Monday, November 21, 2016

Cleaning out the laundry room went much quicker this morning than I expected; well maybe it wasn’t quicker but I had an early start on it (about 8:00 AM) so it didn’t take too much time away from my stitching. My car trunk is full of bottles to be returned, recycling to take to the depot, and a few bags to drop off at the Economy Shop. I thought I would also get that done today, but I don’t think the recycling depot is open on Monday so I’ll do it all at the same time tomorrow.

I have finished my quota of charms for the day (but I won’t be stopping until supper time). Because I was doing loads of laundry and drying (and I know how long a load takes), I realized that each of those charms takes at least an hour to do. That kind of math I can figure out – 25 charms = a minimum of 25 hours. I’m hoping to have them finished and a photo for you tomorrow.

While I’ve been stitching the charms my mind has been wandering. I have two other projects that these charms would be perfect for so I’m thinking I won’t put them away when I’m finished this lot. Knowing how much time they take to stitch makes me think that if I want them done for next Christmas, without a short deadline, I should just continue on.

I’ll have one more cleaning session before I’m finished, as well as a few touch ups on Wednesday morning. I’ve decided that I will skip the bee tomorrow. Pearl (my traveling machine) is set up for invisible machine appliqué and that really isn’t what I need to be working on. I have cards to do, a couple of blocks for our Guild’s Block of the Month, and of course doing the finishing work on the Advent Calendar. I can accomplish a lot more at home than I can at the Centre, and the bonus is that if I skip the bee I won’t have to write a Guild blog at the end of the day.

I finished another small knitting project last night. I really must get busy and photograph some of my finishes and get them posted. I’m on to another pair of mitts tonight.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

The class yesterday was very informative. The instructor is one of the best quilters in the Guild and, in addition to the technique we were there to learn, she gave us lots of other tips and tricks. The class was about invisible machine appliqué; appliqué isn’t my favourite “thing” and I keep thinking I’ll find a better way and one that I like. Unless I can use the buttonhole stitch for the appliqué I always think I miss the mark; so far, even using the new technique, my stitching isn’t very invisible. That being said I was doing it on Pearl and it may work out much better once I’m able to try it on Ruby. In the meantime, as expected, I have another UFO to add to my pile!

Susan gave us some great tips for piecing using glue to baste the seams; this was particularly useful as we matched up triangles on the ends of the table runner we were making. I’ll be adding my bottle of glue to my sewing kit. She was also talking about bringing in a guest instructor to teach us some other piecing tips and tricks. Susan did a workshop with the person she hopes to have come and, according to Susan, her piecing has improved 200%. I’ll definitely sign up for the class if it goes ahead.

Pat and I were watching a show on Netflix last night and something about one of the characters made me think it was Michael Northey. We finished the episode and watched the credits but his name didn’t appear. I thought that if an actor had a speaking role they were always listed in the credits so we went back to the beginning of the show and there it was – Michael P. Northey! We’ve been enjoying the show (No Tomorrow) but it will be even more fun now.

Between my quota of charms today I’ve been doing a bit of cleaning. Our House Concert is on Wednesday and I’ll be out sewing on Tuesday so I need to get as much as possible done ahead of time. The laundry room/junk room will be tomorrow’s project and it will take a good part of the day I think. I’ll still have some last-minute work to do Wednesday morning but the house is looking pretty good I think – provided no one dares to peek upstairs at my sewing rooms!

I’m off now to do some more charms; I started a new knitting project last night and today Christy gave me a new project so I won’t be slacking off in the evenings.

Okay, I have to admit I’m grinning and thinking of Uncle Jack right now; I just realized that I have my shirt on backwards! Good thing I’ve only gone as far as the garbage cans today.

Friday, November 18, 2016

As I was busy reading my book, The Dressmaker, it occurred to me that the story wasn’t aligning very well with the movie trailers we had seen. I purposely borrowed the book because the movie was coming and I wanted to read the book before we saw the movie. As it turned out, the movie was in town the week that I was in Houston; Pat went and said it was really good and he hoped the library would get it in so I could watch it too.

Last night I decided to take another look at the movie trailer. Much to my surprise the movie is set in Australia and my book is set in the UK and America. The movie is based on a novel, called The Dressmaker, by Rosalie Ham; my book, also call The Dressmaker, was written by Kate Alcott.

Here is what the movie poster looked like.

And this is the cover of the book by Kate Alcott.

Well maybe they aren’t as similar as I remembered, but quite a bit alike if you are only glancing and going by your memory of the poster. And isn’t it strange that the two books would have been given the same name?

I wasn’t able to renew my library book because someone else already had a Hold on it. I bet they are going to be as surprised as I was!