I'm so excited!!

It was the MOST AMAZING day yesterday. It was our UFO meeting and the weather cooperated so almost everyone was here. We have a super dedicated group of people and they are getting work DONE. That's what it's all about and at the end of the year, if they've all been good, they get their money back. Nothing like some incentive to get you motivated. I'll share all the pictures tomorrow when I have a wee bit more time.

Hey - I'm motivated as well!! Big time and I want to try and keep that momentum going all month long. I've realized one thing over the last couple of weeks. I got a LOT done in my dedicated sewing hour in the morning. I'm a morning person. I used to go to the gym in the morning and then got involved in quilting and I then spent that hour in the studio instead of the gym. Now that I'm at the gym again and not in the studio, I think that's why I haven't been feeling so productive of late.

I did get ALL the quilts trimmed yesterday so that's all out of the way. Yeah!!

BUT - I'm good with that. I'd rather go to the gym first thing when it's very quiet than go when it's crazy busy. I do miss that one dedicated hour though. Because it's a holiday here, the gym didn't open at 4 AM so I didn't go. I sewed instead! That was totally weird.

Anyway, after the UFO session, we had our FIRST embroidery club. OH MY GOSH - I'm so motivated and so excited I can hardly contain myself. What I love about BOTH events is that people are clamoring for more! I dare not stop the UFO club for fear of an uprising! And everyone wants another embroidery session. It was loads of fun and we're all going to learn lots.

Actually, the studio didn't look too bad after everyone left. But look at these empty tables. I had to take advantage of all that space. I'll share some of what I did in a minute.

The aftermath of embroidery club

And yes - loads got dumped on the cutting table as well.

The cutting table got filled as well

Yesterday, we had a general chat about the different styles of embroidery and what you can do with an embroidery machine. Next time - well, I've got big plans for next time. If anyone wants to join up, let me know. With all the show and tell from each of us, we're going to be so knowledgeable. And the topics they want to explore - well, the sky is the limit!!! I'm pumped. Plus, I need all this for my freelance job so it's not like I'm taking on something that I shouldn't be.

So while those tables were free, I decided to check out that backing for that quilt. I've no idea what I was thinking when I made it, but it was so totally not the right size and it couldn't be juggled to fit. I decided to grab some yardage and make a completely new backing for the quilt. DONE and now it's ready to be quilted.

New backing for the quilt

I fixed the cutout section of the old backing so it's now a full piece of fabric. The measurements are written on it and hopefully, we can find a quilt that we can use this for.  What a dolt - I can't believe I screwed up that badly.

A backing for another quilt

These quilts were also made in the day when I didn't add binding to the project so once this group of quilts is quilted, I'll have to find something to bind them with. I think I'm going to have to invest in a bolt of solid blue (dark blue) as that works for many quilts.

I had a good chuckle this morning as I was working on the cutting table. Hmm - do you think I have enough pens sitting there?

You can never have too many pens

Yes - three pens are sitting there. Why? No idea. It appears that it's easier to reach across the cutting table than grab a pen off the cutting table. More likely, I didn't notice the pen and totally forgot that I had left one on the table. 

What's even funnier is when I sat down at the computer this morning, guess what I found? Yep - three more pens.

Three more pens

Hmm - I seem to have a problem. I could well be labeled a pen thief in my own house!!! I have pen holders by the computer, and it appears that it's easier to grab a new pen from the awkwardly placed holder rather than pick one up off the desk.  Oh, dear!!! 

After everyone left yesterday, the girls and I went for a walk. How could you not? It was a glorious day - I didn't need a hat and the girls were in their glory!! And we just went for a walk. No errands. I did pass close by the mall, but we didn't walk into the parking lot. There wasn't any work going on so I didn't think we were going to see much. The girls were disappointed.

I'm so fired up this morning - well, I can barely contain myself. It's Monday sewing so that's exciting as well. And my mind is racing with ideas - that's never a good sign. So I must try and rein myself in, but it's all good and it's all about learning and I can't wait!!

