Monday, February 18, 2019

Our last house concert performer was from PEI and she lives about five minutes from one of the Bed and Breakfast’s we stayed at (the one in the lighthouse). She is also a quilter and her aunt owns a shop. After dinner one night while she was here I dug out my journal of our trip to PEI and we did indeed stop at her aunt’s shop in O’Leary (pronounced O’Larry). I wasn’t “into” quilting then but it didn’t stop me from purchasing three cross stitch kits (none of which are done) – Peggy’s Cove, Three Churches of Mahone Bay and Lupins (the unofficial flower of PEI).

I enjoyed reading through all of that particular journal; I don’t have to even look hard and I can see four others. I’ve always intended to do “something” with them so, while it was handy, I started transcribing my ramblings. This journal pre-dates my online journal but I can see my writing change after only a couple of months.

What are the highlights of the first couple of months of 2007? I noted that I was working on a shawl for Kathryn (I expect it was eventually Alex’s baby blanket), a Cinderella cross stitch for Madison, a Winnie the Pooh magnet for Emma, and with only two months of the journal transcribed I’ve already fixed Dylan’s blankie twice! We watched lots of hockey and were involved in a couple of movie-screening groups.

Today, besides the transcribing, I’ve paid some bills and done some Cranberry Hall work. I headed out to Canadian Tire to purchase some bins they have on sale but they were closed. I knew it was Family Day but I really didn’t expect everything to be shut down. With what is left of the afternoon I’ll clean and oil my sewing machine and maybe get a couple of lines of quilting done.

Sunday, February 17, 2019

As if I didn’t have enough to catch up on, an update to my website has completely changed (and in my opinion not in a better way) how I write my posts. So if things look strange and different, I’m still in a learning phase.

The film festival continued, although I think we missed as many movies this year as we attended. Thursday afternoon was a movie date and, because it was Valentines, we had dinner reservations. The snow started to fall in the late afternoon and we had already decided we wouldn’t go to the evening movie. It’s a good thing as by the time we were finished dinner the movie would already have started.

There were movies again Friday afternoon and Friday evening and with the time I had left in the day I worked on some quilting and preparing for my Guild class on Saturday.

I was up early on Saturday morning so I could complete the quilting before heading out to my class. We were learning how to make a jelly roll rug (a jelly roll is made up of about 42 2.5″ strips). I intended to use some strips the Guild had cut up and then the finished project would be available for sale at the quilt show. But I never finish a project in a class and I didn’t want to have another thing to worry about finishing so I used some of my own fabric. I already had some strips cut but it took awhile to get up to 42 of them. As predicted, I didn’t come anywhere near finishing my rug but only one person did and she had done a lot of pre-sewing before arriving. It was a fun process and I’ll definitely make more.

Although it has warmed up a bit and we’ve had some rain the parking lot at the church where we sew was a disaster. There is a rather steep hill to get down to the parking lot and I was pleased when I was at the top of it to see it had been cleared. Not so when you got to the parking lot at the bottom. Two husbands had to be called at the end of the class to push most of the cars out of the lot – mine was one of them.

I currently have three books on the go – I never do that. As I was finishing The Space Between Us I thought how nice it would be to see what happened next in the lives of the characters. Because this time I was reading on my Kindle they had an excerpt from the sequel so I immediately ordered it from the library and started on the first two chapters on my Kindle. That night I started the Valentine’s day mystery book I picked from the library. And after I finished the two chapters of the sequel (The Secrets Between Us) I started another book on my Kindle while I waited for another movie to start. Now that the films are over I’ll get back to reading one book at a time.

I’m going to be working on my Farmer’s Wife quilt again today – I’ll get it trimmed, add the binding and then tonight I’ll have some hand stitching to do.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

I was ready this morning to start some free-motion quilting on my Farmer’s Wife quilt; this was going to be an easy day and by the end of it I’d be ready for binding. But after five needle breaks I realized it was going to be a tough day!

Needle 1 – Me: I must have bent the needle with my quilting in the blocks.

Needle 2 – Me: Darn I must have been moving too fast.

Needle 3 – Me: It’s the heavy seams in the backing that are causing the problem. I’ll use a marker and circle the spots I should avoid.

Needle 4 – Me: ***#, I got to close to one of those seams.

Needle 5 – Me: *@#$ *&^%, that seam wasn’t even that thick.

So I spent a relaxing (?) afternoon sitting in the sunshine and taking out all of the free-motion quilting I managed to do this morning. Now that it’s done, I’ll go back to my book and see if I can find a pattern that will work with my machine’s walking foot.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

We only had 17 people show up for our Powell River house concert on Sunday night; fortunately 34 people had pre-paid for the event so our performer (Meaghan Blanchard) wasn’t out any money. It had started snowing in the late afternoon and by four people were calling to say they weren’t coming or wondering how the roads were. We tried to get some others into the seats (for free) but no one wanted to be out in the weather.

When we got up on Monday morning we had long conversations as to whether or not we should go over for the show on Texada. Meaghan had shows booked for Victoria on Tuesday and Ladysmith on Wednesday. We knew we were going to get another large dump of snow and worried that we might get stuck on Texada and she would miss the ferry back to Comox. We decided to go over to Texada and hope for the best. The show there had about 17 people as well but, again, we had pre-sold tickets so Meaghan wasn’t out any money. Before the show on Texada ended both Victoria and Ladysmith had cancelled.

The drive to the studio was okay because Pat had the truck in 4-wheel drive. We were almost to the top of our very steep driveway when the truck started slipping and we were sliding back down the hill with very little control. Meaghan and I were certain we were going to go over the embankment but Pat got things under control by the time we had slipped most of the way down the drive. We blocked the tires with firewood so the truck wouldn’t slip any further and walked up the hill to the studio.

It snowed most of the night and although there was no rush to catch the ferry today we decided quite early to attempt to get to the Texada ferry. Pat did a fine job of backing down the driveway (although maybe it was Meaghan’s and my guidance that did the trick), turning the truck around and getting out to the ferry. By the time we got to the ferry the snow had pretty much stopped but it had started again by the time we pulled into Powell River. The roads on this side were pretty clear so we didn’t have any trouble with our hill.

It had stopped snowing for a bit this afternoon but it has started again. When will this end?