Friday, May 13, 2022

I had a good, but busy, day yesterday. Yoga in the morning went fine. It was absolutely pouring rain when I went to the car and still pouring when I went from the car into the Hall. As I was getting unpacked the instructor was taking mats and blocks into the kitchen to dry them off before people placed them on the floor. Mine were wet but they were okay to use. Some people come in with hockey bags containing their equipment and on the way out the door (when it was still pouring rain) another woman told me that the dollar store had large bags like she was using. I picked one up but I haven’t yet tried to load all my stuff into it.

Thursday afternoon sewing went well. I’m more than half-way through my scrappy challenge for the month. I took a photo of the blocks I did yesterday and today, when I wanted to put them with the others, the “others” were nowhere to be found. I’ll have to do a search through the room to see where I put them.

It was sunny but cold this morning and I decided not to go out and work in the yard. On Wednesday I quilted a card top using a new pen for drawing the quilting lines. We were given the pen at the Guild’s scrappy weekend and were told that one of our better quilters only used these pens for marking. The lines went on the card really well and were easy to see but when I sprayed them with water they didn’t disappear as they were supposed to. I let the top sit for awhile but when they still hadn’t even faded I soaked them in water with some Dawn soap and that did the trick. I know I should have done a test but I totally trusted the woman who told us they worked great. I’ll not be using them again and I’m going to tell the folks who got a free pen about my trouble. Thankfully it was just on a card top and not on a quilt.

I’ve been puttering around and not accomplishing much most of the day. I have the cutting all finished for the class I’m taking at the end of the month and I have two more card tops sandwiched; I’ve almost finished quilting one of them. I went up to the fabric shop this afternoon to pick up backing for two quilts – the Guild mystery from this year and a Guild mystery from three years ago. I use flannel so it has to be washed before I’ll be ready to do any sandwiching.

I have to do a Hall orientation this afternoon. I think I have time to finish a bit more quilting before my timer goes off and I have to head out.

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

I worked in the yard for most of the morning but when it started to spit rain I decided to come inside. I got the lavender trimmed back and that was mainly what I wanted to get off the list. I pulled a bit of bindweed, trimmed some dead branches off the roses and cut my daisies back a bit more. We have a lot of bell flowers in that one bed; last year I lost a battle to keep them out of the daisies and roses so this year I’m pulling them out. They are a nice flower but spread like crazy and they are growing in another part of the yard where I’m letting them have their way with the gout weed so I don’t need these ones.

Facebook told me this morning that it is Gail’s birthday today. I’ll be seeing her tomorrow for sewing and thought I’d better get a card made for her. I thought I’d take one of the tops I had in my stash and get it quilted and finished this afternoon and evening. I was quite pleased when I found a card already done in my stash.

Costco have changed their card holder from Capital One to CIBC; we had a bill that was coming due so we had to get the new card sorted out. Since the account is in Pat’s name I had to get him involved in setting us up in CIBC and then in our bank so I could pay the bill.

While he was upstairs he took a look at the cross stitch blocks I had on the floor in the room across the hall. Not surprising he had a whole list of things he thought I should change. I hate to admit that his input helped; in some cases I don’t think it changed much and in some cases I refused to make the change he thought I could. He’s already saying it should go in the quilt show so I guess I’d better keep at it in order to have it done.

For the rest of the afternoon I’ve been quilting another card top – this one will need to go out in the mail in a few days. My evening knitting has been stalled by some cross stitch. I tried to do some work on my Botanical Garden while I watched TV but that didn’t work out so well. Since then I’ve been working on the cross stitch square that I need to redo and it is going better.

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

I can’t seem to get it right. Usually I take way too many projects to the Guild bee and bring many of them home untouched. The last couple of weeks though I haven’t taken enough to fill my time. Last week I had some Guild scraps to organize but today I was finished my projects and out the door for home by 1:30 PM.

I made three card tops; I briefly thought when I was packing things up maybe I should take something to sandwich them with but that meant spray basting and we don’t like to do that indoors so I decided not to bother. My “extra” project was cutting some fabric for background on my cross stitch blocks. Even with getting that done I was still done before I would normally leave.

There were no errands to run on my way home because I took care of those before I went sewing. Now that the Guild blog has been written I’ll finish unpacking my projects and start laying out the blocks for the cross stitch wall hanging. And when I get tired of that I’m going to do some work on my Botanical Garden.

Monday, May 9, 2022

I had gift cards from two of my girls for Mother’s Day so first thing this morning we headed out to Canadian Tire to spend some money. We picked out quite a few plants – marigolds, geraniums, coleus, and I don’t remember what else – as well as a hanging basket and a couple of herbs – an assortment in one pot and a lovely peppermint plant in another. We bought a French lavender for one of the big pots in the yard. I couldn’t believe that with everything we bought my cards covered all but one bag of dirt we needed.

When we got home we started planting. Pat actually did most of the planting but I did most of the running up and down stairs to find tools and bring him buckets of soil and water. Everything we bought is planted and looks good on the deck. There are still a few empty pots on the deck but we will fill them with daisies that we transplant from one of the beds in the yard.

When that was done I mowed the grass (lawn would be boasting) and then weeded another bed. I still have a lot of work to do but it is starting to come together and will be easier once we have everything transplanted. There is a dogwood bush that we want to move as well as the daisies and maybe our fig tree. I’ve been holding off on weeding a couple of beds until the lilacs were out; they are just starting now on both the bush in the yard and the tree in the back.

I’m having trouble settling in to do anything now that the yard work is done for the day. I have my Tuesday projects already packed up. My piecing challenge for the month is my cross stitch blocks; I have a plan but one of the squares doesn’t have enough space around the edges so I’ll have to do it over. I’ve dug out fabric and thread so I’ll sit on the deck, enjoy the sunshine and do some stitching.