Oh - did you check out the fashion notes link from yesterday? I went back and read through it again. I LOVE the craft section. Totally crazy - perhaps that's what we can do with all our embroidery samples. We can make Haute Couture from those samples. We could make a lot of money!

On that note, I"m out of here!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!!

She said YES

Another great day - lots of things got done. And it was Saturday and that means getting organized for the coming week. While I have a list of quilts that need to be quilted, once a week, I schedule the day on which those quilts will be quilted. I'm in really good shape in that department. I need to remake my "to do" list for things that need to be accomplished this week and the Task Master (list of quilting/sewing things) to accomplish this week has to be updated as well. If I didn't have those lists, I'd be totally lost and would get nothing done.

Speaking of getting things done, in case you are wondering, I called the daughter of the Double Wedding Quilt and said: "yes - I'll make the quilt". Oh dear - what have I gotten myself into? I'm charging her for it. Not nearly enough, but that's OK - I got a lot of tools from Paula's stash and she was a friend. I'm good with the price. The daughter was very appreciative and that counts a whole lot. I set a timeline so keeping me on track with the Task Master is going to be very important. The quilt is going to be a lap-sized - a generous lap size.

Just in case, you think I only get annoyed with customer quilts, I get annoyed at my own as well. I went to load a community project quilt yesterday only to find this.

What happened to the backing?

This is one that I had put together a while back and I was the one who assembled the backing. Did I think with time, that the backing would become larger? Not even the fact that there's a chunk missing, but the backing is EXACTLY the same width as the quilt. Obviously not one of my smarter sessions. So - do I find something else to back it with? Or jiggle around with the backing? That's a lesson for later this week as I want to get this quilt quilted. Heck - it's on the list for this week so I'd better get my act together.

I did have another quilt that was on the list that did have everything done properly so it got quilted.

Community projects quilt - DONE

I have to tell you the story of those blocks. Years and years ago, when M was in school and was little, there was a theatre production. In the Meadowvale Town Theatre so it was a big deal. They needed a backdrop for a gypsy camp. Since I've always been a keen volunteer, I volunteered to make the backdrop. Do you know how large a backdrop is required for that theatre?? I don't remember the dimensions, but it was huge. Something like 30 feet high and 100 feet in width.

I had put out a plea to everyone I knew for old sheets and fabric so I could make this backdrop. I don't have a picture of it handy. Anyway, the top part that you couldn't see was made of sheets and large pieces of yardage. I got lucky for the bottom part. Cathy from one of my local guilds had a ton of men's shirting scraps. The pieces were fairly large and I cut those into huge squares (about 20") and serged them all together. The backdrop looked amazing.

But what to do with everything once the show was over? I had to take the darn thing apart and it was huge. So the sheets and yardage went to the animal shelter. I kept the shirting. Eventually, I took them apart and cut them into smaller squares - 6 ½". Then years ago, they were sewn together to make quilts. Some of them got quilted (I think) and some did not. The quilt above was one of the ones that needed to be quilted. Actually, there are two more on the list for this week and I'm sure there might be one or two more hiding in that huge stack of community project quilts.

This quilt will be donated to Quilts of Valour.

OH MY GOD - this is the beauty of having a blog. And by the way, if ever you want to find something on my blog - there's a great big white bar at the top. That's a search bar. Just type in what you want to find. I just found TWO posts about those shirtings.

Here's the first one. Dated January 8, 2013.

And here's one more.   Dated December 18, 2012

It's nice to get stuff cleaned up, but it's not so fun that it takes so long. I see on that second post, that I was working on a crocheted rug. Yikes - that's still not done but is on the list to finish on a Monday sewing day. If only I could finish things right away. How awesome that would be.

But one mustn't berate oneself for things like that. The object here is to get things finished and move on. That is happening. And the rate of starting new things has slowed considerably so that's all good. Plus a lot of stuff has been "donated" to the community projects pile and it's slowly dwindling as well. All is good!!

