Life is happening in full force right now, disrupting all my plans, unfortunately not in a good way. Blogging and sharing pictures on social media is not high on my list of priorities at the moment. I am spending some of my energy on my vegetables, puttering around the garden makes me feel quite calm and relaxed. I have blanched and frozen a lot of spinach already, trying to get the most out of it before it bolts. The Super Gourmet Salad Blend from West Coast Seeds that KJ mentioned in a comment a couple of months back was my choice this year too, and I love it. Excellent results, and very tasty too. I did have a few mishaps though and killed all my cucumbers and most of my squash plants, and I also overwatered my tomato seedlings but I have learned that they are like weeds and very hard to kill. I transplanted them two weeks ago, and they made a very nice recovery. And I am very happy about the brassicas. We went through the trouble of building a cover for the whole bed, with rebar and PVC pipes (lots of good tutorials can be found on YouTube), and I bought some row cover fabric and a soaker hose. The brassicas are thriving in there, the cabbage moths and root flies can’t get in, and I haven’t seen any aphids yet (fingers crossed). The plants are huge and healthy, and the first florets are coming up on the broccoli. Even my own whimpy seedlings aren’t far behind the ones I bought at Minter’s. Last year I lost all but two broccoli plants to the maggots of the cabbage root fly. They just started drooping one day and keeled over the next, and when I pulled them, there were barely any roots left. So hopefully I will have a better harvest this year.

I will keep posting quilts when I have the time, and the Monkey Business BOM will continue as planned. The patterns are all written and will be published on the first of each month. Should I have to post a bit early or late, I will announce it in advance, so stay tuned for updates. This month, our monkey friend is still at the beach, playing ball and having a blast. The pattern is available for free download until the end of the month and will move over to the pattern store in July when the next block is published.

Click to download Monkey Business Block #6 pattern (English/Imperial)

April was a crazy month! It started with a pleasant surprise, I received a letter that because of my health issues I was considered “clinically extremely vulnerable” and was asked to book a vaccine appointment. Well, they didn’t have to ask me twice! I was very impressed by how well it was organized, there was no wait time at all, and everybody was friendly and cheerful. Then we had two weeks of summer. Yes, you read that correctly, from one day to the next the temperatures jumped up to summer highs. It still cooled down quickly once the sun set but it was very nice during the day. My veggies liked the weather as much as I did, and everything is growing nicely. And then, on a Friday night, my machine broke down. Not the machine itself but the computer control unit, and I had to ship it back to the company in Ohio. I had it back a week later, and while it was booting again, it kept crashing every ten minutes. So once again I had to send it in and wait for its return. The second repair luckily worked, and my machine is up and running again, and I have been quilting like crazy to catch up. Of course this happens in the middle of a pandemic when nobody has anywhere to go and they all keep bringing quilts and I am booked for weeks and weeks. I am very organized, and I can always manage a week of unexpected downtime but two weeks with the bookings I have right now just wasn’t possible. Everyone affected has been very patient, and one lady even moved her quilts to the end of the queue to give me some breathing room, so I am almost caught up by now. Next week I should be back to my normal quilting schedule, but I still have lots of other things to sort out that I just didn’t have the time for. I am really looking forward to the weekend!

As for our monkey friends, this month the little guy is ready for some snorkeling. I have only ever once tried snorkeling, a long time ago in Hawaii, and it was a wonderful experience. I would love to do it again some day. All those colourful fish, and we even saw a turtle swim by. Great memories! If you have been following me and my designs for a while, you know that I love bright colours. My monkey has turquoise and purple accessories this month, but you can pick whatever colours you like. There will be lots of different colours in the remaining blocks, and you don’t need to follow my choices, you can’t really go wrong here. As always, the pattern will be available for free download until the end of the month and then move to the store section when the June block is released.

EDIT: Another month has come and gone, and the fifth block is now available for purchase if you missed the free download in May.

Click to purchase Monkey Business Block #5 pattern (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Auch der fünfte Block ist jetzt auf Deutsch und mit metrischen Maßen als Kaufmuster im Pattern Store erhältlich.

