Dreaming of palm trees...

Oh, how nice it would be to be lounging on the deck of a pool in Cuba looking up at the palm trees.....maybe next year!

The topic up for discussion these past few days is, of course, the cold temperatures. Here's my answer to how cold it has been....as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words....

This is the red wine we have had aging in the garage for use at our wedding in the summer....frozen solid and most of the corks popped.....as well as 36 bottles of white in the same condition! We have never had a problem storing our wine in the garage. Needless to say, we'll be finding a new spot to store the bottles! I don't know if the wine is ruined, but I'll be heading out today to re-cork.

It's been quite a week, with no time at all to post on my blog. It started out with a squeezed-in, kinda secret-for-now, custom job. By the end of the four days it took to complete the quilt my "feathers and pebbles" were getting a bit wobbly....my eyes had had about enough! It did turn out nice and my friend was quite happy with her quilt. Here's a pic of a feather near the end of the four days...

As soon as the quilt was done, we had to put it into high gear to prepare for a houseguest from Alberta. We had a great weekend, buying too much wine at some of our favourite Niagara wineries and having a huge lunch at the Mandarin on Sunday. Thirteen of us were able to attend the Mandarin, and it was wonderful!

At the same time as all this was going on in the past week, my father has been in failing health. I won't go into this too much, but I have to admit that none of us thought he would be with us by then end of the week. I think it was on Friday that they took him off IV and medications and were prepared to make him "comfortable" til the end. Well, we went up to the Kitchener hospital where he is yesterday.....and didn't he look 4x's better than when I saw him on Thursday! He will go through some tests to see if his "numbers" have improved. We are astonished at the difference. It was a bit sad though, he seems a bit farther gone this past week into his Alzheimer's....he was quite confused on why my mom hadn't made it up to see him yet, and she's been gone for a few years now :(

Yes, a stressful week...some of it good stress, some of it not so much.  Sunday morning we thought the water pump had quit....in reality, it was just that we had no hot water in the kitchen....such a mystery. All we can think is that a pipe froze, even though it's not against a wall and has never happened before. There's more, but I just want to put it all behind me and start fresh this week! What a lot of "stuff" squeezed into a short time!

Through it all I have managed to poke away at some handwork most mornings, as per my regular morning routine. One project that I've mentioned here before is my Raise the Barn Roof High.

Two more mornings should see the quilting complete on this quilt and now I'm thinking that instead of doing a traditional binding, I will try to follow the tutorial on Victoria Gertenbach's blog on "facing" a quilt. This quilt is her pattern and I think it would be a good opportunity to try using her tutorial to complete the quilt. It might work best on a flatter piece, this one is puffy with the wool batting, but it will be nice to try something new. You can have a look at her tutorial HERE on her blog, The Silly BooDilly.

Although I'm so close to finishing this quilt, I spent my morning coffee-time working on a couple of my circles. After such a hectic week, I wish I could just stay cuddled up in my pj's and work on my applique!

I may be down to the final 10 of the 72 circles needed for this quilt. I'll have to book this one in to the line-up as I would love to have it quilted up in time for the fair in the fall.

Have a great day and keep warm!