On excelling at EXCEL!

I often wonder how many people no longer have a computer and simply use their tablet or iPad to connect with the world. Well, tablets seem to be merely a connection to the world, although they are changing and now have programs (excuse me - apps) that actually allow you to do things. Impressive things like a lite version of Photoshop and the Creativate embroidery software, to name two. 

But I am surrounded (almost) by people who use EXCEL to run their lives. Yep -- a bunch of EXCEL geeks!!! Who knew? Books read, budgets, and MANY other things. I'm kind of out of the loop since I only use EXCEL to prepare my expense reports, and now I have that list of QUILTsocial articles. I am way behind the times. And here's something else - did you know there are ESPORTS? Yep --- there was a tournament in Vegas (of course) for EXCEL!!!! I am not making this up!!! Here's an article about it. You won't get rich winning one of these tournaments, but you get some money and a BELT!!! Oh my --- I must up my game for sure! 

Plus, I learned about an app that I can use to track my books instead of the two I currently use. Hmmm -- that might allow me to get my books off that online one. They do NOT need to know which books I read. I'll see how that works, but guess what? It likely means I have to convert the data to an Excel spreadsheet and download it into the app. 

I guess I'll be adding learning EXCEL to my list of things to learn! The learning never ends. 

I learn so much from others when I'm at the retreat! Well, it's not just at retreat. It's also the 30 minutes before our Zoom session, virtual retreats, and whenever I have the opportunity to ask questions. But who knew so many people use EXCEL, or I'm just amongst a bunch of geeks! 

The other thing I learned is that I can edit my pictures on this silly computer. To do a quick edit, I can RIGHT CLICK, and that allows me to rotate the images. But there is a limit. Somewhere in the settings, I need to change the default photo editor. So that's a joyless job for later today!! 

We saw the moon the other day. What about the sun? This was sunrise yesterday. It was beautiful, and while the day was cold, we still went for a walk. 

Sunrise on the farm

It was more pleasant than the previous day because there was no wind!!! We always stop at the creek to see what's new!! I tell you - looking at the creek is fascinating, and we both have a similar curiosity about the world, so that is great. I spotted this set of tracks right down the middle of the creek. The ice wasn't thick, but thick enough for a fox or a coyote to walk down the middle. And there was a section of cracked ice, so he must have taken a quick exit! 

A set of tracks on the creek

Helen Anne spotted this one. The wind (afternoon) was moving this grass around like it was drawing in the snow. Sadly, many people are in too much of a hurry to observe anything these days. Pole Pole!!! Remember --- life will pass you by before you know - so slow down and enjoy!!

Grass sketching in the snow

Sadly, the right-click photo rotate did NOT save them that way, so they are wonky again today. 

What did I work on yesterday? Well, it was a day for ORANGE scraps. I had started a scrappy orange project a few years back. ONE block was completed, which you can see in the top-left corner. And the rest sat on a mini design board for a long time. A while back, when I was cleaning up, I grabbed all the loose bits and threw them into a bag. That bag went into the retreat bag, and it surfaced yesterday. 

The orange scraps

This is the type of thing that makes me happy. Playing with scraps. Yes - working with new yardage is fun, but scraps? Well, that excitement!!! 

I hope to schedule that scrap session in the new year on Zoom, so I can share some of the fun with anyone who wants to join. I'm home soon and won't be going anywhere until perhaps the end of March, so I will actually have some time to get myself organized. Here's a tip for working with scraps - divide and conquer!!!! 

Making scrap blocks

I went through a process; the strips in the back are the pieces I could add to the "blocks." The pieces in front are ready to sew. Because I'm making blocks that I'll trim down, I could rip through them with the sewing machine. It's so satisfying and fun!!

Preparing to sew

As I neared the end of the process, I realized I could finish this task in one day! And I wasn't going to bed until it was done. 

I put the blocks on a design wall as I sewed, and when I was having dinner, I got to see them from a distance. OH MY --- I'm loving them. Of course, the debate for me was how big would I make this? Would I use it as a background for some applique, and if so, what kind of applique could I use? Lots of questions. 

After the count, I was missing ONE block to achieve a 9-by-6 configuration. The blocks are 6 inches finished, and I was thinking of a wall hanging. No need to make a big project. 

I looked at the table and found these scraps that I was hoping I could eke out one more block form. 

Making a block from nothing!

And voila -- the last block. I had found several tiny triangles - well, small, not tiny. 

