Distracting Myself

I had the urge to do some sewing today - wanting to make up another of the Lori Holt zippy bags from a panel. But the two remaining bigger bags from the panel I had didn't really appeal to me in spite of the fact I had new vinyl and fusible fleece to cut into. I set them aside and started rooting through a container with random stitchery items. 

I happened upon a couple of spools of Sulky Petites thread and decided to start another Wildflowers Hearts scissor case. The free chart designed by Caroline Strickler can be found here. 

I've used this square design for several triangular scissor cases:

Rather than the Caron Wildflowers and Waterlilies threads, any embroidery floss can be used. I'm using 28ct linen and instead of two strands of floss, am using one strand of the Sulky Petites. (I much prefer not to stitch with two strands).

I really like stitching this pattern. There are a satisfying number of specialty stitches and it quickly and easily makes into a scissor case. The centre square of hearts can also be stitched separately for a scissor fob.

Supplies have arrived for a project for which I have been commissioned; sparkly bakeable sculpting clay and tapestry needles:

In crochet news, I have 105 lanterns sewn together,

and 49 more completed. Less than ten to go for the original size. However, there is TONS of yarn left over so I'll probably do at least one more column of 11 and column of 10. And, of course, the corresponding half-lanterns to even out the top and bottom.

The leftover yarns make excellent sweaters for my little bears and kitties. I have another girl bear I want to do for someone before our next guild stitch day.

I have sent Bertram to live with his new friend, John. I (and ChatGPT) made a little photo of him reading to Bertram from his new book, 'The True North Talks':

In his book, John examines the legal, social, and human consequences of Québec's separation from the rest of Canada in the format of an action-driven political novel. It is available from Amazon.

And finally, I have been invited for an overnight at a friend's cottage near Wasaga Beach so will start packing for that after stitching tomorrow. I'm taking a bear to knit, a scissor case to stitch, and some lanterns to crochet and sew into a blanket. That should keep my hands busy between sips of adult beverages, relaxing on the beach, and eating good food.

A Very Busy Few Days

After last week's quilting marathon and Saturday's guild stitching day, I spent Sunday trying to recover from all the activity. That involved sleeping in, doing a lot of loafing, napping, and taking it easy.

Monday morning was our usual stitching time, then at 12:30 'the gang' met at Mandarin to celebrate Jen1's birthday. We have started doing the Mandarin thing for our birthdays and it lets everyone pig out on some or many favourite food options. Being a holiday, Poppy was able to join us, too!

Geri, Marilyn, and Poppy

Barb, the birthday girl, and Jeanette

And if that wasn't fun enough, we repaired back to my place to stitch for the rest of the afternoon.

It's always so nice when we can get together.

Yesterday, David came over in the afternoon to help me install the new ceiling light in the kitchen. The ballast in the old one blew and had been non-functioning for several weeks. It took quite an effort to find a suitable replacement; the old one had a nice moulding around it. Many I saw online looked too industrial or plastic-y. I finally found one on Amazon I liked. It was the same length and style but a bit narrower and doesn't require fluorescent tubes. I hoped I wouldn't need to repaint the ceiling after the new one's installation.

David and I worked for well over two hours, huffing, puffing, climbing up and down step ladders and stools, dropping and retrieving screws, swapping out drill and screwdriver bits, sweating, and using a fair amount of bad language but finally it was up and working. I could do surgery in there now if I needed to.

I had been managing OK with the two pot lights and the light over the stove but I'm really glad to have the new one in place. AND I don't have to repaint the ceiling! Just touch up a couple of spots with some leftover ceiling paint.

Since it was almost suppertime and to thank him, we toddled over to Hot Rocks and I treated him to supper. We both took doggie bags home. The leftover pizza will be my lunch tomorrow.

After a couple of Facebook posts about a potential reunion at the school I used to teach at 40 years ago, a former student contacted me and wanted to meet for lunch - just to catch up on what we've been doing with ourselves these past 40 years. 

Being a music teacher, I had the good fortune to teach students over a period of their high school years. We got to know each other quite well even beyond the classroom. I enjoy finding some of them on Facebook and have kept up on the activities and lives of several former students over the years. 

So Natalie and I met up and had a lovely afternoon getting caught up. We asked each other who we'd been in contact with since the late 80s. I had to laugh about an event Natalie reminded me of with another student, Paul. He was attending the Faculty of Music at Western (my old alma mater) and had a violin minor instrument exam coming up and was panicking that after the whole semester, still didn't know how to play the violin. Evidently, I gave him a violin lesson over the phone, dredging up what little knowledge I remembered from my violin minor class from at least a decade before. He ultimately passed his playing exam. I have a vague recollection of the event. I must have told my class the next day that I had done this. I haven't seen Paul in ages (possibly almost 20 years) and only have an old email address for him and probably a defunct phone number. I will try to get in touch with him so we can laugh about this anecdote.