(Kauf)Anleitung Monkey Business Block #5 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Spring is here, albeit a bit reluctantly, and my early veggies are growing nicely. In addition to peas and spinach I also planted corn salad. I found it listed in the West Coast Seeds catalogue and had no idea what it was. I looked it up and it turns out that it is the German “Feldsalat” (literal translation would be “field lettuce”), a cold-hardy salad green that is well-known in Europe and was super popular back in the 90s. None of my Canadian friends knew what it was. I highly recommend it. It is a bit like spinach, has a very mild taste and is harvested and eaten as a rosette of leaves. I am looking forward to a nice salad with a few mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. I have no idea why it is called corn salad, I don’t think it has anything to do with sweet corn. In any case, it is growing nicely already, and if you are looking for a new veggie to try, corn salad is definitely my recommendation.

In Monkey news, this month’s little guy is ready to play tennis. Doesn’t he look like a regular Björn Borg? Ugh, I think that reference is showing my age… I stopped paying attention to tennis after Boris Becker and Steffi Graf retired, so a long time ago, and I have never played myself, but it seemed like a nice activity for our monkey pal. As always, the pattern will be available for free download until the end of the month and move to the pattern store in May when the next block is released. Happy Easter!

Edit: April has come and gone, and the free download period is over. If you missed the free pattern, April’s block is now available for purchase in the store section

Click to purchase Monkey Business Block #4 pattern (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Den vierten Block gibt es jetzt auch auf Deutsch und in metrischen Maßen im Pattern Store.

(Kauf)Anleitung Monkey Business Block #4 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Another month, another monkey. Time sure flies even though we are not having as much fun as we would like to with the pandemic still going on. But vaccinations are underway, and we all have to hang in there just a little bit longer. With spring around the corner and warmer weather coming, it will hopefully get a bit easier. (My apologies if you are in the southern hemisphere, when I start rambling about the weather, I often forget that half the globe is in a different season.) Anyway, this month’s monkey is looking forward to dessert, he got hold of a nice cup of ice cream. Luckily he is also wearing a bib, the way he is swinging the cup around makes it quite likely that not all of it will end up in his mouth.

As always, the pattern for this block will be available for free download until the end of the month and then move over to the pattern store when April’s free pattern is published.

The first quarter of the year is over already, and the March block has moved to the pattern store. It is now available for purchase if you missed the free download. I have also created a pattern bundle with special pricing for those who missed all of the first three blocks.

Click to purchase Monkey Business Block #3 pattern (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Monkey Business pattern bundle 1, 2 & 3 (English/Imperial)

Auch der dritte Block ist jetzt auf Deutsch und in metrischen Maßen erhältlich. Und wer die ersten drei Blöcke komplett verpasst hat, kann ein Blockbündel zum Sonderpreis erwerben.

(Kauf)Anleitung Monkey Business Block #3 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitungsbündel Monkey Business 1, 2 & 3 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Welcome to February! Isn’t it nice how much more light there is in a day already? After the winter solstice it takes a little while before it is noticeable but by now I have been commenting on it at least every other day. I have stocked up on vegetable seeds, and I am eager to go. I will try to grow everything from seeds this year. If my attempts fail, I can always buy seedlings later. A very long time ago, maybe 25 years or so, I grew hot peppers on my balcony back in Germany. I started the seeds in a little windowsill greenhouse and then transplanted the seedlings later on. I had a huge success rate and a great harvest during the two years I did it, I produced many jars of hot sauce back then. It was a lot of fun, and since the pandemic will be around for quite a while longer, this will give me something productive to do (other than quilting, of course).

On to this month’s block: The dancing monkey was a lucky accident. I was manipulating the basic monkey body shape, trying to do something entirely different, and suddenly I thought, hey, that looks like the monkey is dancing! And with one arm overlapping the rest of the body piece, meaning I had to cut it as two separate pieces, I needed something to cover up the part where the two pieces meet. So I added a lei and declared the monkey a hula dancer. And yes, I know that hula dancers can be both male and female, and while I have never really thought about my penguins as male or female, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have an explicitly female monkey and added the little bow that picks up the lei colours. Some of the later blocks could actually be monkey children, so this year’s BOM will have the whole family pictured on their summer vacation. As always, the pattern will be available for free until the end of the month and move to the store section when the March block is published.

Edit: The March block was published this morning, and February’s block moved to the pattern store where it is available for purchase in case you missed the free download.

Click to purchase Monkey Business Block #2 pattern (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Auch der zweite Monkey Business Block ist jetzt auf Deutsch/Metrisch als Kaufmuster erhältlich.