They were too small to go in the HST box, but one of them was perfect for the corner of this block. 

The final block

This is what was left. Some of the pieces didn't make the cut, primarily because of the color. I think I did pretty amazing with the bag of scraps. 

The leftovers

So what did it look like when I was finished? This is not the final configuration - it's just how big the design wall was. But I LOVE it!!!! I think it's busy enough and doesn't need anything else. 

My orange scrappy blocks

Here are the last two blocks that didn't fit on the design wall. 

The last two scrap blocks

And there's the bag of scraps that will become a pet mat. Before you attempt those, be sure you have a home for them. Not all places will accept that style of pet mat. 

A bag of scraps

I'm running into an issue, though. I have now emptied the two partial spools of thread I brought with me. The only thing I have left to sew with is that tray of partial bobbins. I think there are 17 of them, and some are fuller than others. Working with the scraps uses up the thread faster than sewing something you have to cut and sew. I have a different project for today, so that will slow me down a bit. 

My last spool of thread is done! 

I should be fine for one more day, and I will get those bobbins used up!!! But I must restock that retreat box with thread, or I'll be in big trouble at the next retreat. 

I also managed to sew a few half-square triangles. I doubt I'll finish that bag, but I might!!! No worries - there are still more bags of them. 

Half-square triangles

And for fun, I grabbed one of the house puzzles to have a diversion from the intense sewing of the scraps. The puzzle had only 350 pieces and was labeled "family." What does that mean? Oh my -- when I opened it, I got a laugh. There are three sizes of pieces—huge, medium, and regular!!! I only put the large and the small in this photo. Look at the size!!!!

Puzzle pieces from a family puzzle

With minimal effort, I got the big and medium pieces together. How does it work? The puzzle is split into thirds. One-third is giant pieces, the center is medium, and the right side is small. It's pretty clever how they go from big to small!!! My goal is to finish that later today. 

Two-thirds of the puzzle is done

And that's all the "mutterings" for today!!! I heard that from someone yesterday, and I got a chuckle over it!!!

The temperature is much warmer today, so we'll definitely be out walking. We actually went for a second walk in the afternoon, and it was glorious. I get it that walking isn't for everyone, but what a change in mindset it can be to get out in the fresh air!!! And it doesn't have to be for long. 

Have a wonderful day!!!

Ciao!!!

The rescue!

 Even though yesterday was the full moon, I slept like a baby! Although, isn't that expression kind of silly since babies tend to wake up a lot! I slept well - let's just put it that way! 

Yesterday was an interesting day. We had a visitor, and the Pony Express is alive and well. Actually, we had a visitor the day before as well. Both were making pick-ups and drop-offs for the Pony Express. And besides the rescue, which I'll get into in a moment, I just didn't seem to be working very fast. I'm not even sure why I was in slow-motion mode. 

I had great intentions of getting those placemats done (the day before), working on the soccer quilt, and doing some knitting, and well, I'm happy to say that the placemats did get finished as much as I could. 

There is a piece of fabric in the center, which I quilted through all layers - the fleece and the backing. Thankfully, I had orange thread on two bobbins in my bobbin holders to do the quilting. I also needed that orange thread to sew the borders on, since it was stitch-and-flip. But I basted the skinny little border on and used a different color to conserve the orange thread. The basting stitches had to be removed as I added the outer border. 

The placemats are pieced! 

Once that task was finally completed, it was time to trim the placemats. Sorry for those silly non-rotated pictures. It drives me mad! But the placemats are fun and bright. I did not add any quilting to the borders - I don't think it needs it. 

The placemats are trimmed

And these are the bits that were left over from trimming. Of course, I kept all those bits!! I can use the small black triangles as enders and leaders for half-square triangles; the larger triangles will go toward making hourglass scrap blocks; and the orange strips can go in the orange scrap box. The fleece - well, I can sew two triangles together to get a square for a hot mat, and I really should throw the other pile away. Those are really too small to do anything with. 

The scraps are sorted

Since I had purchased some solid black fabric the other day, I was able to make and sew the binding onto all four placemats. 

The binding is applied to the back

But not before I ran out of black thread for the top. ACK!!!!! Technically, I could have used any color for that part, but since the binding is black, I chose black thread. 

One empty spool

I got offers from several people to borrow black thread, but then I looked in my bobbin holder and VOILA - there are THREE bobbins of black thread. So I used one on the top and one in the bobbin. Perfect!!! 

