Saturday, January 13, 2024

I had a very productive two days of sewing with Stacia and Deloise. I admit my pattern was a relatively easy one but getting it done and moving on in one day was a first for me. When Catherine was done I moved on to the next bonus block for the chicken project. I traced it, cut out the shapes and got them pinned to the background.

On day two I continued with the chickens, this time on the main block. I prepped the background, traced the shapes and applied them to the felt. I’ll trim the pieces one evening while watching a hockey game. In the afternoon I took a short break and walked to a friend’s house. Her kids arranged an Open House for her birthday. When I got home I finished one more Alias Grace block.

This morning I finished off two gift projects I’ve been working on. I’ll get them packaged for the mail tomorrow and up to the post office Monday.

This afternoon while we watched the hockey game I pretty much finished the tablecloth. I got Mum’s squares attached and I’m just doing some edging around them. I brought it upstairs to see if there is anything else I want to do with it.

After the game I baked a cake to use up the pumpkin and evaporated milk I had bought for our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie that never got made. I was able to use my new hand mixer (thank you Kathryn) – so much easier than dragging out the big mixer. I used my new spatulas that Elizabeth included in my 12 days packages. Tonight when we (hopefully) enjoy the cake we’ll be using the cutlery that Christy sent.

No wonder I’m tired – that’s a lot.

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

It has been a whirlwind day but at least a few things were accomplished.

The quilting work I was doing this morning went well. My test project needed a bit of attention and I’ll finish the hand stitching on it tonight. One down, two to go. I managed to get the quilting done on three of the four pieces for the next sets before lunch.

While we had lunch there was a notice from HP that the free ink subscription we got with the colour printer (thanks Elizabeth) was running out. Under that plan we could print up to 700 pages but I doubt I’ll print that many pages in a year. If we continued with that plan we were paying a lot every month. We found a much more reasonable plan for a lot less money but I wanted to get some of the pages I had set aside for printing done before our current subscription ran out.

I managed to print off a few pages and then everything stopped. We changed the black cartridge but the colours seemed to be fine so we didn’t change the colour cartridge. Once the cartridge was changed we couldn’t figure out how to get the queue going again so I deleted everything and sent everything to the printer again. I thought I had it all printed but when I went downstairs to pick up the pages I noticed that the colours were all coming out pink. We changed the colour cartridge this time and I finally got everything printed – some pages printed more than once because this time the queue worked.

After the printing fiasco was sorted out I finished quilting the fourth piece of my project.

It’s time now to get myself organized for two days of sewing with Stacia and Deloise. I’m glad I sorted out fabric for my project because I’m too tired to think about it now. I should clean my sewing machine but I’m going to hope it sees me through the next couple of days.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Yesterday afternoon I packed my bags to get ready for sewing today. I didn’t load everything downstairs though because I said if it snowed I wasn’t going to go. It wasn’t snowing but I decided when I got up that I was going to stay home, thinking I’d get more done at home than I would at the Guild. I wanted to look through the fabric at the Guild to find some fabric for binding so I went to the Guild for lunch before looking through the bins. I found one piece that might work if there is enough and another piece that I was sure was enough but I wasn’t sure it would suit. I’m still doing the quilting so I don’t need to decide right away.

So back to my morning sewing. It was going well and in my head I was well on my way to being done before the end of the day. It was all going well that is until it stopped going well and I had to do some repair work. What I’m making is a secret (I need three of them) and one of the steps involved turning the project inside out. I managed to get it turned only to find a couple of seams that didn’t catch properly. So I turned it inside out again and did more stitching. Another turn and I found another spot that needed repairs. Before lunch I managed to get one turned properly and it is almost done. I learned a lot from that first one so, hopefully, the other two will be quicker.

I’m definitely on the last round of my tablecloth; I finished the squares for the last round last night and tonight I will get them attached. I think I’ll do a couple of rows all around the outside edges and then I have to figure out what I’ll do with Mum’s squares. I’m looking forward to starting a new project but I won’t do that until this one is done.

There’s another hockey game tonight so you know where I’ll be.

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Before Christmas I was looking through the recipe drawer for my Tourtiere recipe – what a mess that drawer was. So I pulled out all the printed sheets and decided it was time to organize them into a binder. Many of the sheets were from Mum’s recipe book and several were print-outs from the internet or recipes I’ve had sent electronically from someone. I’ve been spending a bit of time every week getting the mess sorted out. While I’m at it I should be picking out a recipe or two to try because there are a lot of untested ones in the bunch.

I hadn’t updated my quilting binder for a long time. I printed some of the pages but they hadn’t been inserted into the book. I got my printing done at Staples so I always let the number of pages accumulate before I printed them. Thanks to Elizabeth I have my own colour printer now so it should be easier to keep up with them – particularly at the speed of which I manage a finish. I even found a few things that I hadn’t realized I didn’t have in the binder. I’m all caught up now, except for the projects that are still UFOs.

I’m continuing with my quilting today. I think I’ll be able to get the blocks quilted before supper but I’ll likely only make a start on the sashing and binding. Last night I added two more rounds on my tablecloth but I think I’ll still do another one. I might have been able to quit where I was but I found squares that I had made and tucked away in the bottom of the basket that I use beside my chair. I hate to waste them.

So not really resolutions, and nothing really done!