Right back into it

Friday, June 19, 2020 (Block 95)

Santa Fe Trail

Since my outing last night counting the “days” doesn’t really fit any longer. I’ll probably continue my daily blocks until I’ve gone through my entire calendar but I hope this pandemic will be over by then. The Guild party last night was good – for the most part we obeyed all the rules. I was able to drop off my three donation quilts; sadly though I came home with three things to do.

I’m on the Program Committee this year and I brought home a bag of receipt books and papers; I’m not sure what they are all for but I’m sure it will be clear once I dig them out and look at them. I know that I need to come up with some sort of reporting template; apparently the one they used last year didn’t do what the treasurer wanted it to.

We have cancelled the Hands Across the Water for the fall but apparently nothing has gone out to the participating guilds so I was asked to get the contact names. I drew the line at writing the letter; I think I did the same task before we shut down in March so I just needed to pull up the list and send it out again.

I took a lot of photos last night and I wanted to post them on our blog. (By the way, I didn’t mess anything up on the website yesterday). Each Tuesday as I was doing the bee updates I did a bit of work on archiving some of the old posts. I stopped doing that but today I didn’t have room to load the new photos so I had to archive some old posts – October, 2012 was where I was at. All that is finished now and the blog is updated; I’m going to try not to click my way through those Tuesday archive reminders from now on.

I made a quick trip to the library to pick up the last of the books I had on order. I was able to return one big one and the three I have on my night table amount to about as many pages as that big one did. For the next while I’ll add books I want to the “My List” section of my library account as opposed to actually requesting them.

Pat has a “thing” tonight so I’m going to work upstairs while he is busy. The only sewing I’ve done today is my daily block and it took me until mid-afternoon to get that done. I received a new quilting book today – an idea book for quilting traditional blocks. I’ll try out one of the designs on my Log Cabin quilt when I’ve finished stabilizing it.

Best Friends

45″ x 57″
Pattern by Chi Chi Quilt Designs

It isn’t often that I get enthused about the Guild Challenge. Most years I do it but it is usually a last minute creation and often only a block or a placemat. But this year I got really “into” it after finding a pattern at the Saskatoon Quilt Show that would be just perfect.

Create a quilt that has a circus/fair theme. Use the enclosed fabric as part of the front of the quilt. The quilt should not be huge. A small one is good. The challenge should be finished and ready to show by the June meeting 2020. Your quilt should feature an animal.

We were given a fat quarter of the striped fabric. I wasn’t sure I would have enough for all the boxes (cages in my circus theme) but I actually had a little left over.

The quilting didn’t go as well as I had hoped. My free-motion quilting didn’t work at all and my appliqué work is sketchy at the best. For most of the quilt it was just straight lines but I did try to get a bit of texture (wrinkled skin) in the elephant. I ended up using embroidery floss to attach the patches. In spite of all my cursing when I was working on it, I love the end result.

This was an entry into the Guild’s 2025 quilt show.

In 2019 Kathy Parker, a Guild member, presented the striped fabric as our challenge for the year. We were directed to use the fabric on the front of our quilt and to show an animal. Shortly after receiving the challenge I found this pattern at the Saskatoon Quilt Show and it was a perfect match. Quilted on my domestic Janome.

The big wide world

Thursday, June 18, 2020 (Day/Block 94)

Lover’s Knot

I had another online training session this morning but it wasn’t one that was of much interest to me. I always have my mic and camera turned off (unless we are in a break-out room for discussion) so while the topic was being presented I worked on my daily block. Appliqué was involved and I was able to trace, cut and attached the pieces without missing any of the lecture.

I hoped to get a lot of quilting done today but that didn’t happen. I got a good start on it before lunch but that is pretty much where it has ended. I realized during lunch that I needed to write a report for the Guild’s AGM tonight. I didn’t expect it to take long.

I needed to get some Facebook stats and while that took some time it wasn’t hard to do. Next I needed some stats from our blog site. I guess I hadn’t logged in on my new desktop since I got it because it wanted my username and password; no problem as I have that noted down. But the login didn’t work so I had to send a request to reset my password. When I finally managed to get in all my posts were gone.

After much worrying I realized I was in the Guild’s website, not the blog site. Fortunately I was able to get into the blog on the laptop so I got what I needed. After that I logged out and went back in to be sure the “old” password was working.

But what was wrong on my new machine? The link I had in my Favourites kept coming up with the website and not the blog. I got that sorted out, logged into the blog on the desktop and then wrote an apology to the person who looks after the website admitting that I might have changed the password on her. She is more IT than I am so hopefully I haven’t messed things up entirely.

It’s time now for me to start gathering what I need to take to the Guild party tonight. No food, bring your own drinks, bring the Challenge project and anything else you have for Show and Tell. I have enough Show and Tell that I’ll be taking a bin; even at that I have been selective in what I’m showing. We were also asked to bring a mask that was decorated for the occasion.

It’s my first real venture into the big wide world since March 13th – I’m still unsure as to how I feel about that.

the punishment she deserves

Author: Elizabeth George

Quite some time ago Stacia mentioned that she thought her shoulder problems were related to the heaviness of the book she was reading. Of course I needed to find out what that book was.

At some point I ordered it from the library and it wasn’t until they did a soft opening during the pandemic that they called to let me know it was available.

I can see what Stacia meant by the size of the book affecting her shoulder. At almost 700 pages it wasn’t easy to find a comfortable position to sit and read, particularly since most of my reading is done in bed at night.

The author never disappoints me with her stories. I found this one to be a bit long with all sorts of sub-plots going off in various directions but, in the end, everything came together and I’ll look forward to another in the Havers and Lynley series.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *