Thursday, July 30, 2020

I probably wouldn’t have done a daily block today but it was a small one and I had some time between other projects. My selection of fabrics certainly fits into the name of the block; all of the pieces came from my scraps and the four-patches were already put together.

Now, my day. I slept in a bit so I got a slow start but the jobs I set for myself were pretty simple. I was a block behind on one of my on-line quilt alongs so that was the first thing I did. I was a week behind on purpose because I wanted to wait until the final block was released to decide whether or not to add an additional colour of fabric into the mix. I also needed to see the final layout to see if the added colour would be okay. It all worked out very well and I have just one block to finish and then, of course, all the blocks need to be stitched together.

When I got home yesterday my car wouldn’t start – not a surprise that the battery was dead. Pat tried to boost the car to get it going but we didn’t have any luck; I bought my own booster cables awhile ago and I’ve used them successfully a couple of times. At that point I called BCAA to tow the car to my mechanic’s shop. Of course he attached his booster cables and the car turned over first try!

Just as I finished laying out the quilt-along blocks the shop called and said the car was ready. They couldn’t find anything that was draining the battery but they have given me another gizmo that will allow me to plug the car in when I’m away and it will maintain the battery charge. I’m hoping that will solve the problem. I asked Ken if he thought the car was worth keeping and he said that given the amount of driving I do it is just fine.

When I got home I moved on to the daily block and next I started working on the first step of a curved hexie quilt-along. I have a couple of shapes basted and I hope to finish them off this evening in the coolness of the basement. Anne (with an ‘e’) has a new season so I’ll watch that as I stitch.

Thursday, July 23, 2020

Five years ago (when this photo was taken) almost all of us were together for a few days in the summer; we were missing Dave and Dylan B. The celebration was in honour of my up-coming 65th birthday. We were hoping to do it again this summer for another milestone birthday.

I planned for the event starting shortly after Christmas. Kathryn was helping me pick out some good skim boards and I had a cupboard full of new-to-me games from a yard sale. We had all three sections of Higgins Inn booked and all that was left was to book the travel and check the tide charts.

We cancelled all our plans several months ago but I’m feeling particularly sad today. Had the pandemic not hit we would have been checking into Higgins Inn today.

There is much to be grateful for though – we are all healthy and even isolation isn’t too much to handle. I have plenty of crafts to keep me busy until we are safe to meet again.

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

I’m working on my July UFO project – my Cake Mix Recipe using Farmer’s Daughter fabric (both were a gift from Deloise). I haven’t done anything with it since last October when Stacia, Deloise and I were together.

When I pulled it out this morning I knew what I was doing – I had to stitch the lines on a dozen of the fabric sets and cut those and about a dozen more. Done!

Then I was ready to sew the pieces together. I looked at the pattern and knew I was making Block 2. But when I looked at the notes I had for putting the blocks together I had a Block A and a Block B. I looked at the blocks I already had sewn together but didn’t see any difference in them so I’m not sure where A and B came from.

So I started sewing on the blocks I had just cut. Went well except that I’m using fabric with printing on it and I wanted to have the printing going in one direction. Impossible with the half-square triangles but do-able with the four patches. Do-able as in if you are really careful how you put them together.

So, following that plan I need to take apart about a dozen on the blocks that were already sewn together. I’m going to tackle that now, out on the deck, with a gin and tonic at my side!

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Yesterday we planned to take the early afternoon ferry across to the studio. But before mid-morning all the ferry service between Powell River and Texada was cancelled due to mechanical problems on the boat. I expected to settle in and get a few of my daily blocks done.

I was only a few stitches in when the next news was that the Powell River to Comox ferry would make a stop on Texada. When that route was in regular service they were only taking ten vehicles so we wanted to be sure we were in the lineup early enough to get on if that was how they were handling things. We packed up and headed to the ferry in plenty of time (3 hours early) but we weren’t first in line.

We got to the studio around seven and after we had unpacked and had some supper I set up my sewing machine and finished my daily block just to test my setup. The lighting for taking photos is terrible but you get the idea.

Everything worked well and I made progress today on two sew-alongs that I’m participating in.