Wednesday, June 1, 2020

Another rainy start to the day. I had to take my car in for some repairs yesterday and was anticipating a nice walk home but it was raining so I had to call a cab. I moved my sewing centre downstairs for the day (my machine, cutting board and ironing board) because I was waiting on a delivery for Pat that required a signature. Since we didn’t know what door it would come to I had to be within earshot of both of them.

The delivery never came yesterday so I knew I was going to have to spend the day downstairs again. I got my box of sewing projects packed up first thing; I ended up needing a larger box. My scrappy project for June is my postage stamp quilt; it will be a perfect leader and ender project even if I don’t spend time devoted to getting it done.

Last week when I finished off my Peppermint Purple clue I felt like there was something wrong but I thought it would be an easy fix just by switching up some of the spaces. When I looked at it today though I went wrong several weeks ago and spent a lot of the day reverse stitching. It is surprising to me that taking the stitches out takes almost as much, if not more, time as putting them in. I got everything sorted, reprinted the patterns I needed and ripped out the first week.

I had it all stitched back in but I still felt like there was something wrong. So back to the drawing board and, although I had the placement a bit better, it was still off. I have that particular patch finished now and I’ve ripped out the next section and started restitching it. I have one more section to take out and re-do but then I’ll be sorted and just one clue behind.

Pat has been noticing glitches in the internet connection on Texada and today he called the tree guy and they’ve taken out a few trees that he thinks were interfering. We had a Zoom session going for quite awhile this afternoon but there are still some issues. Maybe more trees can come down or maybe we just won’t get the connectivity that we want. Whatever happens what we have now is definitely better than what we had before.

I got a call that my car is ready so I’ll call a cab and go up and pick it up. I’ll be able to get my parcel to the post office in the morning; it should have lots of time to get to Saskatoon in time.

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

For my quilting challenge I was supposed to be quilting this Guild mystery from a couple of years ago. All I managed to do was to get it sandwiched. Alternately I would have liked to get the quilting done on this year’s Guild mystery but so far it too is only sandwiched.

My piecing challenge was to work on my cross stitch quilt project. Thanks to a good day today I have the background completed and my layout sorted. I’ll quilt the background before attaching the cross stitch blocks. The orange bits are my method for keeping track of what goes where.

My scrappy challenge was a Modern Puzzle. It ended up being my Thursday project and, had I not opted out of Thursday sewing, I might have finished a top. As it is, I have 52 blocks done. The pattern calls for 80 blocks and I cut for 80 but now that I see the size of it I may turn it into two quilts. However many I make will be donation.

Monday, May 30, 2022

Deloise said this morning that it is just two weeks until we start our road trip to Panorama. I’m excited but I’m not quite ready yet. A couple more days and I’ll be able to get my box of projects sent off but I still have one more item I’m working on. If I don’t get it done in time for the box it is small enough to fit in my suitcase – which I haven’t started packing.

I did a recycle run this morning – the depot and then the bottle depot. At the depot someone jumped the line on me. I was annoyed but said nothing to the guy that did it but complained to the person behind me – like that does anything. Then at the bottle depot they told me the bag of recycles was too big. What difference does the size of the bag make? There was someone in there with huge bags of beer cans. I don’t think they had the stickers though and were likely having to put it into crates before getting credit for them. With my Return-It account I just drop off the bag, they do the count and my refund goes into my account.

I don’t know if those two things put me off but I haven’t really settled to anything today. I got some cards ready for the mail and did some cleaning but that is about it. I had planned to work in the yard but it rained over night so that wasn’t going to work for me this morning and by afternoon I’m not ambitious enough to set out.

I think I have my year-end Guild report ready to go. I would really like to be at the meeting on Thursday but I’ll stay home just to be safe. I have the last bit of the Guild mystery ready to send out, as well as the Hall’s newsletter. Next week I’ll have to get the financial report ready for the Board meeting; we’re meeting via Zoom for my benefit although I would have been fine missing the meeting.

I’m going to try to finish my Botanical Garden clue this afternoon. I’ve switched from crocheting the curtains to knitting the curtains – same crochet yarn but after three tries with the crocheting I couldn’t get the pattern to match the stitches so I gave up.

So why do I have to be careful? I’ve been using a chain for my glasses for almost two years and I’m in the habit of flipping my glasses off with confidence that they will stay attached to me. It also prevents me from setting them down and losing them. Today I broke the chain and all day I’ve been flinging my glasses onto the floor and I’ve had to go looking for them once. I’ve ordered another chain and I hope it is delivered before I leave for sewing. I’m going to try and fix the old chain because I’m quite likely to give them a fling and the glasses themselves will break and then I’ll really be in a mess.

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Pat headed over to Texada this morning and I’ve had a quiet, but productive day. I did some cleaning and plan to finish all the cleaning tasks tomorrow.

I have four cards quilted and ready for hand stitching, which I’ll do this evening. This was my first attempt at using the facing technique on cards. I thought I would use an inch-and-a-half strip for the facing but found on the first card that it was too small. For the next one I upped the width to two inches and that worked better but the lengths didn’t work out right even though I followed the instructions in the video. Third time I added more length and this one worked out much better so used the same measurements on the fourth one. Now that I have the method worked out I think it will be an easier finish for the cards.

Pat and I have checked in a couple of times and both Facebook and Zoom chats seem to be working fine. Pat also said he has done some downloads and uploads without any problems so perhaps our Starlink connection is the answer to our internet problems over there.