I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We opted for one massive multi-family dinner at my sister's house this year, instead of the usual merry-go-round. Everyone was responsible for bringing part of the meal and there was so much good food. We were all so stuffed by the time we finished dinner that we actually had to wait a bit before we could think of getting out dessert. That's the pudding flaming above. I heated too much brandy and it burned for a while so I got Rob to pass me my camera and took a few pictures before we blew it out.


Claire made up a batch of Jane's bacon, prune and almond hors d'oeuvres (this recipe I think). They are an incredible combination of flavours and textures. Don't be put off by the prunes. Jane sometimes describes them as "bacon, almond and dried plums" to get people to try them - then she has to go make a second batch.


Rob and I spent the whole of yesterday being lazy around the house and eating leftovers (including leftover pudding for breakfast - a personal Boxing Day tradition). I probably would not have gone outside at all but I needed to walk Abby.

I wish I could have taken pictures of that walk for you. It was lovely. I usually just walk Abby on the sidewalks when it's dark out but she seemed to need a longer walk (and it wasn't going to do me any harm either) so I turned onto the trail around the lake hoping we'd be able to see enough not to walk into any trees. It turned out I could see almost as well on the trial as I could on the street; the clouds that had been hanging around all day had cleared and the moon was very bright. We were treated to a quiet, silvery walk with the added joy of discovering that a few of our neighbours had put lights in their backyard trees.

I'll be back in the next few days to share a bit of Christmas and everyday crafting (provided I can get some pictures in our few hours of sunlight) and the turkey noodle soup we had for dinner tonight.

I realized the other day that Abby has been part of our family for a whole year. It seems impossible to think of our home ever being without her.


Abby likes paper, sticks, Zeke, peanut butter, squirrels, Zeke, snow, puddles, tummy rubs and Zeke.


Her favourite napping spot is the “puppy hammock” made by a blanket over Rob’s knees when he lies on the couch.


She knows how to sit, lie down, roll over and go to her bed and will try to do all at once if you’ve got a really good treat.


Special treats include peanuts, carrots, cucumber, peas and edamame.


She can catch the word “squirrel” if you so much as think it and will look at you excitedly and then rush to the window.


She also knows the word “walk" and will rush to the door and lie down if she thinks you might be getting ready for one. If you’re too slow about it she’ll start making wookie noises at you.


We are getting pretty creative at coming up with other words to refer to going for a walk. It’s probably good brain exercise.


I’d never before been aware of just how expressive a dog’s eyebrows can be (or even that they really had them).

I’ll probably always refer to her as my puppy.

For Christmas Rob received a box containing a quilt top, a sheet (for backing), a bunch of random length binding strips, two balls of remaindered sock yarn and a label. He also got a promise that as soon as I could get some batting it would become a proper quilt to keep in his office at home (which doubles as our spare room).

This quilt was as comfortable to make as it is to curl up under. It's a scrap quilt big enough for a twin size bed (like our spare bed) at 60" x 80" (150 cm x 200 cm). For the top I cut out 192 5 1/2" (13.75 cm) squares out of a variety of green, brown and muilti-coloured (but blending with green and brown in some way) fabrics. I think the most squares all of one fabric is twelve and there are a few things that only show up once. I cut 2 1/4" binding strips from most of the same fabrics and a few others at the same time.

I sewed the squares together 12 wide by 16 long. I chain pieced first as twos then as fours and continued on until I had three big strips and sewed those together. I put all my squares in a basket and just pulled them out at random. I didn't worry about which prints or solids fell where except to make sure I didn't sew anything to an identical square. I discovered some fantastic combinations along the way and it was really neat to see how different fabrics would look when they had different neighbours.

I was able to get the batting the same weekend I painted my studio but had to wait until everything was set up again (and Abby was in her crate for the night) before I could continue sewing. Putting together the quilt sandwich took up my entire studio floor. Instead of basting and quilting I used the sock yarns to tie the layers together at all the square intersections, alternating between brown and green yarn. The ties make the quilt softer and more fluid than I usually find quilting does. It also went a lot faster. Zeke helped out with the tying process.





I was able to do the binding the following day. I sat down at my table and chain pieced strips of fabric until my basket was empty.


When I bound the quilt I discovered that I probably had enough binding to go around two more times! I'm always worried I will run out of binding so this was kind of nice but a few fabrics I'd particularly liked did not end up in the quilt.


Part of the fun of a scrap quilt is that at least some of the fabrics in it are familiar and have stories. When I showed Rob his finished quilt he looked at it and picked out things he recognized from other projects: a skirt, a bag, a gift for someone else. Another part of the fun was using some fabrics that I'd never brought myself to cut into before - those pieces I got because I loved them and then could never find the perfect project for - it's nice to know that they are in something of Rob's.