It's all orange from here

 I'm up at an even more ridiculous hour than usual, and it's a Sunday morning! Yep -- It's the one day a year that I lose all sense of sanity and volunteer for the Toronto Marathon. I'll be dropping off tables and stuff for the water stations. 

It's a crappy job, to say the least, and each year I tell myself that this is the last year. Well, guess what? I'm doing it again! They are not super organized (NO -- I will not ask for a higher job, so things are organized!), and they have someone new (and younger) who will take on this physical job next year. I'm riding in the mini-van with her today. They couldn't rent the cube vans like they did in past years, so we have a different system this year. It's an all-day volunteer job, but I give them the morning! 

Why they can't recruit runners (who aren't running the marathon) beats me. Oh wait -- they are too busy running their own run that they can't. But I won't go there. 

So I am up extra early to get the blog out, or I won't have some happy readers!

We had loads of fun at the Virtual REtreat until they started to chat about the pandemic. Thankfully that was the same time that I needed to get to bed. I have NO IDEA why talking about the pandemic drives me crazy! The number of hours people chat about why this topic - well, I can't handle that. 

OK -- I just deleted my rant about the topic. For some reason, it irks me to no end, and we need to move on! Anyway --- I left the call and went to bed. I need to learn how to keep my mouth shut when those discussions arise or shut them down. It's such negative talk and drives me CRAZY. My philosophy is to BUILD YOUR IMMUNE system so your body has a better chance of fighting off ANYTHING. And if you can't do that, be careful and stay home!

I got all my presentations done, and everything went smoothly. I managed to get the last pictures taken for the final presentation between the first two Zoom calls. The "quilt storage" room now looks like this, and I need to go in and tidy it up a bit! 

The quilt storage room!

I'll have lots to share with you this coming week, but not this morning as I need to be way across town in a bit. Thankfully, there will be no traffic when I go, but there'll be traffic when I come back. 

I took a break in the afternoon and sat in the gazebo, and YES -- I had to rescue the ball once. The second time, I didn't, and she patiently sat at the side of the pond until the ball floated back to her, and she managed to get it herself. She only had to dip her front paws up to her leg joint to get it. But I don't really want her feet in the pond in case she rips the liner. Oh, Murphy -- what are we going to do with you? 

Murphy in the dirt with her toys

The big question when there is a retreat is what to work on. There are so many projects that need to be completed. I decided to work on my UFO for this month, which is the Chunk of the Month. If you are wondering what this is, you can check out this blog post to see some of the finished quilts from several years ago. It's a quilt that I designed years ago and offered at several local guilds as a Block of the MOnth. 

There are nine sections, and I had the first two sections done, but the seams on the back were not twirled, and I didn't think I could live with that. So I started by ripping most of them apart. All I needed to do was seam rip the rows apart, repress every second seam, and sew it back together. 

Taking apart sections one and two

There are thirteen rows, and each row has 24 squares. There are 33 squares across the width, but the third section is sewn together correctly, so I don't need to worry about that one. And for some reason, I have an extra square in each row. I thought it would be easy, and it was until I realized that it's not necessarily the end where the extra square got placed. I'm not sure what I did, but I had to jig the 5th and 6th rows last night to make it work. 

It wouldn't have been such a big deal, but three of the fabrics in Row 5 were lined up with the EXACT same fabrics in Row 6, which won't do! 

It took me a couple of hours to get the first six rows back together, so I suspect that once I get back today, I should be able to get the first two sections back together. 

The first six rows of the quilt are almost back together

Here is Section Three. 

Section three is complete

So here is the top part of the quilt with some of Sections One and Two still missing. 

Pressed nice and FLAT

And yes, now all the seams are twirled on the back, and they will match Section Three. I made sure of that as I went along. 

The seams are twirled, and I am happy

Do I need to do this? No - but it will make me feel better, so I'm going for it!

I really have no issue if things go slow -- I like progress, and I'd rather have it done to my satisfaction. I'm NOT a perfectionist -- not any longer. So I let a LOT of things slide in the quilt world, and I'm OK with that. It's like we need to pick our battles -- our free-motion quilting will never be perfect -- no one is, and my points don't always match, and I'm sure I will end up having one or two fabrics of the same touching in this quilt. I'm OK with that. But if I can make the quilt flatter with some work, I'll do it. 

And YES -- the quilt lies a lot flatter with those seams twirled, which is important to me!

OH YES --- I got some excellent pictures of my Cherrywood Challenge, and those got submitted. So that is done. I can cross it off my list. I realized that I missed the deadline for another small challenge that I wanted to do so that one will also come off the list. I should have checked the date, but I've been busy, and well, if I really wanted to get it done, I should NOT leave it to the end. Sigh................

Hopefully, my master list will keep me on track as I go forward. I have learned that I NEED a written list of everything that must be done or it won't get done! I have some writing that desperately needs to be done, but it will have to wait until Monday. I really need to resurrect the Task Master list system. Essentially, I have the Master TO DO list with things that need to be done each month. That's good, but The Task Master made me focus on each task for the WEEK to ensure that everything got done on time. 

I might open that up later today and see what happens. There's so much, and I need to focus. Without focus, I'll be lost!

On that note, I'm off into the cool dark morning to make sure that the marathon runners have water when they run the marathon. 

Don't forget there is a Virtual Retreat all day today. It starts at 10 AM, and I know the keeners will be there! I hope to join around 1 PM -- let's see how the day goes. 

Here is the link for the Virtual Retreat for today. 

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81693717518?pwd=STNoVVQzbDd4ZnROQndNNlpvcC90QT09 Meeting ID: 816 9371 7518 Passcode: 579285

I will repost the information about the quilt shows and Helen Anne's art show later this week.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!