Lots of Projects...

Friday December 2, 2016

Tonight’s project was to wrap lots of yarn around a Magnolia branch to make myself a cute little Christmas tree (which may or may not take the place of a proper tree). My friend, Leslie, was kind enough to give me a bag of her leftover yarn. You can’t beat a completely free $$$ project like this!

Tamsin in action

I spent the better part of the evening sitting on the floor surrounded by colorful balls of yarn while our cat, Tamsin, occasionally joined in the fun running off with a ball or two when the mood struck her.

(the stray twig is now secured with electric tape)

In three hours I managed to complete the entire trunk and may just end up leaving it like that since I am a bit short on time and have plenty more projects to complete (like a yarn wreath!).

I will be sure to take a photo later after I’ve anchored it and hung a few baubles from it.

Saturday December 3, 2016

Today was my Quilting 101 class at Joann Fabrics. Although I have no plans to make a formal quilt as such, I thought it would be interesting to learn the mechanics of making a simple square. Fran was our instructor. It was her first time teaching a class there and I thought she did pretty well. It’s not her fault there’s a lot of math involved (most of our squares had to be cut to 5 7/8”). Although she had cut out her own pieces and may have planned to make a square as well, she made sure to check on each one of us (there were three of us) each step of the way, which I very much appreciated.

The BEFORE picture

Although two and a half hours were allocated for the class, I knew I wouldn’t get done in that short a period of time, and I don’t recall the other two finishing that quickly either (though one of them might have since she had had some quilting experience previously). I ended up staying over an extra hour and was forever grateful to Fran for not minding (I would have). My bobbin ran out of thread, so I had to take extra time to refill it and then try to remember how to properly put it back in place. I also had to rip out stitches on more than one occasion and had to recut one piece. All these little setbacks cost me maybe a half an hour, so that explains some of the delay.

the AFTER picture

All total about half my squares turned out symmetrical, so I am happy enough with my first effort. I am thinking of making a pillow out of it sometime later.

Would I be interested in doing another quilting class in the future? Possibly, but it’s so time consuming (and a bit frustrating when things don’t quite line up), that I’m not sure when I want to allocate the time to do that. Fran told us they also have a Square a Month class where I guess you make a quilt out of the collection when you’re all done. To be honest I haven’t had a chance to look at the list of future classes, so too early to make a decision.

Sunday December 4, 2016

Today was our annual pre-Christmas outing. Last year Andrew and I drove to Cincinnati where we spent the day walking around the city observing and enjoying the festive atmosphere, especially in the square where an ice rink was set up with various food & merchandise stalls surrounding it.

This year we opted to stay a little closer to home and went downtown to the Columbus Museum of Art to take in the special exhibit, “The Sun Placed in the Abyss.” Seeing so many photos/films/videos of the sun on such a dark day outside was most uplifting and made me yearn for summer days. I thought the public had some interesting thoughts about the exhibit as noted on the index cards displayed on the opinion board.

Afterwards we browsed in the galleries at the rotating collection seeing a few new pieces as well as some old favorites. While walking around we had the pleasure of musical accompaniment as the Columbus Choir performed a free concert in the atrium at 3pm. Nothing says Christmas quite like hearing a choir perform. The acoustics were fabulous, so it sounded a bit like being inside a cathedral (bringing back happy memories of being in England). After a quick browse around the gift shop (of which I am happy to report I didn’t buy anything), we headed out.

All in all a pretty busy, but pretty good weekend.

Have a great week everyone!