Wednesday, January 26, 2022

I’m checking in early today.

This morning my decluttering task had me back in my scrap bin. I could spend all day every day working at managing my scraps (Mount Scrapmore as some in the group call it). I had the feeling that I was just moving scraps from one bin to another without a lot of noticeable improvement so I’ve developed a new plan.

I’m going to work on my 1.5″ and 2″ scraps until all the bins that hold them are sorted. I have a new scrap project for my 1.5″ x 3″ scraps so they will be pulled out and sorted separately. My blue 2″ square scraps have been set aside for a mystery quilt I’m making. I’ve also found a pattern for a scrappy 2.5″ x 5″ project so when I come across those I will set them aside as well. I hadn’t realized I had a separate task for dealing with scraps – I’ve been doing that under Thursday’s “Clean up the sewing room” task. An extra day on scraps will not go amiss.

First up for hand stitching was this week’s Peppermint Purple clue. I was of the opinion at the start of this that combining blackwork with cross stitch would be quicker each week but I don’t think that is the case.

I have the binding all done on my January quilt. It wasn’t until I was putting in the last stitches that I realized I hadn’t put a label on it. I’ll do that before it gets sent off – well actually delivered in person as I booked flights for the April birthdays this morning.

For the rest of the afternoon I’ll be working on the border of my 2021 Peppermint Purple project.

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it was an easy day; normally I would be out stitching with the Guild on a Tuesday. Even though they have started the Tuesday sessions again I’m holding off for a little longer. I’ve also cancelled my Thursday sessions. I said to Pat the other night that I was tired of people not accepting my decision to stay home. They always have reasons why I should be joining them – we’re all double vaccinated, if you get Covid it will be mild. All that may be true but I don’t want to test the severity of the illness and I certainly don’t want to pass it along unknowingly (or catch it) from someone who has the virus but are showing no symptoms.

I had one task on my declutter list – dealing with my batting scraps. I have several pieces cut that I will stitch together to make larger pieces that can be used for small projects. Anything that is going to be washed often won’t get a “frankenbatting” layer but wall hangings would be fine. I hoped that when I had some of the pieces sorted the lid on my batting scraps bin would close but I guess I didn’t go deep enough. I also did half an hour of some Guild work and I spent some time shredding paper.

I have the quilt trimmed, binding pieced and attached so I’ll get started on the hand stitching. The timing is perfect as tomorrow is a hand-stitching day.

Monday, January 24, 2022

The quilting is done but I haven’t accomplished much else. All of the thrift shops were either closed or don’t accept donations on Monday so my piles are piling up – not a good look for my decluttering.

Last night when I talked to Christy she mentioned that Taylor was “into” beading. I had just sorted through my beads; some were to be sent to the thrift shop and some went back into the drawer. It was a delight this morning to get all the beads into a container and mailed off to Taylor. How did I manage to collect all those beads? I took a class on embellishing quilts with beads but to the best of my knowledge I never did anything except one little square that we used in the class. At one time I was going to finish off some of Mum’s cross stitch projects with beads and I was going to use the same method on some of Pat’s Mum’s embroidery. Neither happened but I had almost every colour of bead I might need for those projects.

I was off to the post office this morning and made a stop at Walmart. My list was growing and I thought since I was out I’d make a stop. I had a nice chat with Carola (my neighbour from down the hill); I don’t see her much now that she is working and no longer with the Guild. I noticed one of the gas stations had boosted their prices to $1.72 something so I stopped on the way home and purchased gas at one of the stations that hadn’t yet raised their prices; still pricey at $1.64 something.

I found it hard to get back to quilting this afternoon even though I knew with a bit of effort I could get it done. I need to trim the edges down and get the binding done but I’m glad I’m over most of the work. It is my quilting UFO for January so it looks like I will get it done before the end of the month. It is also an April birthday gift so it will be done in plenty of time for that.

Pat has an event online tonight so I’ll do a bit of extra cross stitching – that is if I can stay off of Candy Crush!

Sunday, January 23, 2022

As I’ve been busy decluttering Pat has kept up with the areas I’m going through. We both think we are able to see the results in the house – at least Pat is smart enough to say he can see the results!

Yesterday when I passed the filing cabinet on to Pat he was inspired to clear out one of the many boxes he brought with him from Port Coquitlam and has never unpacked. I gave him some file folders and he gave me back a 4″ pile of papers that need to be shredded. When I suggested we pay to have them shredded he said that was expensive and maybe he should just keep them. I don’t care if I wreck three shredders in the process he is not putting that stuff back in a box or in the filing cabinet!

I spent all morning clearing off my desktop. I reconciled some bank accounts (for myself and the Hall), paid some bills (for the Hall), and did a bit of work on one of the clues for the Guild mystery. Some of the papers I had to deal with needed to be filed and, since I was in the filing cabinet anyway, I sorted out a couple more files. I also wrapped three more packages for the mail and I still have more mail that I need to send out.

This afternoon I’ve been working on the final border of my quilt. I knew I wanted curves in the border but I wasn’t sure how capable of that I would be. I marked the fabric, changed my mind, and marked the fabric again before I finally decided what I was going to do. Once the marking is done the quilting goes quite quickly.

I didn’t want to have too many knots to have to bury but my design didn’t work out that way. I have half of the borders done and one of them has the knots buried. Another criteria for my quilting is that I don’t want it to show much – mission accomplished on that one.

Back to my knots now!