Wednesday, September 7, 2022

I’ve been told many times that I have a lot of patience. They wouldn’t have said that if they had seen me yesterday or even early this morning.

Yesterday while I waited for the phone to ring I finished my Home Circle quilt top. I have it packed now and ready to be picked up for the Guild Reveal party later in the month. I could not have had better colours for the top – Stacia and Deloise picked the perfect fabrics. Since the pattern called for mitred corners on the last border that’s what I did. It’s been so long since I’ve done that I think I ended up with beginner’s luck as they worked out well.

Not so good on the knitting though. Last night I started by ripping back a row and then there were some slipped stitches so I ended up taking out about a half-dozen rows. I added a life line (why didn’t I do that at the beginning?) and caught up to where I made the mistake. Again though I didn’t have the right number of stitches on my needle that I’ve been working with.

I’ve been working off enlarged photocopies of the pattern and I eventually realized that the row 61 that I was working from had only 65 stitches but I should have had 67. I’m not sure what that original row was from but I’ve got new photocopies made and I’m good to go again.

This morning I did a bit of tidying in my sewing room – saying I cleaned it would be a stretch. I did some rearranging and fit a few things into an empty bin; I’ll get at those things some day. I also found a lot more Guild related blocks and projects so I loaded those into a box to get picked up.

It’s early in the day to be stopping work so I’ll switch to some Peppermint Purple stitching.

And yes, that phone call finally came just before lunch. My ultrasound will be tomorrow morning and then, I expect, the wait will begin again.

Monday, September 5, 2022

I’ve just put the finishing touches on my first Sashiko project. I’m very happy with the way it turned out. There was some experimentation with how to do some of the stitches and now that it is finished I know what I’ll do for my next one. Did I say one? I have two more of them stashed in my hand stitching desk in the living room.

I almost have another quilt top done – a couple of borders left to add. This is one that I needed to have as a sample for our Guild Program Reveal Party. It remains to be seen whether or not I’ll teach the class when it comes up next May. I have a couple of photos that I want to put with it; I went to Walmart yesterday but their photo department was closed until tomorrow.

I had a good chat with our Hall President this afternoon. At lunch I mentioned to Pat that I was afraid Annabelle wanted to talk about the transition from her PC to her new Mac rather than the transitions that need to happen for the Hall. We had a good long discussion about Hall stuff and then we signed on for another hour and talked about more personal stuff. I knew Annabelle had breast cancer but I didn’t know anything more than that. She walked me through her process and was able to answer my questions and told me about things I hadn’t thought to ask. Her diagnosis was almost 20 years ago but I was happy to know that all of her surgeries and treatments were done in Powell River. She was very generous and supportive and I know I have someone to talk to as I go through whatever I need to go through.

I have a couple of packages to get ready for the mail and, if there is time, I’ll go back to some Peppermint Purple work. It feels so good to have a finish on something that I want to keep at it.

Sunday, September 4, 2022

We woke up to quite a stormy day – some rain and a lot of wind. The sun has shone off and on throughout the day but, in general, it really feels like a fall day. Fortunately most of the leaves on the trees are still green so they aren’t looking as bare as they might otherwise.

I spent most of my morning sorting through some Hall stuff. We have a meeting next week and that will be my final “regular” meeting. The AGM is at the end of the month but I’ll only have one report to give and after that I’m done. I have a short Zoom meeting tomorrow with the President; I’m hoping she has made some decisions on who is taking over my responsibilities.

This afternoon I’ve been trying to catch up on my blackwork stitching. I’m behind on both projects but it is the Peppermint Purple that I’ve been working on today. I finished my Sashiko project; I’ve washed it but I still need to trim some threads off the back and rework the stitching around the border to keep the edges from fraying.

I even managed to do a bit of knitting last night. It was slow going though as part of the TV show we were watching had sub-titles and there were a couple of rows that needed to be done twice.

Saturday, September 3, 2022

There have been a few changes!