Monday, October 30, 2023

One of the hardest things about writing my Journal is coming up with a catchy (or not-so-catchy) title. All through the day I’m thinking of things I might write about and titles that come to mind. Today there were an abundance of ideas for titles.

I Should Have Given Up

I wanted to sit in the sunshine yesterday afternoon and my stitching table is in the perfect spot. I was ready to move ahead with my Baubles project. When I put it away last I realized I had made another mistake and was going to have to either take out some stitches or abandon the project entirely.

Today I felt more like taking out stitches than I did giving up so I did the reverse stitching that was required and moved on. I’m now one row of stitching beyond where I was yesterday and I hope I can continue on the right track. I’m stubborn enough to keep at it and the project doesn’t have a home so there is no rush to get it done.

Who Needs a Bird Feeder?

For the past few days we’ve had a bird making itself at home in one of the pots on the deck. Pat’s not sure what kind of bird it is but we’re having fun watching it. There must be something good in those marigolds. Can I hope that it is eating the weed seeds?

I May Never Go Upstairs Again

The woman from Texada delivered our new-to-us CD player to our door this morning and Pat wasted no time getting it set up. There were a few CDs included in the player, mostly Country and Western, and I kept most of them in. I started adding my own CDs and when I still had a few slots left I added some of Pat’s.

One of the CD players we had in the living room quit working quite awhile ago but we’d never done anything about it; they don’t make players anymore and we were lucky to find one for sale. Yesterday I pulled out all the CDs from it and Pat took it out of the stand this morning and got it ready to recycle. But he happened to check online and he thinks that he’ll be able to fix it with a $13 purchase of some new rollers. If it works we’ll have two players downstairs in Pat’s area and one in the living room.

We started listening to the music this morning and I don’t want to stop; I may never come upstairs to sew again. I guess it’s a good thing that I have the Baubles project to work on … forever at the rate I’m going!

Saturday, October 28, 2023

I’m quilting again today. I didn’t make the blocks for this quilt but I put the blocks together, sandwiched the top and now I’m quilting it. The blocks were hand pieced by someone who gave them to the Guild. When they were offered to the Guild at a meeting at least three years ago and no one wanted them so I said I’d take them. I like the fabrics; they are very scrappy and I think quite old as some of them aren’t even cotton. For lack of another name I’m calling this one Stars, although I’m quilting it with hexagons so that would work also. A lot of the blocks have stains and age marks on them (not my doing) so I’m thinking of how I might get them out before I donate it back to the Guild.

I’m only giving this quilt a name because in the past couple of weeks I’ve been looking for the names and dates for a couple of things that probably, at some time, were mentioned either in my Journal, on the Guild blog or even somewhere in my photos. While I looked this morning, without any luck, I found a date for something that I had, so far, only thought about needing to look for. So, for the bit of time I have left to work on this quilt, Stars it is.

Other than quilting it has been a quiet day. While we had lunch we watched a couple of episodes of Bodies – a sci-fi, time-travel series. We are both a bit confused and thought that we only had one episode left and we’d get all the answers we needed. We ended up watching two episodes but we still have questions. There is one episode left and, hopefully, all will be revealed.

Supper is in the oven so I’ll get back to Stars. Just a few blocks left and then I’ll move on to the borders.

Friday, October 27, 2023

Yesterday morning I finally got my cross stitching sorted out. I have a colour print out of the pattern, I have a black and white copy of the pattern to mark up as I move through the rows, I have a bookmark to keep my eye focused on the right row as I’m stitching and I swapped out one green colour for another so it would show up better. I’m still a long way away from getting my first bauble done but I’ve made a start that doesn’t look like it will have to be ripped apart.

I had coffee with Gail yesterday afternoon and got all the pieces cut for my next chicken block as well as for the bonus pattern. The pieces for the bonus block are pinned to the backing. We thought we’d go over to Texada this afternoon and I was ready to take this project for hand stitching but we have changed our plans.

Pat bought a CD player from someone on Texada and we were going to go across to pick it up. Pat had a meeting this morning so we wouldn’t have been able to get away until the afternoon ferry and we have to be back on Sunday so it seemed like too short a trip for the money it would cost. Monday to Thursday are free for us but we pay on the weekend. Fortunately Pat was able to work out a deal with the seller; she will bring it across on Monday and Pat will meet the ferry on our end.

I got back to some quilting this morning – yes, actual quilting. I’ve had a quilt sitting on my machine for months; to be honest I don’t remember the last time I worked on it. But today it is under the needle and I’m pleased that I still remember the design I was using and that I still seem able to manage it. Mind you I had to have a nap this afternoon but I don’t think that was stress from getting back to it.

The ball game starts soon and when that is over the Canucks have a hockey game. I’ll continue working until then.

Wednesday, October 24, 2023

I didn’t intend to go to the Guild sewing yesterday as my plan was to have a quiet day at home working on my cross stitching. I puttered around most of the morning doing some cleaning, some laundry and more organization in my sewing room. I settled in after lunch with my new Baubles pattern and was ready to go.

It didn’t go well and after taking out several stitches and starting over a few times I gave up in disgust and spent the afternoon working on my crochet project. I spent most of the evening working on that while I watched the last of “my” baseball teams get eliminated from the World Series.

But today was a new day. We got my new colour printer set up (thank you Elizabeth) but it took a lot longer than we expected. Pat did most of the set up as it will reside on the desk in the basement. I was able to print to it from my computer upstairs so I got my Baubles pattern printed in colour which is so much better.

Once that was sorted out I got my next chicken block and bonus traced onto freezer paper and the wool set aside for all the pieces. I’ll get the pieces pressed onto the wool tomorrow morning and that will be my sewing project for my Thursday afternoon sew and chat.

I volunteered to make lunch today and after that was done and eaten I got back to my cross stitching. It is going well so I’d better get back to it.