Wednesday, January 10, 2018

I planned to get the Cranberry Hall minutes out this morning, do a couple of quick Guild updates and then move on to something more fun.

I was barely started on the minutes when Pat arrived home; I wasn’t expecting him until the noon ferry. I was almost done the minutes when friends dropped by so I took a break for a visit. I was done the minutes before lunch but while I was eating Pat needed some figures from our Cranberry Day celebration and it took all my afternoon time to get them together (and balanced).

I had an appointment at the medical clinic and as I headed into the pharmacy a young woman was looking for jumper cables. I know that sick feeling when your car doesn’t start and I told her I had cables but had only watched them being used once. No problem as another young woman in the pharmacy knew how to use them but didn’t have any in her car.

The two women got everything connected but when they tried to start the cars, neither one would turn over. Just then a woman came out of the pharmacy and said she would bring her car over and we could start both cars. This woman knew what she was doing and without any hesitation she had Car #2 hooked up. It started fine and then she did the same with Car #1.

My job – possibly the most difficult of all – was getting the cables back into the carrying case!

It’s nice to know that my cables are being put to good use. I really must learn how to use them.

Monday, January 8, 2018

Why is it that a miniature quilt takes so long?

I worked on this project almost all day yesterday. I had the top all ready for the final border when I realized that two of the blocks were upside down. Fortunately they were both in one row so only one row had to come out. It was almost 8:30 before I finished the blocks and the border.

My goal today was, of course, to finish the project. I told myself that if I finished the straight-line quilting before lunch I would attempt some feathers in the border. Neither the straight-line quilting nor the feathers took very long and I was finished it all before lunch. I can’t say what type of bird these feathers came from but I can assure you that the bird couldn’t have been flying very straight. It was my first attempt at feathers on a wall hanging for myself so I’m going to say it was okay.

I was just putting in the finishing stitches to attach my binding when I realized that I stitched the binding on backwards. So now I’ll reverse stitch that and start over again. Hopefully I will still have time today to do the hand stitching – and I don’t want a late night.

No wonder these small projects take so long!

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Although there were errands I could have done today I chose to leave them all and spend the entire day at home.

I spent all morning going through some files on my computer. That led to some updates to my website, as well as getting pages ready for my Project Book. I’m so glad Stacia got me started doing those pages. I don’t have a colour printer anymore so I create pages as PDFs and have them printed at Staples. I hadn’t done a printing update since March last year so I decided to send my order in rather than go to the store and print the pages myself. They were ready earlier this afternoon but, as I said, I decided I wasn’t going out.

I thought I might get everything set up out on the deck and sandwich a quilt but when I stuck my nose out the door it felt cold so I decided that task could wait for a nicer day. I planned to spray baste the sandwich (before adding the pins) and I wasn’t sure how things would stick in the colder (and damp) weather. It is raining now so perhaps it was just as well I didn’t get started.

There were no shortage of other things to do. I have a miniature meeting at the Guild on Tuesday and my project was barely started. I’m using a different technique in order to get a certain look that I want – with one row finished I’m not sure the look is going to be right but there is no way I’m going to start over. Think miniature – half inch squares in some spots!

Friday, January 5, 2018

I knew I had a busy day planned but I didn’t think the day would be completely gone before I was finished all my tasks!

Before heading out for my cleaning gig at the Hall I loaded up my cans and bottles, as well as my recycling for the depot. The trunk of my car was full of bottles and the back seat was full of cardboard, styrofoam and plastics, as well as a big bag of shredded paper.

The Hall cleaning came first. I’ve only done it once before so I don’t have the routine down as well as our regular cleaner – she takes two hours but I took closer to three. There is so much debris tracked in at this time of year and neither the broom, the mop or the vacuum seem to be able to rein in the pine needles. There was still a bit of snow on the deck so I shovelled it off; it was raining out but I thought it would disappear faster if it was thrown out onto the driveway.

I stopped at the bank and Canadian Tire on my way to the recycling depot. I am donating our Tassimo to the Guild and I wanted to purchase some pods for it so I could make sure the machine was still working. I had to pick up something else at Canadian Tire so I decided to get the pods there rather than make another stop. After the recycling depot I was off to the bottle depot – it seemed like a lot of cans and bottles for only $5! Just as I was leaving the bottle depot the gas light on my car came on – I had planned to make that stop next anyway.

It was almost two before I was home. I had a nice long chat with Stacia and then did a bit of cleaning in my own house. My wrists are sore from all the mopping, wringing and overall use – hopefully they will still allow me to do some knitting this evening.