A Start, A Finish, and Something In Between

Yesterday I printed off the material for Module 8 of the C&G -- the last module in the quest for my Level 2 Certificate in Creative Techniques: Quilting.  Forty-four pages crammed with information, ideas, and assignments which are, in effect, the steps required to approach and complete my final assessment piece, the one featuring applique.

I started to read through the material this morning.  Unlike most of the modules, #6 and #8, the ones about the assessment pieces, can't be worked-as-you-go; there's just too much important information within.  The instructions are to read through before beginning, and for good reason: if you don't, you'll find yourself flummoxed when you try to work on the assignments which build on each other so you end up with a finished piece of which you can be proud.

Something else I did yesterday was gardening.  My friend C and I spent a couple of hours "guerilla gardening" over at North Haven Park -- the wee park-gone-to-neglect that we resurrected just before the Centennial celebrations -- planting irises.  Our respective beds, plus that of my friend J, needed to be split.  My neighbours' friend G donated some from his garden in Calgary, so we were awash in irises.  Having witnessed the hardiness of this flower when I saw it growing wild on Iona (2007), and knowing that deer do not like 'em any more than the Iona sheep do, I knew irises would be perfect for our easy-care prairie plot.

Finished there, C and I stopped in at our newly-re-opened local Cafe and Truck Stop -- the Whistle Stop (2012) -- for coffee and a shared piece of fresh blueberry pie...and then headed home.  I still had the gardening bug, plus left-over irises for which we hadn't room in the park's garden, so I tidied, trimmed, planted and transplanted for a couple more hours.  When I'd finished, I was able come in to enjoy some more of my slow-but-steady cherry tomato harvest.  Mmmmmm.....

After supper, I went to work on altering the neckline of the scabbard I knit my daughter last year for Christmas.  Remember?  The one with all the fitting sessions?  :-)  Well...it turns out that flattering as it is, she doesn't like the stand-up neckline.  She'd rather have the alternate flat-lying ribbed neckline provided by the pattern's designer.  Right now the sweater is in that in between state -- not quite taken apart, but no longer altogether, either.  I have to unravel it (from the top) down to the line marked by the white string, pick up the live stitches and knit the new neckline from the "bottom" up.  Wish me luck!

So this and my reading are my Works In Progress for today...and I'll be linking this post to WIP Wednesday over on The Needle and Thread Network!