Monday, December 5, 2016

It has been snowing for most of the day but I think it has stopped now. There is some accumulation on the roofs and grass, but the streets look fine. I guess if the temperature drops low enough they could get icy but I didn’t have anywhere to go today so it didn’t bother me a bit.

I’ve been working all day and I’ve made some good progress. I knew last night that if I could just “get the hang of it” my three projects would go quickly. And that is exactly how it worked out; I had all three ready to have the ends buried by the time supper was ready. I spent some of my evening tying in the knots and couldn’t believe it when I found two mistakes in the first one – that was the one that gave me all the trouble to start with. I was sure I had fixed it all. It was a quick fix this morning as I reverse-stitched the pieces that were wrong before I went to bed last night.

So I have three gifts to finish some hand stitching on and three cards to do the binding on. I finished another project completely and I’m working on a companion piece to go with it. I have another small gift that needs the glue gun but I’m not sure I’ll have time for that this afternoon.

I brought a new book home from the Guild library about quilting with your walking foot. I glanced at it quickly and did a couple of cards using her freezer-paper technique. It ended up being a bit like paper piecing because you still had papers to pull out. For the third card I did a bit more reading and realized I was doing it wrong; card number three worked much better.

Our dishwasher is on the blink. We tried and tried to get it to run last night with no luck; I know if we could just get it started it would work fine. We called the appliance repair this morning but he won’t be able to come until Wednesday. The full load of dishes couldn’t wait that long so my lunch break was spent doing dishes and peeling vegetables for a soup.

So it was work, work, work all day long – no wonder I’ve made progress!

Sunday, December 4, 2016

We had such a good time at The Dickens Banquet last night – good food, good friends – and we won the trivia contest! There were a few questions we weren’t sure of the answer to but between the bunch of us we came to the right decisions. How many reindeer in the original “Night Before Christmas” poem? Thanks to the librarian at the table we realized Rudolph didn’t make an appearance. Who shares the sleigh in “Jingle Bells”? Fanny Bright. I had just that afternoon listened to Barbra Streisand’s rendition; the table that came in second erred by saying it was Fanny Bryce! It was a good hunch (again from our librarian) that egg nog was invented in England, and who knew that marshwort was the key ingredient in cranberry sauce? Pat did! We each won a $20 gift certificate to the Laughing Oyster; someone joked that with the certificate dinner would only cost us $50 each!

We woke up to a bright sunny day and the snow on the mountains across the Strait was gorgeous. That snow is getting quite low down the slope and it may get even lower. They are predicting snow for us tonight and over the next week. It was +2 this morning but Pat said it “felt like” -1! When Pat got home from a grocery run I asked if it was cold. He said it wasn’t so I made a quick trip across to the library with just a sweater and shoes (no socks). I guess we have no right to complain.

I hoped to get a lot more done today than I have. The morning went fine and I expected to finish three gifts this afternoon. So far I’m still working on #1. I swear I have sewn the piece in every configuration possible and it is still not right. My pattern is missing some key notes and if I ever get the first one done correctly I’m sure the others will go faster.

Back to it!

Saturday, December 3, 2016

I finished my last December birthday card yesterday so today I’ve moved on to Christmas projects. While I was working on my cards I turned on some Christmas music but it was annoying me; I think it made me feel like I was already behind and should be well into my Christmas projects. I’ve added a few Christmas decorations around the house and will continue to put things out over the next couple of weeks so I’m slowly getting into the spirit of the season.

I debated about doing a clean up in my sewing room before starting on the Christmas projects but decided since much of the stuff laying around was Christmas fabric and Christmas items I had made a start on I wouldn’t bother. I want to do a major clean up and rearrange once my Christmas sewing is done and I don’t want to do things twice if I don’t have to (even though I should)!

I switched out my year-round scentsy light for my Christmas scentsy; with a new set of Purely Pomegranate bars I’m loving being in my sewing space. I put on the Christmas music this morning as I stitched and it seemed just right.

We’re off tonight for our first Christmas event – The Dickens Banquet. The event supports the food bank and, as well as buying tickets, we also each bring a bag of groceries, which I picked up yesterday. We’ll enjoy a lovely beef and salmon buffet, some trivia games, live music and a snack at midnight. The second year we were in Powell River (and the first Christmas we spent here) we attended the event. The food was good, but we didn’t know anyone and were sitting at a table with a group of people who did know each other so we didn’t enjoy it very much. Tonight we know and like everyone at our table so I’m looking forward to a fun evening.

For now though it is back to my machine!

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Another day – just like yesterday! I’m not complaining, and I’m not even bored.

I had some work to do this morning as a result of our board meeting last night so I got right to it. When that was done I did my prep for the Guild meeting tonight. It would be nice if the two meetings didn’t follow one right after the other but that is going to be the case again next month.

Once the reports were done I started work on another card. I am kind of liking Stacia’s policy of working (and finishing) one thing at a time. In the past I would get two or three or more card tops done and then quilt and bind them one after another. I’ve managed three card finishes in three days; one is in the mail, one is ready for the mail, and I’ll get the third one bound this afternoon and evening.

It appears that only one of the Advent calendars will arrive on time. The other grandkids will have some catching up to do!