(Kauf)Anleitung Monkey Business Block #2 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Welcome to 2021! May the new year be better and brighter than the last one! Let’s start it off with some fun stuff, the first block of my brand new “Monkey Business” Block of the Month 2021. This year there will be 12 blocks once again, all of them featuring a monkey. The first block has a monkey that is doing something close to what we would consider “normal” monkey things. The other eleven blocks are all more cartoonish, with the monkeys doing all kinds of summer things and carrying accessories. Think along the lines of last year’s penguins, and you’ll have the general idea. The finished block size is 10″ again. I don’t particularly like going over 8″ because larger blocks won’t fit on a regular letter page but even though I don’t mind small details, there are limits, so 10″ it is.

The finished quilt size is approx. 52″ x 64″. I will provide the finishing instructions with the last block. They won’t be anything special, just plain old sashing and a border. Feel free to come up with something a bit more creative if you find that boring. I have decided to do the same layout for future BOM projects, it makes writing the finishing instructions easier and faster. I would still like to see your finished blocks though. I have already received a few pictures of finished Penguin blocks, and I will create a gallery for all of you to see them. Hopefully next week, so stay tuned. Remember that you still have three months to send me pictures of your finished Penguin blocks to get the finishing instructions for free!

On the cover page of the first pattern, you can find an estimate of the amounts of fabrics that you need if you want to use the same fabrics for all twelve monkeys. There is no need to do that, just dig into your scrap bins and have fun. The accessories will need a lot of small scraps in different colours, and the exact colours don’t really matter, so go with what you have and use some of those scraps. You know they will multiply anyway as soon as you turn your back 😀

The free pattern will only be available in Englisch/Imperial again. There will be a German/metric version available for purchase later. The rest of the rules are the same as always, and I copied them from last year’s post:

A new block will be published on the first day of every month at 9 am Pacific Standard/Daylight Time. Any changes I might have to make due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control will be announced here on the blog. Since I am in the Pacific time zone,  it will already be the second day of the month for some of you. Please be patient and please don’t email me asking when the next block will be published. I don’t like to schedule posts to be published in the middle of the night. There can always be a problem with one of the pattern files, and I would like to be able to fix it within minutes instead of waking up to dozens of messages complaining about the bug. If you find an issue, then please don’t hesitate to contact me, so I can fix it ASAP.

Each block will be available for free download during the month of its publication. It will be moved to the store section when the next block is published. If you miss a block, you can still purchase it for a small fee. Please do not email me asking me to send you the pattern for free. I will ignore these requests. I only charge $2 per block (and that’s Canadian dollars – as I write this, this amount equals approx. 1.55 US dollars and a bit less than 1.30 Euros – you can’t even get a coffee for these amounts anymore!), and I will make bundle packs available again for three or six blocks, once we get there, that will give you an additional discount. Please respect my copyright and don’t pass your copy of the pattern on to your friend who might have missed the free download. This will just result in designers not offering free patterns anymore.

Thank you for reading all this, and without further ado, here is the download link for the first block. Enjoy!

EDIT: If you missed the free download in January, the first Monkey block pattern is now available for purchase in the pattern store.

Click to purchase Monkey Business Block #1 pattern (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Monkey Business Block #1 ist jetzt auch auf Deutsch und in metrischen Maßen als Kaufmuster erhältlich.

(Kauf)Anleitung Monkey Business Block #1 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

I have been posting teasers for a while, and today is finally the day to reveal next year’s Block of the Month project called “Monkey Business”. Boy, was it ever difficult to come up with a monkey that I liked! Sometimes I know in my head what it is supposed to look like but it is really difficult to bring my vision to life on my computer screen. Do you remember Monchhichis? They were all the rage in the early 80s, and my early drawings looked a lot like them, and I definitely didn’t want that. It took me two months to finally come up with a monkey face that I liked and that made me laugh. It probably didn’t help that I decided to learn how to draw in Inkscape. All my previous designs were drawn in Electric Quilt (EQ) which is a great quilt design program but I hit its limits on the appliqué drawing table some time ago. I am really glad I persisted and managed to acquire some solid Inkscape skills, it is so much easier to manipulate digital drawings with all the additional drawing options, and now that I am familiar with it, it makes the drawing much faster.

