Friday, June 16, 2017

The Guild party last night was a lot of fun. The library sold three boxes of books and our members were very generous. There were lots of games and prizes too and I guess, to some, I was a “winner”.

Every year the Guild has a Challenge project that is initiated by a member chosen (by a draw) from the previous year’s challenge participants. This year, being a quilt show year, the entries were all displayed at the show. We should have drawn a name for the next year’s challenger at the show but it was forgotten. So they made the draw last night.

I’ve entered a challenge piece every year except one, but I never EVER add my name to the draw pile. Last night, when I realized someone was adding the names to the draw basket, I snuck over to the table to remove my name. Sadly, I got caught but that was okay because I never EVER win at draws. I was not please when my name was announced as the “winner”. Apparently there are many members who would love to be in charge of the challenge and I’ve made a deal with Deb (at the fabric store up the street) that she will pick and organize the challenge and I will “sell it” as my own!

So what was the challenge this past year? We were given a fat quarter of some lovely musical note fabric and asked to make something that would relate to one of the songs on this list.

This was my interpretation. Can you guess the name of the song?

Thursday, June 15, 2017

I found an interesting quilting design in my “Quilting with Rulers” book so that’s what I’ve been doing on my Pink quilt. I’ve been calling it my Sashiko quilt for so long but since the Sashiko didn’t work out I needed a new name. Once you see the quilt you will know I didn’t use much imagination to come up with that name!

I enjoy quilting with straight lines. It takes time to mark the sewing lines but at least I know that the quilting will be more or less even. I’m getting better at free-motion but I still feel tense when I know that is what I’m facing. Even though I’m using straight lines I’m trying a new technique. When I drew the pattern I was going to have 12 ends to tie in on each block. That was just crazy so I’m stitching over previous quilting lines so on each block there are only four. Some of the blocks still need a design but I’m hoping “something” will come to me before I finish this set of blocks.

In spite of the nasty weather today I went out and ran some errands. I took the Cranberry Hall books into the accountant, dropped off a couple of Cranberry Hall payments, and did some Cranberry Hall banking. After that I headed to the grocery store to find something for the pot luck tonight. I came home with a pasta salad that fits nicely into one of my crystal bowls and, unless someone asks, I won’t tell them I didn’t make it from scratch.

Back now to the quilting.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

It looked like rain this morning but I headed out to my job anyway. My boss came out on the deck before I had even started and suggested I might want to stay indoors. I cleared a very small patch and then the cold wind and dampness put a stop to my weeding. It was with some delight that I anticipated making a start on my quilting.

The quilting design didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I’ve given up on the Sashiko idea. The designs I was looking at are just too small; the book suggests enlarging them by 200% but that size would be too big to fit in the blocks I was wanting to use. So I’ve devised another design and I got a bit of it done before lunch.

While I was downstairs at lunch I noticed the moving truck at the library – I guess they really are abandoning me. The library has been closed this week and will open again the last week of June. The Guild was waiting for the move to happen because we are getting one of their old bookshelves for the library in our new location. Somehow losing the library and having more work to do to set up the Guild library doesn’t seem fair.

I spent the afternoon working on Cranberry Hall business. I’ve got the books almost ready to go to the accountant and I’ve managed to scratch a few other items off my to-do list. Our next meeting is the day after we come back from Calgary and guess who (our President) suggested a pot-luck supper at our place? The Guild pot luck is tomorrow night and I’ve already wimped out and decided to buy something – hopefully I can find something I can put into my own serving bowl and get away with!

We’re off to an outdoor concert at the beach tonight. It is still windy, but not as cold, and there are only a few drops of rain in the air. The sky looks like there could be more but I guess if we want people to come out to our Cranberry Day in August (even in inclement weather) we have to be prepared to do the same for other groups.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” fit my day perfectly yesterday. I finished weeding one corner of the yard but the rest of the day was unproductive or downright annoying! You must be thinking our yard is a disaster if I need to do all this weeding. In truth, some spots were a disaster but in others I’m just getting ahead of the disaster that could come. I’m picking teeny, tiny weeds that will grow into much larger ones if they aren’t picked now. While I do that I’m turning the soil a bit and Pat is following behind me (often a day later) putting bark mulch over everything. The beds have matured enough that I’m weeding around plants and I don’t need to worry if what I’m looking at is a plant or a weed, something I’ve had trouble with in past weeding adventures. I have one bed along the side of the house to do (tomorrow if it doesn’t rain too hard) and then I’ll be on to the roses at the back and finally the stone wall at the front. However, as Kathryn says, by the time I’m done I’ll have to start all over again!

I originally thought the quilt I sandwiched could be taken to the bee for quilting but I decided against that. I’m trying some Sashiko patterns and I doubt it will go smoothly so better done at home! I took a card to do some quilting on but after trying some free-motion quilting three times I decided to give up and bring it home to finish; I just couldn’t get the tension right.

I took along my bin with my Bingo project and thought that would fill the rest of my day. I haven’t worked on it for awhile so when I was pulling it out last night I decided to change my design a little. It will be a beach quilt that, hopefully, the kids can play Bingo on. Since I don’t have any kids coming until late in August (if at all) I think I have time to get it done. The sewing I did today certainly went quickly and I was finished with what I had by about 1:30.

There is a slim chance I can get that card quilted before supper so I’ll be ready to tackle the Sashiko when I have my next sewing day.