A picture is worth a thousand words!

I was going through some e-mail the other day and came across this picture of a sweet young kid (and her bratty younger brother) at Gramma's house!!!  I have no idea how old I was, I'm sure my Mom would know - six???? But wasn't I cute?  And look at that blond hair!  I love how my brother has his hands shoved in his pockets! 

Me and my baby brother!

This is one of our "famous" family photos.  My grandfather took tons of pictures, mostly of his garden, their travels and of course the grandkids.  While he took a lot of photos, he didn't take as many as we do today.  Recently I read that there is rarely a day goes by that we don't take a picture of SOMETHING.  Did you take pictures of your food when you had to pay to have those pictures developed???  I think not!

I even remember the address of Grandma's house - 932, 104th Street.  The house is no longer there. It was torn down to build the new detachment of the RCMP. Not that they lived in a rough neighbourhood!  Just progress.  Too bad, because I have many fond memories of that little house and if it were still around  - heck, I could have bought it and moved in!  Although the commute would be bad!


I took stock of my studio this morning and OH BOY - I'm in serious trouble. There are about 6 URGENT and I mean URGENT things on the go and of course, it's all over the floor because the next urgent things are on the tables.  That's what happens!  If only I could work on ONE project at a time. However, my day and night jobs don't allow that to happen!

Ooops! 

But let's get to those hexagons and the importance of pictures. When I was at the sewing retreat a couple of months back, I took on a job to help out with a quilt.

I cut and paste this from my blog from Day Two of our most recent retreat:


Then to pick another project.  I guess I had better work on those fussy cut eight pointed star blocks. I dug them out and did some marking of seam allowances.  Then I was side-tracked. Sacha had brought a problem child to the retreat. I told her to get it out and next thing you know, Ronda and I were completely off track. We took the blocks from Sacha's project, threw them on the design wall, messed around with them. Discovered an awesome quilt in those blocks. We had to make six more and Ronda very graciously helped. I cut and she sewed. Now all those blocks have to be squared up and well - that is going to be a bit of a problem because they are hexagons, but not to worry - I just took on another project!  Actually two, but that's OK!  

The trick really was how to trim up those blocks because yes the blocks are hexagons and it's not like I can just whip out a regular ruler to trim them.  I searched the internet to find a ruler that was the right size. Nope. Couldn't find anything. But after a bit more searching, I managed to find this ruler. It's called You Hexie Thing by June Tailor.  If you want this ruler, I could tell where NOT to buy it as it cost a fortune at the F store. But I balked at the price and found it much cheaper elsewhere.  

You Hexie Thing ruler

Because the blocks had been made by a variety of people, they desperately needed to be trimmed. And this ruler did the trick.  It was BRILLIANT and very easy to use!  If you're going to do a lot of hexagons, it's probably not a bad idea to invest in this ruler.

Here's a clue to some of you who may be in the know about this project. My little basket after the blocks were trimmed. And that's all you get to see for the moment.

The trimmings

Seriously, though - you're going to love this project and it's one that ALL OF YOU (well most of you) can play a part in at some point.  You just have to be patient for a few more weeks.

However, trimming the blocks was the easy part.  Yep - Ronda, Sacha and I had thrown those blocks on the design wall and through the process of messing around, a brilliant quilt design came about. And I took a picture so I would remember.  Seriously - I took a picture.

The project has been shelved for a couple of months and now it's urgent.  So when I searched through my camera, NO PICTURE.  WHAT????????   I searched through photos on my phone - NO PICTURE.  Say it isn't so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Then I tried to recreate the design from memory. Memory? What memory? (I'm thinking Ronda must have deleted them. Isn't that awful that I even think that way?  Well someone has to take the blame and it can't always be me!)

I then did the next best thing. I called a friend!  I called Ronda - actually, I sent her a text message that I desperately needed help.  She had no clue what I was talking about!  We chatted later that evening and nothing was coming to mind. She had not taken pictures either.  I mean, why would she - it wasn't her project.

So we mulled the design over and at last, with her help, I got the basic idea of what I had done with the layout.  However, when I attempted to recreate it, it wasn't happening.  The good news? Last night, I got all the blocks trimmed and messed with them again and I GOT IT!!!!!   The blocks are on the wall in the position that we created at the retreat.   Thank goodness for that - I was getting desperate.

All is good and I can get back to work on this.  I do have to remake one of the blocks as it was a bit too teeny, while others were - well, let's just say that when different people make the same block - the end results are NOT the same.  I've got the missing block cut out and ready to sew.

You see, the problem is that hexagons are a funny beast.  They are - well they have SIX sides to them and well they are NOT the same - I'm just going to leave it at that!

And now for some even better news.  I still couldn't find that charger for my tablet.  Where could the silly thing be? Then as I was sitting at the table last night eating dinner, I thought I would check the sofa one more time.  That's where I had been hiding out when my knee had rendered me virtually helpless - well not really, but I might get more sympathy?

There was a plug sticking out from the back of the couch.  No way - could that be the missing charger???  Yep - it was all tucked down in the cushions!!!!!

The missing charger!!!

And it's very unique - there's no way you can substitute a phone charger for this one.

A weird little end on that charger!

And now it's safely tucked in the drawer where it's supposed to be.

The POWER drawer - chargers and batteries

I think DH hide the charger because he was annoyed that I had found and was playing (while incapacitated) a stupid game on the tablet.  I couldn't even remember what game I was playing and even when I got it charged up last night, I had to search for the stupid game.  As I mentioned yesterday, I'm an addict and it would take NOTHING for me to wile away the hours with a screen in my face.  So NO GAMES! Did you notice how quickly I shifted the blame of the missing charger to someone else?  I'm sure M is quite happy to no longer live in our house - I can't blame her for anything!

And even though row by row Experience is officially over, I'm still collecting.  Thanks to Mary who went to Halifax and got me some goodies.

Goodies from Halifax

That about sums up things in my life these days.  Running around like an idiot, working 24/7 (except when I have that darn tablet in my hands!) and basically LOVING every minute of it!!!

On that note, I'm off to save someone in the quilt world today - most likely myself!!!

Have a super day!

Ciao!