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.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

It was same old … same old for a Tuesday – I was off to sew with the Guild. I had just a little bit of work left on a project that has been “in a bin” for almost two years. I finished off all the bits and pieces and, with a bit of hand stitching, it will be done.

I took a new project to work on today and it went together very well. I still have a couple more steps but, with the exception of some raw edge and top stitching it too will be done. I sewed quietly in a corner and it wasn’t until the end of the day that anyone asked what I was making. Now it seems this pattern may be the Friday Night project at the Texada Retreat; I said (in no uncertain terms) that I wouldn’t teach it. It might be kind of nice to be done the Friday night project before it even starts – it generally takes me most of Saturday to finish whatever the project is. And I have no shortage of other things I could be doing.

I’m off for my first (of six) qigong classes tonight. I did an introductory class a few weeks ago and enjoyed it but I may feel differently having to go out and come home in the dark.