Friday, August 26, 2016

Although I didn’t finish a thing today I’m very happy with my day. I started by emptying my bin onto my table to see what I had to work with; I’m ending the day with five projects ready for quilting, and two more that just need a bit of finishing before they are ready.

This quilt top was finished so I just had to pull out the backing for it. It will be a donation to the Oncology Ward at the hospital when it is done.

I attached the final borders to this Community Quilt; this was my Leader and Ender project from last year. I had another quilt top that needed to have the corners mitred so this was my practice run. The quilters all say to use our donation quilts for practice so that’s what I did.

Next I was off to run some errands and make a stop at the fabric shop to find backings for the projects I made in France. I purchased a couple of fabrics but ended up using one of the new fabrics and one I had in my stash. Pat really likes these so I think they will be staying here.

This Fat Cats and Dogs quilt only needed the borders mitred. Why it took me so long to get at it I’ll never know. I found the mitred corners quite easy; they aren’t perfect but I’m happy with them. This one is rather large and had to be folded in order to get it to lay flat on my floor.

I had quite a bit of work to do on this one but I was happy to get it finished. I was going to add another border but decided with the flange it really didn’t need anything more.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Today was my “office day” and it has taken me nearly all day to accomplish it. My own paper work took very little time and I just might have made some time to order a new cross stitch pattern for myself! I was happy with the pattern I picked for my Canada 150 project but then someone in one of the Facebook groups I belong to posted this. Since I have a whole year (or a lifetime) to stitch my Canada 150 projects I decided to order it.

The Cranberry Hall accounting took up the remainder of the morning; I have a package of information to take to the accountant tomorrow. I don’t think it is in the shape that he would like it (and I’ll do better at my year end) but I didn’t feel like starting over and organizing the paperwork from a year ago.

Most of the afternoon has been spent working on Pat’s accounts. His year end is at the end of the month so I’m trying to catch up on as much as possible before then.

There isn’t much time left in the afternoon but I’ll use it by shredding a bit of paper, sorting out my Finish-It-Up-Friday bin and then doing some cross stitching.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

I made great progress on my cards today. I have four done; two of them are quilted and just need binding added. It certainly helped to have four patterns printed and fabric chosen. I may be on to something with this prep day. I’m still not done September cards though so I can’t ease up just yet.

I signed up for a class at the University this morning – no, I’m not looking to advance my career but they are offering a course called The Contemplative Stitch Series. There are a total of five classes but I’m only interested in one – Boro and Sashiko – I guess that is two but they are both taught in the same session. Luckily I was able to register for just the one class. Boro embroidery appears similar to the Sue Spargo stitches I’ve learned but a refresher will be good since I haven’t finished the project I started with that class.

Tomorrow is office day and it would be wise to use the rest of the afternoon to get a head start – I know there is a lot of Cranberry Hall work to do. But wise is seldom the most fun so I think I’ll grab my book and read on the back deck until dinner.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Remember last week when I mused that because I had all the fabric cut I might be able to get four Celtic Crystal blocks done today. Well that didn’t happen. It was past lunch before I finished my first block. I knew there wouldn’t be time to finish another one (unless I stayed until dinner time) but I was okay because I had the other placemat to put together.

The problem with working with your own design is that there are no directions on how to put it together. I had a middle section and two outer borders to put together and the first time around I put the pieces in the wrong places. No problem – short seams and a quick take apart. Next time things went together perfectly but when I went to add the borders to the top and bottom the centre was three inches too short – I did the math wrong! I calculated the pieces by adding the quarter-inch but when I was adding them up to equal 18″ I didn’t take into account that the pieces in the middle were smaller. I can fix things by adding larger side borders but I didn’t have any of the fabric with me so I packaged it up and left for the day.

Writing the Guild blog was easy as I forgot to take my camera with me – maybe prepping too far in advance (e.g., the day before rather than the morning of) isn’t the best idea for me.