Friday, July 21, 2023

I’m finally accepting that there are limits to how much I can do in a day. I stitched with Stacia and Deloise yesterday – we checked in with each other twice during the day, the last time was at three my time. Of course they were both done their projects and I was still fighting with the first step of mine. After our last check-in I called it quits for the day – and then slept for two hours.

I thought my limit for yard work was an hour but today I only lasted half an hour. I was working on the weeds in the driveway so I was down on my hands and knees. My feet were really giving me grief though as I had them bent over to give me the balance I needed. I didn’t get much done but I have to say that the weeds came out quite well. I thought I might take another run at it this afternoon but that isn’t going to happen. I think I could nap for another couple of hours this afternoon but I’ll fight a little more with my project and then retire to the basement. It’s a good thing we don’t have a sofa down there or I’d be napping every afternoon and evening.

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

I learned today that my limit is for yard work is an hour – at least for now. I got out early as I wanted to get the daisies deadheaded. Once I was out there I pulled a few weeds on my way across to the daisies. It seems to me that the bark mulch was just spread over the top of the soil and buried but didn’t get rid of the weeds. They have started to come back already and are just that little bit harder to pull out. But help may be on the way. I have a gardener (yes, a gardener not a landscaper) coming over tomorrow to see if she is willing to take on the maintenance on a regular basis. Fingers crossed that she won’t be too expensive.

After a bit of a rest I moved upstairs and finished the bin of shredding. The floor was a mess when it was all done so I got out the vacuum, moved around the furniture and cleaned up the floor. Next on the list was clearing my sewing and cutting tables so I’ll be ready for stitching with Stacia and Deloise tomorrow.

I also found time to find a new cross stitch sew-along which I may or may not do. The clues come out once a week and I wasn’t impressed with the first pattern but it is from a site that I’ve worked with before and was really happy with. I’ll continue to download the patterns and see at the end if it is, indeed, something I want to work on.

I have some hand stitching to do for the remainder of the afternoon and I’ll do it in the cool of the basement.

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

I had forgotten how much there was to do to get ready to go sewing, and how long it takes to do all those things. I usually have four bobbins pre-wound but yesterday while I sewed I ran out of my last one. So first thing this morning, while I had my coffee, I wound up four more. I’m glad I did more than one because the first one ran out before lunch.

I took along a really easy project. I had a bin of scraps that people had given me over the last year. Normally I would have cut them down into squares or rectangles of varying sizes but I decided that I was just going to sew them together into 12.5″ blocks and use them for backings on some of my donation quilts. I didn’t make much of a dent in my bin and I didn’t get even one block done, but I was working to get pairs of scraps sewn together.

I thought I was out early enough that I could park right outside the door but they must start earlier than I remembered as I had to park at the far end of the parking lot. I had to make two trips from the car to the sewing area – one with the cake, and another with my bin and machine. Someone set up a table and found me a chair and they said next time they will carry my stuff in for me. Does that mean I need to take another cake?

The cake was a hit, but I’m not surprised. People kept saying I had brought a carrot cake and I reminded them it was a pineapple cake. But then I just told them that it really didn’t matter what kind of cake it was because it had a cream cheese icing! People were cutting pieces to take home to their husbands, and I know some of them had more than one piece.

I came home right after lunch. I don’t know if it was the excitement or all the chatter but I was exhausted. I had a little snooze in front of the TV in the cool of the basement and I feel much better now.

Christy, I know I said I’d write about the yard but I just haven’t got out to take photos. I’ll do that tonight when I water and I’ll get that post done tomorrow – unless something more exciting happens.

Saturday, July 15, 2023

It’s always a good day when I get to use my glue gun. But before I get to that I’ll do a little catching up.

I’ve had a wonderfully relaxing time on Texada but I’m back in Powell River for a week. Pat has some recording sessions booked for early next week and I’d have to be quiet while they were in session. Since I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything (including use the washroom, sew or move around) I decided it would be easier to be at home. I’ll be sewing with Stacia and Deloise on Thursday and the project I’m working on will be very tricky and not one I wanted to do on the sewing machine I have on Texada.

Speaking of sewing … I moved my sewing equipment from the workshop to the studio. It took a few different configurations before I got it arranged so everything was workable and I still had room to move around. I used the design wall to sort out a quilt top; once that was stitched together I put up 154 blocks that will be the centre of another quilt and Pat worked his magic at arranging them. I just barely got those together before we came home. I still have two more quilt tops to put up on the design wall but I may not get to both of them this time.

I spent some time working on a small wool embroidery project. Stacia, Deloise and I are going to be working on a larger project but I wanted to get in some practice before we started. I’ve not done much in the past, although judging from the number of patterns and pieces of wool felt I have I must have planned to do much more. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the process and can’t wait to get started on the larger one. I was also working on a cross stitch pattern that I started at the Lodge in Vancouver. I didn’t spend as much time in the hammock as I thought I would but I still got a lot of reading done. I’ve posted my books here if you want to see what I was reading.

I’ve had a busy day today at home. I started emptying and sorting out the bins I brought back from Texada and putting things away. I sorted out a bin full of photos when I was on Texada and hoped I was finished but as I was putting things away I found enough more to fill another bin. They will go across with me on my next trip. I’ve done a bit of shredding too as I don’t like the photos to just go into the garbage or recycle, although that would be much quicker.

I was looking for fabrics for a mystery quilt I’m doing this summer and that meant a dive through my fat quarters. I found a few and put everything away. But then I decided I didn’t have enough variety so I dug out some yardage and did another dive through my fat quarters. And to finish off my time I did a third dive to pull some fabrics to send to Emma.

I had a knitting book to put away and that just led me down a big rabbit hole. I sorted through all my knitting and crochet patterns; some I kept but many I will be giving away and some are just throw aways that were copies of patterns I got from the web. There were a couple of magazines that I had marked for knitting patterns but on second look I decided I wouldn’t keep them. There were a couple that had cross stitch patterns that I liked and wanted to keep so they have to go into a separate collection. I found a pattern book with Aunt Almeda’s name on the cover and I’ll send it along to Marlene as she is quite the knitter. I also found a couple of patterns that might have been Grandma McKnight’s that will be making their way to Audrey and Jackie (whether they want them or not!).

Now, back to the glue gun. As I was sorting through the new bins of photos that need to be sorted one rather nice box had the leather binding coming off. I remember getting a set of three stacking boxes at a yard sale a long time ago – one has some small quilt projects in it, and two of them had photos. By fixing the binding I’ll have another bin to put something in but I don’t think it will be photos – maybe my new wool embroidery project?

This is rather a long-winded post but Pat kept urging me to get back to regular posts. Tomorrow I’ll deal with the updates to our yard.