Sunday, December 5, 2021

I got a few cards made this morning and a package wrapped for the mail. I thought I might go out today but since everything I was going to do today could wait for tomorrow I decided to spend the afternoon stitching.

I’m back to one of my hardanger projects and although it is going better than the last one it still is giving me grief. I felt brave enough to try one of the fancy stitches but only had a couple done before I decided it wasn’t going to work and I ripped it out. My counting is off in a few places but I’m going to persevere in the hopes it can be done for the next package I ship out.

It makes me wonder why on earth I would copy a picture from the internet and think I could figure out a new crochet stitch – but I’m going to try just that this evening.

Snow is predicted for overnight but I’m hoping it will be like the last snowfall they predicted – nothing showed up.

Saturday, December 4, 2021

Oh what a mess I had after a Thursday stitching day, a 2-day Guild weekend, a Tuesday stitching day and then 2-days of sewing with Stacia and Deloise. When I started the day there was barely any clean space on any of my surfaces or on the floor.

It took until almost noon to clear up the paperwork on my desk, deal with messages I’d flagged for follow-up and a few tasks on my Reminder list that I had ignored. Needless to say that meant I was in my pyjamas until nearly noon. I thought I might get out to drop a few things at the letterbox and a book at the library but the day has slipped by without it happening.

From my desk I moved to my stitching table. I finished a project on Wednesday but I hadn’t put away any of the threads, the pattern or the needles. It didn’t take as long to clear away as I thought it would. When the mess was cleared I realized that I had enough cards done to get the last of my parcels ready for the mail – I’ll do that tomorrow for mailing on Monday.

Between my ironing board and my cutting table I’m not sure I’ve actually made any progress. My next scrappy quilt will be done in blues and since my blue bin was out I sorted out quite a few pieces that I’ll need for the project. In doing so I emptied several of my drawers of scraps to find any blue bits that would work. I think I have a new method of sorting scraps so I moved ahead with that idea and ended up with five drawers that will store various bits for various projects. There are also several bags of scraps that I sorted out of the drawers but I haven’t quite decided how I will deal with them so they remain on my cutting table.

I’ll be taking a paper-piecing class through the Guild in January and I wanted to find a pattern that I might make. I sorted through all my patterns and was surprised that I had several. Most of them mentioned they were for Intermediate and Beyond talents so I put those back. I have a couple of patterns picked out but they may be too small to be good for learning. I found a pattern that I think would work but I’ll take them all the the Guild to check with the instructor to find out what one she thinks would be best for me to try.

All that took up pretty much of the rest of my working day. There is still work to be done but I’m not going to get into any more rearranging between now and supper.

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

It took me all morning to finish the card I was working on. I’ve come to realize that it isn’t just me regarding the issues I’ve had; the two charts are definitely out of whack. I’m going to stick with the smaller chart as I believe it is the more correct one. So, after having to adjust for some counting errors and taking out some of the stitching I’d done previously in the wrong area I finally got it finished. Since this is hardanger and I’m not doing the cutting I had to get out my sketch book to see how I could make it work. It wasn’t perfect by a long shot but it is done.

Once the card was done I found two other cards that I could finish up so that I had enough to get another parcel ready for the mail. This one contained a birthday gift as well so it was time to get it on its way. I went to the post office after the mail had gone out for the day – there were no line-ups at all. They warned me at the counter though that the delivery might be delayed. Even so it should make it to its destination in time.

My studio room is an absolute mess. There is hand stitching bits and pieces on my stitching table, my cutting table is covered with a number of different projects, and my desk has a stack of papers that I need to deal with. I haven’t totally unpacked from Tuesday’s sewing and I’ve got two days of sewing coming up with Stacia and Deloise. I’ve got the Hall newsletter ready in draft form and I’ll have to review it one more time before sending it to the President for her approval.

Pat has an online engagement tonight so I’ll try to get some cutting done for tomorrow’s project and maybe find enough wriggle room to actually do some sewing.

Monday, November 29, 2021

I haven’t had a very productive day but you probably won’t agree when I let you know everything that did get done.

I got my hair cut this morning and before my appointment I picked up the last few things on my Christmas list, plus a couple of things that hadn’t been added to my list but things I knew I wanted. After my appointment I picked up a gift to fill the last gap on my Christmas/Birthday list. I’m still waiting for a package from amazon; before the flooding our packages from them were often arriving a day early. I don’t have my cards finished so I can’t get packages ready for the mail yet; that was part of my frustration today.

I really wanted to get ahead on my cards but the one I’m doing now is not cooperating. It is like I can’t count anymore or read a pattern. I took a break from it and packaged up all my knitting/crocheting donations so they’ll be ready to deliver tomorrow.

Then I went back to my card and found a couple of mistakes I hadn’t noticed before. Once they were fixed I took another break and got a new project ready for the Guild tomorrow. I had a few other things on my list to take – a donation for the Christmas party, a book I had mentioned on the weekend that someone wanted to see, and a few copies of the updated membership list that I prepared this morning. I hadn’t unpacked from the weekend’s sewing so it all went back into the same bin I used on Sunday.

I’m going to go back to my card and it had better cooperate or I’ll give up on stitching cards and make some fabric ones.