An Odd Weekend

Clearly, there are times when I remember the old saying, "I should of stood in bed today" with a certain kind of wry smile.  This past weekend I spent three wonderful days with a group of like- minded women in the pursuit of the completion of quilting projects.  These were lovely ladies, some of whom I knew slightly from previous quilting retreats and the like, others I didn't know at all, and my very dear friend Mary Ellen.  Here's the story.

Thursday night David and I went over our plans for Friday which included the delivery of a shed for our backyard (D's plans) and a trip to a quilt store to deliver some patterns (my plans).  After a fitful night of sleep, Friday morning at some point after eight (I think, I couldn't see a clock), I heard the phone ring.  Mary Ellen's cheerful voice greeted me with, "Are you ready?"  I made a few comments in the hopes she would give me more information and when she didn't, I posed my own question, "Ready for what?" I asked.  Eventually, she managed to plow through the sleep-clouds in my brain to explain that we were to start our weekend at 9:00 AM Friday morning, not at 5:00 PM Friday evening as I - for some peculiar reason - had supposed.  You can imagine the flurry that ensued!

The entire day went like that.  We arrived at our destination, the Joyful Quilter, had breakfast and sat down to work.  I pulled out a handbag I planned to finish (started oh maybe in November, 2011).  I finished the straps, cut the lining, and looked for interfacing.  I didn't have any.  JQ didn't have any of the right kind (on order).  Mary Ellen didn't have any.  No one attending the Quilt Camp had any.  Oka-a-a-ay. 

I took out the Girlfriend quilt.  I had the cut blocks in plastic bags all ready to work on.  It's been a while since I've worked on it - maybe as much as 4 weeks or more.  I discovered that I had cut everything (triangles, center square, and small squares) except the strips which formed the sides.  Sighing I went over to the cutting mats and realized that I couldn't remember the size of the rectangles I had to cut.  Going back to the table, I found that the book wasn't in the bag.  Mary Ellen didn't have hers with her.  The shop didn't have it (it's several years old).  No one with us had it with them.  Sigh. I started making a summer handbag by buying a new pattern, new fabric, and the required, different kind of interfacing which the shop had in stock.  The fates were with me, and despite some errors in the pattern, I started and finished the bag on Friday.

Saturday, I went back to the job of finishing the first handbag, and by supper time, I was almost there with it.  But to complete the machine sewing, I needed a walking foot (with quilted items that are thick like the sides of a quilted handbag, a walking foot helps move the top and bottom materials under the needle at the same time).  I didn't have it with me.  Mary Ellen, who was the only one there using the same make and model of  sewing machine as I was, didn't have one with her.  Groan. 

By then I wanted to start something totally different, some regular quilt piecing (as opposed to handbags, wallets, or aprons) but that something needed to be new and not tainted by my bad karma.  After wandering the store, I found an intriguing recent book with a method new to me so I bought it and four fat quarters.  Finally!  I spent the time after dinner happily sewing.  By the end of the day, I had made four blocks that I put up on the wall.  Ugh!  Two of them wouldn't do.  In one the pieces were cut too short (my cataract makes seeing tiny numbers on rulers challenging), and in the second, the two colors were of the same value so the focal point of the block was invisible.  Cataract or bad karma?

Well, luckily, I don't give up easily, and today the sewing was successful.  You may think I should have thrown in the towel, gone home Friday, and "stood in bed" the rest of the weekend, but I couldn't.  You see, I was laughing so hard at my mishaps and having too good a time with a room full of new-found friends to go home!