Monday, October 26, 2020

I don’t pay a lot of attention to the news. I may hear it once in the morning and I usually catch the evening news, both local, provincial and federal. I heard that the Liberal leader was holding a news conference this afternoon so I decided to listen in while I sewed. It took less than five minutes for him to announce he was stepping down as leader following a big loss in last week’s election.

I also heard that Dr. Henry wasn’t planning on holding her usual Monday briefing but decided at the last minute that there would be one. I knew we wouldn’t be in for good news and I was right. We had over 300 cases in the province for two of the reporting days, and just below 300 for the third. There is a new order for in-home gatherings (only six people beyond the household); I guess that wasn’t an enforceable order until now but I certainly knew about the limit of six. She is also saying she expects that we will wear masks in all public spaces but it isn’t an actual order. No wonder people are confused.

I can’t think that I’ll learn anything by watching the evening news so I may skip it and sew. I have my curtains cut out and another set of hexagons sewn onto my table topper (yes, I’ve decided it will be a table topper); I hope to have both projects done by the end of the week.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

It was my intention today to clean up my sewing room. I haven’t done it for quite awhile and I’m starting work on a new project tomorrow so I didn’t want too much mess lying around.

The scrap basket I keep on my cutting table was stuffed full so I started there. All the bits got cut down into squares or rectangles. When I went to place them in the scrap drawers there wasn’t enough room. So I started clearing out the drawers. I finally got them emptied enough that I was able to shut the drawers; I also have shoe boxes full of the same sized squares and rectangles. I didn’t do any cutting or sorting on those scraps.

I found the pattern I was looking for yesterday; it turns out it is pinwheels and not half-square triangles as I thought. But I had all those leaders and enders to press and square up and they’ve all been organized. I’m not sure what I’ll do with all the half-square triangles I have but I know I’ll find a purpose.

Since it appears my two scrappy projects involve pinwheels I did a bit more sorting and my leaders and enders for the next while will be ones that are the right size for those two projects.

I have a bit of fabric and a quilt top in the other room and I’ll have to get that looked after; generally everything is tidied and put away though. What’s left is to empty my garbage and recycle and get the vacuuming done.

I’ll be ready to cut into that lovely white fabric tomorrow.

Saturday, October 24, 2020

I finished all the blocks for this while I was on Texada but I got them sewn together today. It went quite quickly in spite of an error I made. One row of blocks was put together in the wrong order but I switched the middle for the top and put the two “wrong” rows on the bottom. I think it looks just as good this way and I avoided a lot of reverse stitching.

Now that the top is done it will get added to my “Needs to be Quilted” list. I think my UFO challenges for next year will have to be some of these quilting projects.

I’ve been making half-square triangles as my leader and enders this week. I found a pattern that I want to use them for but the last time I went looking I couldn’t find it. I know I put it away somewhere, I just have to figure out where.

There is a lot of clean up that needs to be done in my sewing room and I’ll have to do some vacuuming before I start work on Emma’s curtains next week. But for the rest of the afternoon (I’m not confident I’ll find it) I’m going to look for that pattern.

We’ll be watching the election results tonight and I’ll be stitching together the last of my hexagons.

Friday, October 23, 2020

I thought I finished this project yesterday but after taking a photograph I decided it needed a border. I had enough of the background fabric to do a small border; I didn’t want it to grow too large. Pat thought it needed a dark flange to add some interest but I didn’t have anything in this particular fabric line. So I decided I would go with a single white border.

I’ve done quite a few mitred borders but they aren’t alway successful. Some of the mitres just don’t come together the way they should and, in some cases, the fabric I’m using either doesn’t work well with a mitre or I get the mitre done successfully and it doesn’t even show.

As I pondered this question it dawned on me that by adding a small block to the corners of the binding I would add some interest and I wouldn’t need to decide about mitres.