Gisborne Quilters 28/7

Last night was my second meeting with the Gisborne Quilters.

Things started in the early afternoon while I was driving home from the hospital.  DH asked me whether I was planning to go that night and while I was trying to recover from the shock that he remembered on his own I managed to spit out that I was hoping to go and waiting for all the usual objections.  There were none so I was told to drive safely and he'd cook dinner for himself and the kidlet.

Now I was scared.  Who are you and what have you done with my husband????

I assumed he was being nice to me because I was worried about Dad.  Not so!

When he got home he said he was approached by Annette at work and she asked him whether I was his wife and a member of Gisborne Quilters!

Now I'd never met Annette but remembered her name off the list and it turned out that she and a number of other Gisborne Quilters are all teachers at work where Andrew also works in the IT department!

He seemed pretty traumatized by his meeting with Annette so naturally I couldn't wait to meet my saviour.

Upon arriving I discovered that FIVE of our members all work there plus Lorraine who used to work there before she opened Quilter's Bazaar.

I was thrilled and knew I'd never have a problem getting there again!  With 7 people knowing who he is, he became (quite literally) the butt of all our jokes!

I did reattach the button on his pants (yes I know I said I'd do this many posts ago) as well as kidlet's school jumper but I thought I'd give him another reminder about quilters and mending.

This pic is off the Gisborne Quilters blog:

It was only lightly tacked on since they are his work pants!

All the work ladies promised to have him bending over all day at work! Muhahahahahahaha!

Bleurgghh

...pretty much summarizes the last couple of days.

The rainy weather means it's party time for The Nemesis.  Add a stubborn headache and general pukiness and I'm left feeling very sorry for myself.

This of course means no Wednesday night sewing with the Gisborne Quilters or even home sewing of any kind.

Except of course buttons.  DH's pants still need one and DS has popped 2 off his school rugby shirt so I guess it means loading up on painkillers and hoping for the best.   They really need to be done despite The Nemesis.

I see my surgeon tomorrow to see what the next step is.  Splinting for 4 weeks did nothing and it doesn't feel any better. 

On a happier note I did finish sewing the dino blocks around the panel but no borders.

Will try to add a pic tomorrow!

Gisborne Quilters Meeting

Last night I went along to my first (hopefully of many!!) evenings with the Gisborne Quilters.

After the obligatory bargaining with DH he agreed to letting me go.  He is concerned (understandably) about me taking the car out alone especially at night in the cold and wet when my wrist is still definitely worse for wear.

His other concern was his pants! The button fell off (again!!) and since I'm a quilter I apparently do repairs!

I came up with what I felt was a very generous compromise - I offered to take his pants and sew on the button as my first order of business.

He had 2 objections - the first was that he didn't trust me (totally understandable given what happened last time I mended his pants! )

I was so furious at having been asked to do mending that I appliqued little dogs all over his pants including a very strategically placed fire hydrant

His other concern was that bringing mending would not be a good first impression (bless his heart!) I couldn't care less and promised him faithfully I wouldn't desecrate his pants but off I went leaving his pants at home! woohoo!

Upon arriving and being welcomed by fellow patchworker Sue we waited for Tania to open the room and Donna arrived shortly after.  We were quickly overcome by gas fumes from the faulty heater so Donna very kindly offered to host the evening at her house.

We bumped into Lorraine and Rosie who followed us while poor Tania went home as she wasn't well but she did present us with a fantastic newsletter first.  Thank you, Tania!

At Donna's house we got comfy and Donna kindly make us all hot cups of tea and we got down to business.  I pulled out some of the applique blocks from my Aster Manor Sampler to see how I'd go.  I hadn't touched hand-piecing or applique since I was in plaster and really hadn't sewn at all since my altercation with the soap dispenser .  It took me a while to get into the rhythm and remember how it all went but things progressed quickly.  I was shocked to discover my stitches were a lot better than before - pretty much invisible and a perfect straight line on the back!    I can confidently say that a plaster cast up to the armpit is NOT conducive to hand piecing and being without it was almost certainly the key to my new found success!

At around 9:30pm we headed home.  Usually on the homefront we're lucky to have our Energiser Bunny alseep by then (and true to form he was still awake when I returned!) so any evening sewing I do at home usually doesn't even start before 9:30 it does mean I can come to the meetings and be home at a reasonable time so the 6am starts on school mornings can still happen.

Once I got home I finished off the evening with a few hours of unpicking the Handbag quilt.  It was pieced and quilted while in plaster (LAST year!).  It seems like I've been in plaster for almost 6 months together between April 2009 and May 2010. 

Anyways my progress is definitely not worth photographing (yet!) and my successful stitching was balanced with dodgy placement so some of the tulips will be lop-sided but my excuse is the stems were stitched in place while I was still in plaster (yes that old excuse again!

Hopefully I'll come along again next week!