Catchup - April 24th-May 12th, 2026

 April 24th

Yummy lunch at Oakwood Cafe with Edna before the St Vital Book Sale.

April 29th

I've been told our Canada Geese have made nests in crazy places! I know a few pairs have built nests on city office buildings roof tops, definitely crazy! Well this is the second year I know of that a pair have returned to this planter, just feet from the blocks entrance, don't know how the ducklings get out of there if they can't fly yet? And last year the 6" or more from pot ground to top of the pot was full of downpour water flooding the nest. I heard someone moved the eggs but not sure if they were safe and survived. Hope not this year!

May 2nd

We're at the ACQ quilting retreat and yesterday I was too tired to take or post pictures. Sylvia is working on a donation fish quilt, Pat worked on placemats and now trying out the migrating flying geese we learnt at our last meeting demo from Lynda K. Edna and I both are working on our smaller Art After Dark gecko wall hangings. I just finished attaching all my pieces and shut that project down. I switched to the quilting on my catus wall hanging.

A couple more pictures. Pat's migrating geese, Sylvia's finished fish quilt top and she started a second quilt top.

May 7th

Today at Meadowood I finished the binding on my Cacti - Art After Dark class from Assiniboine Circle Quilters taught by Jackie J. Well I still have the label to prep and sew in place! I it!!!

May 9th

I finally snapped out of my funkie mood today. Hope it stays away for awhile! Early breakfast with Sylvia, checked out Piece It Together's spring sale and was THRILLED to see one of my donated tops completed and for sale for their fundraiser! Got some quilt ideas too along with a few small purchases!

Then home and picked up my shuttles and tatted a couple more scissor fobs.

May 11th

Yeah!!! Finally after 30 plus years I'm finally taking in an Eastern Canada fall leaves tour, with Sylvia.

Then shortly afterwards I'll be off to Toronto area to visit my girlfriends!!! That'll be it for 2026 and not sure what's in store for 2027.

https://www.railtraveltours.com/.../northern-ontarios...

May 12th

I missed posting about Sunday's outing at the Woodcarvers' Competition where Randy (Pat's hubby) showed his work and received three ribbons! WOW!!! The walking sticks were initially worked on by Sylvia's hubby Len and Randy finished them off! I enjoyed Randy's help in understanding some of the intricasies of this hobby! Thank you!

Update: added Randy's photo of the moose brains he added into the walking stick's indent, googly eyes etc above!

Catchup - April 8th-23rd, 2026

 April 8th

OMGG!!! I honestly thought the forecast would be wrong again! Glad I have a couple more hours before going out!

But 1pm it's all gone and a muddy mess now!

OMGG I'm so GLAD I stopped into Oakwook for lunch! My first choice was fish n chips but they were out. So ordered their Cafe breakfast, then out she walked with this scrumptious looking burger and I groaned! She asked if I wanted to change, yes if eggs not cracked, she ran into the kitchen yelling stop just as he was going to crack them and he laughed! Boy am I glad!!!

So yes they are open and waiting for you to come back, open till 3ish!

April 9th

Nice to have another awesome cataract surgery result. Basically better than 20/20 vision in both eyes and I don't need glasses for driving (at least for awhile to come)! So I called MPI as per Dr Levi's suggestion for a vision test to have that restriction removed. AND no issue about driving in the mean time, but if pulled over I'll need to produce the surgery cards to not be penalized and to make an appointment sooner than later to make that license change. Thank GOD as many have mentioned I'm not to be driving at all, MPI lady chuckled and said not so. Anyways, I've an appointment tomorrow afternoon and if passed (which Dr Levi said I'd blow that test out of the water now) MPI will send out a corrected license soon. YEAH!!! I was leary for much highway driving because of the naysayers!

I still need readers or progressive glasses for closeup and the computer, that appointment is May 20th. Then I'll take my 6 month old glasses back to Costco go get new progressive lenses put in!!!

April 12th

Saturday at ACQ gathering, I received a medium ziplock bag of scraps from Wendy R of MPQ via her friend Karen B and I could not resist prepping them ready to sew when hockey is on that night. Thank you very much Wendy R for thinking of me!!! I too can't bear to throw these cut off triangles or even 1" squares or strips away, even if for dog beds!!!

So today I finished off sewing HSTs and now pressing and then will start squaring up. I'm thinking something for myself as there are lots of awesome batiks plus hopefully another NICU coverlet.

Also a couple pics from the meeting of the girls at lunch and Edna working on her cactus project!

April 13th

Well this was a pretty good day. I spent the afternoon pressing all the sewn HSTs and sorted into sizes for future trimming.

The top row I might do scrappy pinwheel blocks spacers, sashings and borders for a NICU coverlet.

