Block Lotto: January winnings - progress at last!

Well, I've finally found some time actually at home to start putting together my Block Lotto winnings.  All I can say is that it's fortunate that this is liberated patchwork, as it didn't occur to me to check that the blocks were all the same size before I started adding the sashing, and to be honest, some of the sashing probably isn't quite right, and also, my seam allowances aren't always spot on.  So, the cornerstones, well the best that can be said is they're in the corners!

Still, it's my first attempt at a quilt, and will be used to protect my bed from cat hair, so doesn't need to be perfect.  And I don't believe in the existence of the quilt police, or at least, I care not what they think.  That said, I think I'll pay a bit more attention next time!

The quilt is arranged 7 blocks across, 9 down in the spectrum, with cornerstones in the appropriate complementary colours with white sashing all around, or thereabouts as with it being a Block Lotto winnings, I've got more of one colour than others and some prints don't really fit anywhere particular, and I don't necessarily have quite the right shades of complementary colours.  The pic below shows I've actually got quite a few more to sash before I can even get excited about sewing blocks of blocks together....

I also have no idea whether it will be too big or too small for my kingsize bed, so haven't considered borders yet.  Other than maybe pianokeys or scrappy or depending on how many borders are needed and where, maybe some liberated lettering like Lazy Gal Tonya's (or rather a poor attempt at it to be more accurate) maybe saying 'Block Lotto January 2010' or similar might be good fun.

I made some dog beds for my sister's dogs (up in Northumberland) out of an old loose cover for my Ikea Beddinge sofa - those dogs will just chew it to bits so the fact it was worn out is irrelevant!  This is my dining room come workroom, with an huge pile of stuff to be stuck on eBay under the window.

Where have I been the last month? Up in Northumberland helping my parents move house and then recovering down here by trying to declutter a bit and jobhunt and get the jungle under control.  My computer got a virus and died, it's sort of resurrected, but there's lots missing and new stuff I don't know how to use.  Grumble grumble.  I've also been harvesting strawberries and cherries.  The picture below is the view from their garden room out across the National Trust Estate Cragside - we went on the rhodedendron filled estate drive when I was there - stunning colours as the azeleas/ rhodedendrons were out, but didn't take my camera.  Doh!  Bizarrely it was at Christmas whilst we were staying in a National Trust holiday cottage on the other side of the valley that they decided to move to Northumberland - it feels strange that we were sitting talking about the move back then whilst looking across at the house they're now living in! Who would have thought it?

I'm hoping to be a bit more active online in July - but the good weather's arrived (I believe it's going to hit the mid 80s today which will be nice) and I want to be out there lolling in the shade of my cherry tree.  The night's are a bit sultry so I've had my window open, and have to be slathered with mozzie repellent to survive.  The cat's struggling a bit again, he's not a very well boy, so off to the vet we go tomorrow.  Typically this is in the week my car insurance falls due, and now my washing machine appears to be breaking.  Sigh.  Still, I'll soon be poor enough to claim social security benefits - always a silver lining!

Talking of surviving, the foxcubs - I think there are now only 3.  And I think they're struggling for food as they make the most awful racket every night - I keep thinking they're killing something slowly but only appear to be arguing...  The biggest one's legs are beginning to go black and all have white tips to their tails.  I've been throwing water towards them as they were getting a bit bold and coming into the house, so they run if they see me, so no more pics sadly.  Can't have it both ways, they need to be wary of humans and if piccies is the price, then that's fine.

I am thrilled to finally have something to show on my Design Wall - other people are far more consistent than me, check them out at Judy's blog here.  Judy's blog is worth looking at every day - she and her husband have quite an eventful domestic life and I love hearing about it.  She also has great links to other quilters and is generally something of an inspiration all round!

And finally, here's my cherry crop from my garden - this is the second picking (and last as the birds have stripped the top third, I've stripped the bottom third and the middle third still has cherries, but I don't have ladders long enough and even if I did, the dizziness would cause some difficulties: they can be for the birds and windfalls for the foxcubs.  I've given most of the first picking away, but I want to keep most of these for me.  The bowl is about 25cm across - that's a LOT of cherries for one person with virtually no freezer space.  I need to do a recipie search for how to preserve them without using sugar (I'm cutting down).  Any suggestions?

The vixen visits...

I have bacon, I have ketchup, I have flour, yeast, salt, butter, sugar, black sesame seeds, eggs etc.  To cut it short I have all the ingredients to make a Sunday breakfast butty, but no actual bread.  So, now I've bought a hand mixer with dough hooks as well as whisk attachments (from Sainsburys only £13.  I dread to think how little someone got paid to make it and in what conditions, but it was the only one they had with both attachments).  So I made some.

Using a Delia Smith recipie that uses 4oz of butter (how much!) but she's right, they are tasty...  Although I only have wholemeal strong plain flour so they're a bit erm filling!.

Then as the oven was hot, and I don't like wasting energy, I made some rock buns filled with ginger preserve gifted to me for Christmas by my beloved cleaning lady - she was AWOL for months but now she's back (huge relief and excitement on my part, she's just bemused I didn't phone and ask her to come back, I was being polite and waiting) and is going to clean the cupboards next week, so I need to show I'm at least making an effort to eat her present!  They are also entirely wholemeal flour and are filling, but tasty.

