MY DECK

This is where I do all my hand sewing in the summer. On the deck at the cottage. It is always peaceful there and swarming with the hummingbirds that I feed from 4 feeders. Although I must say with the weather this summer being so wet and all, my little hummers were a bit scarce compared to other years.

This sitting place is where all our gang and guests love to sit in the morning have coffee, eat cereal and play cottage game of "Madd" which is a variation of Sorry I think but with more agressive moves. This is the place and we can all enjoy the magnificent views from this deck.

Now that winter is coming, with this place being on an island, we have left it for nature to do its thing for the winter. The water drops about 4 ft, and the winds will howl, and the winter birds take over. We could hear wolves howling the week before we left. It was very eerie but we were blessed to hear them. There is no one there now, all the cottagers have closed their cottages for the winter, and as the water slowly rises again, the ice will come and with it winter.

THE FUNICULAR, DESIGNED BY JERRY

The "funicular" called "the lift" by those of us who are in awe of Jerry's design and building of same this summer has saved us so much of the lifting and carrying of our supplies up the 32 steps to the cottage landing.

Jerry designed this over the past winter, and for weeks he would say "look at this" and show me this scale drawing of the lift.

He had it built in pieces locally, designed the motor etc, don't ask, and then we transported it to the cottage and he built it over the summer, between the rain storms we had during the months of July and August.

It carries about 1500 lbs and the whole project was designed so that we can stay at the cottage longer as we age.

There has been so much interest in it on our lake and maybe he will build a couple more. It made the carrying of my stash which was in a big bin much easier to load in the boat to take back to Whitby.

My new sewing machine weighs about 30 lbs, so carrying it up next summer will be a charm.

THE UGLY QUILT

First, my mother is fine. She probably just had severe cramps, and at 89 yrs old, well she became fearful that she was dying. Anyway they kept her overnight at the hospital and sent her home yesterday afternoon. she was glad to go too.

The first image is my "ugly" quilt which isn't finished being quilted as yet. I think it's ugly, but the kids think it looks "different Nana". I will practice the stithes for stippling on this quilt and then bind it.

The first time I saw this pattern in a magazine, I thought oh that should be quick and easy. 12 " squares are pretty simple. It is the colour combinations that I put together that just didn't do it for me, but after putting the quilt together, there was enough money in it to try and finish it.

Quilt tops are sometimes cheaper than what goes between the fabrics, so being very frugal with my quilting dollars I am going to finish it on the new machine.

I am going to go to lessons tomorrow and see what I can do with the fanciness of this machine.

HOSPITALS

Well this will be a short post today. My mother is in the hospital with pain in her stomach area and until midnight last night the doctors were still unable the source of her pain. Exrays, ctscan and a couple of physical exams they were still unable to find the source.
So they kept her overnight. She was a bit confused about the whole thing, so this morning, I am off to the hospital.
I cannot understand why people who are not in true need of hospitals, do not use the walk in clinics. Last night, well crazy night as I call it, there were about 65 people in the emergency area, about 8 toddlers/babies. I heard 2 of them being told by the doctor that they should be given children's tylenol and contact their doctor, or go to a walkin clinic. Imagine waiting 4 hours with all those people and then being told, that. Some people just don't have brain power moving up there.
The nurse said that if they thought a bit more of what was going to happen, they would use the clinic, but somehow it doesn't deter them.
There were so many people coming (6 ambulances) that bodies were on the stretchers waiting for beds, or rooms and it was almost impossible to move in the emergency.
As I said, what a night.
I am off to the hospital this am.

KELLY'S QUILT

This is another of the leftover pinwheels from Tory's quilt. My math has greatly inproved since this was cut out. I don't know where I made the mistake of how many reds and greens that I needed, but I still (yep believe it) have a few of these squares left in my small stash.This green with the pink dots has been a huge hit with everyone and even though I also have black with pink dots fabric, this one is everyone's favorite. Lucky for me as I had so much of it cut out.
This quilt which has a white background is used in Kelly's family room and it looks great.

This past weekend we went to Goodwood racetrack to watch our nephew Drew race go carts. He is 10 yrs old and the highlite of his day was all the relatives who came to see his final race of the season,in cold damp weather with rain threatening. I should have brought a lap quilt to wrap in as it was bonechilling indeed. Drew was a great racer and we will see much of his talent in the future.

I also received and early christmas and belated birthday present from my darling Jerry. He bought me a new Janome 6600 sewing machine and the table to put the machine on/in. I am very excited about this as I think that with the machine having the quilting feature, my stippling will improve greatly. I am practicing on my ugly quilt, which Tory thinks isn't so ugly after all.
Tory and Alex both being computer literate took no time to figure out how to use the machine.
Today is a big practice day for me. I am also getting a sewing area with shelves to be made by Jerry, which will be a huge hit by this novice quilter.