Finding Treasures

Remember my bag of M & M's I shared the other day.  Well not physically shared, but the saying?

The reason it has seemed like it was so long?  Our department is short staffed normally with 10 people.  All the millennials decided to take the option to take time off because they are afraid.  Which leaves 3 people including me.  So we are scrambling to cover 17 hours of business per day, yet still have days off. 

My days off were Thursday and Friday.  I will admit Thursday I slept in, napped off and on and enjoyed the sunshine with the dog and cats.

Girl cat after scratching through my dead plants.

Boy cat enjoying the sunshine.  He has a perfect necklace going around his neck.  I go outside and here they come.  I made the mistake of turning away from them for a moment, turned back and they were drinking my coffee. 

Bobbin and Girl Cat enjoying the rays. 

Boy cat stalking the boys on the trampoline.  I sat and watched this crew for quite a while on Thursday.  The boys were playing gaga ball on the trampoline.  Boy cat went and laid down underneath the whole time they were playing.  As the boys were coming off the trampoline he attacked.  According to Finn he tried to kill them.  I told them he was hunting and they were his prey for the moment. 

While Lucy cannot go outside during downtime Lucy and Bobbin have started to share space. 

Seems strange, but as of late Lucy stays quite near me whether I am in the living room, sewing, kitchen. 

Thursday I cleaned up my patterns and got them organized.  I did go looking for supplies to make face masks.  I know I have a shoebox full of elastic and zippers somewhere in my sewing stuff. I braved the upstairs sewing room which is actually terrifying with stuff just piled.  I go through occasionally and spend 15 minutes picking up, but it doesn't seem to make a dent. 

As I was searching I found an old cookie tin.  I remembered the great aunt giving it to me. 

It had been her mother's (Jeff's great grandmother), and while there were a few things which were newer there were some awesome old things too.

This gorgeous needle card.

With some needles still.

A darning egg.  Lots of old buttons, but no 1/4 inch elastic.

I saw another shoebox which was old and opened it.

More buttons, some seam tape, a bit of 1/4 inch elastic, embroidery thread.  Someday I will need to go through and thoroughly inventory what is in each of these.

I managed to find 4 packages of 1/4 inch lingerie elastic.  I then decided to brave the attic.  I found some things that I forgot I had, and pulled them out.  I also found a huge stash of interfacing, but still no elastic.

I pulled some fabrics, man that was a tough one so many choices and then grabbed a face mask pattern and stopped.  I can't prewash my fabric, because I have no washing machine.  Mine has been broken for over a week.  I ordered and received the original part that was damaged, and started to put it back together only to find another part needed replacing too.  I ordered that part on the 30th and I have been waiting for 4 days for it to arrive.  By then I decided I was done for the day and enjoyed a nap, on the sun porch and read a book.

Friday I had a good start.  Shower, garbage out, chooks fed and watered, eggs washed, dishes done.  I was going to sew something.  But what?  I have a huge tub of Bonnie and Camille fabrics. I probably have enough to make at least 3 more quilts.  The tub is sitting there after making my last BOM for my Tuesday Sewing group which I shared last week.

I grabbed a pattern from River's Edge Antiques & Quilt Loft called the Quarantine Mystery Quilt Along.  I have been receiving the direction via e- mail almost daily and have been saving them off.  I grabbed day one and made 4 of these blocks.

Since I started something new I decided I should then work on a UFO.  I grabbed Kaleidoscope which was a LQS BOM  from last year. 

I had the December block to make. 

Ialso had 7 more alternate blocks to do and whipped them up in no time.

Now what is left on these is to sew the sashing and the cornerstones.  Before I do that though I need to draft a pattern for the alternate blocks I want to make for the Tuesday 2019 BOM.  I want this quilt to be larger so alternate blocks are necessary, and maybe sashing and cornerstones for these blocks too.

Once I do that I can pull these blocks off of the design wall and put the Kaleidoscope blocks up and play with the layout before I start sashing. 

Back to work I go tomorrow.  I was asked if I would be willing to work 6 days in a row.  I have been doing it for a few weeks now so I told them that will be fine.  Hopefully I will start to have a wee bit more energy because my schedule will remain the same for the next few weeks, and I can sew in the evenings a bit after my chores.