Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Although today was a card day I had a bit of paperwork to gather together for the Cranberry Hall board meeting tonight. The accounting work was done and my reports were printed but I needed to spend some to organizing my thoughts and making notes about questions I need to ask. Once that was done I finished the last of my September cards – it’s done except for hand stitching the binding.

I practiced a bit on my ukulele this afternoon. I paid some attention to getting my chords sounding clearer and there were some strumming pattern changes that I struggled with at the club. I’m a bit more focused on wanting to get things right, particularly when I’m sitting beside someone who is a much better player (which is most of the time). I make lots of notes on my music sheets but it doesn’t help that when I get home I can’t make out what my notes say!

I pulled some fabric to start work on the donation birthday banner I want to make. It will be in three parts – a paper-pieced birthday cupcake with flags, the words happy birthday that will be appliquéd and a bottom portion that needs to have a slot for a photo to fit into. I’m still unclear on how I’ll make the bottom part work but I’ll worry about that once the other two pieces are together.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Ukulele Club worked out fine last night. We played songs that were familiar from last year and they were the ones I practiced (for the bit of time I did any practicing). It has made me want to get back into it and we are going to start working on some Christmas songs soon (because apparently they are harder than you would expect). We had three new people join last night and our leader says she has a class that will be graduating to the Club at the end of the month.

Since we are at the smaller clubhouse on the second Tuesday of the month I usually leave my sewing machine behind and work on some hand stitching. I got a good way into one of my I’m A Farmer’s Daughter blocks. I accomplished more than I expected; must be because, unlike this summer when Stacia and I were working on our blocks, I wasn’t stopping for a refresher on drinks all day!

I had two parcels waiting for me when I got home from sewing. My birthday gift from Saskatoon also included some cross stitch thread that I needed for a project. I found fabric for the backing to my second project from France from “my shop” in Calgary and it arrived today. I wasn’t sure what my Finish It Up Friday might be but I think I know now!

With what I have left of the afternoon I’ll do a bit of practicing and get some papers gathered together for our Cranberry Hall board meeting tomorrow.

Monday, September 12, 2016

A wasted day? I think not.

Yesterday was all about The Song Circle. I had a lazy morning and when I was almost running out of time I went out for concession treats. Everything at the song circle is by donation so we really don’t make any money. I was going to bake cookies but decided on Saturday I really didn’t feel like it. When I checked the cookie prices in the bakery at Safeway though I was re-thinking that option – $6 for a few peanut butter cookies! I left the bakery behind and headed to the cookie aisle where I found a few different cookies on sale. There was no way I could pull them off as my own and I didn’t even try. Next month I’ll bake!

I like to take a bit of hand work to the song circle; I don’t participate but I like to listen. I didn’t have anything that was easy to transport so I found a new knitting pattern and took that along.

I did some cleaning this morning. I keep reworking my cleaning schedule and I’ll keep reworking it until I find a way that I don’t have to do it. Our house concert isn’t until the end of the month but I’m trying to keep up with things so I won’t feel so much pressure in those days before a show. It was almost lunch before I had all those tasks finished.

I didn’t have a lot of prep work to do for the week. Tomorrow is a hand stitching day so I put together enough English paper pieces to complete two blocks for I’m a Farmer’s Daughter. It took all week during the summer to get one block done but the two I’ve picked out will be the ones that go to Stacia and Deloise. I hope to have them finished by the time we head to Houston. I made a couple of calls regarding Cranberry Hall but all my other projects were well prepped and didn’t need anything added.

Ukulele club starts up again tonight and, until last week, I hadn’t done any practicing since we finished last May. I’ve brushed up on the chords for a few songs – I’m hoping everyone will be as rusty as I am. When I finished my practicing it was only 1:30 so I called Carola to see if we could get together for birthday cake. She was supposed to be going away today but her plans changed and I didn’t want her to spend the day alone. We had a nice visit and sat out on her deck; it won’t be long until that isn’t an option.

When I got home from Carola’s there was a message from the Cranberry Hall accountants so I quickly drove to their office and picked up some papers for our meeting this week.

So, although I didn’t accomplish a whole lot, it was quite a relaxing day so not a waste.

Saturday, September 10, 2014

I received word yesterday that the flight I was booked on from Houston to Calgary had been changed and the new flight they booked me on didn’t work for the two other flights I had that day. I spent a lot of time trying for figure out options that would cost me the least amount of money in cancellation fees. When I called Air Canada to make my changes it was a 40 minute wait – with no Call Back option. Finally, after much to and fro, I got flights settled. As much as I like to discredit Air Canada they did their very best to sort out my problem at the least cost. I’m now booked with United Airlines and Air Canada into Vancouver, via Calgary, and I can still make my late afternoon flight to Powell River. WestJet were very accommodating as well on the cancellation and I have nearly $200 to spend on a flight within the next year.

The rest of my day was spent working on my Farmer’s Wife Sampler. All day, and I have only one block to show for it! I knew this particular block was going to be a tough one and it didn’t disappoint. I pieced the centre and then started paper-piecing the corners – and I ripped them out, and I paper-pieced some more, and I ripped out some more. Finally I got the right colours in the right spots and then added the diagonals. Putting the pieces together was also a challenge because it involved four Y-seams – not my favourite or my best.

Imagine me dancing down that Garden Path at the end of the day when the block came out to the right size.

Oh crap! I see that one of those triangles is going the wrong way. I take back that happy dance and I’ll figure it out another day. It isn’t the first block that I’ve got marked for a redo.