I decided the middle two rows with black are going to be mine, maybe a wall hanging or placemat.

The bottom two rows with green print along with the medium and dark brown HSTs into some quilt pattern for a NICU coverlet.

So see Wendy R half your scraps have been prepped for projects! Thank you!

April 14th

Finally I ventured out for a walk around the block or two with a stop halfway for lunch at Tim's along with 4 rest stops. Beautiful day out considering we woke to a fresh snow covering.

April 16th

Yesterday I picked up Edna, Sylvia and Dianne for Boston Pizza lunch then a road trip out to Adiena's quilt shop in Grunthal. Adiena was happy to see us and luckily other customers came earlier so we had the place to ourselves. Then on the way home Edna spotted this pair of cranes and I checked that the coast was clear, stopped and got out to take pictures. They were a ways out but still lovely to see! It was really windy in the morning but for once calmed down on the way home.

April 21st

After another appointment I stopped into Sylvia's and we finished off this lovely but horrible to piece together puzzle! It's done and dismantled and puzzle season maybe finished till fall?

Then home and sorted out my previously sewn up 1.25" HSTs, then today pressed and trimmed them (see the tiny pile of trimmings) before planning the pinwheel blocks. I'm not sure what size I'll trim the pinwheels down to but will alternate them with pulled out 1.25" strips from the same bag of scraps, from quilters. This time it's going to be around a 10"x12" quilt for this Angel wall hanging (15.5 x 27.5") for myself! I saw this pattern in OMA's sale box and knew it was MINE!!! Another use for my tiny shared triangles!

April 23rd

Today I joined the Meadowood Quilters and sewed on the vertical sashings onto my 24 potato chip blocks. Then I started on the horizontal sashings with cornerstones and attached two rows to the 6th row of blocks. I was tired so headed home! Hopefully finishing this twin top next week.

Once rested I went back to finishing my mini quilt for my angel wall hanging. Tomorrow I'll sandwich it with flannel instead of batting, add the backing and quilt it before binding it. It's 6.5 x 7.5" - WOW!!! By the time I finished the pinwhel blocks I very quickly changed my mind on white 4 patches and went with white whole blocks instead! I swear these little ones take as long to sew up as a lap or twin quilt!

Catchup - March 24th-31st, 2026

 March 24th

I feel pleased with myself today. I had my laser spinal decompression therapy and it seemed better (now moving to every two weeks), but still ups and downs I'm not happy with. Once home I relaxed some then put on my back/waist brace and walked the hallway and very happy with the results.

March 27th

Ohhh my! Not a smooth early start this morning but I've no choice but to rest now! Even split my items into two trips today to ease the back stress.

Bubba escaped on Taunya once already so pet door is closed and he's in his harness and connected with a long cable for backyard freedom somewhat!!!

March 29th

Lovely day out earlier, stayed out with the dogs quite awhile. Bubba on his cable watched Dahli up and over that far snowbank near the fence. Needless to say I was a bit nervous before she came back. Now relaxing while I watch the Jays!

OMGG!!! Talk about instant stress hike!!! See we were outside but I didn't think fast enough to grab the cable to keep Bubba from following Dahli out over the snowdrift, past the fire pit and around! Should have realized that as he went around the little yard tractor yesterday then got stuck and I had to go unstuck him! Yep DITTOs again and no matter how I tried coaxing him to go back he continued forwards and with my tugging help slipped out of his harness! OMGG!!! Lucky me both headed into the house, shut them in just in case! Then there's me trying to hike over the 4 foot drift to retrieve the stuck cable and harness, lucky the snowbank kept me ontop except for the one foot that sunk to my ankle!!! I must have look a sight trying to climb it and stay upright without falling!!! Gotta readjust the straps now!!!

March 30th

Thank goodness it slowed down snowing, maybe stopping? The earlier heavier snowfall covered all the !@#$ and doggie tracks, Bubba better not get stuck again!

March 31st

Well I'm glad the fluffy flakes stopped and really didn't amount to much (maybe slick on the roads tho) but not much here. You can just barely see my foot prints from yesterday's rescuing Bubba's escaped harness and cable around the firepit. So nice with the sun on the fresh snow! And not any major damage in the driveway either!

Well after some time outside with the pugs I've time to post my update to Art After Dark class project! I'm letting it sit a bit to see what is needed before the trapunto step, sandwiching and quilting it.

1. All slivers bonded in place and I started straight stitching them down.

2. Slivers all stitched down then I played on a practice piece to find usable fancy stitches of the few my machine has. Then I went all around with a green variegated thread.

3. Now had to decide how to use a mix of cream, yellow, orange and green variegated threads and fancy stitches for inside stitched columns.

There's one spot that bugs me so I've walked away and will decide tomorrow what I'll do about it.