We've had some pretty bizarre weather lately - lots of rain and crazy thunder & lightning storms. The forecast is always off, and always changing. It makes it hard to plan activities.
Saturday, Mr. P, the OnlyChild and I decided to go to A Taste of Edmonton, which is held outdoors downtown. It was cloudy, but looked okay out. By the time we got halfway there, it was pouring rain. After we parked the car, the rain stopped. We stayed for a little over an hour, stuffed our bellies with goodies, then headed home. And on the way home it poured and poured and poured. It was insane.
I don't mind the odd rainy day, but we've had a bit too many of those lately. The good thing about rain, though, is the excuse it gives me to stay inside. With Swoon once again out of commission while waiting for fabric, I pulled out the old bow-tie blocks from last summer and whipped up a few more. Forty-six more, actually, for a total of 172 blocks.
They're all sorted into groups of four to be sewn into bigger blocks.
And I still have some red fabric left over if I need to make more (or for borders and binding).
I had a bit of help collecting the fabric for these blocks. In addition to my own stash of red, Jenn, Riel, and Julie all sent me precious pieces from their red stash. Thanks!
Yesterday (Sunday) was a gorgeous day (despite the forecast). I took AbbyDog for a very long walk in the River Valley.
Then we spent the rest of the afternoon in the back yard. The OnlyChild and my neighbour, Shannon, joined me in the pool while the dogs played in the yard.
And today? Well, it's already rained and thundered and right now it's cloudy. Laundry and packing has to be done because I leave on Wednesday for my trip back east.
I'm going to try to fit in some sewing tonight - those bow-tie blocks seem to be calling to me.
Yesterday, I decided to do a little bit of sewing.
First I had to fix the ironing board cover because it keeps sliding off (drives Mr. P crazy when he tries iron a shirt for work).
Then I had to fix a tear in one of Mr. P's shirts.
Then I had to fix a button and buttonhole on one of Mr. P's shirts.
Then I had to do a bit of tidying up in the sewing room.
Then...finally...I got down to some sewing and some quality time with Bernice.
You know that it has taken me a very long time to decide what to do with Swoon. I had the blocks ALL finished in February. Unbelievable that the quilt has been in pieces on my spare room bed since then. Just plain sad, if you ask me.
So, here's what I did:
I added 4 1/2" sashing between each of the blocks and used the pinwheels I made from leftover triangles as cornerstones. I haven't sewn the sashing + cornerstone blocks to the rows of blocks yet, but here is an idea of what it will look like:
Keep in mind, this is all sitting on a single bed, so there isn't much room to spread it all out. The strips are just sitting on top of the rows of blocks here.
I think it's going to look great.
I still have the quilting dilemma, though. Maybe if I take it nice and easy, I can quilt this myself, one block at a time. It's already been a long-term project so obviously I'm not in a big hurry...
I didn't get back to the sewing today. I had a lunch/shopping date with my friend Maria. Although I should not have been shopping, I did end up with a new pair of capris, a pair of jeans and a shirt - all 50% off. But the guilt...oh the guilt... I had to confess to Mr. P right away instead of hiding the loot.
You know I don't usually post cryptic messages; I either tell you or I don't.
But yesterday, I mentioned something about work and I didn't tell the whole story. I'm still not going to because:
1. I'm not sure I fully understand what happened, and
2. I'm getting over it.
Really, it was just a matter of those with "power" making a couple of very poor decisions that will most definitely affect me in a negative way next year. I will survive. And, like I said, I have an escape plan.
So, why am I telling you this (and being oh so very cryptic)? Because I need you to send some good wishes my way. Keep your fingers crossed. Pray, if that's your style. I'm looking towards making quite a big change, a very exciting change, and I dare not say anything more in case I jinx it.
If it doesn't work out, then the status quo is not so bad. But it would be (could be) wonderful...
xo
It's no wonder you've forgotten who I am; I've been gone sooooo long. It was completely unintentional.
There was some crazy busyness at work. Followed by some crazy awfulness at work (which I won't go into detail about because I'm sure it will fix itself somehow and if it doesn't, well, I have an escape plan).
