Tuesday, February 16, 2021

We had Chinese food last night (left-over from Valentine’s Day) and my fortune cookie mentioned a job I’d been putting off needed to be done. I didn’t have to think about what it meant – time to do some deep cleaning. I thought I would finish my sewing early today and have time to get started but that didn’t happen so I’ll move that task to tomorrow.

I logged on with the Guild a couple of times. I was working on Guild-related blocks today – a block of the month for January and two filler blocks for my log cabin quilt. When I got the pattern for the first log cabin filler (the dogwood) I thought it was a block of the month; at the time I thought it was an odd one to pick. It wasn’t until I started making it today that I realized it was for a completely different Guild project.

We are supposed to pick one log cabin filler block of our own choice and I’m hoping to make a card trick block. I’ll have to scour the web and my pattern books to see if I can find it in the right size. The dogwood block I made today may not make it into the quilt – I’ll have to see when the sashing gets attached. If I decide it isn’t right for the quilt I’ll pick another block on my own.

My knitting is going well and I hope to be adding a second colour to it tonight. I’ve had to slow down a bit as we started watching a new show last night and it is sub-titled with no way to switch the audio to English. Resurrection:Ertugrul (think modern Vikings) is set in the 1200’s in Turkey and, from the few episodes we’ve seen, it will be as bloody as the Vikings. Those scenes make it easier to concentrate on the knitting stitches though!

Monday, February 15, 2021

I have finally finished the quilt I’ve been working on. It took much longer than I thought it would but then I haven’t quilted a big quilt for so long I’m sure I’ve forgotten how long the last one took. I don’t have time to get a photo today and write up the post; that will get done later this week. In the meantime it will give me great pleasure to not only mark DONE beside my February UFO Challenge, but also take the quilt out of my general UFO listing.

I spent a lot of time at my computer today catching up on some of my own work as well as taking care of some Hall business. A friend is having an online Epicure party so I put in an order for that. It seemed like every five minutes after I settled in to stitch I thought of something else that needed to be done, a message that needed to be sent, or something that popped into my head that I was curious about and had to look up. I know it was all just a delay on the binding but it is done now and I can move on tomorrow.

I’ll be joining the Guild for a sewing session tomorrow and I’m happy that I will have something for Show and Tell. Actually I’ll have two things as I have my miniature from last week; it is already hanging and “out of sight out of mind”.

I started a new knitting project a couple of nights ago and I’m really enjoying it. I’m making an afghan, using a scarf pattern, with a variety of textured yarns – most of it is fluffy in some way so I’m hoping it will be soft. No idea how big it will be – I’ll knit until the yarn runs out. I’ve also found a new hat pattern and I have a ball of yarn that I think will be enough.

Friday, February 12, 2021

Today is the Lunar New Year. I always remember Gung Hey Fat Choy from Elizabeth when she is in elementary school and they were celebrating. At one point we even made fortune cookies. Sunday is Valentine’s Day and then Monday is Family Day so the Covid-19 briefing today was full of warnings about what not do. In the past there have been increases with every holiday and to have three special days so close together has most people a bit worried.

It was a noisy day in the neighbourhood. I heard a chain saw and first thought it was coming from the house behind us. But I got up to change positions at one point and realized it was coming from the Duncan side of the house. When I looked out the window there was some major trimming being done on the big evergreen tree on the grounds of City Hall. They continued to cut down limbs and chop the branches while we had lunch and we thought they were probably going to take the whole tree down. Shortly after we had our lunch all was quiet and I thought perhaps they were on a lunch break but they have moved all their equipment away and left some sizeable logs on the ground. If they take the tree down I will certainly miss it but right now it just looks a bit sad.

My quilting didn’t go as planned today but I’m happy to say an alternate plan worked and I’m ready to start on the border tomorrow – I’m too tired to go any further today. I managed only a few stitches with my quilting rulers before I broke a needle (going over a seam); I switched to some free-motion and made even fewer stitches before breaking another needle. So I switched to some straight lines and things went well from that point on.

I’m hoping I have enough energy to pick up my knitting tonight. The last couple of nights I have been too tired to even knit – I think it was all the tension I felt about the quilting.

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Vacation Time is the name of this pattern and by the time it is finished I will definitely want a vacation. It was a Guild Mystery Block of the Month from several years ago. Had I known what the pattern was called I would have picked different colours – more seashore-like.

I’m going to end my day as I started it – tying knots and burying ends in the quilt. Yesterday I did the straight line quilting on the orange sections and today I’ve done the straight line quilting on the blue sections. You can hardly see the quilting and I guess that is the way I like it but after two days it feels like I should see something.

I’m dreading tomorrow as I’m going to try some ruler work and then some free motion quilting. I still need to pick out a design for my borders but I know it will be something with a straight line.

We chatted with Kathryn today and she was saying how cold it is when she goes home at night. Her remote starter only heats up the engine and it doesn’t take her long enough to drive home to get much heat in the car. Both Pat and I ran our vehicles today – not because it is cold but we were afraid the batteries would be drained since we haven’t been out for so long. I made a short trip this afternoon to the Post Office and the library.

Now, back to that quilt.