Bobbins of black thread

When I was done putting the binding on the back, I put those three partial black bobbins in the retreat box. And when I get home, I MUST remember to stock up on the thread, as I'm almost out of my white sewing thread as well. Good grief -- how did that happen? 

The white thread is almost gone

But no worries because I can always use those bobbins on the top and in the bobbin to get me through the remainder of the retreat. All is good, and it sure feels good to use up those bobbins, but it's going to take a long, long time before they are all gone. 

By the way, when I was adding those black borders, I had just enough for the bobbin. Then it was totally used up!! How crazy is that? I played bobbin chicken and won. I think I had two inches left! 

Here are the four placemats with the binding on, but not topstitched to the top. I need more orange thread for that, and I'm happy to wait until I get home. I made GREAT progress on those. 

The four placemats are almost complete

The center is slightly wonky, but seriously? It doesn't matter. And I will likely keep one of them to show what can happen when you don't use a walking foot to quilt, but I may end up donating all of them. I'm just glad that they are almost done!

The center is slightly wonky

Helen Anne and I braved the wind and the colder temperatures for our walk, and it was fine. I actually think it was warmer than the previous day. Although from the house, it looked like it was almost blizzarding because of all the drifting snow. The little creek is still open because of the running water. 

The creek is still open

Lots of stuff is being made at the retreat, and two more people joined us yesterday, so we are now 8. I used to show all the things people made, but well, I don't anymore. It's hard enough to keep track of what I do. But here are two things that were made, and I asked permission, so here we go!! 

This is the Tula Pink Butterfly quilt that I taught several years ago. This one has a dark background, and it's stunning. Helen Anne made a different border than in the original pattern, and it's gorgeous. I won't go into details on what happened with the border, but let's say there was a wee design element at one point. The bottom line - it's done!!!! Beautiful quilt, Helen Anne!!!!! 

If you think there is a hole in the design on the bottom row, the half-square triangle at the point doesn't have much contrast. It's already been verified!!

We never know what Susan will be working on. She has several grandchildren and always seems to be working on something for them. She wanted to make a car seat poncho, and this is what she came up with. She never uses a pattern - she just wings it! It's adorable, and she made it with the two-sided fleece, and it's soft and so cozy. If I were the baby, I'd never want to take it off!! 

Car seat poncho

That is the same style of cozy fleece Princess Lexi sleeps on at home, and she loves it! But only if her bed is made!

A couple of the ladies went shopping, and boy, they were taking their time. But it's their retreat, so you can do whatever you want. And they had gone to a chocolate shop and a quilt store, so you can see why it took so long! 

Around four PM, I received a distress call. Their car broke down, and they were not far from the house but were waiting for CAA to tow it. The car was making a big racket, but they could run the engine to stay warm, so they didn't need an immediate evacuation! They gave me an address so I could track their location, and I was waiting for their call that the tow truck was arriving shortly.

As I was driving down one road to turn onto another, I saw the tow truck lights flashing and knew I was close, and they were exactly where I envisioned them. As I drove up behind their car, I spotted the tow truck driver standing outside it with a large wrench in his hand. What? NO WAY!!! The lug nuts needed to be retorqued? 

This tow truck driver was excellent (CAA in case you didn't catch that before). Instead of immediately hooking up the car to the truck, he asked questions. What was the problem? What did the noise sound like, etc? Well, it turned out that the lug nuts on the wheels were barely hanging on. He could remove some of them with his bare hands!!! Yikes—they are lucky they stopped when they did. 

I often see signs on the toll highway to get your tires retorqued after switching tires in the spring and fall. I never do, but this was a good indication of what can happen. So I waited until he was done, and then he drove off, and I followed their car to the retreat house. All seems to be fine. This is something that this person does every year - she gets the tires retoqued, but this year, she didn't get back to the garage to have them do that. 

So it was all good and a good lesson. But something else happened. While I was driving down the road, I glanced up and OH MY GOD -- the full supermoon was out, and it was spectacular. So I stopped MANY times along the road and took many pictures. WOW --- it was stunning. 

A full SUPERMOON

The colors in the sky changed as I drove, and it was fascinating to watch. If I had NOT received the "distress" call, I would have totally forgotten about the super moon. 

This picture was taken from the house's porch when I got back. 

