Thursday, January 7, 2021

I have a schedule that helps to keep me on track and not too bored with my projects. Wednesday is usually a day for making cards; even if I don’t have any cards that are due I try to keep ahead by making card tops. I also work towards my UFO Challenge project once a week.

This is a bit of an odd month for that schedule. I made cards on Wednesday as per my Wednesday schedule. I worked on cards again today as my UFO Challenge for the month are my Splendid Sampler blocks which are the blocks I use for cards.

I redid the blackwork stitch-along project this morning. Since it was so near the start of the process I thought I should try to get it right. I think it looks better but that might be because this is the fourth time I’ve stitched it. I’m not sure why it is called blackwork because by following the pattern I have a small container of several different colours of thread.

This afternoon I really couldn’t face another card so I dug out That Fairy Tale Quilt. At the moment I’m working on a castle – so essential for every fairy tale.

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Although we had some rain this morning the latest storm seems to have blown itself out. There was even a bit of sunshine in the early afternoon.

I had a peek out at the deck during that period of sunshine and was very surprised to see my crocus bulbs are starting to come up. The bulbs were a birthday gift and when I planted them it was with a prayer that I was doing it right (I’m not all that good with plants). I looked a couple of weeks ago when I saw green but it was just some weeds popping up out of the soil.

But today, in the small container, there were definitely two crocus sprouts coming through the soil. I looked at the larger container and it is full of crocus sprouts.

I received the instructions today for one of my cross stitch-along projects. When I did the first few stitches I realized that the floss was too similar to the fabric so those stitches came out and I started over with a different colour of floss. I did the stitches the way I thought they should be done but I didn’t like the way they looked so I took them out again. I started again, doing the stitches in a way I thought looked smoother. When I put the question out to the group on Facebook though I was told that I should have done the stitches as I did in my second attempt. The stitching took a little less than an hour so I may take it out and do it over one more time.

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

In a perfect world today would have been a sewing day with the Guild. We tried a get-together over Zoom today and it worked out well. We usually averaged half a dozen participants at any one time but people came on and went off during our time.

We’ll try this again every Tuesday and, hopefully, we can do our business meetings over Zoom. Maybe someone will get brave and do a demo for us at some point in the future.

We’ve got a really stormy day here and our power has gone off once already but only for a few seconds. To be safe though I’m going to shut everything down until the storm passes.

Monday, January 4, 2021

New Tricks … the title of a new favourite on Netflix but not the point of this post.

Last year I thought I might sell my quilting rulers as I wasn’t using them and they weren’t cheap. But then I decided I really hadn’t given them a good try. I took a class at the Guild but I don’t do well learning in a crowd – especially sewing techniques. I tried a bit at home but didn’t feel very comfortable with them. Hence the thought that I should sell them.

But later in the year I decided I was going to go through my instruction manual one ruler at a time to see if I couldn’t get myself sorted out. The instruction manual has you making a large quilt and then quilting smaller sections but I decided to start with smaller blocks and not worry about having a quilt at the end of the day.

Today’s ruler instructions used a six-inch block and my cards are a perfect size. I spent the morning playing with the ruler and a six-inch square without planning to use the block for anything. By this afternoon though I felt confident enough to try a “real” card. Although not perfect it is better than I ever anticipated for a first day. Doing the quilting this way means I need to bind the card by hand rather than use an envelope finish but I’m okay with that.

I’m a long way from moving on to Step 2 in the book and the idea of using rulers while manipulating a full quilt makes me cringe but I’m okay if all I ever accomplish are my cards.