An almost full super moon

I'm happy to report that I slept well last night. I even "slept in" so that is great, but I still have time to get this blog posted in the right time frame. 

I know I say it all the time when I'm at retreat, but this is truly the place to strengthen friendships. While I'm a Zoom person and happy with Zoom, there is nothing like an in-person event to make me very happy. You can't go for a walk with someone on Zoom! But you can in person. While I'm also a get-in-and-out shopper, it's fun to shop with others. We were four yesterday, which is almost unheard of in my world! But the laughs, the shared meals -- you can't beat that. And at one point, something happened at retreat that hasn't happened before, or if it did, it is rare. At one point, the house was empty as everyone left to go shopping!!! 

For those on my retreat list, I'll be sending an email to give you the lay of the land for 2026 and 2027, so you can plan your schedules accordingly. There will be fewer in the future, so they will be even more precious than this year. 

OK -- enough about that! What got done? 

I managed to get 120 six-inch blocks for one flannel quilt in the "blue" theme. So that was good. And as I mentioned yesterday, it got bagged but will not be sewn until I investigate the rest of the scrap piles. There are eight more flannel quilts to quilt with bright flannel backs. Then I'll evaluate the other colors and see if it makes sense to make this quilt. Actually, this might be a good task for my SIL? It's flannel, so a bit tricky, but I'll see. 

120 six-inch blocks for a flannel quilt

Then I worked on the five-inch blocks. I needed more of those - 168 to get a decent-sized quilt. That was an easy job, but it still took all day, and I didn't have 168 blocks until the evening. Well, actually, I found some snowman panels in the flannel pile and decided to add a frame to them to make them the size of FOUR of the five-inch blocks. So that worked, and sped up the progress.  

Blocks for the second flannel quilt

Most of the flannel in this one is winter themed, so technically this one would be good to sew together now.

But by then, I was getting bored with working with the flannel scraps, and it took a while to complete all those blocks. Time to move to something else. 

I still have this much flannel to deal with. It doesn't look like much in this photo, but it filled a bag. I estimate there are at least TWO more decent-sized quilts here. That's obscene!!! But I'm doing something with it. I must leave this out when I'm home and make a few blocks each day! I'll see how that goes -- there aren't many "free" moments in my days. At least not this coming week!

Flannel scraps still to deal with

I brought a couple of "new" projects, ones that aren't scrap-related, so I dug one of them out. AHA—it's a set of placemats. Good grief—I vaguely remember buying this as a kit. How many years ago would that have been? No idea. And will I use them? Nope -- they will go in the placemat donation pile. I've said this before, I'm not so much about the finished item - I'm more about the making! I would sew anything, like scraps, and enjoy it as much as if it were brand-new. 

A set of placemats

Some of the pieces have been cut, but I just didn't want to start this last night, so that's on the agenda for today. Four placemats! 

I also finished that one bag of half-square triangles from my Barn Star Sampler quilt. This pile is all the ones I sewn and trimmed here. No sense sewing them and not trimming. That's a new rule I have, and it really doesn't take long to deal with them! 

The half-square triangles

So I'll keep these together in a bag, and one day I'll dig them out and figure something out for them. 

The collection of half-square triangles from Barn Star Sampler

Don't worry -- I have another bag with me, so that is sitting by the sewing machine and ready to deal with. What's crazy is that half the bag is sewn and trimmed, while the other half isn't. So why do I leave half-finished projects everywhere? Well, that's a problem for all quilters, and we need to stop that!! Do it now!!!! And here's another turned photo! I can't fix it, but you get the idea. 

The next bag of half-square triangles

And if I happen to finish that, there are more bags of them. This is NOT a great photo, but at the bottom of my retreat bag, there are two more bags of half-square triangles to sew. These are the cutoffs from flying-geese units left from specific quilts. That will keep me busy for a while, and I'm OK with leaving them in the retreat bag and working on them while I'm away. Trust me, I have more at home. The ones at home are the random ones. These bags are "collections" from specific quilts. The bottom line is that I have a plan for them, and that makes me happy. 

More bags of half-square triangles

I kind of got obsessed with the puzzle, and as it got dark last night, I needed to move a light in to work on it!! 

Burning the midnight oil!

By the time I left it alone last night, I had this much done. 

Close to the finish

YES -- I am almost done. Yeah!!!! Hey—it's our retreat, and we are allowed to do whatever we want! Don't worry -- I have another puzzle of mine that I want to finish here so it can go home with someone else. 

