Friday, November 18, 2016

As I was busy reading my book, The Dressmaker, it occurred to me that the story wasn’t aligning very well with the movie trailers we had seen. I purposely borrowed the book because the movie was coming and I wanted to read the book before we saw the movie. As it turned out, the movie was in town the week that I was in Houston; Pat went and said it was really good and he hoped the library would get it in so I could watch it too.

Last night I decided to take another look at the movie trailer. Much to my surprise the movie is set in Australia and my book is set in the UK and America. The movie is based on a novel, called The Dressmaker, by Rosalie Ham; my book, also call The Dressmaker, was written by Kate Alcott.

Here is what the movie poster looked like.

And this is the cover of the book by Kate Alcott.

Well maybe they aren’t as similar as I remembered, but quite a bit alike if you are only glancing and going by your memory of the poster. And isn’t it strange that the two books would have been given the same name?

I wasn’t able to renew my library book because someone else already had a Hold on it. I bet they are going to be as surprised as I was!

Thursday, November 17, 2016

It took until about 10:30 this morning, but I finished up yesterday’s quota of reading and charms!

Instead of making my a puzzle on my iPad while I had coffee this morning I read several pages of my book. I have no doubt that I will get it finished and back to the library on time. The two other library books have been renewed to December so there is no urgency to get them finished.

I did a bit of cleaning before heading upstairs to finish one charm from yesterday and do the backstitching on all three of yesterday’s charms. Once they were done I did a bit of maintenance on Pearl, my traveling sewing machine. It has seen a lot of wear and tear over the last month; two full days of Community Quilts and three days at the Texada Retreat. I have a demo/workshop tonight and a class on Saturday so some oil and a new needle seemed like a good idea.

After lunch I had a Cranberry Hall deposit to make so I added some errands and some groceries to the list. I picked out a few “treats” for the Advent Calendars and lots of vegetables (leeks, potatoes, parsnips) for some winter soups. The weather certainly is right for soups and, if Pat makes a large batch, it lasts for at least a couple of meals.

I finished a knitting project last night; I still have a couple of balls of yarn left so I’ll probably do another pair of mitts to use it up. BOND called yesterday to see if I would help with their Christmas dinner; it is on a Tuesday so I declined but said I had some gifts for their baskets. I have the projects knitted, but I need to sew up the seams on several of the sweaters.

I’ll try to get my charms for the day finished before dinner but the back stitching might have to wait until tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

With a few deadlines looming I decided I’d better set out some clear goals for the next week or so.

I have a library book due in a couple of days. Last night, when I couldn’t renew my book, I figured I needed to read 100 pages a day to get it done by the time it was due. Since yesterday (with some reading last night and this afternoon) I’ve finished about 75 pages. So I need to read a little more than 100 pages for the next two days. The good news is that I can finish the book late at night, get it over to the Library (across the street) early in the morning and they will never know it was late.

The charms for my Advent Calendar are a little more challenging. I figure I have eleven days before this needs to be in the mail. There are 25 charms and I have 4 finished. I need to allow some time to sew buttons on the centre panel and cords on the charms. Saturday will be a write-off because I’m taking a class and, with a House Concert next week, I will lose a bit of time cleaning and entertaining. At a minimum I need to get 3 charms done every day.

With that in mind I’m off to stitch!

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

I had a good day at the bee. I was in charge of opening up for everyone so I arrived early and had all the tables set up before anyone else came along. Our usual door opener was off to the Island today; I was nervous about the alarm system but when I arrived and opened the door there was no beeping so I guess the last one out yesterday didn’t set the alarm. I cautiously moved around the hall for the first few minutes worrying that a motion detector would sound but it didn’t.

I got the centre portion of my Advent Calendar finished. I sandwiched some Steam a Seam between my backing fabric and the Aida cloth and then did a fold over binding. The corners don’t look all that good but, since I’m using buttons to hold the charms, I will put a button in each of the corners. I got another charm stitched (now I have four) and three of them have been backstitched. I will outline the charms but some of the back stitching within the charms seemed excessive so I’ll skip it. Some of the buttons I picked to hold the charms are a bit too big so at some point I’ll have to find some that are smaller.

When I left for Houston there were several buds on our Christmas cactus; at least we thought they were buds but new leaves often start out the same way. They were in fact buds and look at what we have now! Isn’t it amazing what a bigger pot and fresh soil will do. My orchid has a bud on it as well so we’ll keep our eye on it.

I have three books that are due back at the library tomorrow, and I’ve only finished reading one of them. I have another one due in three days. I tried to renew them and was successful in all but one so I guess I should spend more time reading than stitching over the next few days. The library doesn’t charge any fines; they have a “Fines” jar on the counter and my understanding is you put in something if you are late with a book. All that may change though because they have found asbestos in the building they have been renovating for our new library. The new library was supposed to open this fall and then that was moved to February when a “Stop Work” order was issued because the contractor didn’t have the correct building permits. Last week they issued another “Stop Work” order due to the asbestos so who knows if we’ll ever get a new library. Since the current location is just across the street from home I don’t mind all these delays.

I don’t think my lighting is good enough downstairs to stitch charms while we watch TV so I guess I’ll continue with my knitting tonight.