Paul did go on to teach music and ultimately was a school administrator before his retirement in 2022 (I got that much info from Google). 

Anyway, just before Natalie and I parted, we took a selfie.

On the way home, I stopped in at Fabricland in Pickering and purchased some sewing supplies. Then on to the grocery store to pick up some more things, then back home. Boy, am I pooped!

I have NOTHING scheduled for tomorrow so will again take some time to recover from the frenetic activity of the last week or so.

I continue to work on the Mystical Lanterns afghan. When I get bored with crocheting the 'lanterns', I sew in the ends, when I get bored with that, I sew the lanterns onto the afghan.

I'm this far now.  Still lots of lanterns to crochet and add.

I did more stitching on my 'This Bee's Got Knees'. It goes quite quickly when spending a good chunk of time on it and I'm not distracted. You can see the 'T' at the top. I have started doing this on many projects but it was even suggested by the designer to maintain proper orientation of the fabric as the 4 arms of the stitching are quite similar. 

I like the fresh colours of this piece. It will be fun to get it finished and fully finished.

Mystical Lanterns Update

I like to keep my hands busy when I watch TV so I usually knit or crochet. I've been plugging away on my Mystical Lanterns blanket and have about 135 of the 158 'lanterns' done. I'll also have 14 half-lanterns to do as well.

When I get tired of crocheting, I weave in the ends with the eye end of a #16 tapestry needle. The other day I started sewing the lanterns together using a somewhat 'invisible' ladder/mattress technique on the back leg of the outer stitches. A little bit of the white yarn will show through but not as much as if I used whip stitch.

Here, the white whip stitches can be seen. I prefer the ladder technique.

Three columns have been completed and a fourth was started.

This is the layout of the completed blanket. There will be lots of yarn left over so I may add extra length and width.

Today at our guild stitch day, one of our members purchased one of my project bags. I want to make more of the retreat mats in time for our Elim retreat.

Here are pics of the one I forgot to include in my previous post:

I still need to make a thread bed for this one.

I have the printed interfacing panels to make a Mondo Bag which uses 2 1/2" squares. I'm going to figure out how to make a second panel with the gridded interfacing that I already have then made a Mondo bag from some of the random charm squares in my stash.

I have lots of cute Peanuts fabrics but don't know what to make with them. They were impulse buys on various shopping trips at the now defunct JoAnn Fabrics stores.

Some would make cute pillowcases but they're not soft fabrics; probably only suitable for the edges of the opening. If they were flannel, they'd definitely make nice pillowcases, but they're not.

I've made a couple of things from them but other than tote bags (and I don't really need any more of those) I'm kind of at a loss for how to use them. I welcome any ideas.

Being a long weekend, we only had 11 people at our guild stitch day. We usually have 16 or so. I did some work on a couple of projects and unpicked almost as many stitches as I put in. I didn't plan well for the day and seemed to need to do a lot of counting rather than just filling in spots. I grew quite tired after lunch so left early for home and vegged out on the couch and watched YouTube videos on a variety of topics for the rest of the afternoon. 

I don't have anything planned for tomorrow so I may make my way to Fabricland in Pickering and see if they have any fusible fleece or batting.

Springhouse Retreat

I was invited to participate in my nieces' quilting retreat at the Springhouse Retreat outside of New Hamburg. I forgot to take a photo of all the stuff I was taking but suffice it to say it was almost every bit of crafting supplies I own.

The drive there (via the $$$ 407 $$$) was thankfully uneventful and I arrived at about 10 am, then unloaded the car.

There is accommodation for 12 people in 6 bedrooms: 2 triples, 2 doubles and a couple of singles. 11 or us were in attendance. We each had a 6 foot table to work on. I took a couple of shots before everyone was in the room. The arrow is pointing to my niece, Rosa. It was a photo I sent someone and neglected to remove the arrow. I sat to her right and my other niece, Ana, sat across from Rosa. Our organizer, Jo-Ann is also pictured.

This is the other side of the room. Pictured are Marion, Patty, and Lynne. The others (Tracie, Beth, Lisa, Mary, and Ana) were doing other things at this time. The cutting tables were between our banks of work tables. There were several ironing stations set up. The room was very well lit but I still used my lamp when cross-stitching.

This is the photo from their website:

Each bedroom is named for a quilt block pattern. Rosa and I shared the Sawtooth Star room. Again, their photo. 

Our bedding was actually white. Accessories actually matched the name of the room.

After I got set up, my area looked very chaotic. I did, however, accomplish a lot.

Ernest was in charge of quality control.

On the end of one of the cutting tables were some of the snacks folks provided. I think the chocolate-covered JuJubes were my favourites. It almost made me want to drive to Glencoe to buy some.