Did I mention I've been watching this girl with the most annoying voice who talks about assembling puzzles? Always with a stopwatch. That would not be fun! But one of the things she does, and I know other people do it as well, is to sort the pieces into colors. So I broke down and bought a set of puzzle sorting trays, which is also in the picture above. I'll break that out when I work on the small puzzle that I have next. 

I also had company during the day when I worked on the puzzle. This cardinal was pretty persistent and kept hanging out on the windowsill. I don't know if there is a bird feeder, but Mrs. Cardinal was looking for food!!! 

HEY -- is this a fly-through window?

Someone is making a "few" of those children's fabric books, and there are cutoffs - the instructions. I've asked for them as I have plans. So if anyone has instructions from any project that looks like this, I'd be happy to take them off your hands instead of them going into the garbage. I should check whether I have enough to get started on a project. 

Instructions from fabric books

I noticed this morning that the two people on the other side of the room have totally crossed the middle line of the table!! I'll have to bug them this morning!!! I have packed up the stuff that I had spread on the table on the other side of the room and put it in a bag under the cutting table. 

Ooops - retreat spread!

I've already got one bag of stuff to put back in the car. It's so much easier to pack one bag at a time when you're finished with it than to wait until the end of the retreat when everyone is trying to leave at the same time. When it's time to pack up, I usually have one bag of projects, my sewing machine, and whatever food is left. The rest is already done! Efficient!!!! I'm also a neat freak (don't laugh), so it makes sense that I do that. 

Helen Anne and I went for two walks yesterday. It was a glorious day -- not cold, but brisk-- and we soon warmed up with the walking, and at one point we stopped to look at the moon. I spotted this cornfield and hadn't paid it any attention. But it never got harvested!! And it was interesting to see that all the cobs were at the same level on the stalk. I've never noticed that before!!!! 

The cornfield in the winter

I didn't have my phone with me, so Helen Anne took these pictures at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Yep -- that's the moon!!!! It was super visible and quite large. The full COLD MOON is on December 4th, so let's hope we have clear skies tomorrow. 

The almost full super moon

Did you know there are three or four super moons in a year? A super moon occurs when the full moon is at the point in the moon's orbit where the moon is closest to the Earth. And there you go -- another fun fact. Did you know there are FOUR supermoons in 2026? I think there were only three this year. 

Well, it's time to get myself organized. I have a puzzle to finish, I have knitting to explore, four placemats to sew, a couple of videos to watch, and some paperwork to deal with!! Mostly emails. 

Have a wonderful day!!!

Ciao!!!!

The magic number is 7

Good grief -- the magic number is 7! 

There are SEVEN houses on our street with Canadian flags.

I have attended (will be attending) seven quilt retreats this year, not five as I mentioned yesterday. There are times when my mind goes into denial! There are only three scheduled for next year. 

So, yes -- you can't believe everything you read, especially on this blog. I sometimes lose my mind! 

Retreat houses come and go. The very first one we went to was Quilter's MisBeehaven near Bracebridge, and we went there for many years. The owner eventually sold, and we've been to numerous other retreat houses over the years. Now I might be resistant to change, but I'm a bit miffed at a recent trend. 

Each house operates slightly differently, but for the most part, check-in is at 10 AM and check-out is at 3 PM. I would have loved to have an earlier check-in, like 9 AM, but 10 works. I think there have only been two times in the past twenty years that our group or I have stayed until 3 PM. Most people are gone by 1 PM. 

Some places are now changing their "rules," with check-in at 4 PM and check-out at 1 PM. I completely understand the change to the check-out time, but what about the check-in time? Sadly, like most things, this benefits the retreat house, NOT the customers. With the old method, the house would be empty between groups for that one night while it was being cleaned. 

With the new method, the house can be fully booked for 100% of the available nights. 

What I'm not a fan of is that the consumer doesn't get a break on losing those extra hours. I have wanted to do the math ever since I heard about this, so here it is. 

Let's say you are gone for 3 nights, from Monday to Thursday. Under the old system, you had a total of 77 hours, with 14 hours on Monday, 24 hours on each of Tuesday and Wednesday, and 15 hours on Thursday. Let's say the fee is $650 a night to rent the house. So, three nights would total $ 1,950 - I'm not including tax. Then divide that by the number of hours, and you are paying $25 an hour to rent the house. 