They are also a bit more charred than they should be as I was busy eating the whole point of this Sunday morning cooking fest, the bacon butty... which resulted in Ivor following my movements closely in case of titbits (sorry mate, bacon's salty, you're not allowed any)

Back in the kitchen after eating the butty and rescuing the welldone rock buns, Ivor heard a noise outside, and abandoned the 'slinking around for leftovers' for 'battle mode' investigations...

You wouldn't think I'd only decorated that wall before Christmas would you? The landlord took the radiator off the wall and left a real mess that I'm going to have to paint over. Anyway, after tutting over the mess (again, but I'm waiting until after my exam on 19th to talk to him about it, I need quiet and can live with a long list of stuff he needs to do for now.)  I turned to the kitchen window and found the vixen mooching around the patio.  By the time I'd picked up the camera, she was up the steps investigating the cat flap,and hearing me, looked right into the window.

See? In the right hand window pane (yes I've not painted that bit of woodwork, my landlord took the gloss away for other purposes and I've not got it back yet). Then she shot off round the corner to dig up my veggie patch.

Amazing! And it's nice to see her close up - she's thin but healthy looking, a bit bedraggled by rain but not obviously mangy. In fact it's been raining all night - so there won't have been much takeaway food discarded in the local main streets, and she's probably a bit hungry as she needs to feed those growing cubs.

It's made my day! Not Ivor's though, he's now crouched by the cat flap snuffling anxiously. And not without reason, as she chased him onto that fence the other day.

Foxcubs update

After playing 'kill the bamboo cane' Ivor heard the fox cubs

And refused to go anywhere nearer to them than the edge of the 'lawn' (it's a lawn cos it's got grass).  You can tell it's the edge of the 'lawn' as the weeds and bricks take over (don't ask)!

And here are the foxcubs.  They've stopped being charcoal and begun to get their adult colouring.  This week I've only seen three together.  BUT, there were 3 in my garden then 2 in the other garden, so I suspect that's five.  Maybe all six are still alive...

It was interesting watching two disappear into the foxhole in my garden, and pop up from the hole next door, and then play through the fence with the one that stayed in my garden.  None fell in the pond this time!

It's perhaps for the best that Ivor's a bit wary; there was a dreadful noise the other day and the vixen had chased him out of next door's garden up a 10 foot high wooden fence that's hardened and weathered to narrow points at the top.  Ivor looked very uncomfortable making his way back down off the top of the fence to terra firma: probably because I was laughing so much...

Ivor's fast fast fast

Ivor wants to play...

He's faster pouncing than I am taking pics...

And here he is playing the well known cat game 'kill the bamboo cane'.

And now my garden's overrun by fox cubs!

There's been a lot of noise in the garden when I've been hanging out the washing in the last couple of days, and Ivor cat has been behaving a bit strangely (even more than usual!).

Yesterday there was a lot of crashing in the undergrowth and a very thin dishevelled looking fox ran away along the back wall.
Today, there was a lot of yipping and yapping.  On investigation it turned out to be 4 or 5 very tiny fox cubs, so young that they're still black with little white tips to their tails, looking bright eyed but not very bushy tailed, with very round bellies that could be the sign of well fed youngsters, but could equally be a terrible case of underfeeding and worms.

Unfortunately on even closer inspection (although fortunately you can't see in the pictures) towards the back of the foliage where the cubs were congregating was a dead cub!  Unsure what to do, I phoned the RSPCA then the Fox Project to find out.  Apparently older cubs could and would use it as a food source (and I would have been happy to leave it for that purpose), but cubs that young would not, so the best advice was to double bag it and put it in the dustbin.  Which is what I've done. 

But I am a bit worried about the cubs, as the dead one had pond weed on its belly (so had been a further 3-4 feet back in the undergrowth), and in the couple of hours from me initially finding the dead cub and then finding out what to do, the cubs had (I assume) dragged the dead cub into the den opening which is just under the bush trunk to the right in the bottom picture - another 2-3 feet. So I am concerned they are hungry and the vixen has met a nasty end somewhere. 

The Fox Project lady told me to keep an eye on them and see if they come out crying much in the next 24 hours.  I'm mulling over whether to tell her about the dead cub being half pulled into the den (it got stuck on the branches that have been in there for a few years, it can't be the main entrance which is probably somewhere else in the garden or next door) so she can come and collect them and look after them if necessary.

No doubt there have been litters living and dying for years at that end of the garden, but as I'm usually at work I wouldn't know.  But now I do know, so morally speaking I should pay attention. But I'd be happier if I knew what to look out for.

UPDATE: I phoned The Fox Project again to ask how I can tell if they've been abandoned, and she said I should sprinkle flour around the outside of the den then look to see what size footprints there are in the morning (big and little) so I got some flour, went down the garden, got caught up in the brambles and roses and nettles and sprinkled flour on two entrances thinking it's a bit odd there's not much sign of coming and going - only to look up into next door's garden and find an huge mound of earth and the obvious opening to a den - way beyond where I could reach to put flour down or even look for tracks.  Foiled again Mutley!  I may well wait for my neighbours to come back and ask their permission to be scratched to death by their bramble patch garden to check it out.  Or is that a bit excessive?!!

UPDATE 2: I went out to get the washing in this evening, and the cubs were out & about again - there are six (excluding the dead one), two of whom fell into the pond whilst I was watching.  Thankfully they got out again ok, but looked a bit cold and damp!  I've now put a metal grille in the pond so they can climb out a bit easier if they don't learn fast that the nice flat green layer isn't mown lawn, it's pond.  Small fox cubs, small children, they're all the same!!  I've also put down some food to help them warm up a bit.