Friday, November 25, 2016

I’m finished; I’m done; I’ve already packed it in a tin!

I finished the Advent Calendar this afternoon. I didn’t get all the buttons sewn on yesterday so I started with those this morning. I thought I was going to have to cover the corners with buttons (a couple were a bit wonky) but I was able to get them adjusted. So next up was cutting out the charms and getting them ready for hanging.

That didn’t take as long as I expected because I didn’t cut around all of the stitching on each of the charms. For most, I cut a straight line around them so it was a lot less fiddly than cutting around each bit of stitching. The few that I hung as a trial seem to hang just fine in spite of my alteration. Tying the hangers into the charms took time but that too went faster than expected. At that point I thought I was done.

But no, I needed to figure out some way to hang the piece. The ladies at the Guild told me I had to put a sleeve on the back for hanging but I tried desperately to figure out some other way. I didn’t have any luck on that score so I got a sleeve attached. I found a small dowel to put through the sleeve; Trevor was here working I asked him to cut it down to size for me. It was quite a sight to see him with a big circular saw cutting a quarter inch dowel!. I added some red ribbon to hang the piece with and found a small container for the charms. So now I was done.

But no, as I was packing the pieces into a kit for mailing I decided I ought to put a label on it. It took almost 15 years to get it done so hopefully it will last at least 15 years and maybe someone at that time will want to remember who made it!

So now I really am done. I’m ready to figure out the “goodies” for the three Advent Calendars.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Last night’s performer, Patrick Alexandre, was definitely the best of the season and, in my opinion, he was the best we’ve had in a long time. We didn’t have the full house we expected because not everyone on the list showed up. We added one extra chair late in the day for one extra person, but then one of our regulars didn’t show up so we were still at a sell out. Then a couple who are relatively new to our shows didn’t come due to illness, but they had bought their tickets last week so Patrick wasn’t out any money. We have a couple, “the two Nancies”, who often come to the shows but one Nancy was supposed to pick up the other Nansi but didn’t show up; Nansi came half an hour late but Patrick lost $20 on that ticket. Another of our regulars and a couple who are semi-regulars didn’t show up either so Patrick ended the night down another $60. Pat says we can’t force our “regulars” to pay in advance next time and it is the first time so many have cancelled without letting us know ahead of time. It is frustrating because we probably could have sold the seats to others that we turned away based on a “sell out”. I won’t stress over it though as we are on a break until early February.

Our schedule was somewhat put off yesterday because Patrick doesn’t eat before a show. I have certain things that happen in a certain order when dinner is over – put on the tea water, put on the coffee, do/hide the dirty dishes and clear the counters, set up the cups/glasses for tea/coffee/water and get out the sweeteners (agave syrup, brown sugar, white sugar and Splenda). But without serving dinner I felt a little lost; there was no rushing around and it felt like there should be. We picked a perfect meal though for heating and serving after 10 PM – potato-leek soup with hot corned beef sandwiches.

It was midnight before we got to bed and we didn’t even take time to get our living room back in order; we did that this morning. A huge storm blew in last evening and we were a little concerned about the ferries today so Patrick decided to get up for the early ferry (8:05 AM) hoping if it didn’t run the noon one would. Pat and I were up at seven but Patrick decided he wanted to sleep and take his chances on the noon ferry. As it turned out both ferries ran without any problem and, although there was a bit of wind this afternoon, it wasn’t enough to stop the ferry.

Just after lunch Pat had a musician/electrician friend come over to start work on a few maintenance issues for us. Trevor has a slack period just now so he was able to fit in a few small jobs. We’ve had a hall light on the fritz for probably a year and I really missed it as it provided light for both my cleaning cupboard and my linen closet. The lights down another hall worked but after they had been on for about five minutes they started to buzz which was really annoying; the same with the ones in the bedroom closet. Those have all been fixed as well as the two lights going up the stairs to my sewing rooms. The three lights within my sewing rooms will be changed tomorrow.  I can’t believe how much more light we are getting in the ones that have been changed; Pat thinks they are too bright but I love being able to see into the corners (and maybe I’ll do something about the cobwebs I’m seeing). I think once the fixtures in my sewing rooms are changed I will be able to get rid of a couple of floor lamps that I’ve added from time to time over the years.

I hope to finish sewing the buttons on my Advent Calendar before dinner. I cleaned up around my knitting chair the other day and I have no shortage of projects for my evenings.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Done! Well at least the charms are finished. I did a test to see how the process of attaching the charms to the centre will work and it seems simple enough. Lots of buttons to sew on, lots of cutting to do around the charms, and lots of tassels to add to the charms. But it’s going well.

The cleaning is almost done for our concert tomorrow night. We still need to set up the living room for 32 guests, and once that is done there will be a final sweep of the floors and a clean up in the kitchen. There are dishes, cups and glasses to dig out of the china cabinet but we’ve settled on our menu for dinner; Pat is out shopping now.

It is a miserable day out there – wind and rain all day – so I didn’t get my recycling done. There have been no ferries to or from the Island today but the Texada ferry has been making the crossing all day. Our performer has only one chance at the ferry tomorrow so hopefully the weather improves overnight.

There will be no knitting tonight; we have started to watch an Icelandic series and it is all subtitles so I have to pay attention!

Monday, November 21, 2016

Cleaning out the laundry room went much quicker this morning than I expected; well maybe it wasn’t quicker but I had an early start on it (about 8:00 AM) so it didn’t take too much time away from my stitching. My car trunk is full of bottles to be returned, recycling to take to the depot, and a few bags to drop off at the Economy Shop. I thought I would also get that done today, but I don’t think the recycling depot is open on Monday so I’ll do it all at the same time tomorrow.

I have finished my quota of charms for the day (but I won’t be stopping until supper time). Because I was doing loads of laundry and drying (and I know how long a load takes), I realized that each of those charms takes at least an hour to do. That kind of math I can figure out – 25 charms = a minimum of 25 hours. I’m hoping to have them finished and a photo for you tomorrow.

While I’ve been stitching the charms my mind has been wandering. I have two other projects that these charms would be perfect for so I’m thinking I won’t put them away when I’m finished this lot. Knowing how much time they take to stitch makes me think that if I want them done for next Christmas, without a short deadline, I should just continue on.

I’ll have one more cleaning session before I’m finished, as well as a few touch ups on Wednesday morning. I’ve decided that I will skip the bee tomorrow. Pearl (my traveling machine) is set up for invisible machine appliqué and that really isn’t what I need to be working on. I have cards to do, a couple of blocks for our Guild’s Block of the Month, and of course doing the finishing work on the Advent Calendar. I can accomplish a lot more at home than I can at the Centre, and the bonus is that if I skip the bee I won’t have to write a Guild blog at the end of the day.

I finished another small knitting project last night. I really must get busy and photograph some of my finishes and get them posted. I’m on to another pair of mitts tonight.