I did manage to get part of Studio B cleaned up as it's UFO meeting day today. I have a bit more to do. I also spend a lot of time trimming quilts. I still have two more to trim. That's a job for this morning before the group comes.

I had to put a binding on one of the quilts that I trimmed. I love when the customers are trained that if they cut a wider binding than 2 ½ ", that they label it! That helps me to remember when I'm doing the final join.

The width of binding is labeled

And there I am - almost at the end!!! The best part of binding by machine.

Almost done the binding

Here's the finished quilt. All ready to be gifted to someone at the end of the month.

The finished quilt

I worked on a pattern for someone and got that off the list. I read for a bit, but I was totally exhausted last night and went to bed early. Well, about my normal time, but early for you all. I didn't go to the gym this morning. My legs said, "Enough!. We don't need to walk 21,000 steps today." I heeded them and went downstairs to tidy up!

OH -- I've got some links to share with you. If you have NOT seen The Quilt of Belonging, then you must go see it this year. It's going to be in Brantford from February 29 to May 9. The quilt is stunning. I've had the opportunity to sit in a room with the quilt by myself to contemplate the world that it represents. It's such a feeling. Instead of the quilt being stretched out to its fullest, it was in a smaller room so it wrapped around the room. A very moving experience.

And you MUST check out these design notes from the runway 2020. Holy - some of those outfits or even the ideas are out of this world. I haven't checked them all out yet, but some of them are totally bizarre. There's one creation made with ties and another that looks like it was made from craft swatches. Now, these are never meant to be worn (thank god), but you got to wonder what the models think when they see some of these creations.

On that note, I'm out of here. Got loads to do and best of all - the weather is warm again!!!

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!

A STUPENDOUS day

Ever have one of those days when everything goes right? They don't happen often, but yesterday was one of those days. Even though I forgot to do two things which gave me a nightmare last night. I dreamt that I had arrived at an event and had forgotten to pack samples. I had nothing - I don't think I even had my suitcase. Weird!

Let's just say that some things could have gone wrong - very badly, but I was on top of my game. I was merrily quilting a quilt that had been given to me by Quilts of Valour.

The robot got to the end of the row and I ran over to it and hit "advance to next row". Only to realize that the bobbin had run out partway across. Oh, shoot!!!

That was the bad news. The good news is that I know how to easily fix this. Go back to the previous row where I'll manually reset the pattern. The best news? I managed that reset the pattern PERFECTLY.

Can you see the restart??? 

Trust me - I've gone through a huge learning curve to figure that out. But it's done and I can move onto other things - like upgrading the darn system. I've been trying to do the upgrade since December, but I think I missed the deadline yet again. I MUST check that date today.

Then I turned on the Husqvarna Viking DESIGNER EPIC 2 so I could finish my UFO homework.

OH NO - some amazing new designs came through on the blog. You see, when you turn on the sewing machine, you get to see the blog. And once a week, new stuff comes through the blog. It could be embroidery designs (if you subscribe to the mySewnet library), or sewing instructions or what's new or other things.

New stuff in the mySewnet blog

Yes - all this gets delivered right to the EPIC 2 since it's connected to the WiFi. No need for USBs or cables or wasting time - just get to it! BUT before I could do anything that was on the blog, I HAD to get some work done on my UFO.

I love using decorative stitches for applique. One of the challenges is knowing where you are in the stitch sequence, especially if you've done a sample stitch-out of the stitch. Well, no worries with the EPIC 2 as it has Stitch Re-start (don't you just love those ORANGE buttons?) By pressing that button, the EPIC 2 goes back to the beginning of the stitch sequence of whatever stitch I've chosen. This is just the best!!!!

Stitch Re-start function

 I choose a stitch and then got to work on the LAST block for my UFO.

Stitching around the flower shape

And there it is - the last block. I'm not going to show you any more of this project until after the UFO group meets tomorrow. Will I get my homework completed? Will I do more??  You'll have to wait to see what happens.

