Retreat - Day Three

Late yesterday afternoon, I finally moved the sewing machine into place. The serger now takes a back seat although there are a few things that I'd still like to serge.

Even though I didn't sleep much the previous night, I didn't crash until 8 PM and I slept through the night - even though there was a rowdy game of something happening in the living room. I feel great this morning. It must have been that snack of ice cream and cookie crumbs that I had before dinner!!!!

I managed to get a couple of things embroidered for myself which I hope to sew up today. Holy - I never thought I'd go crazy for machine embroidery, but there's so much you can do and marrying the technology with sewing? Right up my alley. I'll be sharing some of the stuff with you later this month.

I also seemed to do a fair amount of stuff for others yesterday. Paula was happy that I was busy with the embroidery machine as she managed to make SEVENTEEN pillowcases on the serger!  I'm glad it got put to good use.  I embroidered the names of grandchildren - 10 in total. I don't know why that seemed to take up a lot of time. Oh, and I answered a lot of questions. Today - NO questions.

I have my little rounds of shopping that I do when I'm here and one of them is Value Village. I check out the craft books and craft supplies. I check the puzzles and games. I check the garments for things to embroidery and I check the bedding if something quilt related shows up. I scored in the book department and found a great book on making things with denim that is super cute. I'll be sharing some of those later on. But the real find was a book written about the Mennonite Relief Sale in Ontario. I didn't check when the book was written, but what a find.

That's exactly the kind of book that I love and at some point, most of my quilt books will go bye-bye, but I plan on keeping the history books forever.

Time just seems to pass by fast here. Really fast. Too fast! We leave tomorrow - now how did that happen???  I feel like I'm just getting started. But that's OK. It's all about friends and we've had some great chats with everyone.

I managed to get the remaining eight laundry bags done!!!!  Yep - there are four bright orange ones and four black ones. I really got the hang of it by the end. I'm very happy with the results. Now I have lots of extras. I could sell you one if you want. I see that some of the produce bags that I gave to the group are being used on the kitchen counter!  Yeah!!!!!

Laundry bags are done

Getting the laundry bags and the produce bags done means that several hunks of fabric that were languishing in the studio are GONE!!!!

I went for a walk in the afternoon. I knew there were walking trails behind the house but had never walked on them. The summer tended to be too buggy and well - I'm not sure, but I decided that yesterday was the day to explore. It's absolutely BEAUTIFUL in the woods. Parts of it are very dense and dark. And once or twice, I knew I wasn't on the path, but I knew that if I continued in this direction that I'd end up on the road.

The woods were beautiful

AHA - then I realized that the path was marked with yellow ribbons on the trees. Some were big and easy to spot, some not so big.

Trail makers

 Now I did go out with my running shoes and with the light dusting of snow, I knew that my feet would get wet. No big deal. However as I neared the end of the trail - actually, I wonder if the trail continued across the road???  I'll have to find that out. Anyway, near the end of the part that I was on, it was a bit swampy. I managed to skirt the mess and I reached the road with fairly dry feet.

On the return, I somehow thought the frost was deeper than it was and next thing I knew, my foot was immersed in frigid water. Oh well! I had a good chuckle about that and forged back to the retreat house.

Ooops - got a bit wet

I hope to get out again today and this time, I'll wear my rubber boots that are in the car!!!! I also found my FitBit charger. I knew I packed it but where????  In the food bag!

I'm fired up for today and hope to get a lot done. I have a bunch of small projects that I'd like to clear up and today's the day to make that happen.

And in case you're wondering where we are? We're at Fireside Retreat in Orillia. We love it here.

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!!!!


Ciao!!!