Monday, March 19, 2018

I was so tired yesterday, after three late nights, that I was in bed shortly after seven. Except for waking up a couple of times in the night (for a medivac helicopter to fly in and fly out) I slept through until seven this morning. I enjoyed the House Concert – Rugged Little Thing from Saskatoon. We knew most of the same places so we had fun chatting. That was my last House Concert of the season. Do I sound sad? I’ll work on it! I’ll be at our Guild’s Spring Retreat for the next show.

So what did I do with all the energy I have today? First off I finished the quilting on two cards and got the bindings ready to stitch by hand at tomorrow’s bee. I got my fabric prepared for a colouring project I’ll be taking to the Island later in the week. I prepared the last of the appliqué pieces I need for my March challenge; I’ll take it along tomorrow and to the Island as well. I also packed up the half-square triangles for my Thursday project – about half of them still need to be pressed and trimmed. And if I run out of things to do tomorrow I also have my Boro stitching in my bag (just because another project is in the same bag).

When I realized I wouldn’t be at our Thursday session I scanned a pattern that Jessie had in a magazine. It is a February issue but is already off the shelves so she let me borrow it to copy. Who knows when it might get done – maybe another Thursday project. Jessie was intrigued by my Leader and Ender projects so I dug out my book so she could borrow it. I’ll drop both of them off at Gail’s tomorrow after the bee because I don’t want to keep the magazine for two weeks in case she wants to get started.

After all those bits and pieces I cleaned out my scrap bin and cleared off my cutting table. With what is left of the afternoon I’ll work on Pat’s accounting and get a Cranberry Hall deposit ready for the bank tomorrow.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

It’s a special day for two reasons – St. Patrick’s Day (of course) and also National Quilting Day. And what better photo to commemorate the day than this Singer sewing machine transformed into a table in the pub. We actually saw a these in a number of places in Ireland.

Although I haven’t done much in the way of quilting today I managed to finish off a couple of squares – my weekly 1880 Sampler block and one Splendid Sampler block.

I spent some time looking through my photos of our Ireland trip. Here are a couple!

Friday, March 16, 2018

Pat and I did a foolish thing last night – we stayed up until 2 AM watching a full season of Broadchurch. We watched a couple of episodes before I headed out to my Boro class and after I got home we started watching again. The episodes were such that we couldn’t wait to see what would happen next and before we knew it there were only two episodes left. Since we knew we couldn’t watch it again until Sunday night we decided to stay up and finish it.

To say we were a little slow this morning would be an understatement. But we both had things to do so we got at it. I sewed a card top before I went out for groceries for our House Concert tomorrow; Pat headed out to take care of things for the show tonight at Cranberry Hall. When the groceries were put away I started cleaning and setting up for the House Concert; I’ve got all my dishes set out, as well as the chairs, so there won’t be much to do tomorrow morning.

The performers for the show at Cranberry Hall aren’t staying with us, which is a bonus for me. I hadn’t actually intended to go to the show but since one of our Board members was going to be on his own for the Concession I said I’d go; Grant was doing all the buying and prep work, I was just going to help serve. As it turned out we had an email this morning from the Board member who usually handles membership and merchandise; Annabelle really didn’t want to go so I said I’d work her table for her.

It’s good that I’m retired so I have time (and a bit of energy) for all the things I find myself involved with – even if I don’t enjoy all of them.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Yesterday didn’t go the way I planned. I wanted to get some cards done but I realized Pat’s GST report was due at the accountant’s so I thought I should get busy at that before I started having fun. I didn’t expect to get far as I usually need paperwork and explanations from Pat and he was away. But things went very smoothly and it was late morning before I hit a snag and had to stop.

I picked out fabric for a card, as well as fabric for the same block for myself. I did the cutting and I was having trouble seeing how it would all fit together properly. When I looked closer at the pattern (always a good idea) I realized I was supposed to be paper piecing the block.

For paper piecing I use an old needle because it has to go through paper and dulls the needle. Since my machine was set up for quilting I didn’t want to change feet and the needle so I set the project aside.

I had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon and until it was time to leave for that I did a bit more hand stitching on my March challenge. There was a good turn out for the birthday; Al thanked everyone for coming to “the second anniversary of his 40th birthday”!

I barely had time for supper before heading off to the movie and by the time I got home I was tired and sat in my chair and finished off the hand stitching I started in the afternoon.

Today is busy as well, hence the early post. I did some of my own paperwork this morning and then quilted another block on my never-ending quilting project. By the time I finished that one block I had to head to the airport to pick Pat up. I’m off now to my Thursday stitching group and then a Boro embroidery class (with the Guild) tonight.