GORF Retreat

Preamble Before the Retreat Officially Begins

I got the house tidied up, guest rooms ready, project boxes stocked with Lindor chocolates, tables, irons, etc . . . dill pickle soup is simmering on the stove . . .

the only thing I forgot was to complete mine . . . oops. . .
and they are here . . .
to be cont'd . . .

Dear Jane 2 Progress

Looks like I need to double check the size of each of these blocks. I have been home for nearly a week and spent most of Saturday working on DJ2 blocks and taking pictures for Quilting Jane at the Farm .
Had no internet until last night so here I am, catching up. Those blog posts will be up one at a time this week.

There are many joys of living on a farm that technically is within the boundaries of the City of Hamilton. Things that are not included, although my taxes do not reflect this, are fire hydrants, sidewalks, street lights, treated city water, sewers and bus service, to name a few. What we do have is open skies, lots of grass and trees, animals outside and fresh country air. Actually, not so fresh today. My Sweet Husband has been cleaning out the dry cow barn and drawing manure past my window all day. Elly came to visit for the day and helped drive Grampa's tractor, water and pet the babies. She even ate scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast.That's progress for a 33 month old who only wants to eat cereal and drink apple juice.

The first ever GORF retreat is this Friday-Sunday and I am once again de-cluttering my work space to share it with 3 ladies coming over for the weekend to make their very own GO Real Fast applique quilts. I will post pictures next week.

Blessings,
Chris

Home Again Finally

I have been home for exactly 22 hours and have run a gzillion errands, got in 2 loads laundry, a waterfit workout, pedicure and hugs to all the little girl grand children, ate 3 Tim Horton donuts and caught up on emails. Tomorrow I start back to the reality of life and, after a 90 minute massage, I have to (ugh) cook dinner and do some house work since the cleaning lady has not been here for the 5 weeks that I was away and just left for 3 weeks in Spain. Actually, the place doesn't look too bad since my Sweet Husband kept things pretty tidy. I haven't done any housework or cooking in 5 weeks. Sigh. Although I have done lots of dishes.

I dropped in to see the girls after school tonight and 18 month old Devan met me first and called me muma. I corrected her pronunciation of Gramma. Then 2 1/2 year old Elly came running and told me to come with her she has something to show me upstairs and off she ran calling me to turn on her bedroom light. And Ava, who is turning 7 on Saturday got in her hugs and asked if I brought my "bag" with me so we could pull out the fabric. I had not brought the bag since I was not babysitting, just loving on them tonight. I will be taking the bag with me tomorrow night to share time with them before putting them all to bed.

Mom was at night school and Dad was making supper and the girls were competing to see who could make the most noise. Little Devan's shrieks won since her 2 older sisters set the bar pretty high for her to imitate them. Finally their dad, my only son, raised his voice over theirs and informed them that he was the only one allowed to shout since he was the boss. It was awesome. Something about they all wanted me to sit by them as they were colouring, except Devan who was eating the marker. And she pushed a chair up to the counter so she could reach a water bottle that she called applejuice and asked to get up on my lap, then spilled some water and got down and reached, reached, reached really high to get the wash cloth off the drainboard and proceeded to wipe up the floor 2 feet away from the spill. Have I ever mentioned that all 3 of  my granddaughters are a bit OCD? Sh . . .don't tell them . . . they don't know yet.
 
I got to spend 12 days with my 5  month old grandson who, by the way, cut his first tooth yesterday before I left to fly home. And we bought tickets for them to fly out here for my husband's family Christmas dinner which we are hosting this year on Nov 29 the Saturday of the American Thanksgiving weekend. We started this new tradition a few years ago on the suggestion of his brother who moved his family to New York 20 years ago and now all his kids and grand kids are American citizens and they all have a 4 day weekend so can come and spend time with the ever growing family (there are now 16 great-grandchildren 7 and under). We meet on the Saturday at noon in the local church hall that great-grandma books each year. Good thing I remembered to ask her to book it since I have not yet sent out invitations. That will on the to do list for tomorrow somewhere between liver for lunch and babysitting. 

Now I've been home 23 1/2  hours and not done a single stitch on any of the quilts and its time for bed.
Blessings,
Chris

Some Applique Progress

I was in England visiting my sister for a week then Poland visiting my aunt and cousins for another week and a half. I took 6 prepped applique blocks with me to work on. The first 2 here are from Beyond the Cherry Trees. Neither is complete, but I finished what I had taken. Have I mentioned  how much I am enjoying needle turning these by hand? The bottom 4 are from the Chester County Criswell Quilt.

When I travel, I take along my net book to use to keep in touch and to write. I did get some writing done for my present course which is called "Equipping Saints to Counsel". I took 2 textbooks and completed one report. This is progress. One of the hindrances of using this net book is making blog posts. I have difficulty downloading photos off my camera. Sometimes it will download all 735 each time. Other times it ignores my instructions and does nothing. So here we are. I finally got the pictures on this post but cannot write anything beside them.

Last week I was home long enough to do my laundry,  make one Dear Jane block with pictures and have a wisdom tooth pulled when my daughter phoned with that pleading voice that a mother cannot ignore, "I'm going to be home alone with the baby all next week. There is a 2 o'clock flight. We can pick you up. Can you come visit?"

My internet had been out the 2 days I was home but it miraculously kicked in long enough for me to book that 2 o'clock flight and here I am. Home alone at my daughter's while she and baby are in the city for the day. The sun is shining brightly and I have Dear Jane stuff spread all over the table and the batteries in my camera died, so no pictures for now. Sigh.

But I have been able to snuggle my grandson every day. He is 4 1/2 months old and has been rolling over for a few weeks now.

Blessings,
Chris

Back Home Again

I have been out of the country for the past 2 1/2 weeks and my internet has been down. It seems to be working right now so I will try to make this fast since it comes in and out and the repair guys won't be here until Monday. The joys of having the satellite receiver at the top of a 70 foot silo. There have to be 2 workers before 1 can climb up.
I took 6 applique blocks with me to work on and only competed 1 but that's okay since I got a lot of work done on the rest. I cannot seem to download the pictures off my camera.
Also, this morning I tried doing some machine quilting on my GORF blocks to get them compete before the weekend retreat here next month, but my machine quit, so, I moved over to another machine and made 1 Bright Jane block.
The sun is shining profusely and the lady bugs are here en mass  and I still have geraniums blooming outside even though it is almost the end of October. Snow is forecast for Poland today and my Lufthansa flight was cancelled, but I was able to switch over to Lot Polish Airlines and get a direct flight home, so all is well.
Blessings,
Chris

Visiting Relatives

I have been away from home for the past week visiting first my sister in England and now my aunt and cousins in Poland. My netbook battery died in England and could not get it charged up until now. My 88 year old aunt fell a couple of months ago and is recovering. We have been home alone today and since her English is totally nil and my Polish is limited in understanding, we discovered google translate and the option to listen to the translation. We have been getting along famously.

Blessings,
Chris
 

DJ2 J-7

J-7