Tuesday, August 9, 2016

It was great to catch up with everyone at the bee today. I took a couple of projects but only had time for one; I had forgotten that today was a regularly scheduled Mini Meez meeting. I haven’t even thought about a mini since about April but I’ll try to do better for next month.

I finished the “fixing” on my Blossoms just as it was approaching lunch time. My next step was to cut out the background squares but I realized I had missed packing a bag – the one with my cutter (and other tools) in it. I debated about leaving right after lunch but it is much easier to cut at the Guild where there is lots of space. I was enjoying my time so, before lunch, I drove home, got my bag and was back in time for cake as we celebrated August birthdays.

I managed to get all the background squares cut before leaving for the day. I’m really starting to like where this is going!

Monday, August 8, 2016

I was in my studio early this morning. I opened the windows to get a breeze going through and the first thing I heard was a loon’s call. I remember the first time we heard a loon when we were coming to Powell River on weekends  – we thought it couldn’t be true because loons don’t come near the ocean do they? Apparently they do and, although we’ve seen them occasionally on our walks, hearing their call remains a rare treat.

I did some work in preparation for our Cranberry Hall meeting on Wednesday. I don’t get updates from other Board members as often as I would like so I’m still trying to prepare the June statements. I’ve got the July statement almost ready as well but I have a whole list of questions for the meeting. I want to be able to sew on Wednesday so it is good to get it more or less taken care of today.

From there I packed up my sewing for tomorrow’s bee. It has been so long since I’ve been I could barely remember all the bags and boxes I generally take with me. I’ll be working at finishing up a couple of hexies for my Blossom quilt as well as cutting the background for the blossoms I have stitched together. In case that gets done quickly I’ve added my Celtic Crystals project. I hope to have both of these quilts finished for the quilt show.

It isn’t a particularly nice day out but I walked up to the mailbox with a card. At times it looked so much like a fall day that I worried summer may not return. It is a bit brighter now; I don’t mind the cooler weather, but I like the sun. I was just home from my walk when Pat suggested we go out for lunch so off we went.

I spent the afternoon cutting templates and fabric for my I’m a Farmer’s Daughter quilt. I thought I had a lot of pieces done but when I started counting I still have a long way to go; there are 36 pieces in each of 25 blocks and each of those 36 pieces is hand-basted before being hand-stitched to its partners! It hardly makes me feel better knowing I have one block finished. I’m aiming to get two more done before I go to Houston with Stacia and Deloise; we are all making the quilt and decided to exchange a block and I’d like to get theirs done.

I’ll do a bit of cross stitching for the rest of the afternoon. My advent calendar is coming along and I can almost see the end; unless something drastic happens over the next few months I should be able to send it out this year.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

I’m home again from a great two weeks with Christy, Rick, Dylan and Taylor. I was there to help look after the kids, and it felt like a fun holiday for me; the time went really fast but we kept busy doing something fun almost every day.

Since I planned to be knitting while I was there I took along some extra needles and yarn to see if Dylan and Taylor wanted to learn to knit. Dylan caught on right away, but Taylor didn’t enjoy it as much. She did enjoy counting the rows for me as I made her a pair of wrist warmers and a scarf.

Kanaka Creek runs right through Christy and Rick’s property and the kids swam in the creek almost every day. Dylan loves the water and plays all sorts of diving games while he’s there. The water is cold; I tried it one day but that was enough. Taylor likes to play in the shallows; we swam at the indoor pool one day and she is completely different there – diving off the side, going down the slide, diving for rings on the bottom of the pool. I took a lot of videos of Dylan diving but I’m not very good at it. I’ll have to see if I can edit the one I’m going to send to America’s Funniest Home Videos – Dylan lost his bathing suit on one of his dives!

Their property continues on the other side of the creek and on Sunday they gave me a tour. I chose to wade across the creek but the rest walked across on the rocks. The extra girl is a friend of Taylor’s; Dylan was at his Dad’s for the weekend. They have lovely grassy meadows back there, as well as trails for them to use the quads on. There is even a tree the bears like to use for scratching.

We had a fire down by the creek one night. Rick likes to light a big fire to burn the bush he and his neighbour clear away but he also has a fire pit that is great for making S’mores over. It was a great ending to a nice weekend.

How to Make the Perfect S’more

A vacation with Grandma isn’t complete without a hike of some sort. I was assured we could walk to the head of the trail (which we did), but signage along the way said the start of the trail was a kilometre away – after we walked up the hill from their house. It was a lovely forested trail and the kids reminded me of all the spots where their Mum takes their photos. We ended up with a picnic at the Kanaka Creek Hatchery and a stop on the way home at their school (to raid the garden Taylor helped plant) and for an ice cream at Webster’s Corner store.

We also saw two movies while I was there – The Secret Life of Pets and Ice Age: Collision Course. They really aren’t making movies the way they used to; both were okay but not fantastic. After our second afternoon at the movies Dylan said we should have gone to see Finding Dory – he may have been right.

Dylan plays football and although the regular season doesn’t start until September they are heavily invested in their practices. He played three nights the first week I was there, and twice the second week. There is an optional practice every Friday night but Dylan chose not to take part in those. They are really put through their paces – two hours each practice session – and their warm-up exercises would be more than I could accomplish. Christy was always careful to dress him in either a brightly coloured shirt or socks so we could tell who he was once he was dressed in his gear!

One of my favourite things was a visit to Wild Play and I was so happy that we were able to do it on a day that Christy could come along. Taylor did the kids course but Dylan started out on the Classic (Green) course. By the time he came down from the trees he had moved across the Red course and almost all the way through the Black! Each course is progressively more challenging.

Taylor’s Course

Dylan’s Course

My easiest day out was our trip to Crash Crawly’s. While I sat and read, the kids spent three hours in the climbing gym passing in and out of the various tubes and up and down the various slides. It was noisy though!

I had a little time for shopping – two trips to Michaels and a trip to Fabricana. Our first trip to Michaels was to find yarn for Taylor’s sweater and on the second trip (to a different location) I found bins on special. On the day we went to Crash Crawley’s we made a side trip to Fabricana to find buttons and I picked up their version of the Row by Row challenge.

The drive was uneventful – a good thing – and I was much less nervous on the way home than I had been going. The traffic in the Lower Mainland is horrendous but by the second week I had no difficulty maneuvering in it. It is good to be home though and I’ll get back into my regular routine next week. And it is also good to know that I’ll be home for awhile; our next planned trip isn’t until the end of September.