Wednesday, November 18, 2015

I have been on-the-go since I left for the Texada Quilt Retreat last Friday. There was a storm blowing on Thursday but I had already decided I wouldn’t go across until Friday. It wouldn’t have mattered because the group that planned to go Thursday night never made it due to the ferry not running. But we were off bright and early Friday morning with sunshine and calm seas.

The retreat was a blast. There were 21 of us with another one added on Saturday. Several of the ladies are part of the Tuesday bees but there was a large group of Guild members that I’ve never sewn with, as well as a few from the Texada Guild that were new to me. I took three projects to work on (plus the extra one I stuck in at the last minute). My Friday project didn’t get finished until Saturday, but my time was interrupted by the Friday night project that we didn’t do until Saturday afternoon!

Because we leave shortly after noon on Sunday I worked on smaller bits that could be done in the time I had left.

The musicians for our House Concert had the day off on Monday and wanted to come over on the noon ferry. Pat persuaded them to come on the afternoon instead because he was teaching and needed the house relatively quiet, and I needed some time to get the house ready. Sunday night I got the beds made and then scurried around Monday morning with the rest of the cleaning. All the noisy stuff (like running water and vacuuming) had to be done while Pat was on his ten and twenty minute breaks. Surprisingly it all worked out and the house would have been ready in plenty of time.

The weather had other plans though. It was stormy on Monday morning but we thought by the afternoon things would have died down. The noon ferry was cancelled as well as the afternoon ferry. They waited and tried for the evening ferry but it didn’t run either so we were back to our regular schedule with the musicians arriving on the noon ferry on concert day.

Because Pat was teaching I had to go and pick them up. I hadn’t been all that happy with the way things were working out (I had to miss yoga on Monday and sewing on Tuesday) but I thought I should take the women on a short town tour. It was another nasty day and I didn’t think they’d have a chance to explore on foot. We were just leaving the view point for The Hulks when I noticed that the coolant light on the car was on. Ray had the same issue this past summer and I had coolant in the trunk of my car from that episode. We dug out the car manual and Corinna did a Google search so we knew where to add the coolant and that we had to wait for the engine to cool before adding it. We also learned that if we left the hood open the engine would cool faster; good idea except the hood doesn’t stay open unless you hold it. I stood in the rain holding the hood while Corinna and Leah shivered in the car.

We had a couple of guys stop to offer help; when the last fellow stopped he confirmed that the engine was cool enough to add the coolant and we were on our way. We had just passed Willingdon Beach though when the light came on again but I continued home.

The concert was a sell out and everyone enjoyed the music; this was the last one until February (colour me very happy)! Pat and I looked at the car this morning, checked the oil, added more coolant and we thought we were okay. A later check though and we could see a small patch of coolant under the car – not good. I called my mechanic and I will take my car in this afternoon and he’ll look at it tomorrow. I used Pat’s truck to drop the women off at the ferry terminal this morning so they could catch the noon ferry back to Comox and a show in Courtenay tonight.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon cutting up a jelly roll for my class on Saturday. The jelly roll only had 40 strips and two of them were neutrals; I needed 44 strips and was lucky to have fabrics in my stash that will fit in (at least I think they will). I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon and evening sewing in ends on one of the afghans I have for the sale.