Thursday, March 16, 2017

I’ve been staying at home quilting for so many days that I’m excited to be going out to a Guild work-bee tonight. It’s true that I’ve been out of the house, but that has mainly been to run errands or keep appointments. I haven’t been to a Tuesday bee for ages and I miss my sewing people. We are working on bags for the quilt show – somehow this magic bag will hang around our neck and hold our credit cards (for the Merchant Mall), cash for lunch and tea purchases, as well as show our name tags. Apparently we are making 70 of them so hopefully we have a good turnout, but as is often the case the same people show up and the same people don’t. As my regular machine (Purl) is still in the trunk of my car at the mechanics I’ll be taking my SUV out for the first time.

And speaking of name tags, one of our members called on Tuesday night to see if I could add the Canada 150 logo to a business card as that is what will fit in the pouches. I didn’t expect it to be a problem as at the last show meeting the person in charge of the theme had all sorts of items with the logo. But as I started to dig deeper to make sure there was no copyright infringement I was led down a long path to nowhere. I checked the Canada 150 website but the logos they were offering weren’t the one we wanted; we wanted the one that had won the logo contest. I called the Canada 150 office and they basically read me the information from the website – not at all helpful because I had already told him that. Another search led me to Heritage Canada so I called them; they gave me an e-mail address that I should send my questions to (I did that but have yet to hear anything from them). I called the woman in charge of the theme to see where she got her information from and she said our MP’s office gave her a bunch of stuff; when I call her office to see about the copyright I was basically told the government has bigger things to deal with than coming after me for using the logo. I gave up on ever getting definite copyright approval and this morning I sent the business card file to Staples for printing.

Are you wondering about the car? Yes, it has been ages but I realized this week that Deb (the woman who owns the fabric shop) and Ken (my mechanic) are off to Mexico for two weeks. I guess you could say that between their two shops I’m sponsoring their trip! I’ve done fine without my car and I’ll be away all next week so I’ll wait until I’m back from Christy’s before calling. I know there will be someone in the shop if I called, but I can wait.

As expected I wasn’t able to do much sewing yesterday. After the logo fiasco I managed to get Pat’s accounting almost finished in the afternoon; I sent the files off to the accountant this morning. I also did a bit of catch-up work on my own paper. But late this morning I was back to quilting and I have today’s block finished. I’ll do one more block tomorrow and then put it away until I’m back home; there will be four more blocks to finish but I’m confident it can all be done with time to spare.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

I wasn’t, then I was, then I wasn’t again – going to the bee that is. I missed last week and I expected to go out this week but since I have an eye appointment tomorrow and won’t be able to quilt for most of the day I decided to stay home today. I’m staying on schedule with my quilting but I might have a challenge ahead. I’m not sure I have enough of the fabric I want to use for the binding. I could stop and figure it out but I prefer to remain in blissful (if stressful) ignorance until I come to that step.

But I did get out today. I had some Cranberry Hall work that I needed to take care of across the street at City Hall. Then I made a quick trip around to the back of City Hall and dropped off a couple of books at the Library. From there I walked half a block to the fabric store – I needed a couple of colours of thread. Sadly, the colours only come in packs of six and the two colours I needed were in two different packs. I have tons to spare now, or maybe some to share with my sisters!

While I’m out tomorrow I have a long list of things to get done, and some of them need a little prep work from me so I’d better get back to it.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

We had such a good concert last night and I really enjoyed our guest, Raine Hamilton. She looked about 18 but her world-view hinted at a much older soul; Pat asked her this morning and she’s into her 30’s. They all look like babies to me!  There was a lot of clean up after the show but I got one dishwasher load done before I went to bed last night and finished the other one off this morning before our guest was up.

It was a relaxing morning until Raine caught the noon ferry. After she left I finished the sewing on my March cards; I’ll stitch the bindings during my evenings this week.

I knew the block scheduled for today was one of the simpler ones and I managed to get it almost done before supper. We watched a couple of shows and then I expected Pat to go out for the evening; he decided to stay home but I came back upstairs and finished Block 5. With every added block completed I feel better about finishing in time. Yesterday was D-Day – the last day to decide to pull quilts from the show. As luck would have it I forgot entirely about that until one of our concert guests (who is in charge of the show) mentioned that she had seen my quilt. I know it is still a little touch and go but there is no way I won’t get it finished – even if I have to pin down the binding!

Friday, March 10, 2017

I knew I wouldn’t get long stretches of time today for quilting so I decided to get my new machine set up and give it a try. I have cards that need to be done and that was really my reason for purchasing the machine; being able to free-motion quilt on it means a card can go from piecing to quilted all at the bee.

Two of my card tops were finished but there were two that were partially pieced. The piecing on the machine works fine – there is a quarter-inch foot (which I didn’t see right away) but the regular foot sews an accurate quarter-inch. The SUV is much louder than my other machines; I’ll give it an oil treatment when I finish these cards but I have a feeling the noise will be part of its charm! I managed to miss a pin when I was piecing and broke a needle so I’ve had experience now at changing the needle.

The cards needed some stitch-in-the-ditch quilting and I was able to manage it on my SUV. I used the regular foot but later, when I was digging through the parts, I found a proper walking foot. The needle position is a bit different from my other machines so finding the spot for the ditch will take some getting used to. I’m also having some trouble with the speed but I expect that will improve with time. There are no adjustments for speed on the machine or foot – you press hard or light depending on how fast you want to go. I also miss the needle up-needle down button but I knew this didn’t have that feature before I purchased it.

The free-motion works fine and, with the exception of finding my speed, I think it is just as good as my free-motion on Ruby. Again the noise is a bit distracting and the foot really bounces but the tension seems good without any adjusting. All in all I think this will be a good machine for me.

The House Concert is tonight – we have 32 people expected and, since they have all paid, I don’t even care if they come (is that bad?). Our guest said she wanted to have a long nap so she’s been downstairs sleeping or having quiet time most of the afternoon. There is always the last-minute rush to get things ready before people arrive but even that is getting to be just part of the routine – put on the tea urn about 6:15, put on the coffee urn about 6:30, set the dishes and cups out and we’re ready for to go.