The crazy busyness and crazy awfulness left me with little time to do anything creative so I really didn't have much to share with you in the way of quilts or sewing. Sad. I've made exactly two things since February.
First of all, I finished the Ugly Swoon Block and made a table topper out of it. Of course, I completely forgot to take a photo of the finished product before I mailed it off to my mum for (late) Mother's Day. Duh.
And I made a quilt. This is actually my only quilt finish of 2012 and it's a little one. I used the same pattern as for this quilt and chose a Pom Pom de Paris charm pack.
It's kind of a special little quilt. A friend from high school and his wife have 4 children; the youngest is two years old and she was recently diagnosed with cancer (neuroblastoma). Oh, it's such a sad story. I can't even imagine what the family is going through. It sounds like she's going to be okay...but she's so little and she doesn't understand what's happening to her. I sent her this little quilt just for snuggling when she's not feeling well or needs to lie down. I hope she likes it.
So, those are my grand finishes. Not very impressive, eh?
Swoon is still in pieces on the spare room bed; no progress has been made at all. I think I have a plan, though. That's a start.
I have fabric for a dress. I have fabric to make the OnlyChild a Ghastlies quilt (yep, had that for a while). I haven't finished last summer's Bow Tie quilt or the Christmas String quilt I have been fiddling with off and on.
Oh, I made a belly dance skirt. It took me an hour at most.
I was in three dance shows - one in April and two in June.
What else? The OnlyChild moved back home after her first year of university. She's decided to go to school here (which should save us a bundle). She's got a great summer job working for a tour company, but it requires me driving her there and back - a 1/2 hour journey each way every morning and afternoon, which means two hours of driving for me. So, that's my summer eaten up. I don't really mind; it's nice to have her home. We celebrated my last day of school by going out to lunch:
I had a beet and goat cheese sandwich with quinoa salad. It was goooood!
I haven't done much so far this summer. We had some very hot weather last week so the OnlyChild and I spent a bit of time in the evenings in our pool. Our inflatable pool. Not kidding. It's big but not very deep and it feels wonderful on a hot day!
This past weekend my in-laws were in town so I escaped the city (long story - no love lost between us). I went to visit my friend Kim. We slept in every morning, drank our coffee with liqueur, consumed piña coladas all afternoon, and played hardcore Scrabble. It was lovely.
Kim headed back east today so I took the bus home from the airport where she caught her flight. Now I'm home with a week to kill before I go back east to attend my high school reunion. Twenty-five years! Can you believe it? Me neither. I guess I'll have something to blog about after that (and pictures to show too, I hope).
Here is the final installation of pictures from my Italy trip.
As you saw in the last two posts (here and here), we visited quite a few places in Italy during our tour. We saved the best for last, though. On our last day, we went to the town of Sorrento and then to the Isle of Capri.
Alright...let's get on with the show.
Here's a view of Sorrento, looking up from the docks. We were getting ready to board a ferry, after having spent only an hour or so in the town.
And a view as we sped away...
It was such a beautiful day, but the wind was a bit chilly.
A first glimpse of Capri. I have been enchanted by the Isle of Capri since I was a little girl. I played the glockenspiel in a marching band (yes, I did - band geek) and "Isle of Capri" was one of our songs.
After we got to Capri, we boarded another boat to take a tour around the island. It was about this time that my camera battery died. I have a few pictures from one of the chaperones, but I'm still waiting for the others. I'll share what I can.
Many rich and/or famous people own villas on Capri (who do they think they are?).
We didn't see the famed Blue Grotto, but these rocks are kind of cool. Our little boat went right through that hole!
We took the funicular up to Anacapri - the town at the top of the island and visited the gardens. The scenery from up there was exquisite.
We had lunch (I had mussels and clams), poked around in the very expensive stores (Prada, etc.) and not so expensive souvenir shops, had a gelato (or two - who's counting?), then headed back down to meet the rest of the group by the docks.