The last block in the UFO

Then I decided to be bad and stitch out that poodle. I took a few minutes to attach the embroidery arm, found some fabric, threads, and some organza ribbon. That poodle is in the embroidery library that you can subscribe to through your mySewnet account. I grabbed some organza ribbon and wound it onto the Ribbon Embroidery Attachment. Then I checked how much ribbon was required. OH - I don't have enough. WAIT! I have another bag with ribbon - I bet I have some white organza ribbon in that bag. Yep, but that piece wasn't quite long enough. Now what?

I improvised and sewed the two pieces together.

Sewing the two pieces of organza ribbon together

I then wound all the ribbon onto the Ribbon Embroidery Attachment. Set up for embroidery and let the DESIGNER EPIC 2 do its job. I could then monitor it on the MySewMonitor app on my phone. I know - the technology is crazy. But when you think about it - there are so many advancements in technology to everything - cars, TVs, phones - why not the sewing machine???  It makes total sense.

Once the supplies were gathered and the machine set up - I hit START. 

Embroidering the body

Once the body was done, it was time to add the fluff! I attached the Ribbon Embroidery Attachment to the EPIC 2 and hit start.

What the ribbon embroidery looks like

And that big thing is the Ribbon Embroidery Attachment.

The ribbon embroidery attachment

So while the long arm was working (I was babysitting it so couldn't be far away), and the EPIC 2 was embroidering, what was the PFAFF creative Icon doing?  Oh - it could have been embroidering as well, but I wanted to piece. Unfortunately, it can't do that on its own!!!

Nothing! So I did a bit of piecing. Which you'll see another day.

The bottom line? The quilt for Quilts of Valour got finished. I now have a HUGE stack of quilts to trim. A job for today.

Quilt for Quilts of Valour - DONE

And the poodle got stitched out.

The ribbon embroidered poodle

Darn -- I wish I had used a brighter color for the collar!!!  But it's a girl poodle and I didn't think bright pink would show on that dark red background.

Studio B? It's a huge mess. Those are the quilts to trim.

Quilts to trim

The drawers of embroidery thread are hanging open. I did remember to put in a fresh bobbin when I started the ribbon embroidery. You do NOT want to have to change the bobbin or have a thread break or run out of ribbon when doing ribbon embroidery. I've had that happen and while it can be done - you don't want to have to go down that road. 

Thread drawers hanging open

The stuff from my dressmaking class is strewn on the floor and there's my helper. Actually, she was hoping I had a treat for her.

Dressmaking supplies on the floor

And the basket of trimmings? Overflowing yet again.

The trimming bucket on the cutting table

We went out to dinner last night with some very engaging conversation about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket (very quickly) because of the negative aspects of social media. I won't go into that today. Then home to finish a book. The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter by Hazel Gaynor. A very good book recommended by Rose. A very interesting twist and I admit that I peeked ahead a couple of times to see what was going to happen. I hate it when I do that, but I was compelled.

I'm listening to the Radium Girls by Kate Moore while I'm walking on the treadmill. I find it so appalling that so many health officials did NOTHING despite the number of girls that were dying. Anyway - I could go on about that, but for today, I don't have time.

I'm so proud of my kid! She walked when she went to do her errands!! I tell you, once you get into the habit, it's fabulous. I walked to the grocery store yesterday. Seriously - if you dress for the weather and set your mind, it's not cold! The girls were thrilled. We did NOT detour to the mall.

On that note, I'm out of here!!! I've got a super busy day planned.

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!!

Zippers

So it's cold outside! This is what the temperature reading was on my car when I arrived at the gym this morning. Oops - now you can see how crazy I am and what time I arrived. Actually, I was late arriving as it took a bit of time to chisel the ice off my windshield.

It's cold outside!

