It's Birthday Time

 Goodness, it's been so long I almost forgot the steps to putting up a new post.  I've been working through a bit of a medical issue this month (not covid related) so just didn't have anything new to say.  

But now I do!

Yesterday we gathered, the eleven of us, for Mike's and my birthday lunch.  It was wonderful to be together in a place where none of us had to clean the house or cook.  It IS so nice to be the guest once in awhile and yesterday we were all the guest.  This restaurant gave us a separate room so we felt quite comfortable gathering just the family of us.

My chicks are not so little anymore.  I can't even spread my wings wide enough to gather them all in but I tried.

On my actual birthday I had a  surprise call from Donna in Australia - what a fun surprise visit THAT was! I was telling her about the cake we have just one day a year, my birthday, bought from a local bakery.  How do you describe a chocolate cake, especially a bakery cake?  It's just a chocolate cake, right?  I've had some really good home baked chocolate cakes in my life, it's hard to say any chocolate cake isn't good but this one is specially good just once a year.

This is what I've been plugging along with this month.  It's not much but I couldn't do much and so this simple something that should have taken just a week to hand quilt has taken all of a month.  I am determined to finish the last two of these plates today so I can bind it and be done.  I think I can do it.I'll put on my cold, cold winter DVD movie and settle in. 

This is my winter, blizzard, cold, snowy movie.  I watch it once a year during the coldest, snowiest day because it takes place in Malaysia and Australia's outback and is five hours long. Forever and years it's only been available on VHS and so I've dragged our VHS player along with us on every move - specifically for this movie.  It's my absolute favorite and it has be available to me, thus the VHS player.  I looked and looked for years to see if it was ever going to be made into a DVD and this year I found it!  I was so excited I ordered it, got it the next day and put it in to watch immediately.  I'll do it again today just because I can! 

It's cold, cold, cold here and they promise a messy week but we've been spared the behemoth storm the East Coast is getting so we will be thankful all we are putting up with is the cold. 

Zoom again

Last weekend, New Year's Day for me, the next day for Australia, Chooky organized another zoom chat with like minded quilty bloggers.   It's a great selfless plan she has to send out word and a link approximately once a month - as her schedule  allows - to her blog followers turned friends to keep in touch.   This started as a way to alleviate some of the angst of being shut in for most of the world this past year.  We log in, stitch, chat, compare notes on our lives, laugh, and feel like we were at a stitch-in or even a retreat.  Some of us even arrive in pajamas and one, who will not be named here, just about rolls over in bed, switches on her computer and joins us. Early Saturday morning isn't for her.   Some come and stay for the whole duration, some go in and out as chores and other things dictate.  My longest stay is 5 hours and then the battery goes dead and I have to charge up.  Even at retreat I have a hard time sitting that long at once.  

Some who come get a LOT done, some like me, not so much.  This time I even had hand work prepped and I did stitch but I have a short attention span and find it's also nice to just sit and chat.   We come from all over the world, Germany, Austria, Norway, Canada, U.S., England, France, New Zealand and of course Australia.  We've discovered we are all different, we all have different taste in quilts, we all are all going through this pandemic thing in the same ways and we are all the same. 

Chooky talked about this link on her blog

https://appuntipatch.blogspot.com/2021/05/insieme-in-video-conferenza.html 

I thought it was such a clever way to commemorate how we manage to stay sane. 

Also, I knew I would never go through what this  quilter did to remember this zoomy time but I did, in my dream state, think of this.

There was a fat quarter of this map fabric in the stash. I cut it in half.  There are a LOT of bits and pieces in the scrap box so I cut 2 inch squares, drew a grid on the map and am now hand applique stitching patches of fabric onto the map to commemorate the coming together of quilty people via Chooky's generosity.  Little patches of people covering the world.

Just a little way to remember how far away we are but how close we can be.  After putting all squares down I'll quilt it along the grid lines which you can see if you squint.  Each square is centered and measures 1.5 inches.

On my post about the clamps I mentioned that I had to leave the quilt group I was in here because of their non-vac and non-mask take on life.  Janet commented that it's a shame I don't have a group of like minded quilters with which to gather.  I emailed back, "oh, but I do!  Chooky's zooms!"

Thanks again, Chooky.  What you are doing IS appreciated.