Sunday, August 21, 2016

Pat and I watched the Tragically Hip concert last night. I, of course, had heard of the Tragically Hip but wasn’t very aware of their music. Maybe they were becoming famous in what Diane and I called our “lost years” when we relied on CBC for music and if it didn’t involve throat singing, Dene drumming or a country fiddle we didn’t hear it. Or maybe I was aware of their music in the early years and just didn’t care for it; I didn’t really enjoy the concert and not a single song was familiar.

It didn’t take me long this morning to appliqué the two Blossoms that I had prepped for today’s sewing. I had time before lunch to prep and stitch two extra blocks. Hopefully I can get the remainder prepped for next week and then I’ll be ready to start sashing and stitching the blocks together. I’m really liking the way this looks, although I question why I’m using a white background. My Hubble uses a white background and I’ve managed to keep it clean but I may give this one away and white could be a problem.

Pat picked another batch of apples so after lunch I made an apple spice cake – a new recipe but it uses a spice cake mix so it wasn’t difficult. It took longer to bake than the recipe said it would but I think the juice from the apples might have had something to do with that. While the cake baked I did a little more of my hand stitching; I’m still not done everything but the pile is gradually shrinking.

We have a Cranberry Hall board meeting tonight but I prepared everything on Thursday so all I need to do is pack it up so it is ready to take with me. Until then I’m going to go back to my cross stitch.

I love a day when I get to do a whole bunch of different projects – and make some progress on each one!

Saturday, August 20, 2016

As we were sitting outside last night waiting for the fireworks to start we watched all the folks walking up and down the hill going to or from the Street Party. At one point I heard someone yell “Bear”; I managed to catch just a glimpse of the bear as it ran past our place and up Omineca. The watch was on from that point and I’ve pinpointed a few signs; I know what direction the bear comes from, I know around the time he is out and about, and I noticed a neighbour down the lane has a motion sensor that was going on and off just before the bear came out.

It was only a few minutes before the fireworks began that our neighbour across the street was out warning people about the bear. It seemed to me like quite a bit of time had passed since the bear was around but, before I knew it, the bear was crossing Duncan again heading back the other way. Our fence is just a bit too high for us to see all the action on Omineca and Pat doesn’t seem interested in taking it down a foot or two! As lovely as the fireworks were, I was much more excited about the bear; I’ll be out there watching again tonight.

I’ve spent the day working on Farmer’s Wife blocks. I had five blocks prepped but only got four finished. The last one was a real challenge; it was paper pieced but there were some Y-seams (which I’m not good at). The papers kept coming off from the back so when it was time to square it up I was missing my guidelines. I’ve put it in the completed box I may redo it because the points are going to disappear into the seam; there are a few others like that but I try not to think about them. For now I’m just happy to say I’ve got 89 blocks done.

Friday, August 19, 2016

One of the quilting blogs I read posted a quilting project planner yesterday. It basically has columns for all your quilting projects with a checklist to say at what state they are at – fabric selected, cut, pieced, quilted, and bound. I have a bin full of almost-done quilts and as I was thinking of them I decided to add Finish It Up Friday to my schedule. I’ve worked on quite a few finishes today but didn’t even open that bin.

On Wednesday I finished the tops for three cards so I got those quilted and bound today before lunch. They all need to be hand stitched and I’ll do that either in the morning over coffee or in the evening while watching TV. I can do some work if we are watching the Olympics, but my favourite show at the moment is The Bridge and it is all subtitled so nothing gets done on those nights.

I put together a placemat top at quilting on Tuesday so I found some backing for it and I’ve started quilting it. I saw a photo of a double cross-hatch pattern that I wanted to try but my machine isn’t cooperating and I’ll consider myself lucky if I can manage a single cross-hatch. I’ve changed the needle three times so that isn’t the problem; I’ve fiddled with my tension but that doesn’t seem to be making any difference at all; I’ve changed from a quilting stitch to a utility stitch but it still isn’t as even as I want it to be. Maybe it just needs a rest.

We’ll be heading out later for the annual Blackberry Festival street party. It is an event that the entire town shows up for and from one end of Marine to the other (about four long blocks) it is wall to wall people. As we wander from one end to the other (at least a couple of times) we see all sorts of people and get to sample all sorts of food from vendors as well as lots of music playing up and down the street. There will be fireworks later tonight – we usually watch them from the deck.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Today was my day for paperwork. It took about half an hour to take care of my e-mail, in basket and filing; it took me the better part of two hours to deal with Cranberry Hall paper. I’m frustrated by the lack of documentation I receive and the timeliness of when I get the pieces I do receive. I seem to speak to the bank every day lately on a different issue; I added the accountant’s name to that list today. While trying to find a postal code for the hall I looked at various pieces of mail that came to me lately and each one had a different address, and none of them were the proper address for the hall. If I didn’t really like the hall, and if I didn’t know that the money was secure and as reported, I’d have given up. My hope is that I’ll get it sorted out and be allowed to stay in the position for at least a year or two to reap the benefits of the work I’m doing now. I know, be careful what you wish for!

But my afternoon has been filled with cross stitching. I haven’t had a good long session at it for a long time and it is nice to see some real progress. I’d like to be finished the cross stitching on the main body by the end of the month; it looks like it will be tight, but I just might make it.