Well, it's been colder and it's colder in other parts of the country. If you dress for it - it's never cold. Technically, I'm not even wearing a winter coat. It's called a down sweater by Patagonia. It's one of the BEST investments in clothing I've ever made. I've had it for years and well - it's absolutely filthy - I must try and wash it again. If you ever travel anywhere, I highly recommend buying one of these sweaters. It compresses into nothing in your suitcase. I LOVE it. They are NOT cheap, but they are the BEST.

I think when walking the girls this morning that we'll move to a different jacket and wear fleece-lined jeans.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!  I see the girls went shopping without me and bought me a nice card. Oh, those girls are so sweet!

Happy Valentine's Day

It's Hazel McCallion's birthday today. She was the mayor of our city for many years and turns 99 today. She's on top of things. I love the little clip they played on the radio about her age. Take a minute and listen to this news story about her. The clip from the radio was taken from the interview. Gosh - she sounds just like my Dad!! But I believe her words to the fullest and EACH day is a new experience. You can be OLD at any age. Choose to be YOUNG.

So I couldn't help myself. We walked to the bank yesterday and on the way home, we took a detour to the mall. I know - I bet I'm going to get myself on the news one day. Homeless woman (because of my dirty orange jacket), walks the street in search of something with two big dogs. I thought about that last night. We are NOT walking in the residential part of our neighborhood and we do it every day. Ooops. Oh well - do I care what other people think? NO!!!!

Retaining wall is under deconstruction

There was a retaining wall which separated the upper and lower levels of the parking lot. That's now being demolished.

By the way, I did some research yesterday. That piece of equipment is called an excavator. Yep - you can check it out on that link. It appears to be a very versatile piece of heavy equipment because you can buy attachments for it which turn it into a whole pile of other tools. I've seen them pounding posts in for a new overpass on the highway. Yesterday, it had a huge jackhammer attached to it as it pounded away at that wall.

See what I mean? Who knew that I would one day learn the proper name of this piece of equipment? It's simply being curious and I learned something new. You may not care, but it's the nature of being curious (and wanting to learn) that is going to make me live to be 100.

And now I can get on with the quilting stuff. So I had an interesting quilt to quilt. It just wanted to make sure that I knew it was there as it caused a few issues along the way. This was one of them.

The first issue was that one of the blocks had dimensional seams on it. GRRR.................   It's a very pretty block, but not so fun to quilt on a long arm.

Dimensional seams

 I grabbed a piece of tissue paper (good quality stuff) and placed it over the block. Then as the robot came along, I held the edges of the tissue paper in place.

The first pass with the long arm

Yep - this block fell between two rows so I had to babysit it for two rows.

Stitching over the tissue paper

Once the stitching was done, I removed the tissue paper which was easy. Because of the quality of the paper, it ripped off clean and no small bits to pick out. And there's the block - all quilted.

The dimensional block is now quilted

There were other issues - I won't go into them. Let's just say that the quilt is done. It also needs to be trimmed. I have a huge pile of stuff to trim so I'd better get to that later today. But please, please, please - measure borders and sashings when you sew them on. Check the size of the backing to make sure it's large enough. I know it's a challenge when the quilt is HUGE, but you MUST do those things. Square up your blocks, check your seam allowances - well, I could go on and on, but there are all very important things to do on ANY quilt.

Customer quilt - DONE

I mentioned that we got back some of our homework in the dressmaking class. I got my seam finishings samples back. Do you remember me saying that I thought one might not pass inspection?

Well, look at what happened. I got full marks for pressing. Phew - not that I was worried. I'm pretty meticulous about pressing. But she docked me a point for that darn zigzag being right on the edge.

I lost a point for my crappy zigzag sample

I like the fact that she wrote right on my sample. Now we have the option to redo the sample. I know it's totally petty for one point. But I might just remake it for the sake of doing it right in case I ever decide that I want to use this as a seam finish. Which I doubt since I have a serger. But just because.

