Friday, January 10, 2020

I finally got down to sewing Taylor’s curtains. It isn’t that curtains are hard – just straight seams and all done on the sewing machine.

As Christy says, Taylor is going through her “lumberjack” phase and she wanted the curtains to be red and black plaid. It took some research but I found exactly what I wanted from the quilt store in Duck Lake. I tried my best to match the fabric on the seams – some spots are better than others but I can live with it. The curtains will have some gathers on each side so the seams can be hidden if it really shows.

I have one more seam to sew on both the left and the right side. My next challenge is going to be to get each side the same length.

Wednesday, January 9, 2020

Pat and I were both out the door early this morning; he headed to Texada on an early ferry and I was meeting someone at the Hall. It was nippy out but no snow yet – I think that is to come tonight. I picked up money at the Hall and emptied my recycle bins at the depot but it was still far too early for the bank. So I came home.

I planned to get to the curtains today. But I had a couple of Hall e-mails I needed to answer first. I had a conversation with our Board president last night and we decided I needed to address a problem we’ve had at the Hall. I’d been receiving a flurry of messages since December telling us we were violating copyright laws and that we had to apply for a license. The Board originally decided we didn’t need one but after getting more messages yesterday I called a few other rental venues in town. It seems they have all been getting the same message and most have decided to apply for the license.

I wanted to avoid speaking with the fellow who had been harassing me but when I called the general information line I was put through to him. We had a very frank conversation about his methods and then we got down to the business at hand. Getting the paperwork all organized took until lunch.

After lunch I walked up to the bank. It had been sunny earlier in the morning but the sun was gone by the time I got out. It was cool, but not too bad as long as I stayed in motion. Before I left I promised myself that if I walked (I was really tempted to drive) I could come home and knit for the afternoon.

But after I was home and played a few rounds of Candy Crush Saga I came upstairs and did some prep work for the curtains. I’m set now to start working on them first thing tomorrow morning!

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

We started the morning by getting the garbage and recycling to the curb. After picking up the mail from the Hall yesterday I knew at least part of my morning would be spent on Hall work. I also had time to do some Guild work. And since I was in a work mode I got the depot recycling sorted out.

So, after all that work it seemed only right that I spend my afternoon playing. I’m working on curtains for Taylor’s bedroom and I want to take them with us when we go to her gymnastics competition later this month. With fingers crossed, I cut the fabric on Monday hoping I got it cut so I had the right amount for length and width.

When I got upstairs after lunch (after all that work!) I really wasn’t in the mood for curtains. I justified switching to the Princess because I wanted to have a full day to sew them; tomorrow was my sewing afternoon and I’d be interrupted. I just got settled in with the Princess (feeling guilty) when Gail called to say she had to go to the Island tomorrow and was cancelling our session.

Now I’ll have no excuse but to start those curtains tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

It was odd to think that this was the first bee of the new year; I guess because we were all together last week for the business meeting it didn’t seem like very long since I’d seen everyone.

I took along a couple of things to work on; the first was the Block of the Month. I cut everything out at home but obviously I didn’t read the instructions properly. I ended up with more pieces of one colour than I needed and one short on another colour. I pieced together as much of the block as I could but I also neglected to take along thread to do the appliqué work on the block. I guess I know what I’ll work on next week.

My UFO number for January is 2; for me that is my Disappearing 9-Patch. I took a class a couple of years ago on a newer (and supposedly faster) way to make a 9-patch. Once I finished all the blocks I wasn’t sure what to do with it but at the same time one of the bloggers I follow was doing a Disappearing 9-Patch Quilt-Along. I joined up (even though all my blocks were done) and only took part in the various ways the block could be cut up and re-arranged.

I decided that I wanted to try the Quilt-As-You-Go technique so that is where I’m at now. I sandwiched four of the blocks and I’ve got two of them quilted. I won’t be putting sashing between the blocks on this project; I have another Quilt-As-You-Go planned that will have sashing between.

All of my quilting design books are on Texada so I looked at a few from the Guild library and decided to do straight line quilting on these first two blocks. I think I have four different layouts for the blocks so once I decide on what to do for each layout the rest of the blocks for the quilt shouldn’t be too difficult.

That will get me ready for learning how to actually sew the blocks together once they are quilted.