Sunday, October 3, 2021

I spent the morning getting the quilt top together. I still have borders to do and they will be tricky as I’ll have to measure each one to be sure that I have enough fabric. If I’m short I can make the borders a bit narrower. The pattern calls for three different borders so I’ll see if I can make that work.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again here – I am so lucky I don’t have to deal with cooking every day. Pat is the chef in the house but occasionally I step in and do something. Pat was playing music with some friends this afternoon and I’ve spent almost all afternoon in the kitchen.

I started out baking some tart shells I had in the freezer – it was time to use them up. While they cooked and cooled I made a 5-Bean Salad which involved a fair bit of chopping. When that was finished and in the fridge I made up a package of lemon pie filling for my tarts; I didn’t bother with meringue as we bought some Cool Whip for them.

Then it was on to the dinner’s main course – Sauerkraut Meatballs. I decided that there was too much meat for just the two of us. I made up all the meatballs but I put half of them in the freezer for another time. As this was a new recipe I didn’t want to have too much left over in case we didn’t like it. I was able to get in a bit of cross stitching before it was time to start making the sauce for the meatballs and get them in the oven. I have less than an hour now before I’ll have to put the rice on to cook. While the rice cooks I’ll make a green salad.

I ran a load of dishes through the dishwasher and hand washed a sink full of dishes. I emptied the dishwasher and then started loading it again. Whew!

As I said – I’m very lucky I don’t have to do this every day.

Saturday, October 2, 2021

Late yesterday afternoon, as I was finishing up the backstitching on my Thunderbird, I noticed that I had made an error and there was going to be some reverse stitching required. I didn’t look too closely at how much was going to have to be redone; I gave up and quit for the day.

This morning I did a bit of reverse stitching; fortunately the area I needed to redo wasn’t as large as I feared. I wasn’t looking to save the threads so that made the ripping out a bit easier. By noon I had the stitching done, including the backstitching. I’ll get it washed and off to the framers in the next week or so.

Since it had been on my list to do yesterday (and in my Texada bin) I wanted to cut out another quilt. I want this one done before Christmas; I often do my Christmas sewing at the Texada Retreat in November but I’m not sure I’ll be going. The organizer will be looking for proof of vaccination but I’m not sure, even under those circumstances, that I want to take part. If I don’t decide soon there will be no spots left – maybe that is what I’m hoping for.

After lunch I set about cutting fabric. I was using fabric I purchased in Houston several years ago for what is known as a 3-Yard Quilt; if you bought the fabric the pattern was free. When I opened the roll of fabric I was surprised to see I had six different fabrics and none of them were a yard long; usually you use just three fabrics. I’m doing some mixing and matching and I think I can make it work.

Because I’m unsure of how it will all go together I’ve been doing some stitching as I go along. Everything was going well until Step 3 where I messed up and stitched half of the fabric to the wrong side of its partner. I guess it is in keeping with my morning; I’ll continue to reverse stitch and sew and cut and see how far I get before the end of the day.

On the positive side my evening crocheting is going well.

Friday, September 30, 2021

I’ve spent most of this first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation working on an old project – Thunderbird. I’ve had mixed feelings about it over the couple of years (at least) that it has been on my list of UFOs. When I first bought the pattern I was really happy and looked forward to making it. But after a few months of stitching I began to wonder whether it was appropriate for me, who doesn’t share the First Nations culture, to be making this at all. I thought of various ways I could finish it and then have it leave my house. Now, as it is almost finished, I think of the project as honouring our First Nations and I will proudly hang it next to the Maple Leaf I finished for Canada’s 150th. I’m so close to being done that I will continue working on it until it is.

The power was off again last night and we are left with a mystery. I was already in bed when it went out but Pat had to find his way upstairs in the dark. At one point in the night I wanted to see the time (we have a clock radio that projects the time on the ceiling); when I couldn’t find it I assumed the power was out.

When I woke up this morning the time on the ceiling said eight. From the light in the room I would have estimated that was about the right time. When I went to the kitchen the clock on the wall (battery operated) gave the same time. Also the clock on the radio in the kitchen was right but all the other appliances were flashing. It’s weird how those two reset themselves to the correct time; neither one has a battery back up or if they do they don’t have batteries in them because we’ve always had to rest them after a power outage.

Pat and I went grocery shopping after lunch – together! We haven’t done that for a long time. We went to FreshCo which is a store I’ve only been in once. I headed off on my own to get the ingredients for the meatballs. When I got back to Pat he wasn’t even finished down the meat and veggie aisle so I took the list and left him to shop the aisles for what he wanted.

The aisles are clearly directionally marked and I was up and down them several times looking for items or just going the right direction in order to get something from the next aisle. When we finally made it to the check out Pat asked me if I thought I knew the store now and I responded with a definite no. I feel like I went around and around in circles and possibly accomplished my ten thousand steps in the time we were in the store. However I think our grocery bill was much lower than it would have been at Quality Foods so it may be a store I’ll have to get used to.

It has been a day of both rain and sun but at least the wind has died down somewhat. Trees are still blowing but the ferries are all running on time. The Comox ferry didn’t run yesterday afternoon or evening and the Texada ferry was cancelled all evening.

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

The day is gone and have nothing to show for it; I’ve puttered the entire day away.

I had some paperwork to do today so I started with that. I put away all my quilting project sheets but noticed I was missing a page on some of the other printing I had done. So a stop at Staples was required.

I got Kathryn’s tablecloth out in the mail today. I put it in an Express envelope so it was easy to get ready. I needed to make a trip to the Post Office.

There were a couple of things I needed to pick up at Walmart so I added those tasks to my list. And since I was going I had a couple of photos that I wanted paper copies of. On my way out of the photo lab I went past a clearance shelf and picked up a couple of fat quarters for a dollar each. Somehow that reminded me that I needed some tapestry needles and it took some time to find them. Then I ran into Carola, my neighbour from down the street, so we had a little chat. She works at Walmart but I usually only see and visit with her when we are yelling across the street as she waits for a ride to work so it was nice to have a quiet chat today.

After the running around was done I had some birthday money from Alex and Will to spend. I went through my quilt list and didn’t find anything I really wanted right away. When Christy was here she took home the project I made with my “Lil’ Twister Tool”. I really liked the process of making that so I purchased a ruler that will let me make twisters from 3″ to 10″ (five different sizes).

We’ve got another storm raging outside and it isn’t going to be as nice for the next few days as we anticipated so we are going to delay our trip to Texada again. Something has come up for Pat on Sunday so we were having to cut our time a bit shorter than we wanted and, because the weather isn’t cooperating, we weren’t going to be able to do the outside work that we thought we needed to do. I hope to spend the next few days working on the projects I had in my Texada bin.

Another clue in my Peppermint Purple Stitch Along was released today. Pat has an online session tonight so maybe I can get it done and not completely waste my day.