Keryn has been badgering me to do another blog post- "I'm sick of that damned piece of toast!" were her exact words. Yes, the weeks have flown away and we're still busy, but the main problem was I don't have a good camera these days, and a post without photos isn't much chop in my opinion. I bought a new camera last week, but it's only a cheapie, and it remains to be seen if that will solve the problem.

I wasn't surprised that the jaffle irons are available under different names, they're too good an idea not to be widespread. I don't think Australians have ever put sweet fillings in them as Laura said, but we may try that at our next breakfast. My favourite was always spaghetti and cheese, tasty but rather messy to eat. And I'm sorry, but the square ones don't taste the same, I think because the crust gets cut off with the round ones, much nicer.

On the quilting front I've been plodding away at pieced borders for two quilts, and I think I've put myself off them for life. Hopefully they will both be finished this weekend and I can go on to other interesting projects. I've never felt so mired down and bored with everything, but I'm making myself go on. I may be so relieved when I get these done that I start a couple of new things, that always revives my enthusiasm.

I have two customer tops to do, beautiful applique patterns, both queensize and with lots of wideopen white space for feathers. I've been puzzling about what sort to put there, and decided to see if I could something along the lines of Jamie Wallen, really closepacked feathers with no background showing.

So I did a bit of a practice to see what felt comfortable and it was so much fun.
Sometimes one direction that you stitch will have better results than others, so I need to experiment and work out a pattern of movements.
I'm going to fill up this piece of homespun until I know what I'm doing, ditchstitch the applique and then go to town. I'll let you know how it turns out!
And yes Meggie, Macca is a gorgeous boof, but he's a boof with a flowerpot on his head at the moment.
He keeps scratching his ears until they bleed so he's been wearing this natty headgear until we could get to the vet. It's not kind to laugh at him, but he's hysterical to watch. He still plays all his fastpaced games, but he can't see where he's going half the time, and blunders around trying to find his toys. He's discovered that he can use the edge of the pot to flip the ball into his mouth, and that he can even catch it behind his head and let it roll round into his waiting jaws. This dog is unfailingly good natured, adaptable and ready to get on with life and fun no matter what. He has a lovely personality.

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On Friday afternoon I had removed a large quilt from the frame and was pinning on the second one of the day when all the power went off. Some work was being done down the end of the road involving the local waterworks, the phone company and now electricity was turned off. I didn't even feel the slightest bit annoyed, instead Keryn and I got in the car and went for a drive. We couldn't use the computers, the phones, the longarm, the sewing machines, nothing. So off we went in the beautiful sunshine, on a backroad to a neighbouring town, and admired the clouds and green fields and didn't even feel a bit guilty.

This morning I got a call from Matt that he was starting a fire, and did we want to cook breakfast out at the park. That sounded pretty good too, so we grabbed our supplies and headed off.
There's something about toast cooked over the coals, it was absolutely delicious spread with real butter and Rose's Old English Marmalade. Then sausages and bacon, and a childhood favourite, Jaffles.
I don't know if anyone else in the world has these, or a version of them; we call them Jaffle Irons. I can't use them on my electric stove, they need gas flames or hot coals to work properly. We laid a piece of buttered bread on one side, cracked an egg onto it and then laid another piece of buttered bread on top. Into the coals, and five minutes later, perfection..
This particular jaffle iron is nearly sixty years old and still going strong, it's seen a lot of use over the years.

The dogs had a great breakfast too, there was a lot of very nice 'sitting' and perfect 'staying' going on. It's amazing how focussed they can be when there's food involved.
And Macca will not believe that he's too big to be a lap dog, he managed to cram himself onto each of us in turn.What a big boof he is!
I think Sunday morning breakfast at the park might become a regular thing, it was just what we needed to relax after all our work.

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Yesterday I left the quilt I was working on ( the second of the day ) and tottered in to Keryn's office, when she was typing frantically at the computer, answering some desperate email and tearing her hair out over a photocopier that won't print nicely. "Do you realise" I asked her "That we have worked 17 days in a row?" She turned a half-crazed face to me and uttered a sort of scream that frightened Dolly - apparently my observation hadn't helped matters any. We can't go on like this....

Years ago, when my boys were little, they used to watch Star Trek, Next Generation at a friend's house. My sci-fi experience had been limited to John Wyndham novels and an enthusiastic embracing of the Star Wars movies when they first came out.

Because the boys enjoyed the series so much we began watching it at home, and then we progressed to Voyager and Deep Space Nine when they began to be shown.I was never taken with the Klingon's bloodthirsty ways, but the boys loved them and there were many bat'leth fights all over the house. (Word of warning, don't start searching Star Trek sites, there are some strange people out there...)

It was always a good weekend when there was a stack of rented episodes next to the main tv and we had our own little marathon. I quilted and pieced many projects to those series, and the boys drew, worked on the computer or played video games on a second tv with the sound turned down. It was very companionable and made for some good family bonding.

However, the boys moved on to other enthusiasms and somehow I was the only one left an ardent fan. I still am to this day, although half of my enjoyment is picking on my least favourite characters and groaning at the "Kill the Extra" mentality. I own all the series except the original, can't come at that somehow, and I regularly revisit them, just for a laugh.

Now those warrior Klingons have a battle cry of "It is a Good Day to Die!!", followed by a blood-curdling "ROAHHRR!!!" After the first seven days of quilting without a break, I tried to whip up some enthusiasm with my own little catch-cry of "It is a Good Day to Quilt!!", followed by the "ROAHHR!" Keryn was a bit non-plussed, and half heartedly repeated the words, but refused to do the roar. Wuuss.
Perhaps we could be the Duras sisters of quilting, Lursa and B'Etor! Except they were the baddies and it's getting too chilly for those outfits (you wouldn't want to get a cold in THOSE chests) and Keryn doesn't like the whole forehead ridges thing.

I'm facing at least three more big quilts before I can take a break, and I don't think I can manage the quilting cry today. I'll do my best, but it's more likely to come out as "It is a good day to quilt; squeak."

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