Monday, October 30, 2017

When I went over to Texada on Saturday I had no intention of spending more than a day. But the timing for the ferry on Sunday was tricky. Pat had a cord of wood being delivered on Sunday afternoon so that meant I’d have to come back on the late morning ferry. Which was okay, but Pat said if I waited until the late afternoon ferry he would come home too. But we were having wood delivered so I thought it would be nice to stay long enough to have a fire in the wood stove. We ended up coming back on the late morning ferry today.

As always it was a lovely weekend. I ordered (and received) a sewing/craft table from Amazon and Pat had it set up when I got there. We did a few furniture changes in the room so when I’m crafting I can see out the window. Dad’s cedar chest is under the Celtic Cross quilt; no photos this time as I neglected to take my camera. The set up must work for me because I finished two projects while I was there. I used a folding chair as my seat but the sewing stool I have (from a yard sale at some point) will be the perfect height and it has two drawers in it as a bonus.

We had a couple of visitors this weekend, as well as the two fellows who delivered the wood. We were barely back from the ferry when we saw someone in our driveway, and actually coming up our driveway. The JWs have found us! Also the man who runs the coffee shop in Van Anda came over on Sunday; he didn’t stay long but did a quick walk through of the house (just seemed nosy to me). Pat enjoys all the social goings-on; me not so much!

It was a beautiful weekend weather-wise and we did a nice drive on Saturday afternoon. After a long drive down a logging road we found Shingle Beach. I’m not sure if it would be a good swimming beach but it was fun to poke around; they hold a huge Diversity Festival there every summer. There was a huge sea lion just off the shore and a couple of large, long-necked birds out in the water – swans maybe. I picked up a couple of nice shells and I’m looking for something to write the date and location on – I may start a collection.

I should have been cleaning this afternoon but I just wasn’t in the mood. A lot of my work was already done but with sewing tomorrow I know (and don’t care) that I’ll be scrambling on Wednesday morning. I got a couple of parcels ready for the mail tomorrow; it is surprising how long the unpacking takes after a weekend. I have my project all ready for the bee tomorrow so, if Pat goes to the movie tonight, maybe I’ll get the kitchen floor scrubbed.

Friday, October 27, 2017

I don’t know what was wrong with me last night but I couldn’t sleep. I went to bed at my usual time, I read a bit of my book as I usually do, and I turned on the radio. Generally, under these conditions, I’m asleep before I even know what is on the radio. But not last night. I lay there for a couple of hours and didn’t feel in the least like sleeping so I got up and did a bit of quilting. In hindsight it may have been the quilting that was bothering me.

Before going to bed I set up my machine for some straight-line quilting. I knew that it was going to be a lot of work to do the pattern I had picked out but I really thought it would show up the best. But after turning out the light I started to second guess myself and thought of a couple of different ways I might be able to do the quilting. I would have thought that actually getting up and quilting several parts of the quilt (two hours worth) would have put my mind at ease but it did’t and I slept very fitfully for the rest of the night. I got up at nine this morning feeling like I hadn’t slept at all.

I’ve been quilting all day and, as expected, the pattern is a lot of work and I’m no where near finished even the straight line portion of my plan. But I’ll keep at it. As I’m quilting today I’ve given this particular project a name – Memories (formerly known as Leaders and Enders 2016). It is a scrappy quilt and as I’m going around the blocks I’m remembering all the places I’ve used the various fabrics. Some are from my own left-overs, some are from Mum’s scraps (from my Farmer’s Wife Sampler), and others are pieces that friends have given me; the pieces finish at one inch so it didn’t take much yardage for each of those squares.

I’m heading over to Texada tomorrow. Pat went over on Wednesday but I had my hand stitching day and I really wanted to get this project quilted. But as of last night (before the middle of the night) I hadn’t even started it so I decided to take advantage of the nice weather we are currently enjoying; hopefully we’ll get in a hike. I won’t stay long (back on Sunday) because we have a house concert next week.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

I’m scrambling today to get something ready for my hand stitching afternoon. I have may dependable Farmer’s Daughter that I take every week but I usually take along something else. I have another hexi project that I want to try with Christmas fabrics but I’m not sure I have time to do that prep before I get picked up. What I have packed are the small Advent calendar cross stitch ornaments that I’ll cut out while we chat.

I slept in this morning; I woke up with a headache in the middle of the night and had to take some meds. I’m fine now but a bit groggy. Last night, before heading to bed, I sat down to work on a jigsaw puzzle on my iPad. I couldn’t get the program to load, even though I had used it earlier in the day. I did a full reboot but that didn’t work and I hoped that by some miracle letting it sit overnight would “fix” it. Sadly it didn’t and I deleted it. I’ve learned to live without Candy Crush and Spider Solitaire so I guess I’ll get over this loss.

I still have two games that I play regularly (Tetris and MahJong) so I’m not completely lost. On the positive side I’ve probably saved fifteen or twenty minutes from my morning screen time.

I’m off now to see if I can find the hexi project and some Christmas fabrics.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

I fully intended to start quilting on my sandwiched donation quilt but when I started to clear my table and unpack from yesterday’s sewing I changed my mind. As of the bee yesterday I had two projects that just needed a bit more time before they could be moved to the “Finished” pile so I decided to work on them. I still have three projects that could be finished fairly quickly and I might work on them tomorrow morning before my hand stitching session. Some of my finishes aren’t ready to be revealed just yet as I’m not sure if they will end up as gifts but I’ve posted some of them.

I spoke to someone yesterday who had done a session with the long arm quilting machine. She advised against using anything “good” for my first session. According to her the first couple of hours on the machine produced some pretty rough results, but she was better by the time she finished. I have a couple of quilt tops that I had in mind for the long arm but, based on Sandra’s suggestions, I’m rethinking that plan.

My next idea for the long arm was that I would make a quick quilt top of some sort. But no matter what pattern I use it would take time and be “just another project”. I have a bag of orphan blocks (squares, half-square triangles, etc.) but putting different sizes together into something would probably be a nightmare so that idea was off the table. Then I thought maybe I’d just sandwich a couple of pieces of fabric together but that wouldn’t give me any experience going over seams so I set that idea aside. I have worked on something I was calling my Bingo quilt but when the grandkids were here this past summer the game didn’t work out as well as I would have liked. So I think I’ll finish off the few blocks I have done and use that as a practice for the long arm. We have a new dog in the family so perhaps George will end up with a blanket for his kennel.