My crappy zigzag sample

I took my old top of the line sewing machine to the class as I figured finding the appropriate zipper feet for those class machines would be a challenge. We had to sew some 5/8" seams. Wow - where the heck are the markings????  We used to think this stitch plate was amazing.

Old stitch plate

However when you compare it to the one on the new top of the line sewing machine, it sort of pales in comparison.

Stitch plate on the Designer EPIC 2

 Gosh - the new one even knows whether you have the straight stitch plate on or the general-purpose stitch plate.

In the class, we were making our zipper samples. I happened to have all the required supplies with me. Hallelujah!!!! 

I was going to hand these in, but then I knew that she was going to dock me points because the stitching lines were NOT perfectly straight. This is the lapped zipper and while it's almost perfect, I messed up when I turned the corner at the very bottom. Darn - One more stitch before pivoting and it would have been perfect.

Lapped zipper

This is the center zipper and well - that's certainly not good - the stitching lines are not centered. Oh boy - I'll be redoing that one as well.

The centered zipper is not good either

Then I tried the invisible zipper. I like this one. Fast and easy, however, I got puckering on one side of the zipper. Why? I've no idea so I brought that sample home as well to try on a different machine.

The invisible zipper sample

I cannot help myself. If I'm going to do something, I want to do it right. If I were making a garment and not in a class, all of those samples would have been fine, except maybe the puckering one. One would be using matched thread and no one can tell. Except that if you have too many of those details that are off, there goes the quality of the garment and those types of things make the garments look hand made. OK -- remaking those zipper samples is a job for next week.

I've got more stuff to get done today. The list of tasks for the week is getting shorter, but not fast enough. That large quilt yesterday (which wasn't even on the task list) was a killer. I spent a LOT of time working with that quilt.

On that note, we're about to brave the cold. I wonder how long the girls will want to be out before their paws get cold? Well, if we move fast, that won't happen. I know the people that pass me are going to think I'm crazy, but do I care? Not in the least. Besides, getting steps for my virtual challenge is way more important than what people say about me.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!

Pleats and tucks

Another great day with lots of stuff completed. The best part? Last night, I went to my dressmaking class TOTALLY prepared. It felt great to go and not have to make excuses (to myself). I'm the only one who really cares, but it doesn't look great when you're always making excuses or don't have the homework completed. I was even prepared for making samples last night and took my own sewing machine. More on that tomorrow.

I had to play catchup on the samples that were due last week. Making pleats, tucks, and darts, I had purchased some tracing paper the same day that I purchased my skirt fabric. It was time to dig it out. And somewhere along the line, I stumbled across this tracing wheel so it got tucked into my dressmaking toolbox.

Marking the pleats and tucks

Here's my finished sample. Yikes - it was only two weeks ago since she showed us how, but my brain just seemed to be brain dead. Anyway, they got made, but I realized the tuck on the right has the seam pressed in the incorrect direction. I fixed that before I handed it in.

Sample of pleats and tucks

Then it was on to making the darts. We had to make two short darts and two long darts. And they had to be the same length. Oh yes - making darts is easy, but getting them to be the same length? That's a whole different story.

I got out my trusty tracing paper, marking wheel, and a ruler. Easy peasy to do the marking.

Marking the darts

And everything has to be sewn in a contrasting thread so she can see. I get that, but it sure shows up all the sins. Technically, that's the point!

These darts are NOT the same length

I think I restitched one of them several times before I was happy with it. On a real garment, no one is going to notice if one dart is one stitch longer than the one on the opposite side of the garment. I'm not worried, but for the sake of the exercise, it's good to practice.

My samples of a long dart

I think they look perfect. No bubble at the end. Straight, although in the picture one of them looks a bit curved. Oh well.

The front of the dart

The back of the dart

Gosh, there are so many little things to think about. The length must be the same, the seam must be straight, the width at the top should be the same, they must be pressed in opposite directions. So many time-consuming details!!!

Then it was onto making the muslin to check the size of my skirt. Rather than cut up my tissue pattern, I traced the pattern onto hmmm - I can't remember the name of the product. It's like interfacing with red dots on it. It has a name - pattern ease? Something like that.

