Friday, February 17, 2017

I know I’ve said it before, but today really does seem like Spring. I had some Cranberry Hall business to take care of and the drop-off was just a five-minute walk away. Their business just happens to be a bit beyond the fabric shop so on the way home I stopped in. I almost didn’t take my wallet with me but came back into the house for it “just in case”. I didn’t need it but I had a good chat with Deb, the store owner, and another quilter from the Guild.

For most of the day I’ve been working on my Blossoms quilt and I have all the stabilizing done. Now I need to finalize the design I want for quilting the 36 hexagon flowers. I know what I want to do but I’ll have to see if I’m able to mark it on the quilt so I can basically just follow the lines. I’m also hoping to find a motif I can use for both the wide borders and the smaller ones.

It felt so warm upstairs this afternoon that I had to open the window. There is a gentle breeze coming in and, occasionally, it causes my wind chime to sound.

There are two movies in store for us tonight, and four more tomorrow, so there will be no more work done until Sunday.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

I skipped the very first film of the Festival yesterday morning. There was very little information about it and the little I knew told me that it was a series of short films. It didn’t sound all that interesting so I chose to stay at home. I worked on a few Bingo blocks but spent the afternoon hand stitching bindings, sleeves and labels on a couple of my quilts.

I’m missing the film tonight too because it is the Guild’s 30th Anniversary dinner. I think it will be fun but I also would have liked to have seen the film, Almodóvar’s julieta, based on an Alice Munro short story.

Instead, I’m getting dressed up (dress, nylons, new boots) for a catered dinner and trunk show. We were asked to bring one of our oldest quilts. I’ll be taking my Mariner’s Compass, from the first quilting class I took at the Guild.

Monday, February 13, 2017

I had big plans for today – make some calls on behalf of Cranberry Hall, go to the bank with a Cranberry Hall deposit, go to the Post Office for a US stamp, and pick up the groceries that were on our list. And then I realized that today was Family Day and the bank and post office would be closed, as well as the business I needed to call. So I spent the morning working on my scrap bins. I did more sorting of the scraps than cutting down fabric but it all deals with them in some way. I sorted and bagged my strips according to their sizes and I had an empty bin to store all the bags in. Since I didn’t go to the bee last week all my projects are still packed and ready to go tomorrow.

Pat is teaching today but when the class took their lunch break Pat came upstairs and brought the mail. Mail? Then I remembered that the Post Office celebrates Family Day next weekend as does most of Canada. I decided not to bother going out after lunch; I walked up to the mailbox to mail one of my letters and I’ll get that US stamp tomorrow when I’m out.

I spent the afternoon quilting my Challenge project. It is ready for hand stitching, although I have to replace the sleeve. I used a scrap of fabric but now that it is attached to the piece it is too small for the hanger. I’ve made this same mistake before trying to conserve fabric.

It is a beautiful day and, as I stood looking out the window by the kitchen sink, I could see spots of yellow in the grass at City Hall. The crocuses are in bloom!

As soon as Pat finished teaching this afternoon he left for his songwriters’ group. I have one stop to make before I meet him for dinner and a movie.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

The show last night was really good. I bid on a couple of items in the silent auction but didn’t win anything. The local meat shop were offering ten steaks and I thought we could always use those, and there was a return trip on the water taxi to Savary Island. I made my bids near the end of the evening and I thought I might have a good chance, but someone else wanted the items more than I did.

I started my day by playing about with my book idea; I’m going to start by writing about our trip to the East Coast in 2008. I have a photo album I made for Dad when we came home, as well as my journals that I wrote during the trip. It remains to be seen if I can combine them into something worth keeping. I’m not using any of the apps they talked about at yesterday’s seminar, but I followed Pat’s suggestion to use Pages. The files can be saved in a number of formats so I can write before I have to decide what its final form will be.

I spent the rest of the day getting a quilt ready for quilting. I had to piece the backing, which took most of the morning, and then I was on my hands and knees all afternoon pin basting. I’m glad its done because, with the Film Festival next week, I won’t have many large blocks of time. With the few hours I have between events I can at least get some of the stabilizing done and decide on a quilting pattern.

I hurt pretty much all over so it’s pizza for supper. My knitting project needs more attention – it is too big – so it will have to come off the needles. I’ll have to consult with Christy on some measurements.