Wednesday, January 10, 2024

It has been a whirlwind day but at least a few things were accomplished.

The quilting work I was doing this morning went well. My test project needed a bit of attention and I’ll finish the hand stitching on it tonight. One down, two to go. I managed to get the quilting done on three of the four pieces for the next sets before lunch.

While we had lunch there was a notice from HP that the free ink subscription we got with the colour printer (thanks Elizabeth) was running out. Under that plan we could print up to 700 pages but I doubt I’ll print that many pages in a year. If we continued with that plan we were paying a lot every month. We found a much more reasonable plan for a lot less money but I wanted to get some of the pages I had set aside for printing done before our current subscription ran out.

I managed to print off a few pages and then everything stopped. We changed the black cartridge but the colours seemed to be fine so we didn’t change the colour cartridge. Once the cartridge was changed we couldn’t figure out how to get the queue going again so I deleted everything and sent everything to the printer again. I thought I had it all printed but when I went downstairs to pick up the pages I noticed that the colours were all coming out pink. We changed the colour cartridge this time and I finally got everything printed – some pages printed more than once because this time the queue worked.

After the printing fiasco was sorted out I finished quilting the fourth piece of my project.

It’s time now to get myself organized for two days of sewing with Stacia and Deloise. I’m glad I sorted out fabric for my project because I’m too tired to think about it now. I should clean my sewing machine but I’m going to hope it sees me through the next couple of days.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Yesterday afternoon I packed my bags to get ready for sewing today. I didn’t load everything downstairs though because I said if it snowed I wasn’t going to go. It wasn’t snowing but I decided when I got up that I was going to stay home, thinking I’d get more done at home than I would at the Guild. I wanted to look through the fabric at the Guild to find some fabric for binding so I went to the Guild for lunch before looking through the bins. I found one piece that might work if there is enough and another piece that I was sure was enough but I wasn’t sure it would suit. I’m still doing the quilting so I don’t need to decide right away.

So back to my morning sewing. It was going well and in my head I was well on my way to being done before the end of the day. It was all going well that is until it stopped going well and I had to do some repair work. What I’m making is a secret (I need three of them) and one of the steps involved turning the project inside out. I managed to get it turned only to find a couple of seams that didn’t catch properly. So I turned it inside out again and did more stitching. Another turn and I found another spot that needed repairs. Before lunch I managed to get one turned properly and it is almost done. I learned a lot from that first one so, hopefully, the other two will be quicker.

I’m definitely on the last round of my tablecloth; I finished the squares for the last round last night and tonight I will get them attached. I think I’ll do a couple of rows all around the outside edges and then I have to figure out what I’ll do with Mum’s squares. I’m looking forward to starting a new project but I won’t do that until this one is done.

There’s another hockey game tonight so you know where I’ll be.

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Before Christmas I was looking through the recipe drawer for my Tourtiere recipe – what a mess that drawer was. So I pulled out all the printed sheets and decided it was time to organize them into a binder. Many of the sheets were from Mum’s recipe book and several were print-outs from the internet or recipes I’ve had sent electronically from someone. I’ve been spending a bit of time every week getting the mess sorted out. While I’m at it I should be picking out a recipe or two to try because there are a lot of untested ones in the bunch.

I hadn’t updated my quilting binder for a long time. I printed some of the pages but they hadn’t been inserted into the book. I got my printing done at Staples so I always let the number of pages accumulate before I printed them. Thanks to Elizabeth I have my own colour printer now so it should be easier to keep up with them – particularly at the speed of which I manage a finish. I even found a few things that I hadn’t realized I didn’t have in the binder. I’m all caught up now, except for the projects that are still UFOs.

I’m continuing with my quilting today. I think I’ll be able to get the blocks quilted before supper but I’ll likely only make a start on the sashing and binding. Last night I added two more rounds on my tablecloth but I think I’ll still do another one. I might have been able to quit where I was but I found squares that I had made and tucked away in the bottom of the basket that I use beside my chair. I hate to waste them.

So not really resolutions, and nothing really done!

Saturday, January 6, 2024

I decided I would devote most of the weekend to quilting. I started quilting this Community Quilt before we went to Texada. I left everything set up on my machine so I wouldn’t move on to anything else before it was done. I didn’t put the top together but I brought it home to quilt because I could see an easy quilting pattern to use on it. I’m about half-way done, although there are still some ends to bury and threads to trim off. I pulled out some binding from my stash but I’ll check in the Community Quilt bins first to see if they have something I could use and that might match one of the fabrics in the blocks.

I was hoping I might be done with my tablecloth but when I did the measurement last night I still have a couple more rows of squares to add. I’m still not sure how I’ll add in the squares that I have left from the original tablecloth that Mum started but I won’t worry about that until I have the base done.

I can’t stop thinking about the Stash Buster Challenge I’m doing this year. The photos show the blocks done in a variety of colours; I wanted to use my green scraps but thought it might look odd in one colour. This morning someone posted a few blocks done in green in the Facebook group and I really liked it. So that’s how I’ll be doing mine. I haven’t done any work on it yet other than pull a few green and neutral fabrics. I think this is what I’ll work on during our at-home retreat weekend at the end of the month.

Canucks are playing tonight and it is an early game. I’ll be able to stop quilting before I tire of the whole thing and I just might get another row done for the tablecloth.