Another shot of the supermoon

After my placemats were done, I dug out the knitting bag. Here are my thirty squares for the afghan. Yeah --- a couple of them have the knitted sashing done, but many are just blocks. I also checked out all my tools in that little tin I showed the other day. 

Thirty blocks for my afghan

And I found this gorgeous half-done set of hand warmers!! I LOVE them and have a few pairs, but this pair is very delicate, and the yarn is lovely. 

My hand warmers

I must get myself back to finishing those. I had a peek at the knitting this morning, and well, I'll explain what I'm doing tomorrow. It's quite the job I have ahead of me. Actually, it's super easy, but using some new techniques like casting off and sewing at the same time! I did it on some of the other blocks, so I can do it on this one. The only problem is that it looks backward (the wrong side is showing up on the right), so I must investigate how to fix it. 

And that allowed me to pack another bag that can go in the car! Yeah!! One less thing to pack when we leave. 

One more bag to load in the car

I also dug out another scrap project to work on, and the knitting. I dug out another puzzle from the retreat house and may or may not start it. It's only 350 pieces, so it should be easy to finish. 

Well, that's it for today! Things are going well - just need more time, but that's a constant issue. 

Today should be a quiet day. I mean, no one is coming, no more drop-offs or pick-ups, and well, I should be able to stay focused - I hope!!!

Have a wonderful day!!!

Ciao!!!!

How do you measure a meter?

It was a wild night! I hate it when you go to bed tired but can't fall asleep. The last couple of nights, I've been tired and tried to read my book. I could barely read a couple of pages, and I was fast asleep. Last night? Not happening. So I read more and more pages of the book. Let's say this is one of those psychological thrillers that well --- do you want to know what happens? This one is called Watch out for her" by Samantha J. Bailey, and it was creepy from the opening sentence, "I watch people". Yikes!!!

It's a bit disturbing to read, and that's what the storyline explains. What's really disturbing is what the heck happened, and what is continuing to happen? The story is unfolding in the past, and the present, and it's just creepy!!!!

When I couldn't read any longer, but was still not tired, I got up and worked on my puzzle. More on that in a minute. Yet - I'm still up before anyone. But I think a nap will definitely be in order this afternoon. 

I finished the puzzle before we went for our morning walk. Four pieces are missing! But that's OK -- you still get the enjoyment of making the puzzle. I made a note and put it in the box. 

The completed puzzle

Later in the afternoon, I packed that one up and got out the one that I brought with me. No clue how big or how many pieces, but from the bag inside, I knew it wasn't a big puzzle. I tried using the puzzle sorting trays, but I think it's going to take some time to get used to them. At some point, I emptied the pieces onto the table. It took no time at all to turn those pieces over. 

Breaking out puzzle number two

And then I built the frame, which was pretty easy, although I was missing one piece for a long time. What's interesting is that the entire side of the box is the puzzle, including the puzzle's name and the brand at the top! And as you can see, it's very long and narrow - just like the box. 

The border of the puzzle

After I read, but was still awake, I popped up and finished the puzzle. I know -- it was ridiculous o'clock, but that worked for me. There is a nasty glare from the light, or I probably would have finished much earlier. But that's OK. It's done, and there is ONE piece missing. Well, I bought it for cheap at the thrift store. I don't care. By the way, the puzzle has 300 pieces! No - I didn't count them; I counted the pieces along the sides and the top/bottom and multiplied! 

My second puzzle is complete!

This was a DowdleFolkArt puzzle. So I can pack that up, and it won't be coming home with me. 

We took a trip in the afternoon to one of the local quilt stores. Yikes -- you sure don't buy stuff willy-nilly anymore, not at the prices in this store. The lowest price I saw on solids was $14.98, and we saw fabrics at $28.00. Most of the prints are $22.98. That's obscene, and this store tends to price things a dollar or two higher than others. Loads of variety, but not cheap!!

This is the fabric that was $28. It's a yarn-dyed cotton by Anna Marie Horner. Where would you use this stuff? I sure the heck wouldn't use it for a quilt - it's too expensive and thick. And to make a jacket? Not with those patterns - at least not for me. If you want to learn more about these fabrics, check out this document. I think preparing this document was an excellent idea, but I still don't see myself using it. Making a bathrobe? Not thick enough. A light wrap—I could do that —but again, the colors are so off; I just wouldn't buy any of this. 

