Sunday, March 6, 2022

I feel like I should be heading to bed or at least heading for a nap but I’m going to try and keep going until it really is bedtime.

I was able to get started on my sandwiching before lunch. First up was Kathryn’s Spring/Summer tablecloth. I had trouble getting the two pieces of fabric aligned right with the Fall/Winter one so I tried something different. It looks like it might be a bit better but I won’t really know until I start quilting it.

Then I moved on to my Farmhouse quilt. Yesterday I had no idea how I might quilt it but today, after working with it for awhile, I think I have a plan. I really don’t like the pieced backing but if it is hung on a wall I guess no one will see it. Even though it was spray basted I added a lot of pins – almost to the point that I was out of them again. I always pin around the borders but, because I was running out of spray, I wanted to be sure I had a solid sandwich.

I didn’t have enough spay for the Community Quilt and I didn’t have enough pins for basting so that will have to wait until next time. I got the backing fabric trimmed down to size before I put the tables away.

My back was quite sore by the time I finished but I had promised myself I would wash the windows on my car. I tried to do a quick wipe on them at one point when it was rainy and they were quite a mess as, with all the traffic, the dust is incredible. I hope I don’t become one of “those” car people who are washing their car every weekend – I’m sure I won’t!

It was nice enough that had the chair cushions been easily accessible I probably would have sat outside. But I really didn’t want to go into the shed to find them and wipe them and the chairs down so I sat inside and stitched the binding on my crocuses. I’ll have them in the mail tomorrow.

Saturday, March 5, 2022

It took until almost noon to finish my cleaning and decluttering tasks. One of my tasks was to clean out a drawer so I thought while Pat had his breakfast clearing out the recipe book drawer would be a good one to tackle. Turns out that even though we never use the recipe books there were very few that we wanted to put in the donation box.

Another fun decluttering task that came up was a clean out of my patterns. I’ve gone through my paper patterns and they’ll need to be done again but today I worked on my digital patterns – quilt-alongs to be precise. I had quite a few that I knew just by looking at them that I no longer wanted to make them. There were also a couple that I still wanted to make but I was missing one or two of the steps for. I had to dive into the internet but, with the exception of one pattern, I was able to find and save all the missing pieces. They were all freebies so no loss for the ones I trashed.

I pulled out my March quilting UFO project and the flannel fabric I purchased for backing. Then I went looking for and found the alternate fabric I wanted to use but I didn’t have enough of it. I did a very quick search online to see if I could get more but I’m hopeful that even had I found some I wouldn’t have made a purchase. The quilt is most likely going to hang so I really didn’t want flannel on the back.

I dug through more fabric and decided I’d try making a back from fabric that was left from the quilt top. There wasn’t any one fabric that was large enough so I knew I was going to have to piece something together. I’ve tried this before and wasn’t very successful but I ended up with four pieces that I thought would make a large enough backing.

But before I could piece them together I wanted to finish the quilting and binding on my crocus project. I had already changed thread colours five times so I wanted to be done with it before changing threads for piecing the back. I’ve got that project ready for hand stitching.

I also managed to get my Farmhouse quilt backing and batting cut, as well as the batting cut for Kathryn’s Spring/Summer tablecloth. The quilt I brought home from the Guild had a lot of extra batting attached but I suspect that was in case it was being done by one of the long armers. I’ve trimmed it up and I know there will be loads of fabric for the backing.

I really wanted to get outside and get the spray basting done today but I’ll have to plan that for tomorrow. It’s a bit early to quit for the day but I’m done!

Friday, March 4, 2022

I don’t think I was in the Guild meeting room for more than ten minutes before I was put to work. I had said hello to a few friends and delivered a few things I had been collecting to a few other people. When the President caught my eye I knew I was in trouble. The Secretary forgot about the meeting so I was pulled into service. It isn’t a particularly difficult job but it takes time to transcribe the notes into minutes that can be distributed. I kept my head down when the topic of Executive elections came up.

During the Show and Share portion of the meeting I was busy taking photos. At the December meeting (the last one I attended) it was suggested that someone should be doing that. Since I was pretty sure no one else would step up and do the job I took my camera along just in case. One quilt was presented and I thought one of the blocks looked familiar. On closer inspection I realized it was one of my Covid samplers. So in return for whoever did that quilting I brought home a community quilt sandwich to quilt (not one of my own). The flimsy and the batting had been sandwiched but there was no backing attached. There was some fabric rolled into the bundle and I hope it will be large enough.

I managed to get rid of a couple of jobs though. When we moved from the Seniors’ Centre to the Church I updated our Member’s Handbook and our Brochure that we hand out at the quilt show. When the topic came up that they should be updated I admitted I had the master copies. Fortunately someone else volunteered to update them; I got them sent off first thing this morning so she didn’t have time to change her mind.

We have a Hall meeting on Monday so I had to get my financials sent off and and bit of prep work done. We are getting more requests for bookings and I had several messages back and forth with a potential renter this morning.

I was somewhat behind on my decluttering tasks because of my busy day yesterday. It took me all morning to either reschedule my tasks or finish them. I spent some time with my magazines and ended up with a full bag to donate. I decided I’d get them out of the house right away so after lunch I took them (and a few other things) up to the thrift shop. I also had a couple of bags to drop off at the SPCA so that was done in the same trip. I stopped at the quilt shop because I needed some spray basting product but they didn’t have any. I hope I have enough in the can I have to sandwich a couple of my own projects – the Guild project can wait.

It wasn’t until mid-afternoon that I got down to some quilting. I’m still working on my crocuses. For such a small project it sure is taking a lot of time to quilt but I hope to have it done and in the mail on Monday.

Thursday, March 3, 2022

I’m heading back into the thick of it. Pat and I think that “this” is the best it is going to get on the Covid front so we’re moving back into society. Slowly and carefully choosing what we’ll do and how we’ll manage in larger groups.

I was back to my Thursday sewing group today – and I’ve missed those ladies. Gail has a lovely big design wall so I was able to pin up my Guild mystery quilt. I even managed to get a few blocks sewn together. It will stay at Gail’s until I have the top finished – unless I’m running out of time to get it done in time for the big reveal. I think I’ll miss the reveal but, if it is done, I’ll leave it for someone else to display for me.

I’m off to a Guild business meeting tonight – the first since December. I’ll wear a mask and I’m interested to see how many others are doing the same. I even have a couple of quilts for Show and Share – my Log Cabin and the May quilt.

If I survive these forays I have a Hall meeting on Monday and I hope to be back to the Tuesday bees next week.