Saturday, November 18, 2023

I had a lovely two days of sewing with Stacia and Deloise. I finished our monthly project on Thursday and still had time to start sorting through my Christmas fabric bin. I’m pretty sure it had never been cleaned out. There were bags of strips, bags of squares in all sizes and not necessarily even the same size in a bag. There were also a lot of pieces of fabric, big and small, just thrown in.

I started Friday morning by finishing the sorting, although I still have a lot of Christmas fabric on my cutting board that is ready for card backings and bindings. Hopefully, when the time comes, I will put it away neatly. I pulled a sandwich out of my over-flowing bin of projects and started some quilting. The project was a Remembrance Day runner; I’m a bit late for that but the backing is a Christmassy fabric so it is more or less reversible. I finished the quilting this morning and have the binding cut.

A day ago I had plans for this afternoon. I was going to a movie that was recommended from my Book Circle. Since I was going to be in the area of a couple of craft sales I planned to take a look. On the way home I needed to stop at Walmart for something, as well as a small grocery shop. However, when I checked my website I was able to see that I had, in fact, already seen the movie in 2016 at our film festival. So I was out the door at 8:30 to do my shopping so I’d have the rest of the day at home (to finish that quilting).

Tomorrow afternoon we were scheduled to go to a concert south of town. One of the performers is a friend of Pat’s and he stayed with us when he was here with one of our house concert guests. He offered us free tickets which was very nice of him. Today though the news came through that the concert was cancelled due to illness and will be rescheduled for the Spring. I was looking forward to the event but I don’t mind a day at home either.

I’m going to try and finish my current bauble this afternoon and, if there is time, I will do some work on my chicken block.

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

There was a lot of noise going on across the street early this morning. We could see the tree company working inside one of the trees. We speculated on whether dead branches were coming off or if the tree was coming down. By lunch the three huge evergreens were gone and our view to the ocean opened up incredibly. From where I’m sitting now I can see all the way to Sliammon and Savary Island.

I’m still recovering from my weekend away. I managed to get everything unpacked yesterday morning but didn’t accomplish much after that. The afternoon naps take away a lot of my day.

This morning I finished the last items for my 12 Days packages. Time now to dig out the Christmas wrapping paper and start getting ready to ship everything. I spent some time this afternoon cross stitching while I listened to some music. I hoped I’d get another bauble done but there is still a bit to do. I think Pat has an open mic tonight so I might be able to do a bit more.

It’s time now to get ready for my two days of sewing with Stacia and Deloise. I know the pattern I’ll be using but that is as far as I’ve got. Fabric picking and cutting are still needing to be done. For our second day I’m hoping to get at some quilting on one of the projects I already have sandwiched.

Monday, November 13, 2023

I had a wonderful weekend of sewing but I’m worn right out. I’m just up from a two-hour nap and I could have stayed there for a lot longer.

The ride across to Texada was a bit rough on Thursday afternoon but all was well at the studio. By well I mainly mean no mice! I took supper over with us and Moreen and I chatted the evening away.

We were up and out early on Friday but not as early as we should have been I guess. Moreen was transporting the power bars, extension cords and irons and had been told to arrive at nine. She had either forgotten that or had gone along with my suggestion that we arrive at ten so we didn’t have to help set up. When we got there at ten we were greeted rather cooly but I don’t think anyone was delayed in starting work. I had a nap on the stage in the Hall in the afternoon and we sewed until about 9:30. When we went outside to leave there was a major storm in progress – winds and rain.

I woke up at two on Saturday morning and saw that the power was out. I didn’t sleep much from then on and when we got up in the morning about seven we still had no power so we headed down to the local cafe looking for coffee. They were closed as they didn’t have power either and it wasn’t until we got to the Hall that we learned that the entire island was out, as well as many parts of Powell River. There was no indication from BC Hydro how long the outage would last and there were 24 women trying to sort out what we would do – stay and hope it wasn’t a long wait or give up and go home.

At the retreat there is always a small mystery project; fortunately this year’s project was to be done by hand. We relocated to the Legion, who had a power generator, and settled in. Several took part in the service upstairs while the rest stayed in the basement which is the home of the Texada quilters. By the time lunch was over the power had been restored and we were back at the Hall.

Since I hadn’t made great progress on my projects Friday I hated to give up my afternoon for a nap so I continued on. We always play a dice game on Saturday night and I knew it would be a long day but I carried on. I had some hand stitching to do on a quilt so doing that was relaxing. We didn’t get home until almost ten that night and I went straight to bed.

We were back sewing before nine on Sunday. Moreen and I had already decided we would spend one more night at the studio. Most people taking the ferry back to Powell River were packing up after lunch but we were able to continue sewing until about four. We went to the cafe for supper and almost as soon as I got home I had a hot bath and went to bed.

We came across on the ferry this morning – a beautiful sunny day. I have managed to move all my “stuff” upstairs but none of it is put away. I’d like to say I feel invigorated after my sleep but I don’t particularly. I may, however, try to empty a few bins.

I have the reading done for the Book Circle tonight; I just hope I can stay awake until it is over.

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

I think I have everything sorted out and packed for the Texada Retreat. I could spend a week on retreat and probably still not get everything done that I’ve packed but if it doesn’t get done on Texada it will be ready-to-go when I get back home.

I found another hand sewing project to take with me. I tried a bit of it last night while Pat was on an open mic and I was so excited about it that I already have the whole thing planned out. It is a traditional pattern from the Isle of Man called a Manx quilt. The measurements are all based on different parts of your hand so every quilt will be unique. I dug through my scrap bins that had already been sorted into sizes and came up with more than enough strips for four of the colours. I have a good start on the other two colours and I haven’t even gone through the bins of scraps that haven’t been sorted. I had to order just a bit more background fabric this morning – I might have had enough but I didn’t want to run out with only a couple of blocks left.

Stacia has me excited about a new quilt project that we’ll start in the New Year – a temperature quilt. I don’t have the pattern but I think we figured out how to do it based on a photo Stacia took at the quilt show. It too will require a fabric purchase. I’m so excited that I’m already imagining showing it off at the Guild and I know exactly where I’ll hang it. As you can tell I’m not exactly sticking to my plan of not starting anything new.

I’ll make a couple of shepherd pies tomorrow – one to take across for supper on Texada and one to leave at home for Pat. I still have to pack up the bit of food I’m taking and anything else that I might remember between now and when we leave.

For now though I’m going to have a nap.