Yarn-dyed cotton

But in looking at the cotton prints by this same designer, they are wild. I like wild - no, I like bright. But when I see some of the quilts made with the wild print, you can't see the pattern, so why would I do all that piecing and not be able to see the pattern? I guess I'm old-school now. And you know what? I'm very OK with that. 

 Besides, I have loads of fabric at home to make quilts, so I don't need to buy much new stuff. This kind of thing would just sit on the shelf and never get used. I like to try new fabrics, but not at that price. 

When we got back from the shopping trip, it was finally time to get something done on my placemats. I decided to quilt them before assembling them. But wait! Before I could do that, some of my fleece pieces were not large enough. Thankfully, some odd pieces were hanging off, and I was able to use a triple zigzag to stitch them into a usable piece. And thank goodness for others having the same machine brand as me, so I could borrow a foot as I had only brought ONE - my 1/4" piecing foot. 

Had to borrow sewing machine feet

And these pieces of fleece came from somewhere. Why was it cut like that with markings? 

Where did this fleece get used?

Oh well, it all worked out, and I got four pieces of fleece that were the correct size. Then onto the quilting. Now I did a bad thing and quilted some straight lines along the pattern lines. But I didn't use a walking foot, which I should have. One of the other ladies even has a walking foot that I could have used. Not using the walking foot caused the fabric to shift slightly, even though I started from both ends. I'm working with my old sewing machine (the ONLY sewing machine I own), and, well, the feed teeth aren't that great. I am not taking the placemats apart. They are a bit wonky, but they will be fine. You can't really tell in this picture, but the one end is slightly skewed.

The quilted center of the placemats

 I happened to have black thread in my retreat supply box, so that worked for the top. And can you believe that in my bobbin tray, I had TWO bobbins of orange thread? I'm using any color for piecing blocks. My goal is to use up all these colors!! 

My bobbin collection

That worked perfectly for the back. Seriously? I couldn't have gotten that more perfect if I had tried. 

The orange thread on the back of the placemat

The next step is to put on flat piping on all eight sides. This is NOT a fast placemat. Since I am going through all layers, I decided to baste those piping strips on, and I used a long stitch and a different-colored thread in the bobbin. As I put the final round of fabric on, I'll remove all the green basting thread. Smart!!!! 

The green basting thread

I didn't get even one placemat finished yesterday, and I'm OK with that! But everything is cut and prepped, so it should go quickly today. I didn't have anything for binding, as the instructions say to make the top, then sew the backing and the fleece in, and turn it inside out. Since I quilted through all layers, I need a binding. I bought a solid black fabric at the quilt store, and now I can completely finish them later today! 

Someone else is working with fleece to make a car seat poncho for a child. That stuff is fluffy, and she was vacuuming frequently to get rid of the fluff! At first, I couldn't figure out what all the noise was about! 

Vaccuming up the fluff

Helen Anne and I went for a walk in the morning, but that wind was NIPPY!!! While I was warm, my face was cold! I should have stopped and wrapped my face a bit more with my scarf! 

And the weirdest thing happened in the morning. I was trying to pair my new iPad to my Sonos speaker. I couldn't get it to work. So I turned off the Bluetooth on my phone, and it still wouldn't work. It was searching, but no luck. Restart the iPad, turn the Bluetooth on and off, and nothing. Then, as I held the speaker in my hand and NOTHING was connected to it, it started to talk. What? Then it was gone. 

Then it was back, and I could hear things about baking. What's this all about? Then I remembered that someone had connected to my speaker the night before. They were up and in the kitchen. Are you listening to a baking show? No. But WAIT -- she had been listening to a baking hack on some social platform. Yep -- that was the culprit. Her signal kept coming and going because I kept turning the speaker on and off. 

Why her phone was still connected to the speaker is beyond us, especially since she was trying to listen with her earbuds! Yep—we got a good laugh over that, I got the speaker connected to the iPad, and all is good! 

OMG --- I had another chuckle yesterday. One of the ladies was measuring some yardage that she had brought. She folded it in four and laid it on the cutting table. She whipped out her measuring tape, and this is how she measured it. 

WHAT? Measuring a meter with centimeters?

What? She measured it in cm!!!!!! I never or very rarely use that side of my measuring tape. 

This is how I would measure a meter. 

Measuring a meter in inches! 

What a hoot!!! I'm pretty OK with most things metric, and it really makes a lot of sense because everything is based on 100. 100 cm makes 1 meter, and all that fun stuff. I'm good with Celsius for temperature and pretty much have no clue what 70 degrees F means. But when it comes to inches and centimeters, I'm challenged. So I buy fabric by the meter, because that is how stores sell it. But when I work with the fabric, I work in inches!!! 

