Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Before the time change I was often up at 5:30 in the morning, and I was usually in bed reading until 11 PM. With the time change my body is still on the same rhythm – I’m awake at 4:30 in the morning and falling asleep reading at 10 PM. I’m not sure what it will take to get me back on my usual track. I admit that being up at 4:30 allowed me to get a lot done before heading off to the bee. I sorted through the recycle and took two bins to the depot; I sorted the cans and bottles and took more than $6 to the bottle depot. I stopped at Safeway and picked up some water for the studio in anticipation of my trip on the weekend. I almost feel like I could go to bed now, or at least have a nap, but I’ll struggle through for a few more hours. Maybe the shock of late nights at the retreat will get me back on track.

I’ve had another change of plan for this weekend retreat. Originally the person who is staying at the studio was going to drive; I planned to go to the studio on the weekend and make sure things were tidied up and a bit of furniture moved around so there was a little more room for hide-a-bed to open. Last Thursday she told me she wouldn’t have room for both of us (and our stuff) in her truck so I decided to stay home on the weekend and head to the studio on Thursday night. Then I decided (on my own) that I would go over on Wednesday and skip my usual Thursday stitching. Today at the bee the plans had changed again – now there apparently would be room for both of us and our stuff in her truck. So the new plan is that we’ll head over on Friday morning, stop and unload a few things at the studio and then head to the hall where we hold the retreat. I won’t have a chance to do any tidying or re-arranging or even make the bed, but I’m glad not to be driving.

The problem with packing too far in advance of the retreat is that I’ve had time to change my mind about a project. I was going to do some half-square triangles (using the new method) using just scraps but now I think I want to have them a little more organized – a colour with a neutral shade. I have time to cut a few more squares tomorrow and I’ll also be able to prep this week’s Splendid Sampler block.

Some things don’t change though – I’m going to continue my knitting project tonight.

Monday, November 5, 2018

I packaged up the fabric that I need for the retreat project so I’m all set. With all the projects packed it seemed like a good idea to start some quilting – it needed to be done, and if I was quilting I wouldn’t be tempted to pull another project. Things were going well until mid-morning when the phone started ringing for Cranberry Hall. While I was working on Cranberry Hall stuff I had a couple of items on my to-do list from the last meeting so I took care of those.

My plan was to walk up to Safeway to get my flu shot this afternoon. Then someone dropped off money from the show on Friday night so I decided I’d get the deposit made as well. But there were some things I had to drop off at the Hall and before I knew it my list of stops had grown so that walking wasn’t going to work. It was a nice day so, on my way to the Hall, I stopped at the Timberlane Track. I’d never walked on it before and, if you don’t mind going around in circles, it is quite nice. You get a view of the water as well as some forest views so it wasn’t too boring. I noticed that there aren’t any lights so I guess it must close at dark. I was thinking that if I stopped every time I was on my way to the Hall I could get some exercise.

I did stop and get my flu shot in my travels. They generally don’t bother me so I’m not expecting it to this time. I did a bit more quilting when I got home but I’ll knit for the rest of the evening. I’m gradually finding all the clocks that need to be reset – today it was the thermostat and the clock in my car.

Sunday, November 4, 2018

We set our clocks back an hour last night. I can’t say that I feel like I’ve gained an extra hour; I went to bed at my usual “old” time and read until my usual “new” time. I was awake about the same time based on the clock; I’m not liking the dark outside my window at five.

I’ve spent the entire day cutting fabric. I cut three clues for my Secret Santa sew-along; all of it was scraps from my Christmas bin. I found a few pictures on Facebook for the other sew-along I was considering. I swapped out a few of the original fabrics I picked and now have all three clues for that one cut.

I thought I was done but at the end of the day I realized we had fabric requirements for the Retreat Project so I guess I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Saturday, November 3, 2018

My backup took five hours last night but I have a full backup and it appears the software I use will do an incremental backup every hour. That is really more than I need but I don’t, at the moment, feel like installing and working out the kinks in another program.

I’ve been cutting all day even though I really wanted to get started on some quilting. I finished sewing two of my Splendid Sampler blocks and cut and packaged two more to take to the retreat with me. One of the blocks involved some half-square triangles; the Guild recently had a demo on a new technique for HSTs but I was away and missed it. I thought today would be as good a day as any to try out the tutorial; it is interesting but I’m not sure it is any quicker than either the Magic 8 or just chaining them one at a time the “old” way.

Later this month we have a Community Quilt weekend planned where people will be putting together quilts using the HSTs they made at the demo. Since I didn’t do the demo I was already behind so I cut several of my scraps and packaged them up to work on at the retreat and then to finish (or continue) at the workshop.

I spent a lot of time yesterday afternoon going through fabric for a mystery quilt I think I’ll make. The clues are released online once a week. Without knowing for sure what I’m making, picking the fabric is more challenging than usual. I haven’t cut anything yet because the other project I can’t seem to get out of my head is another mystery sew-along – this one is a Christmas-themed quilt. I’ll take another look at the clues that have been listed and see if I’d rather do that one; Christmas fabrics (in my mind) seem easier to coordinate than other colours from my stash.

It’s a stormy night outside and I’ll probably hunker down in the basement and binge-watch some TV. I have another Farmer’s Daughter block almost finished so I’ll work on that.