Quilting with Qubes — Janet Szabo

I did not think my list of errands was unreasonably long, but it took me most of yesterday and two trips to town to complete them. Our dog, Lila, is of an age now where she prefers to spend her mornings napping. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving her inside when it’s cold so she can nap on her pouf. She’s good for three or four hours, but I wouldn’t leave her inside all day. I’m usually home by lunchtime and she’s ready to go out.

Yesterday, though, I was only halfway through my errands by lunchtime, and the remainder of them couldn’t be put off until next week. I had a choice: go home, let Lila out, then come back and get the rest of the things on my list, or spend today in town finishing up. As yesterday was already a wash, I opted for the former course. We’re half an hour from town, so that added an hour to the process.

I’ve come to the conclusion that shopping in Kalispell is only easy for about three months out of the year, for brief periods in fall and spring when the weather is decent and the stores aren’t packed. At the height of winter, when it’s snowy and icy, getting around is just a slog. During the summer, there are tourists to contend with. And at Christmas, everyone is out shopping, although things seem a bit more subdued this year. Throw in a pandemic and some surprise road construction on top of it, and everything slows to a crawl.

First world problems, I know. I did my best to get through the day with a smile and a pleasant attitude.

I got some excellent help at Home Depot—I ended up being short one string of lights for the porch, but when I went back to get more, the shelf was empty. The employee in that department checked the computer and said, “We have more—let me find them,” and proceeded to move half a dozen boxes way up high to pull out a big box containing more stock. Yay! My light installation has passed inspection by the husband and I just need to put in the bulbs and plug it in.

The Big Brown Truck of Happiness pulled in shortly after I got home (the second time) and brought me this:

We had reward points to redeem at Amazon so I went shopping. I’ve never felt like the Qube sets were critical to have because I bought a lot of my dies before the Qubes came out. These are great for people just starting out with the cutters, though, and I can see the potential for being able to make lots of different blocks. Qubes come in 6”, 8”, 9”, 10”, and 12” sets, depending on what size quilt blocks you prefer. I dithered about what size to get. I like bigger blocks and was going to buy the 12” size, but I ran across a blog post where a quilter said she used the smaller size Qubes more often because it was harder to rotary cut smaller units correctly. This is about as small as I will go. The thought of sewing a 6” quilt block makes me break out in hives.

I also got the 9” Qube Angles companion set. I think these will be useful for some of the more esoteric quilt blocks I want to play around with.

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The husband is getting better about bringing me clothing for repairs before things have reached the catastrophic failure stage. He ripped the pocket on one of his Carhartt traffic control jackets while he was out working in the woods:

I was able to fix it so he can use the pocket again.

I’ve got a custom Christmas stocking order to make today, as well as a pillowcase order to ship, but I’m hoping to finish quilting the Candy Coated and get it bound by the end of the weekend. I found the thread I want to use for Noon and Night and that one will be next up for quilting. I’m putting a pot of soup on to cook today and we’ll have a salad with it for dinner. All of my Kratky lettuce-growing supplies are here and that is also on the list for setting up this weekend. Lots to do.