Tracing the pattern onto pattern ease

Then I made the darts in the back of the skirt and the tucks in the front. Next up was to sew it together. I basted it in the event I had to make some changes. I was rather clever I thought as I stitched up the back seam. Only to realize that I needed to leave a space (for the zipper) so I could try it on. DUH!!!!

The skirt muslin

The bottom line, the muslin got finished. I tried it on and I like the fit. I showed Chris (our instructor) and she was good with that so I'm ready to start stitching my real skirt!!!

Last night we did zippers and I got my first samples back. More on that tomorrow but I sure had a good chuckle over both. This is a zipper sample that I found somewhere when I was cleaning up. It's how I put a zipper in the back of a pillow. I'll just throw that zipper sample in with the rest of my zipper samples when they're done (to my satisfaction).

Zipper sample for a pillow back

 I managed to get another customer quilt done! This one has a fleece back so extra care has to be taken to put that on the long arm to prevent stretching. I think the long arm isn't that fond of fleece as the thread tends to get caught in the bobbin when I'm tacking down the edges. I think it must be the extra fluff from the fleece? I'm going to keep an eye on when this catching thing happens. Anyway, I did have a moment with this quilt, but it's all good. Now to trim and put the binding on it.

Customer quilt - DONE

Then it was off for the walk. Our neighborhood looks like a bunch of kids were out playing with spray paint. There are orange markings (for phone), yellow for gas, and I also saw red, green, and blue. What are they doing??

Strange markings in the neighborhood

Notice how Murphy is sitting and waiting patiently while I take this photo and Lexi? Well, sitting is beneath her wild status in life.

My question is this -  a lot of those markings are on the snow. So what happens to the markings if we get more snow or the snow melts? We had more snow last night - not a lot, but enough to cover the markings. Hmm - I'm missing something I'm sure.

More markings in the snow

I had to go to the library and then took a bit of a detour home so I could pass the mall. I know - I'm now going to obsessed with watching the process. OH - I did find the previous pictures I was talking about. As I thought, the entire wall has been taken down. Sorry - the camera focused on the wire fence, not the building. Now, what's going to be next? This is the only side that is two stories. Remember, my vote is for a huge wall of glass. One side of the structure is attached to the mall - they can't do anything with that. And the other two sides are only one story. They have ripped open the walls where the doors used to be. I'll just have to keep an eye on it!! It sounds like a great excuse to get out for a walk every day to check on the progress. My FitBit is jumping up and down with glee.

The entire wall of the old Sears store is gone

Here's a picture of the clock tower at the Erin Mills Town Center mall. This was taken in March 2104.

The clock tower at Erin Mills Town Center

They gently took that tower down as it's in the middle of the mall. It was replaced with this giant glass ball. That photo was taken in January 2015.

The mall ball

Bear with me as we go through the construction process. It's supposed to be finished by the end of this year!!!

Remember last week, I chatted about Grammarly as a plug-in to check my spelling and grammar. Well, this is why grammar is so important. I saw this on the bulletin board in the classroom last night. Yep - grammar is important.

Grammar is important

If you are interested in machine embroidery or have an embroidery machine and are totally scared to death of it, I'm having a class this SUNDAY, February 16 from 1 to 4 PM. We're going to talk about the different kinds of machine embroidery, stabilizers, hooping and all kinds of other things. Let me know.

I'm also going to hold a serging class if anyone is interested. The date is not set yet, but e-mail me to say you're interested and we'll get a date going.

What I love about my days is that no two are alike. Oh sure - I'm pretty predictable in the morning and evening routines, but then what will I work on? Who knows! The list of things to get done this week is dwindling - not fast enough, but I should be able to get everything completed. There are still 16 things on the list. Oh  - I'd better work faster!  But I have three totally uninterrupted days ahead of me so I think I can accomplish lots.

On that happy note - have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!