Sunday, August 14, 2016

I had so much I wanted to do today and I’ve touched on nearly all of it.

I started appliquéing the flowers on my Blossom quilt this morning. Before starting though I thought I’d better give my machine a good cleaning; once that was done I oiled it and changed the needle. I had the background squares cut at the Guild last Tuesday but it took longer than I remembered to pull out the basting and paper pieces from the flowers. As a result I only managed to get two done before lunch. I’m using a blanket stitch which doesn’t take long once you are started on it.

Late in the morning I had a message from a woman on Facebook who was looking for wooden embroidery hoops. I first saw the post when I was travelling and said if she could wait until I was home I’d check what I had. Because we aren’t friends, I hadn’t seen her personal message to me so she sent another one today through the original post. We were able to sort things out; I have what she needs and she will come by tomorrow to pick some up. I had the hoops set out for the cancelled Spring Stash Sale so it was easy to lay my hands on them.

I almost finished my book last night and, when I turned out my light, I promised myself some time in the hammock today to get it done. On an earlier trip to the basement this morning I picked another book from the shelf to read next – it is over 1,300 pages so it may last me through the rest of the summer!

We are invited to a vegan pot luck tomorrow to celebrate a birthday. I ran my salad recipe by a vegan-friend and she suggested only one change – agave syrup rather than honey. I needed a few other things as well so I went out to the store to pick them up. Among other things I brought home a couple of pie crusts; Pat picked quite a few apples yesterday and I think I’ll make them into a pie. I’ll wait until morning to do it though as, at this time of day, the house is hot enough. I’ve been thinking of apple pie and cheddar cheese all day.

With what is left of the afternoon I will pick up my cross stitching and move on to knitting tonight. Pat may go to the movies (Star Wars) but I’m not interested so, if he goes, it is chance for me to catch up on some of the shows he watched on Netflix while I was away.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

I’m often tempted by garage sales but I resist the urge and stay at home. We don’t need anything and I’d probably come home with things that would collect dust and then find their way to the Economy Shop within a few months. Every now and again though we take a Saturday and visit a few. Friends were having a sale this morning, and the daughter of one of our quilters advertised a sale. I thought I might get some crafting supplies but apparently she isn’t into that sort of thing. We did pick up an adjustable straining basket that fits over the sink, a lamp and a set of four desk filing trays.

We had some time to kill before the next sale started so we went to A & W for breakfast. We thought we would be early when we arrived at Ken and Ernalee’s but there were already lots of cars there. They had tons of stuff; they had cleaned out Ernalee’s mother’s apartment as she has moved into extended care. Now this woman was a crafter but she didn’t have the kind of crafts I was interested in, with the exception of a bag of wooden spools. We also picked up a party perk (that will be perfect for hot water for tea at our house concerts), a small rectangular Corning Ware casserole, and a brooch I will send to Taylor so she can tell back from front on the sweater I knit for her.

We had time to come home and put our purchases away before heading up to the Farmer’s Market. There was a new group performing and one of our friends was playing guitar with them; I get so tired of the same-old same-old people performing I wanted to hear something new. I enjoyed listening to them and watching the people; several friends were also around and stopped to say hi.

And with my afternoon I finished three more blocks for my Farmer’s Wife Sampler. I’m up to 85 finished now but since there are 111 in total I still have a long way to go. I generally feel like I’m running out of choices for fabric options from Mum’s bin, but today I had no trouble at all. I often try to match lights and darks as they do in the pattern photos but I changed it up today and had better luck. I have a lot of that light blue that is in the centre block, and I’ve used it often in my blocks. It is the perfect shade I need for another project I’m doing so I think I’ll steal from the bucket.

Friday, August 12, 2016

I was sick during the night on Wednesday and spent almost all day Thursday in bed. I didn’t feel cold, but I was shaking uncontrollably and eventually ended up vomiting. This isn’t the first such attack I’ve had – the others we blamed on hot dogs and I’ve since given them up. There was nothing in our dinner on Wednesday that would have caused this (and Pat wasn’t at all sick) – chicken souvlaki and a Greek salad made with Christy’s homegrown cucumbers and some of our homegrown tomatoes. Pat did a search on the internet and came up with a few possibilities but the most plausible one seems to be dehydration (Kathryn says that was lucky all we found). I have my coffee in the morning and occasionally an ice-tea in the afternoon; the only water I tend to drink is a half cup with my pills. I’m feeling better but my muscles are sore from all those dry heaves. I’m drinking lots of water today – and making many bathroom stops.

Since I missed my day for catching up on paper work I took care of that today. It didn’t take me too long as I’ve been working on Cranberry Hall “stuff” all week and, except for my e-mail, there wasn’t a lot to do. I got a card into the mail before lunch but so far that is my biggest accomplishment.

I may need to nap this afternoon. Yesterday Pat set up the hammocks in the front yard so we’d have comfortable spots for watching the meteor shower. We settled in about 9:30 with our pillows and blankets but by 11 I was bored and gave up. What we were seeing was more of a drip than a shower. Tonight I won’t go out until closer to midnight – the challenge for me will be staying awake that long.

I need to find something useful to do with the rest of my afternoon – before taking that nap.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

It was my plan to work on some cards today and, for the most part, that is what I did. I didn’t make as much progress and I would have liked for a couple of reasons.

The board members at Cranberry Hall seem to be dropping like flies. In the meantime I’m struggling to find someone who knows who made deposits to the account in my absence and finding someone to sign some cheques. We were supposed to have a meeting tonight but no one seemed to remember and, of course, everyone is busy now with something else. I had to meet one of the board members at the bank and I’ve been exchanging e-mail all day with several other members. Have I got myself tangled up in yet another “one of those boards”?

I had two card tops finished and expected half a day’s work to get them quilted and bound. They were both appliquéd so it seemed to me that it would be a quick job to finish them but it wasn’t. First I tried to use the zigzag stitch on Ruby but she wasn’t having anything to do with it. After trying and trying I eventually gave up and used the blanket stitch. I know Pearl does a good job with zigzag so I’ll revert to her when I need those stitches done; it is actually nice to have something that my small machine does better. The first card had so many pieces to stitch around that it was noon before I had that one done.

I finished the quilting and binding this afternoon and I’ve got both cards ready for hand stitching tonight. There is still a bit of time left in the afternoon so I think I’ll pull a few patterns and fabrics and get a head start on my September cards – I know there are a lot of them.