Spring Cleaning

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Pat’s writing group is coming to the house tomorrow for their memoir session. I planned to spend some of my morning cleaning for the event, but I didn’t plan to spend all morning at it. I’ve been a bit slack since our last house concert so there was lots to do.

I was moving towels from the spare bedroom to the linen closet and decided that while I was in the cupboard it could do with some rearranging. I thought I could get rid of a lot of stuff in the closet, but it turned out that most of what was in there is still being used from time to time. I only have a small bag of rags to take to the newly-opened SPCA.

When the bathrooms and laundry room were finished I headed to the kitchen. I often use my steam cleaner in the kitchen but decided that the floor was due for a hands-and-knees approach. Before starting on the floor I washed off a few spots on the cupboard under the sink. When they were finished they looked so good I thought I would continue on and do all the lower cupboards. Well you can’t really do the bottom cupboards without doing the top, and then that led to doing all the drawers in the island. I did eventually get to the floor.

I had just made my way up to my studio when Pat called me down because the submarine was passing by. I was hoping to see it dive but it stayed on the surface. The Coast Guard boat pulled alongside, a SeaKing helicopter made several passes over the sub and, eventually, a few  of the crew from inside the sub came out on deck. What a wonderful place we live in!

Eventually I got started on (and finished) the quilting for my final placemat. My stitches aren’t a lot better on this one, but I think they might be a little better. I’ve heard it said that free-motion quilting uses your muscle memory – which in my case isn’t any better than my regular memory! I know I need to keep practicing, but when Ruby does such lovely in-the-ditch stitching I have a difficult time moving to something I don’t do so well. Besides that, it takes a long time to get a project finished and to the quilting stage.

I’ll be stitching down bindings tonight.