Under the new system, those three nights now equal 69 hours. The rate is the same, so the hourly rate is $28 per hour to rent the house. 

Now that's not really a big deal - $3 per hour more, BUT the hours that you lose were the most fun hours -- you lose an entire day of sewing (6 hours!) 

I completely understand that some people didn't arrive until later in the day, but my group? They were waiting in the parking lots for 10 AM!!! I just can't wrap my head around getting to the house at 4 PM, setting up, and having dinner; that's pretty much my day gone. I did it once when we had an embrioery retreat - we arrived at 7 PM because that was how it was set up. I wasn't a fan, but that's me!

You know I'm an old dog and I hate change!!! That's not true -- I don't mind change when it's in my favor, but when it's not? I struggle!

Thankfully, there are still retreat houses that allow us to arrive at 10 AM, and I'll book those. 

I must give more thought to the revised sit-and-sew day. I'm all for that. It won't happen every month, so I'll see how to work it into the schedule. It might be as simple as inviting someone to sew, and they can borrow a machine so they don't have to bring their own. 

Yesterday was a bizarre day. There was a lot of coming and going in the house, and I find that extremely distracting while working. I had the furnace serviced, which is a rental, but I must say that I was a bit annoyed with the service person. He was an older gentleman, and from the moment he walked in the house, I knew it wasn't going to go well. 

He was here to service THEIR furnace. It's not mine - I just rent it. I also had a water leak from one of the hoses. I did not take a picture of the hose, but as soon as he entered the furnace room, he informed me that the leak was coming from the foundation. WHAT? I don't think so! So he traced the leak to the humidifier, which is NOT covered under the furnace rental program. WHAT? It's part of the furnace? OH - I guess not. 

There is a filter in the humidifier, which was clogged - the first time I had heard of a filter in the humidifier. And apparently, it's not something that can be washed or easily replaced. WHAT? So he unclogged the hose for the humidifier, closed it back up, without explaining how to replace it. His response? Everyone knows their humidifier has a filter, and you can simply Google how to cut a new piece of screening to replace it. Seriously??? 

I asked again if he had serviced the furnace, since that was the real reason he was there. OH - I didn't see that in the work order was his response. Well, he said, I checked the inside, it's dry. I checked the hoses, and they are in good condition. Yep - that's the service. That is NOT the service. He asked when I last cleaned the filter - I told him this week - he didn't even bother to look at it. Well, I guess he didn't really need to, since I cleaned it. 

I had an issue with the thermostat, and when I asked him, he asked me if I had the book to reprogram it. The seven-day programming feature had been disabled. Rather than show me how he re-enabled it, he asked me if I had the manual, and I said yes. I don't need a ^&*(&^ manual to program the thermostat. What I didn't know was that those features had been disabled. Why - I have no idea. 

All in all, it was NOT a good experience with their service technician. I will call or write the company because, seriously? The guy was an idiot and made me feel like one, and he didn't even bother to put his booties on when he came in the house, although he went to take them off when he got to the door. I did NOT like him at all. 

That set my mood for the day! I needed two naps to get over that! However, it's tough to get a good nap with two pesky pups!

We're helping you sleep!

However, I managed to complete several other tasks, so it wasn't a complete wash - some videos were filmed, some writing was done, and some trimming was accomplished. I also have a bit more homework to prep for the weekend classes. 

With all the coming and going - there were pick-ups and drop-offs, I didn't even get a chance to walk the girls. The boy got his walk, but not the girls, and it wasn't until dark that I had an opportunity to go to the grocery store. The issue was that I had a rather large and expensive pick-up scheduled, and I didn't want to leave it on the front step. That was supposed to happen between 10 and 4. They didn't arrive until almost 5 PM. 

Walking through the forest at dusk

However, there was good news! The office is looking pretty empty right now! There were not one, but two sewing machine boxes in here, which took up a lot of space since one of the machines hadn't been packed in the box yet. An embroidery unit, and a whole pile of quilts, as well as two boxes of donation stuff. Guess what? All of those items have been removed from the office and are now stored in the Pony Express staging area. The items are scheduled to be picked up or dropped off within the next week.  

The Pony Express staging area is clogged!

Sadly, there is still a lot of paperwork to clear up, but that's OK. Every little bit helps. 

There is only one box left to unbox in the office, and that's the new computer. I need to get it open and start using it. 

On that note, I'd better get myself organized to walk the girls and the boy, or I won't make it through the day! The girls were NOT happy yesterday. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!