It's all about how we used and learned the metric system when we were young! 

So a bad thing happened here, and I can tell you about it. The other night, we were chatting about what meals people were preparing for the week. Desserts are optional because they are usually laden with sugar, which isn't a good thing for any of us here, and it's all health-related. One person mentioned that she almost brought those marshmallow/peanut butter/butterscotch chips squares. OH MY GOD - I haven't thought of that in a long time. 

Well, she surprised us by going home and making a batch. I do NOT need this. She also had other cookies, and I stuck to ONE small piece of this because I do NOT need it. I do NOT want it. But it was good to relive memories by having this one piece. 

A blast from the past

For months, I've been thinking that I need to get back to eliminating sugar from my diet. It's incredible how quickly the pounds can pack on by eating refined sugar. But with so much travel and coming and going, it's been hard to eat super healthy. And I confess that a few pounds have found their way to my midsection, and I feel awful because of that. 

So I must get back into the groove when I'm home, and I am NOT deviating from this. It's not that I consume a lot of refined sugar - I'm trying to think where I've strayed, but I have, and it's mostly with sweets. It shouldn't be too big a challenge to cut that out. I'll likely keep my two small squares of chocolate every day just because. But the fancy cookies and squares? They are gone! And I've had a few too many fancy hot chocolates in the last while, and those need to go, too. 

I don't think it'll be too challenging, and I need to get back in the groove. I'd also like to do a bit more weight lifting, but I can only introduce new stuff slowly. I'll make it happen. 

I see that it's windy again this morning with lower temperatures, so we'll still go for a walk, but it will be brisk!

And on that note, I'm out of here!!!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!

An almost full super moon

I'm happy to report that I slept well last night. I even "slept in" so that is great, but I still have time to get this blog posted in the right time frame. 

I know I say it all the time when I'm at retreat, but this is truly the place to strengthen friendships. While I'm a Zoom person and happy with Zoom, there is nothing like an in-person event to make me very happy. You can't go for a walk with someone on Zoom! But you can in person. While I'm also a get-in-and-out shopper, it's fun to shop with others. We were four yesterday, which is almost unheard of in my world! But the laughs, the shared meals -- you can't beat that. And at one point, something happened at retreat that hasn't happened before, or if it did, it is rare. At one point, the house was empty as everyone left to go shopping!!! 

For those on my retreat list, I'll be sending an email to give you the lay of the land for 2026 and 2027, so you can plan your schedules accordingly. There will be fewer in the future, so they will be even more precious than this year. 

OK -- enough about that! What got done? 

I managed to get 120 six-inch blocks for one flannel quilt in the "blue" theme. So that was good. And as I mentioned yesterday, it got bagged but will not be sewn until I investigate the rest of the scrap piles. There are eight more flannel quilts to quilt with bright flannel backs. Then I'll evaluate the other colors and see if it makes sense to make this quilt. Actually, this might be a good task for my SIL? It's flannel, so a bit tricky, but I'll see. 

120 six-inch blocks for a flannel quilt

Then I worked on the five-inch blocks. I needed more of those - 168 to get a decent-sized quilt. That was an easy job, but it still took all day, and I didn't have 168 blocks until the evening. Well, actually, I found some snowman panels in the flannel pile and decided to add a frame to them to make them the size of FOUR of the five-inch blocks. So that worked, and sped up the progress.  

Blocks for the second flannel quilt

Most of the flannel in this one is winter themed, so technically this one would be good to sew together now.

But by then, I was getting bored with working with the flannel scraps, and it took a while to complete all those blocks. Time to move to something else. 

I still have this much flannel to deal with. It doesn't look like much in this photo, but it filled a bag. I estimate there are at least TWO more decent-sized quilts here. That's obscene!!! But I'm doing something with it. I must leave this out when I'm home and make a few blocks each day! I'll see how that goes -- there aren't many "free" moments in my days. At least not this coming week!

Flannel scraps still to deal with

I brought a couple of "new" projects, ones that aren't scrap-related, so I dug one of them out. AHA—it's a set of placemats. Good grief—I vaguely remember buying this as a kit. How many years ago would that have been? No idea. And will I use them? Nope -- they will go in the placemat donation pile. I've said this before, I'm not so much about the finished item - I'm more about the making! I would sew anything, like scraps, and enjoy it as much as if it were brand-new. 

