Monday, October 3, 2022

I’m having trouble motivating myself. I came back from Texada determined to get the yard cleaned up, some housecleaning done and a few projects completed prior to my surgery. I’ve managed to do some yard work but I can’t seem to motivate myself to do anything else.

I finished clearing the driveway this morning. It took longer than I thought it would so I didn’t have time to do any work on the stone wall. I really wanted to get up on the ledge and clear away some bindweed that has come through the fence from the neighbour’s yard but I heard my family saying “Don’t do it”, so I didn’t.

As a result of a short chat with a Yellowknife friend (who was also recently diagnosed with breast cancer) I did a few exercises to increase my upper body strength. Pat has always been very fit but if she’s suggesting it I felt I should get started right away. I found five exercises that don’t seem too hard but that supposedly do the trick so I’ll continue with them on a daily basis until my surgery date. I have a booklet that shows me a number of exercises to do post-surgery and Kathryn assures me we WILL be doing them.

I’ve puttered a bit since lunch – I picked up and put away some fabric off the cutting table, I cleared out a Cranberry Hall paper file, and I took care of a couple of technical tasks for the Hall. For the rest of the afternoon I’ll work on my Botanical Garden – not something that I had on my list as needing done but it puts in the time.

Saturday, October 1, 2022

As I was pulling weeds out of the patio bricks this morning (again) I had the thought that the patio and driveway are a bit like having a dog. With a dog you have to constantly pick up their mess – do it one day, maybe miss a day or two, but you’ll have to get back at it soon. That seems to be the way of the weeds in the patio bricks. I cleaned them up last week and by the time we got back from Texada yesterday they needed to be done again. I got the patio bricks done before I moved on to what I really wanted done – the driveway.

I’ll need another day to finish it off. The driveway itself is done but we have a trench that drains (or is supposed to drain) the rain water and with this dry weather the weeds and grass have sprouted up. I didn’t have enough energy left to continue on; I managed just over two hours and I’m feeling it now.

I did a bit more Hall work today. I cleaned up the digital files when we were on Texada so I transferred them to a USB drive. I have a meeting tomorrow morning with the two people taking over the Treasurer’s job so I’ll pass the drive along to them and then, except for the paper files, I’m done. I think I’ve said that before though so you never know.

I have a new evening project – the knitting was just too hard to keep straight while we watched TV. I’m working on a stamped cross stitched tablecloth, one that Mum had but hadn’t started.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Tuesday night I had a terrible sleep because I kept thinking of that quilt top. The majority of folks liked the third (and most difficult) option but I knew I would have trouble aligning all the blocks properly. So when I got up Wednesday morning I was determine to use the first (and easiest) layout – at that point getting it done was more important than any artistic concerns.

Pat offered to go down to the workshop with me because he wanted to try something a bit different. I liked what he came up with but again, it was going to be difficult. I thought it showed off the floral fabric which is what I liked about the first and simplest layout. I powered on and hoped to have the top done by the evening.

Mid-afternoon, after ripping out various seams I made one more alignment mistake and gave up in disgust. But this morning I was back at it. I got the reverse stitching done, the seams sewn in the right order and I’m very happy with it. I’m not sure though if I’m happy because it is done or because I really like it.

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

I’ve been down in the workshop most of the day and it is time to make some decisions. Now that the blocks are all done I have to decide which layout I want for this quilt.

This was the first option suggested by the designer. I like it – it is simple and it wouldn’t be hard to get the blocks going in the right direction.

This was the second option suggested by the designer. I like it too – but I’ve made quite a few quilts recently with a similar layout.

This is an option that Deloise came up with when she put her blocks together without the help of the designer’s photos. I like it but it will be so hard to keep those blocks going in the right order so as not to mess up the pattern.

What do you think?