Introspective weekend

It is now Sunday evening, and my week off work has come to an end. I have totally enjoyed myself reading, napping, working on my quilting, cooking things I enjoy tasting, blogging ... as usual, I didn't realize how tired I was ...... until I stopped and spent a day (or two) in my jammies NOT doing or even THINKING ABOUT work stuff. As long as I keep pretending I'm an Energizer Bunny, I seldom feel tired. I haven't had a genuine vacation since I started my current job nearly 3 years ago, other than the odd long weekend here and there, and ... after some introspection this weekend ... have to admit I can't keep up the constant pace I have been attempting to maintain. Might have something to do with being closer to 60 than 50. Might have something to do with the lack of vacations. Might have something to do with the fact that each year gets a little shorter. I'm not committing myself to any particular reason here, but Lucy expresses it well:This weekend, I finished hand-quilting my table runner:My stitching is NOT perfect, but I sure did enjoy the quiet time spent doing the stitching! I was quite excited to discover my Brother sewing machine was up to machine quilting because that meant I could finish MORE projects FASTER. This past week has reminded me that quilting is not about PRODUCTION or SPEED. It's about quiet time, about quieting my mind and nourishing my soul.

My table runner is ready for the bias binding around the outside edges now. I didn't get that done as I want to bind it with a solid dark red / wine fabric, and I didn't have enough of what I wanted to cut bias binding from. And I didn't feel like getting out of my jammies to get on the bus and go downtown to the fabric store.

Instead, I found two new quilting projects to start. First, I found this Love in Bloom wallhanging ...... and just happen to have the perfect narrow wall between my dining room and front hall where it will fit. So, I cut out all the necessary pieces ...... and managed to hand sew one "heart" block together.

Second, I found this Flying Home for Christmas quilt pattern ...

... and was intrigued by the construction of each "flying goose" unit as the perfect triangle is achieved by sewing a coloured rectangle, folded in half, between two identical background squares, then opening out the sandwich, like so ...to create this:

The quilt consists of 5 rows of 17 flying geese surrounded by an outer border of "trees". I sat and cut out the 85 coloured rectangles and 170 light coloured squares to make the individual units:

I particularly found sitting and hand-stitching the "daisies" for my table runner relaxing, so I have intentions of keeping a basket of quilt parts handy just for that purpose. May take me a while to complete these two projects, but I hope to devote a little more evening / weekend time to doing these creative "soul-nourishing" things.

Oh, did you notice my laptop in some of the photos above? I had been catching up on Coronation Street episodes via the CBC website, and noticed a whole list of CBC offerings available for online viewing. I did a little sampling, and discovered Heartland, a great little TV show filmed in Alberta. So Heartland kept me company while I cut quilt blocks.

Did you know Shaun Johnston plays Grandpa Jack in Heartland?

I discovered quite a few years ago that this Ponoka, Alberta lad is very talented at portraying the type of ranch hand who could leave his boots under my bed anytime! What? I said the type of ranch hand, as in fictitious character, not Shaun Johnston personally!