All posts by Sherry

Checking in

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Just checking in to let you know we haven’t (yet) been buried in snow. The second batch of snow is still on the ground and we are getting another bunch now. It has been so cold that they are letting us into the movie theatre early so we don’t all freeze in the line up. I know none of you feel sorry for us but I thought I’d try for some sympathy.

I’ve been getting up early in the morning to do some quilting before starting my “real” day. It is going well, but it takes a long time to put an eight-pointed star on 111 blocks. My goal is to have the quilting done by the middle of the month and I think I’ll make it.

I’ll be taking a break from movies and quilting for the next couple of days. We have a house concert here tonight (my cleaning has been done in quilting breaks) and tomorrow we’ll be doing it all again on Texada. I don’t always go to the Texada shows but I haven’t been over since Christmas; I get little enough recognition as part of the sponsoring team so I like to show up occasionally.

We’ll be back on Tuesday and there will be a week of films and more quilting.

 

2019 Film Festival – Part 1

Shoplifters

As the movie opens we see three generations of a family living together in very cramped quarters. The son and his father have a very unique way of shoplifting to support the family. But suddenly a young girl joins the family and it isn’t until the son is caught stealing that we realize we haven’t been watching a “normal” family at all. When the background of the various characters is revealed you have to question what a “family” really is. It was a good movie and that little girl tore my heart out from the moment I saw her.

 

Becoming Astrid

The movie opens with the elderly character of Astrid Lindgren (author of the Pippi Longstocking stories) opening birthday cards from children. She is surrounded by bags and bags of what we can only assume is fan mail. But the movie reverts to a much younger Astrid and details parts of her life from a teenage pregnancy through to her finally claiming and bringing home her illegitimate son. The movie was well done but it ends before she even begins her writing career.

 

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes

I knew going into this that I probably wouldn’t enjoy it much but this first film of the festival came with an opening night gala – entertainment, snacks and booze. I don’t enjoy jazz and I admit I snoozed through some of the film. It wasn’t all for naught though. One of the scenes showed a photo of a man wearing a knitted sweater and the pattern looked to me like the Tumbling Block quilt pattern I intend to make for Dylan. Sure enough, when I googled it at home I found an afghan pattern for tumbling blocks!

 

Snow, movies and quilting

Friday, February 8, 2019

I’m still sorting out whether or not it was a good Guild meeting last night or a terrible one. On the good side my name was drawn for a gift certificate from the fabric shop and I got another lovely package from my Secret Pat. Also on the good side I got my name in for the Spring Retreat. It was only announced last night but my name is quite a way down on the list of participants. On the bad side though I have a new job for the quilt show. Someone brought me three bags full of magazines that she wanted me to offer for sale through the library (I have become somewhat of a dumping ground for this sort of thing). Another quilter said she had bags of magazines at home as well and she thought we should offer the magazines for sale at the show – she had been to a recent show in the Lower Mainland and said they made a ton of money through sales. So I’ll be manning the magazine table at the show, which is fine because I wasn’t signing up for any of the other duties thinking in my mind that I was going to be busy with door prizes throughout the day.

There has been a lot of snow since last night. It is the heavy sort that weighs down the tree branches. It snowed most of the morning, stopped for awhile, and then started again. It has stopped again now but we’re wondering what the roads will be like tonight as the temperature drops below zero.

I thought I might get at some quilting early this morning but when I woke up I realized that the stairway up to my sewing room was blocked with all the stuff I brought home from the meeting last night – those bags of magazines, several baskets to use for the prizes and a few donations for those baskets. So I went back to sleep for awhile. I quilted most of the morning but after lunch I lay down and finished reading my book. The film festival begins tonight so it will be better to be reading from my Kindle and I hate to be reading two books at the same time.

Yes, film festival is on for the next week. We’ll miss a few showings because of the House Concerts (and a quilting class I’m taking next Saturday)  but I’m sure I’ll feel I have seen enough by the end of next weekend.

Thin Air

Author: Ann Cleeves

No surprise that I loved this book. I’m familiar with all the characters from previous books I’ve read and the television series. I learned something new in this reading – I always thought Jimmy Perez’s wife had died of natural causes but apparently she was murdered. Now I want to go back in the series and see how that happened. I’ll also be checking out the Shetland series on Netflix; I don’t think this was one of the shows but if it was I want to see it again.

Goodreads Rating * * * *