since the hall was filled with over 700 hungry people. The proceeds of this dinner help with the expenses for the Relief Sale at the end of May. As usual the meal was very good.

At the front hung the feature quilt for this year: it's the quilt that I co-ordinated with help of lots of members of the Waterloo County Quilters Guild. This is the 6th feature quilt I have co-ordinated and I have a poster of each one, except for the first one.

That year, 1999, there was no feature quilt yet. That changed the following year. This year I also received a poster and as usual it is very well done. There are also cards and I love them. They are very clear and you can see a lot of the details, what is hard to do with such a busy quilt. Posters and cards will be available at the sale on May 28th.

We finally have some sunny weather. The first little primula is blooming in a sunny spot. A few more of those sunny days and the daffodils will be out.

Today I was asked by Laurence to roll the lawn. That way it will not be so bumpy, when it will be mowed. We think a little different about what has to happen outside. For him the lawn is number one, for me the flowerbeds come first and if there is time left, then I will get to the -- huge in size I might add -- lawn.

This coming Saturday I will be teaching at Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph. It will be Landscape 2.In this workshop, I will show you how you can make a landscape quilt using your own picture. There are a few spaces left, so if you are interested you can give the store a call at 1-866-364-2790. It helps if you took my Landscape 1 workshop, but it is not a must. Enthusiasm is more important!

Blogger problems

I have been trying since the middle of last week to get some pictures on Blogger and I have had no success. This will be a short entry and I want to see if this is working.

Last week I mentioned, that I was tired of making these small wall hangings with kimonos. That lasted all of 2 days!

On the Friday I was in Kitchener with a long list of things to do. One of my stops was the Open House of Kallisti Quilts. I had ordered some more sashiko thread and Michelle told me, that she had saved her selvages for me. And not a few! I came home with a bag full. And they were beautiful, all from Japanese fabrics.

As a thank you I decided to make just one more of these small quilts, using some of the selvages. That first steps went fine. Once I got to the kimono part I ran into trouble. I wanted to use some taupe fabrics. After looking through all my fabrics, I discovered, that I did not own any taupes. On Saturday, I taught at Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph and a few fat quarters took care of that.

This morning I finished this piece and that will be the end for now I'm busy working on some Smile quilts (our guild donates quilts to the hospital for children with severe illnesses).

Looking outside, I might as well be working where it is warm. On Sunday evening we got snow again and it is still white and cold outside.