Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Since all I did yesterday was quilt, quilt, quilt there didn’t seem much point in writing about it. I’ve done the same thing today but I hate to miss too many days or I may never come back to it. I’m going to go to Maple Ridge for the last week of Spring Break to spend some time with Dylan and Taylor. There is no way my sewing machine is going with me (on the bus) so I’ve had to revamp my schedule to allow for the days I’ll be away. The new schedule has me attaching the binding (the last step by machine) on April 2nd. That cuts it close but what can you do!

I like how the quilted blocks are turning out – I just wish each block didn’t take so long. When I realized I was really going to be pushing it to finish the quilting, I could have taken an easier way out. I’m glad I didn’t. I’m following (somewhat) a suggested quilting pattern I found online. While I’m not able to do some of the fancy feathers and curlicues they have used I’m able to substitute something from my own imagination. I’m also falling back on some standard meandering – a year ago I would have been staying as far away from meandering as possible and now it is a “standard” for me. I’ve come a long way.

Here are a few of my favourite bits.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

I’m already two days behind on my quilting schedule. It is a good thing I’ve allowed some catch-up days.

When I finished quilting on Friday I was looking forward to an early finish to Saturday’s schedule and maybe even a start on Sunday’s work. As it turned out the stabilizing took way longer than I allowed for, but I still thought I could make up the time because the stabilizing also took care of the quilting for most of the medallion and all of the borders.

All my planning though didn’t allow for a sick day on Saturday. I was up most of Friday night vomiting and then trying to vomit when there was nothing left. Finally, about four in the morning I took a Gravol and managed to sleep until one in the afternoon. About that time I moved from the bed to the couch where I slept for the rest of the day. I was in bed before eight and slept all the way through to this morning.

Because of all that time spent in bed my back is really aching today. I’ve been doing some quilting but making sure I get up and move around lots. On one of my move-around breaks I walked over to the library to return a book; I never go without my library card and today I picked up two more books from their new fiction shelf. I’m really going to hate it when the library moves.

With what is left of the day I will switch to some cross stitching – different movements and a different chair might be good for my back.

Friday, March 3, 2017

I picked up my new SUV last night – my Janome SUV that is! It doesn’t do a lot of stitches but apparently it is great for free motion quilting. Purl (my current take-along machine) has a few fancy stitches but no free-motion capabilities. This new machine will allow me to quilt my smaller projects during the bee. It will also mean I can have Ruby set up for quilting a big project and still have a machine to use for something smaller that needs to get done.

And speaking of SUV’s – I wish I had one of the vehicle kind. I went out last night to go to the Guild meeting and my car was completely dead – AGAIN! There is something going on that is drawing down the battery even when it is parked in the driveway. Fortunately, so far, it has always been dead in the driveway but I’m going to buy some jumper cables to keep in the trunk in case it dies further away from home. The mechanic, who is married to the fabric shop owner, picked the car up at noon and will keep it over the weekend and into next week while he tries to sort out the problem. The last time I had the car in the shop I joked with him that I gave more money to his wife than I did to him. The bill I get this time may change that!

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

This morning Pat helped me with my “on the table” method for pin-basting my Celtic Crystals quilt. He devised quite a system of clamps and boards to hold things in place and then, as I needed to move the quilt, he helped to reposition and reclamp everything. It all looked like it was working perfectly but when we finished and I turned it over I could see a few spots on the back where the fabric wasn’t pulled quite tight enough and there is some bunching. I think I can redo those sections one at a time on my table upstairs. The process was so much easier than being down on my hands and knees on the floor, and the bunching isn’t any worse than I’ve seen when I pin-baste at the Guild and carry the quilt home.

After lunch I finished my report for the meeting tonight. I had most of the work done but, since the meeting falls on the first of the month, I had to get the final financial numbers from the bank statement. I also had to make a revision to one of my Guild reports. I’d rather have everything done ahead of time and do one or two revisions than leave them all to the last day.

When I got all of those things done I thought I should try to develop some sort of a quilting schedule to be sure I’m done in plenty of time for the quilt show. There is a large centre medallion on the quilt, and 16 blocks around the centre. The quilting pattern I’m following (from Superior Threads) is different for every block so it made making the schedule easier (sticking to it will be more difficult). Keeping in mind we have two House Concerts this month, I’m signed up for an afternoon to sell Raffle Tickets, we have our bathroom renovations being done and I have a one-day class I can still get everything done (on paper) before the end of the month. I’ve allowed a couple of days for “catch up”; dare I hope they might be “get-ahead” days?

So, before I get behind on the first day of my schedule I’d better get busy re-pinning my quilt.