There was a rocky little beach, perfect for a few quick photos. I was very much in love with giallo (yellow) this whole trip and came home with three yellow scarves and a yellow shirt, plus a dress and another top with yellow in the pattern (all bought in Florence). Our tour director, Claudia, called me the Giallo Girl.
I also bought the cute little shoes I'm wearing on this trip - I got them in Rome.
We took the ferry over to Naples where we met up with our bus. Along the way we stopped for a farewell dinner. The kids had loads of fun goofing off and singing along to YMCA and we met another group from Edmonton at the restaurant.
Before we departed for our hotel, we had a little ceremony and made a presentation to Claudia and to our bus driver, Andrea. Somebody has a picture of him somewhere, but like I said, I don't have everyone's photos yet and my camera battery was dead that day.
Here's Claudia hamming it up with Tom, our drama teacher. He loved every second of it.
The next morning, we had to say goodbye to Claudia at the airport. There were lots of hugs and even a few tears. Claudia hugged every single person! Some twice. You can see from this picture how much the kids loved her.
It was tough to leave. I know some of the kids were eager to get home but, honestly, I could have spent another week or so there (without them haha), especially considering the mess I came home to...
As I mentioned in this post, our bathroom (our only bathroom) was to be renovated while I was gone. It wasn't even close to finished and I ended up spending two nights in hotels last week. It's still not done - going into week 3 - and there are some problems that need to be fixed. It seems that every room in the house is turned upside down: bathroom stuff in the spare room and sewing room, tools in the computer room, holes in the ceilings of the kitchen and dining room where leaks occurred, and a fine layer of dust on everything.
I haven't touched my sewing machine in weeks and it doesn't look like I'll be working on any projects in the next few days either, at least until this mess is cleared up and our house is back to normal.
Work has also been crazy busy, although it might slow down this week.
Thank goodness I have such wonderful memories of Bella Italia to keep me going. I hope you've enjoyed the photos and stories!
Want to see more of our trip? Great! Here's the second installment of photos from bella Italia.
Okay, so we're still in Rome. After our visit to the Vatican, we spent some time around the Trevi Fountain and had more shopping time (another pair of shoes for me). One of our chaperones actually lost his wallet at the Trevi Fountain - he was pick-pocketed! I would have been traumatized but he was so positive about it and just looked upon the experience as a lesson learned.
We also went to the Spanish Steps.
Later on, we attended cooking school where we learned to make fettuccine, ravioli, two kinds of sauces, and rice balls.
The girl in the red coat is our tour director, Claudia. She was such a sweetheart. She didn't cook, but she helped with "quality control".
Our culinary creations were being judged by the hotel staff, including the chef!
And, believe it or not, my team won!
Upon return to the hotel that night, we discovered that one of the hotel rooms had been broken into and items were stolen from two of the girls. It could have been a very negative turning point for the trip, but we had such a great group of students (not to mention our wonderful tour director). The girls whose items were stolen were very upset at first, but soon decided not to spoil the rest of their trip with worry over the situation and they put their best faces forward to enjoy the remaining days. It was amazing to see how everyone stuck together and did their best to comfort the girls.
Here's our Claudia the next day, pretending to drive the bus. She can't drive at all...luckily our bus driver was excellent.
Our students attended a painting class.
I briefly considered participating in the class but I'm not so good with a paintbrush so we chose instead to take advantage of the hotel's WiFi (free with purchase of cappuccino!) and I spent a couple of hours on Skype with the OnlyChild.
Our next excursion was to Pompeii, which is an awesome place.
Group photo in the theatre!
And then an impromptu performance of a song from The Evil Dead by a couple of our very talented students.
Tres amici (three friends).
Frozen in time (teeth intact).
And then on to Sorrento (another of my favourite places). The scenery is so gorgeous!
We went down to the beach by our hotel. Yes, our hotel was right on the beach!
Sunset over the Bay of Naples.
And I'll finish off today's installation with supper.
Pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans).
Eggplant - delicious!
We ordered something special too - a plate (or two) of seafood. Heavenly!
There are a few more...but I'll wait until tomorrow to post. Ciao!