There will be 12 blocks again in 2021, and once again it will be a cartoonish style quilt showing monkeys participating in all kinds of activities. Since the penguins were skiing and sledding, I thought it would be fun to do summer things this time. The first block featured above* is the only one that remotely looks like a monkey doing “normal” monkey things, the rest of them are more along the lines of ice skating penguins. Have you heard of the saying (apparently from Poland?) “Not my monkeys, not my circus”? It has become some sort of mantra for me, trying to keep myself calm in these crazy times. Well, these ARE my monkeys, and they made me laugh a lot while drawing them. I hope you will enjoy them too and will join me in looking forward to a brighter year 2021.

Edit: I forgot to mention that it will start on January 1, 2021 at 9 am PST, and the rules will be pretty much the same as before, I will post details when I publish the first block. The blocks will be available for free download during the month of their publication (in English/Imperial only).

* The green and yellow border is NOT part of the block/quilt, there just wasn’t enough room for the text on the plain block.

And here we go: It’s December, and this is the last block of my Penguin Promenade BOM 2020. This last little guy is going down the mountain on his snowboard. I went with the brown fabrics that I used for the sled but you can use your imagination and give him all kinds of crazy board colours. Dig into your scrap bins! I hope you had as much fun with this project as I did. Remember that I will email you the finishing instructions if you send me pictures of your finished blocks until the end of March 2021. My email address can be found on the first page of every pattern. (Edit: As announced earlier, the finishing instructions will be available for purchase in January for those who can’t meet the March deadline.) (Edit 2: You can send me your pictures anytime, and you will receive a confirmation email. The finishing instructions will be mailed out in January when they are published.) As for the new BOM, it’s coming along nicely, and I am almost ready to announce it but not quite yet. Stay tuned, it shouldn’t be long. I am also quite confident that I will be able to publish the first block in January. Probably on the first of the month, as usual, or if I need a bit more time, I’ll switch it to mid-month and publish all blocks on the 15th. Either way, I will announce the details soon.

Don’t forget that the Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop also starts today. I am going to post on the last day which is Friday. Head on over to Carol’s blog Just Let Me Quilt to see the schedule and visit the participants’ sites for yummy recipes and lots of fun stuff. And please come back on Friday for my recipe (lots of chocolate!) and a giveaway.

The last Penguin block will be available for free download until the end of the month and move to the pattern store in January.

EDIT: The Penguin Promenade BOM is now finished. Any patterns you might have missed are available for purchase in the store section, including the last block #9. I have also created another pattern bundle at a discount price. The finishing instructions are available separately for those who are not going to make the deadline for sending in pictures of their finished penguin blocks. And of course the pattern for the whole quilt is also available for purchase as of now. Don’t forget to check out my new BOM for 2021 “Monkey Business” and download the free patterns every month.

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Block #9 pattern (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade pattern bundle 7, 8 & 9 (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Finishing Instructions Pattern (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Quilt Complete Pattern (English/Imperial)

Der neunte und letzte Pinguin-Block ist jetzt auf Deutsch als Kaufmuster im Shop erhältlich, ebenso die Anleitung zur Fertigstellung des Quilts für diejenigen, die es nicht schaffen, Bilder von ihren fertigen Blöcken pünktlich einzusenden. Es gibt auch wieder ein Blockbündel für die letzten drei Blöcke zum Sonderpreis, und auch die Anleitung für den kompletten Quilt ist ab sofort auch auf Deutsch erhältlich.

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Block #9 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitungsbündel Penguin Promenade 7, 8 & 9 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Fertigstellung des Quilts (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Quilt Komplett (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Can you believe it’s November already, and we have only one block left until the Penguins are complete? 2020 is a very strange year. Sometimes time doesn’t seem to pass at all with all the Covid restrictions and no place to go, and then you turn around, and it’s been eight months and we are getting ready for Christmas. With next year looming in the not so distant future, you are probably wondering if there will be another block of the month next year. The answer is, I am working on something but I haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I might or might not be able to publish the first block on January 1, stay tuned for further updates, I will announce the start date as soon as I can.

Back to our Penguins, this month’s block features a snowball fight. That was one of the first winter activities that came to mind but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought to come up with a fairly simple design for the block. So here we go, our snowball-throwing buddy is about to get hit in the face by an incoming snowball. The block is available for free download until the end of the month and will be moved to the pattern store in December when the final block is released.

EDIT: Block #8 is now available for purchase in the pattern store if you missed the free download in November

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Block #8 pattern (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Auch Block #8 gibt es jetzt auf Deutsch. Die Anleitung ist als Kaufmuster im Pattern Store zu finden.

