Things I’ve been digging lately: May 2013

- I’m starting a new quilt (see above!) using the Inside Out pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew.  It’s pushing me out of my comfort zone, piecing tiny rectangles.

- The days are getting longer!  So excited about this.  My body has been waking up pretty early, meaning it’s easier for me to get to work early (and sometimes even leave early).

- Reconnecting with old friends.

- Getting excited to go on vacation.  Going through all my warm weather clothes in anticipation.

- Weekly Lufa farms baskets.  They have recently switched up their format, and no longer require a multiple week subscription.  This is a great warm up to CSA season.  And there’s something awesome about knowing the food I am consuming was grown merely a couple of kilometers away from the heart of the city where I live.

I made that! Finished Wedding Quilt

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of gifting my cousin with a throw sized quilt as a wedding shower gift.  Because it was the largest sized quilt I ever made to date, and because of the occasion, I paid particular attention as I made it.  I tried to really enjoy the process as I went, from the choice of fabric all the way to the quilting and binding.

It all started with choosing some fabrics:

Cutting out all the squares:

Sewing and then trimming the HST’s:

Assembling the HST’s into blocks:

And then the blocks into the quilt:

And then basting and binding and voila!

Here’s the back:

Edited to add: The quilt was made using The Tulip Patch Helix Quilt Pattern.  It was simple and straightforward, and as always I can’t stop saying good things about Pink Chalk Fabrics, where the pattern was purchased from (as well as some of the fabric).  Just the other day I have a really nice email conversation with their customer service rep, about a package I was worried had gone missing (it hadn’t, it was just held up a bit in customs).  So refreshing to not be dealing with corporate mumbo jumbo when dealing with customer service.

 

Out and about: Winter Camping at Au Diable Vert

A few weeks ago Dave and I rented a cabin at Au Diable Vert.  It wasn’t our first time, but our first time visiting in the winter.  It was great!  I think in the future we are going to try to make our yearly trip in the winter rather than the fall or summer.

A little more snow than last time, eh?

So much snow that we needed snow shoes to get around most of the property!  Pro tip: faculty, staff and students of McGill University can rent snow shoes (and cross-country skis) from the Sports Center at very reasonable rates.  We ended up renting snow shoes for an entire week, which meant we had a few extra days to try them on Mont-Royal (verdict: not as nice as at Au Diable Vert where we had the trails all to ourselves).

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the inside of the Echo du Bois cabin had been redone.  New wall paneling  new bunk bed structure, new bedding.  Much cleaner!  There’s even a battery powered light, though we choose to just use candles and flashlights during our trip.

Something I had been worried about, using the outhouse in the winter, turned out to be no big deal.  The hassle was in getting on boots and a jacket to go outside, but you were out there, it was fine.

It’s amazing how simple food tastes so great while camping.  Even something as simple as ramen tastes 100% better when the water has been boiled on a wood stove.  And fried eggs.  Oh boy!  So delicious.  We also did baked potatoes in the fire, steak, foil packets of veggies in the fire, hot dogs on sticks, and smores!  Yum.

You can tell that the people who own and work at Au Diable Vert really love what they are doing, and like to share their love with others.  In the winter unless you have an all wheel drive vehicle you must park at the bottom of the hill and either trek up or use the walkietalkie to radio the reception to come get you.  The night we arrived we were met with smiles and excitement, and a reassurance that there was tons of snow for us to play in (there was surprisingly little snow on the sides of the 10 on our drive in).

We will definitely be going back again, hopefully in the winter!

A rather interesting walk home today: flooding on McTavish

So by now I’m sure everyone in the Montreal area knows: there was a major water main break and a good chunk of the McGill campus and downtown core flooded.  I didn’t know this though when I started my walk home, and decided to walk up McTavish to Dr. Penfield to see how the work was coming along.

See, I did it last week, and work seemed to be progressing fine:

 

So I started to walk up McTavish, and noticed there was some water on the street.  I didn’t think too much about it, and kept walking.  Then I noticed that the water was edging up onto the sidewalk. I started to walk a bit quicker:

And then it got a bit nuts. I ended up having to climb over a small ledge to avoid soaking my feet, go into a building and out the other side, to avoid the deluge of water:

Pretty crazy. Apart from having to take a detour, it worked it ok. It seems people going South instead of North weren’t so lucky. I guess there are perks to having to climb a hill to go home!

Out and About on Mont-Royal

Since the deep freeze Montreal had been experiencing finally subsided, I decided to get out and enjoy a walk through Mont-Royal Park this Sunday afternoon.  Although it wasn’t as cold as it was earlier in the week, -10C can still get cold!  It didn’t help that in my excitement of it not being -25C, I hadn’t worn any extra layers. Oops. I enjoyed a nice hot chocolate when I got home and all was well.

Here are some pictures:

Things I’ve been digging lately . . .

- Zumba!  I’m not all that coordinated, but bouncing around to the music is so much fun!  It gets me all sweaty and my heartbeat up, regardless of whether I do the complicated steps or just follow the same direction as everyone, and it keeps me coming back.  I’m sold.  I’ve been taking classes at Bamboofit, which I like because they have lots of classes to choose from, and work on a card system.

- Socializing!  It seems that with January comes a ton of birthdays and get togethers.  And with get togethers come baked goods.  The cheesecake brownies pictured above were perfect: not too rich or sweet, just right.  For the same party I also made Guinness Brownies, that were rich and fudgy and cakey, all at the same time.  The Guinness brownies didn’t taste of Guinness, just a really deep complex chocolate flavour.  The cupcakes pictured below were made from a mix though I did top them with some melted chocolate to fancy them up a bit.  Mixes are so useful in busy times, don’t knock ‘em.

- Starting new projects!  This is possibly the last I’ll show of this one for awhile, as it is going to be a gift and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Happy new year! Here’s to 2013!

I’m not generally one for resolutions.  I usually forget about them partway through the year.  This year though, I made two.  I think I’m going to do ok remembering to carry through with them, because I have partner’s who are doing the same thing as me for both.  Pretty exciting, huh?

Resolution #1: Wear more jewelry.

A coworker and I have decided 2013 is the year to wear what we’ve got.  It doesn’t matter if it’s fancy or not, expensive or not, it’s the year to accessorize!  Being two ladies in construction, it’s not like anyone notices when we don’t glam it up, so we’re doing it for us.

Resolution #2: Take more photos, namely take one a day.

Dave and I are doing this together.  For 2013 we are going to take a photo everyday.  I tried this in 2009 and lost steam near the end, I’m hoping this year to power through.  We both have the incentive of having brand new cameras to play around with.  Dave’s is a fancy pants DSLR.  Maybe he’ll come and talk about it sometime.  Mine is a tiny indestructible point and shoot, that can even go underwater and in freezing temperatures (Christmas gift from my parents, I think they were tired of me borrowing their waterproof camera overtime I went on vacation).

Today was raining and cold, so we cozied up to our kitchen table with a pot of chamomile and played a game of carcassone.  

You can spy all of my photos here, and all of Dave’s here.