On Tuesday morning, I set out for Heart N Home Creations quilt shop in New Hamburg - a mere 10 minute drive away. Then I headed west to Stratford to shop at Ye Olde Fabric Shoppe.

I had no plan in mind but did manage to pick up three half-yard bundles, thread, some yardage of fabric and a couple of charm packs.

Back at Springhouse I did a bit of stitching on:

The Robin Pickens Autumn Courier, 

and the Hands On Designs 'This Bee's Got Knees' (Thomas' favourite one this week).

I also bought cording to make piping for the needlepoint pillow. I had planned to get the pillow project finished but needed to concentrate more in order to install the zipper with the backing and the piping all at the same time. It was too much for my brain with all the other activity going on so just making the piping was sufficient. I'll watch a couple of YouTube videos on the subject first to summon my confidence for the project.

I have never done so much sewing in such a compressed amount of time before, and was pleased at all I accomplished.

The Lori Holt project bag from one of her panels turned out really well. I didn't quilt it at all.  I happened to have all the required materials on hand. I do like a vinyl window in my project bags so cut part of the front panel to accommodate it.

I got this Lori Holt companion fabric last November when Barb and I went up to Quilter's Cupboard for her birthday discount.

I also used that fabric to line the parts above and below the zipper. 

I made a snappy thread catcher with the piece I cut from the front. The snaps were added after I got home today.

The second Lori Holt bag wasn't quite as successful as I grossly miscalculated the size of the vinyl I had. I'll sell it at a discount. I did, however, quilt the interior fabric, thanks to thread provided by Beth. I didn't particularly like the printed panel that went with the bag so swapped it out for the yellow fabric. The same, teal fabric was used for the back and binding. 

Retreat mats seem to be quite popular so I cranked out three of them. This one with French General 'Joie de Vivre' fabric.

The butterfly fabric was from my stash.

I guess I didn't get a shot of the third retreat mat.

The French General charm pack and fabric got used for a quilted, checkerboard project bag (with a vinyl window).

The retreat house is on a working farm. While motoring on the driveway to the main road, to head to the fabric shops on Tuesday, these black Angus cows were strolling along the fence beside the pond. It is a very quiet, rural setting - very conducive to relaxation.

The retreat centre is very popular. Most bookings are either Monday to Thursday or Thursday to Sunday. It's booked solid for about a year in advance.

My departure today was at about 2pm, heading for the Len's Mill Store off the 401 in Cambridge. I needed to buy more vinyl and while there, picked up two DMC colours missing from my 'Bee's Knees' stitching project. I also needed more fusible batting but all they had was wet fusible and I wanted heat fusible. A trip to Fabricland in Pickering for the batting will be in the near future.

The rest of the drive home was fairly uneventful until I neared Ajax on the 407. It was rush hour at that point and we were slowed right down for the last 15km or so. I ended up getting off one exit early and had a 'comfort stop' at Wendy's and a chocolate frosty. I confirmed with Scooter (who had been housesitting during my absence) what he wanted on the pizza I was going to order, then picked up the pizza on the last leg of my journey. 

Scooter helped me unload the car and carried my suitcase upstairs. I'll deal with the rest of the unpacking tomorrow.

I really enjoyed spending time with the Lambton County ladies and my nieces. I hope they'll invite me again.

A Delivery

I was out running errands yesterday and had the opportunity to deliver Tilly to Shelley.

Can you tell Shelley likes the colour blue?

Today I've been doing odds and ends around the house - starting to make lists and set things aside for the retreat next week. Scooter is coming tomorrow and will housesit for me during my absence.

I keep finding projects to take that I can start, like a wool felt appliqué tomato pincushion project I must have picked up at the Pastime Pieces retreat. 

I also just located some upholstery fabric in the basement that would work as a backing for a needlepoint pillow I finished years ago and blocked sometime in the past year. The needlepoint was still pinned to the blocking board so I have liberated it and added it to the pile of projects to take. I will make the cording out of some cotton clothesline.

I used that upholstery fabric  years ago to re-cover the padding on an IKEA Poang bentwood armchair was in Skip's 'dowry' (items he brought into our household).

Tomorrow I'll finish packing and do some shopping for my breakfasts and lunches at the retreat. Dinner is communal and I'll take some bagged salads (not Taylor Farms, though).

I started sewing some of the Mystical Lanterns together - just for something different to do on that project. As all the outside rounds are different colours, I'm using the 'invisible' ladder stitch. 

The pattern calls for half lanterns for the top and bottom but not the sides. I'll have enough yarn to make some so will do more thinking on that.

I've made almost 130 lanterns out of the 158 called for in the pattern (excluding half lanterns). It's easy to crank out two or three in the evenings when I'm watching TV. With still having leftover yarn from the Persian Tiles blankets, I'll decide if I'll do extra columns.

With all the random colours, the needlepoint pillow and Mystical Lanterns would look quite nice together, don't you think?