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.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

At lunch I heard there was a special weather advisory for the Island. I didn’t hear what the advisory was for but this afternoon, while listening to the radio, I heard it again. They are saying some places are going to get snow tonight.

I quickly took a look at the weather online and I’m thankful there is no snow predicted for us. We will, however, drop below zero tonight. I also looked at a few locations on the Island but didn’t see snow for any of them so I don’t think it will be much of an issue for anyone I know.

Our Covid cases today are close to 300 which is very alarming. We never hear whether or not there are cases in Powell River but my behaviour hasn’t changed much since the beginning of the pandemic.

It occurred to me today though that perhaps the difficulty I am having (and many others) is that there is nothing to look forward to. I used to laugh because I would barely be home from one trip before planning the next one. There is no travel in sight – except maybe 30 km either north or south of town at which point the road runs out.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

We have a motion detection light mounted on our deck. It goes off quite often and when we first got it I would peek out the window to see what might have set it off. I could never see anything so assumed it was set off by one of the neighbourhood cats. Early in the morning large trucks going up and down the hill will sometimes shake things enough to set it off.

I was awake early this morning (and I don’t want to think how early that early will be when we change time) when I noticed the light come on. I didn’t hear any traffic but ignored it. After about two seconds I heard a crash, followed by another thud. I ran for my glasses and out to the door. I could see that the garbage can had been tipped over so I thought it was probably be a bear.

I went out to the back deck to take a better look! What was I thinking? No bear in site but something had ripped open the small bag of garbage that was in the can. There wasn’t enough of it to spread around so it was very easy to pick it up, put a new bag in the can, and set everything to rights.

When I talked to Pat later in the day he said that one of the authors he had interviewed mentioned that bears really hate the smell of bleach. We’d never heard about this before and it certainly isn’t promoted in any bear aware information I’ve seen. But I sprinkled a bit of bleach around the carport and wiped down the garbage can with bleach. There is probably some environmental or animal rights reason we shouldn’t do it but I’m hoping the bear won’t be back.