Sunday, October 31, 2021

It’s perfect weather today for all the Trick or Treaters – sunny, warm and no wind.

In fact it was so nice that I went out and worked in the yard for most of the morning. I had a lot of things that I wanted to get done but, of course, I didn’t get at them all. I managed to get enough done that if we don’t get another good day for a week or so I will be able to pick up where I left off. I’ll sleep well tonight with all the fresh air and exercise.

I have all my pieces ready for our sewing lesson with Deloise tomorrow. I had a hard time getting the pattern traced – I guess my kindergarten skills haven’t been used for too long. I’m hoping that tracing is the hardest part; if not I may have to give up on the technique or else buy myself an ink jet printer so I can just print the patterns off.

We won’t have anyone at the door tonight. Even if there were kids in the neighbourhood we’ll have our lights out and be hiding in the basement. After eleven years and maybe two kids in all that time we don’t even try anymore. I purchased a box of candy just in case, but mostly for Pat and I to enjoy. And like they said on Facebook, “No matter how many mini chocolate bars you eat your earrings will still fit”!

Saturday, October 30, 2021

I wasn’t up until almost ten this morning. I was sick during the night and awake for almost two hours; I ended up taking a gravel and that wipes me out completely. Needless to say I was dragging for a lot of the day but there were a few accomplishments.

I managed to get two more of my 12-Days wrapped. With the exception of one purchase and one more day’s surprise to wrap I’m finished this year in record time. The time consuming part is coming up with ideas and I’m glad that I started work on things early.

I have a Board meeting on Monday night so I spent some time gathering documents. I’ll be sewing all day with Stacia and Deloise so I needed to have things more or less ready to go. I fought another losing battle with my phone trying to download the Covid Vaccine app. I have all sorts of photos and cards that say I’m vaccinated but until we go somewhere to test them I won’t know if any of them work.

I’ve also managed to stitch a couple more blocks in my October stitch along. Only one day left for the clues but probably three or four days of stitching left for me.

Friday, October 29, 2021

I had a hard time getting down to business this morning. While chatting with Stacia and Deloise about our upcoming sewing-together session we decided that Deloise would teach us her technique for paperless paper-piecing. I tried it a long time ago without much success but maybe I just didn’t have the right teacher. I watched a video on it and then found a dahlia quilt tutorial and watched four lessons of that. There were things I should have moved on to but I was distracted by putting in an amazon order.

By this time I knew I should be moving on to something productive but I didn’t have much desire for any of the things I had sitting around that needed to be worked on. As I was setting up my sewing machine after yesterday’s session I decided I should try to sort out the pieces I had for my 16-patches for the Guild mystery. I didn’t do any sewing but they are all clipped together in sets and, once I get to them, they should go quite quickly.

I still wasn’t feeling very ambitious and thought I could blame Stacia and her “work on one project at a time” syndrome. All I could think about was that Hallowe’en stitch along. It didn’t help that my order of floss arrived in the mail to further imprint cross stitching on my brain.

But I sucked it up and I have finished another project for the 12-Days packages. I’m glad I stuck with it because now I can cross stitch guilt-free!

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Back to Thursday sewing today. I enjoy these afternoons even if I don’t get a lot done. I was working on my Guild mystery but didn’t get as far as I would have liked. I’m making 16-patch blocks out of several different strips but making sure none of the same fabrics are side by side is harder than I thought it would be. I have a few made, a few clipped together in sets and a lot more that I still have to figure out.

I took along my Dahlia quilt book and Jessie took it home to study. That’s more than I have done up to now so I’ll let her take the lead when we decide to make it. I told them about my Circle of Nine book and will take it along next week for them to look at.

After I was packed and ready to go I did a bit more work on my October stitch-along. I have the grid lines done now and the last clue is out on Sunday. I’ve found a new idea on how to finish the project but I think I’ll do a test run on something smaller to start with.