Tuesday, November 14, 2017

I have a lot of days to catch up on so here we go.

The Texada retreat started on Friday but since hand stitching was canceled for Thursday I decided to take the mid-morning ferry across to the studio. My main project for the retreat was a Christmas one and I wanted to have a photo-type done before setting out on the multiples I had planned. I spent all day Thursday sewing; my new sewing/craft table works really well and I loved stitching on Pearl – the machine that I had taken to leave in the studio. In fact I loved it so much that I used it all weekend at the retreat and brought it back with me to be (again) my travel machine. The SUV will go back to the studio eventually but I want to take it in for servicing first; it works well but it is so noisy when I sew that perhaps something can be done about that.

The weekend goes by so fast at retreat. We started before nine every day and I wasn’t back to the studio until almost ten every night. I accomplished a lot on my Christmas projects but I have to admit that I was a little bored with them by Sunday night. I got a lesson in bias binding while I was there; I replaced the binding on my prototype after the lesson but I think I’m good to go for the rest of them. The retreat ended Sunday afternoon; I was so tired that I was in bed by 9:30 Sunday night.

There is always a weekend mystery project – we used to call it the Friday night project but it doesn’t always happen on Friday night anymore. This year’s was simple enough that I was able to complete it on Saturday afternoon in the allotted time frame. In planning for the project we had to bring two fat quarters; I breathed a sigh of relief knowing there were no zippers involved!

When we’re at the retreat we always play a game of strip poker – everyone brings five strips of a specific colour and we roll dice to see how fast we lose them. I’m usually out by the second round but this year I hung in the game. So many of the ladies were anxious to be out; I couldn’t stand their grumbling so I told them I was “in it to win”!. It came down to myself and one of our associate members from Ladysmith. Not surprisingly I lost in the final roll but Gail, bless her heart, ran to my sewing table and dumped all the strips on it; she said I could have them. So I now have 100 turquoise and burgundy strips that I need to do something with before the next retreat. I’ve been looking at two-colour quilts online; I’ll keep looking until I find one I like that is done with strips.

Our challenge for next year will also be fun. We each took a one-meter cut of fabric and ripped it in half. We kept half and pass the other half to the person beside up. We ripped the half-meter we received and kept half and passed half along. At the end of the game we were to end up with five different fabrics that we have to use to make something for next year; we can’t add any fabric of our own and we have to use at least some of each fabric we received. I say we were to end up with five different fabrics but I only have four different ones because two people had the same fabric and I ended up with two of those pieces. I already have an idea of what I might make, but I haven’t really checked it out to see if it will work with what I have.

I stayed on Texada for an extra day. I have joined the Texada Guild and they were sewing all day on Monday so it seemed like a good time to get my feet wet with them. And get my feet wet I did as we had (and are still having) a tremendous storm. Several ferries off Texada were canceled on Monday but the five o’clock ran; that was the one I intended to take. Had it not run there was another at seven but I’m not sure I would have sat in the line-up that long. Having the studio is a nice option on weather days!

I was out the door early this morning headed to the regular Tuesday bee; I had all the Guild’s power bars and irons in the trunk of my car so I had to get there early. I am scrambling to get a quilt top ready for my long-arm quilting session tomorrow. With the exception of two borders and cutting batting and backing I’m almost ready.

I hate to go out in the storm again but tonight is QiGong so I guess I’ll have to brave the weather.