Tuesday, June 20, 2017

There was no shortage of things to work on at the bee today. I pieced the binding for my Pink quilt; since the front border and backing didn’t really work with either shade of fabric I decided to do a two-colour binding. I did it once before and, in my mind, you sewed the two pieces together and then proceeded as usual. I tried that and then couldn’t figure out a way to stitch it to the quilt for the desired result. I had help from a couple of other quilters and between us we managed to sort out the problem. I was correct that you sew the two pieces together but then, rather than fold the piece in half and press, you fold each of the edges to the centre seam. Once I did that everything worked out fine. It took until after lunch to get the entire binding on the quilt though so rather longer than I had planned.

Because I’m going to have three of my grandchildren here in July I wanted to get at least enough Bingo blocks finished that we could try out the game while they are here. Sadly all the re-design work I did yesterday was still sitting in a file on my home computer so I wasn’t able to stitch any rows together. I didn’t have any extra squares cut so I couldn’t stitch any of the one-colour rows. I ended the day by doing a bit of reverse stitching on the four blocks I had already finished before I decided to change the layout. I still have a bit more of that reversing to do.

I took along a card to work on but I never even pulled it out of my bag. That particular card isn’t due until the end of July so I’ll have time to get it done another day.

This will be my last bee for at least three weeks; it may be four before I’m back because I don’t remember when we come back from the Island after the music festival. I’ll be planning lots of hand stitching for the Calgary visit, lots of fun things for the week the kids are here, and then a few projects to take for our week on the Island.

But I have choices for tonight. Will I finish my reverse Bingo stitching? Will I start sewing down the binding on Pink? Or will I continue with the knitting project I started last night?

Monday, June 19, 2017

I worked through a few sprinkles of rain this morning but I got another bed cleared. I wasn’t pulling as many weeds today though. We have had some California Poppies in the yard and boulevard and they were about to take over one of the beds. We decided to get rid of the ones in the yard and hope that the ones on the boulevard will remain. It must be the soil on the boulevard because they spread like wild fire in the yard but we are stuck with only a couple of clumps outside the fence. With those pulled out the glads and lilies will have a better chance to show off.

Alyssum is another one of those plants that will take over if we let it. Although I kept a few areas where it can grow and spread, I cleared a lot of it out. The succulents in this bed are very happy so, without the alyssum, I think they will take over the space quite quickly. It wasn’t easy “weeding” today as I had to be careful not to knock down any of the tall plants that they were hiding in and around.

I’ve had a busy afternoon in the sewing room. I’m getting ready for tomorrow’s bee and I don’t want to run out of projects as I did last week. So, I’ve got a card to do and I have binding and a label to put on a quilt. I’ve redrawn my Bingo quilt and will spend the rest of the afternoon seeing how many more squares of each colour I need. Since I’ll have grandkids here the first part of July I’d like to at least have a top that we can try the game with.

I also need to find myself a new knitting project before we go downstairs to watch TV this evening.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

It’s a dull day outside so we didn’t plan any outdoor events to celebrate Father’s Day. I spent most of the morning making a lemon pie for Pat’s dessert tonight. I still need to make the meringue but I’ll do that just before we go out for dinner. There is a small restaurant just down the hill from us; it isn’t fancy but we enjoy their food. They’ve just changed their menu so there are lots of new things for us to try, although their Fish and Chips are the best in town.

It may be Father’s Day but it feels more like Grandma’s Day to me. We have just arranged for Madison, Emma and Gavin to come back from Calgary with us and stay for a week. We are off to the Island then anyway so I will fly them home from Comox and come back on the same day, in time for the music festival on the Island and the little mini-vacation we planned around the festival. I’m so excited I probably won’t sleep tonight.

I haven’t got any stitching done yet today so I’ll try to calm myself down with this week’s Splendid Sampler block.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

I’ve been quilting all day and Pink is finished. Well finished except for the binding. I worked on the straight-line quilting for close to three days, so I planned on two days for quilting the rest of it. I had a good start to the day, a couple of interruptions, but I finished just now a full day ahead of schedule.

After lunch I had a few errands to run – a prescription to pick up, some supplies for my lemon pie (that I’m making for Pat tomorrow), a couple of games to take to Calgary, some pain killers (for when I get back to the yard) and some vitamins.

Late this afternoon, with about an eighth of a border left to quilt, I ran out of thread. When I stopped to fill my last bobbin I noticed that the thread was getting low but hoped I would have enough to finish. I had another thread that probably would have worked but when the fabric shop is just up the street why make do?

I thought the store closed at five so I wasn’t rushing too much (I had at least half an hour) but when I got over the hill I noticed her sandwich board wasn’t on the curb and worried that maybe she had started summer hours and was closing early. When I got there the shop was closed but I went around to the door of the house and asked if I could buy some thread. Deb was fine with that and I was in an out in no time at all. And yes, summer hours are now in effect in spite of what the sign on her door says.

If I had to, I know I could borrow a cup of sugar from Deb anytime I needed it. It’s nice to know I can also get emergency sewing supplies if necessary.