A set of placemats

Some of the pieces have been cut, but I just didn't want to start this last night, so that's on the agenda for today. Four placemats! 

I also finished that one bag of half-square triangles from my Barn Star Sampler quilt. This pile is all the ones I sewn and trimmed here. No sense sewing them and not trimming. That's a new rule I have, and it really doesn't take long to deal with them! 

The half-square triangles

So I'll keep these together in a bag, and one day I'll dig them out and figure something out for them. 

The collection of half-square triangles from Barn Star Sampler

Don't worry -- I have another bag with me, so that is sitting by the sewing machine and ready to deal with. What's crazy is that half the bag is sewn and trimmed, while the other half isn't. So why do I leave half-finished projects everywhere? Well, that's a problem for all quilters, and we need to stop that!! Do it now!!!! And here's another turned photo! I can't fix it, but you get the idea. 

The next bag of half-square triangles

And if I happen to finish that, there are more bags of them. This is NOT a great photo, but at the bottom of my retreat bag, there are two more bags of half-square triangles to sew. These are the cutoffs from flying-geese units left from specific quilts. That will keep me busy for a while, and I'm OK with leaving them in the retreat bag and working on them while I'm away. Trust me, I have more at home. The ones at home are the random ones. These bags are "collections" from specific quilts. The bottom line is that I have a plan for them, and that makes me happy. 

More bags of half-square triangles

I kind of got obsessed with the puzzle, and as it got dark last night, I needed to move a light in to work on it!! 

Burning the midnight oil!

By the time I left it alone last night, I had this much done. 

Close to the finish

YES -- I am almost done. Yeah!!!! Hey—it's our retreat, and we are allowed to do whatever we want! Don't worry -- I have another puzzle of mine that I want to finish here so it can go home with someone else. 

Did I mention I've been watching this girl with the most annoying voice who talks about assembling puzzles? Always with a stopwatch. That would not be fun! But one of the things she does, and I know other people do it as well, is to sort the pieces into colors. So I broke down and bought a set of puzzle sorting trays, which is also in the picture above. I'll break that out when I work on the small puzzle that I have next. 

I also had company during the day when I worked on the puzzle. This cardinal was pretty persistent and kept hanging out on the windowsill. I don't know if there is a bird feeder, but Mrs. Cardinal was looking for food!!! 

HEY -- is this a fly-through window?

Someone is making a "few" of those children's fabric books, and there are cutoffs - the instructions. I've asked for them as I have plans. So if anyone has instructions from any project that looks like this, I'd be happy to take them off your hands instead of them going into the garbage. I should check whether I have enough to get started on a project. 

Instructions from fabric books

I noticed this morning that the two people on the other side of the room have totally crossed the middle line of the table!! I'll have to bug them this morning!!! I have packed up the stuff that I had spread on the table on the other side of the room and put it in a bag under the cutting table. 

Ooops - retreat spread!

I've already got one bag of stuff to put back in the car. It's so much easier to pack one bag at a time when you're finished with it than to wait until the end of the retreat when everyone is trying to leave at the same time. When it's time to pack up, I usually have one bag of projects, my sewing machine, and whatever food is left. The rest is already done! Efficient!!!! I'm also a neat freak (don't laugh), so it makes sense that I do that. 

Helen Anne and I went for two walks yesterday. It was a glorious day -- not cold, but brisk-- and we soon warmed up with the walking, and at one point we stopped to look at the moon. I spotted this cornfield and hadn't paid it any attention. But it never got harvested!! And it was interesting to see that all the cobs were at the same level on the stalk. I've never noticed that before!!!! 

The cornfield in the winter

I didn't have my phone with me, so Helen Anne took these pictures at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Yep -- that's the moon!!!! It was super visible and quite large. The full COLD MOON is on December 4th, so let's hope we have clear skies tomorrow. 

The almost full super moon

Did you know there are three or four super moons in a year? A super moon occurs when the full moon is at the point in the moon's orbit where the moon is closest to the Earth. And there you go -- another fun fact. Did you know there are FOUR supermoons in 2026? I think there were only three this year. 

Well, it's time to get myself organized. I have a puzzle to finish, I have knitting to explore, four placemats to sew, a couple of videos to watch, and some paperwork to deal with!! Mostly emails. 

Have a wonderful day!!!

Ciao!!!!