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Block #8 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

Another month has come and gone, it’s October, and there are only two penguin blocks left after this one. On some levels, this year seems to drag on forever but then you wake up, and Christmas is coming. Well, I am exaggerating, of course, but the Christmas quilting rush is just around the corner, and the year will be over in no time. In gardening news, I have had decent success, considering that I had no clue when I started out in March. I had a huge tomato harvest and still have three trays of green ones ripening inside. I planted a second round of beans in August, and they grew like crazy and were ready to harvest within six weeks. I also planted more peas and spinach but these don’t mind cool and rainy weather so much, so they should be fine.  I am definitely going to do this again next year and have already started planning.

Coming up with winter activities for our penguin pals wasn’t as easy as it sounds. After going through the obvious ones like skiing and skating, I played around with lots of possibilities to fill the remaining blocks and came up with this ice fishing guy. Isn’t he reeling in a nice catch? The more blocks I made, the more I kept looking for interesting fabrics in my scraps to use for their accessories. Stripes and plaids work really well for scarves and mittens, polka dots and flowers are also good choices. The block will be available for free download until the end of the month and move over to the pattern store in November to make room for the next free pattern.

EDIT: If you missed the free download in October, block #7 is now available for purchase in the pattern store.

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Block #7 pattern (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Block 7 ist jetzt auch auf Deutsch erhältlich, das Kaufmuster ist ab heute im Pattern Store zu finden.

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Block #7 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

I will keep it short today as I am taking this week off, so you don’t have to read through my garden ramblings. I will be back next week after Labour Day with the start of this year’s Row Along with the theme “It’s A Garden Party”. I am scheduled to post on the first day which is September 8, so make sure you don’t miss the fun.

This month’s penguin is building a snowman… or maybe a snow penguin? The pattern will be available until the end of the month, as always, and then move over to the store when the October block is released.

EDIT: It is October, and the September block is now available for purchase if you missed the free download. I have also created another bundle for those who missed blocks 4, 5 & 6.

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Block #6 pattern (English/Imperial)

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade pattern bundle 4, 5 & 6 (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Block 6 gibt es jetzt auch auf Deutsch als Kaufmuster im Shop. Die Blöcke 4, 5 und 6 sind auch als Bündel zum Sonderpreis erhältlich.

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Block #6 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

(Kauf)Anleitungsbündel Penguin Promenade 4, 5 & 6 (Deutsch/Metrisch)

After a cold and wet June, July came with nicer weather, and it has been really hot for the past week or so. It feels a bit weird to be working on skiing and skating penguins when it’s 35 degrees outside. Celsius… that would be in the mid-90s Fahrenheit, I believe. I have never been a winter person, and I don’t like snow. Unless it is on the mountains and stays up there, then it’s pretty. And while I like skating, I have never learned how to ski. I gave it a try once, maybe ten years ago or so but I never got the hang of it. I believe that it is easier to learn when you are young and don’t even think about falling down and not being able to get up again or break a leg. My husband has been skiing all his life, and our son was a quick learner and went down the slopes in no time, and I decided that it was better to let them do their thing and not get in the way. I’d rather be quilting anyway.

In garden news, I lost a bunch of broccoli plants to the cabbage root fly. They were doing just fine, and then just fell over one day. Those little maggots had munched all the roots right off. Two plants were either not infected or strong enough to survive, in any case I harvested two nice crowns of broccoli last week, and they were so good. Now I am waiting for the tomatoes to turn red. I have a whole jungle of tomato plants with lots of green ones on the vines but no sign of red yet. The potato plants are all gone, I removed the last dried up stalks and leaves last week. Since I am not very patient, I already dug up some potatoes, I had to make sure there were some, right? I prefer firm potatoes, and this is a quite mealy variety but they make excellent mashies. Considering that I had no clue about gardening when I decided to do this in March, my first season is going quite well.

Okay, now back to winter and our penguin buddies. This month’s block features a penguin on a sled, all dressed up in matching ear muffs, mittens and a bow tie. The block will be available for free download until the end of the month and move to the store section in September.

EDIT: If you missed the free download of the August block, it is now available for purchase in the pattern store.

Click to purchase Penguin Promenade Block #5 pattern (English/Imperial)

EDIT: Auch Block 5 ist jetzt als Kaufmuster auf Deutsch und in metrischen Maßen im Shop verfügbar.

(Kauf)Anleitung Penguin Promenade Block #5 (Deutsch/Metrisch)