Smile please!

As I got up this morning - yes 5:15 AM on a Sunday, I thought to myself. Have I ever gotten up at 5 AM and NOT gone immediately into the studio?  Well after putting the dogs out, but you know what I mean. I'm serious - what do people do when they get up?  I've done the same thing for years whether I was going to work or not.  I can get a lot done in one hour before it's time to get ready for work!

At this time, I'll take even five minutes in the studio.  There's a lot going on, a lot that needs to be done, but most importantly, a LOT got done yesterday and that's all that counts at this point!

So what does the cutting table look like at the moment?  Well, there's still a lot of stuff on there, but doesn't really amount to a whole lot of cutting.  I can't tell you what I cut - oh well why not.  I cut an entire quilt yesterday - 80 inches square.  It's my own design so I didn't cut it out until I had tested one block to make sure that everything fit properly. I changed one fabric that I wasn't sure I was going to like.  I made the block - didn't like it and switched.  I must have been certain that that would happen because I had brought a substitute fabric! Because of the way that I sewed it together (two partial seams), I had to make a tiny adjustment on a few pieces and I was good to go!

The cutting mat

 Perused the directions (also mine) for the next quilt and got part of that one cut out.  It's mostly cut out - won't take long to finish.  I cut sashings, I cut bindings, I cut borders.  I'm almost done all the cutting.  I could have finished yesterday but I had a couple of other commitments.  Like a meeting with the West End Modern Quilt Guild.  This is such an AMAZING group of women and I'll share what happened at the meeting later this week.  It was so cool.

I'll have to tidy up that space this morning because I need to put borders on a quilt.  That won't take long as there really isn't much on the table.

Then I had a date with the forest. You see we make quilts at work!  Oh should I say, we make quilts for work. And we need to get photos of those quilts.  I was deligated to get the photos.  The quilts are from the Northcott Stonehenge Maplewood collection which if you haven't seen is absolutely stunning and I want a LOT of all of it when it arrives in shops. It comes in two colorways - Scarlet and Woodlands.  Scarlet is my favorite by far!!

I thought taking the quilts amongst the colorful leaves would be very appropriate!

This is me yesterday - a wagon full of quilts and a camera and NOTHING ELSE!  I didn't want some contrived setting in the forest so I was going to take what I could find!

Wagon full of quilts for photograpphy

And I found a couple of cool spots to take photos of the smaller items, but nothing that suited the larger quilts.  Then I found this spot.  It was perfect!!!   I had to use a stick for a pole to hold the quilts and was able to jerry rig it onto that bent tree and I was good to go!!   That's the back of one of the quilts by the way - not the front!  Next time I need to take a small stool for me to stand on and perhaps some rope????

Photo shoot

I'm long past the point of being embarrassed doing weird stuff like photographing quilts on a main street.  Nope - I don't care any more!  Likely no one saw me, although there was a fair amount of foot traffic in the forest.  By the way - has ANYONE seen those wagons for sale recently???   I NEED one desperately or if you want to loan me yours, that would be awesome!!!  I need TWO for a couple of weeks.

I'm pretty sure that some of my other quilt photos were used in an ad.  I'll try to find that - it's possible they haven't been published yet.  These long delays between publication is crazy, but it's nowhere what it used to be!

What else?  Oh yes, I didn't just cut fabric and take pictures yesterday.  No way!  I got most of the blocks (12) sewn for a quilt that needs to be done (hopefully by tomorrow morning).  All the blocks are completely assembled now and the sashing is cut.  A couple of borders this morning and hopefully loaded on the long arm this evening.

I even got to watch a movie last night! Whenever I have some hand sewing or a lot of marking, I get it prepped and then we sit down and watch a movie while I work!  One of the quilts - the big one has a lot of diagonal seams.  I'm a marker so half of them are marked as are all the pieces for the other quilt that I cut.  Things are good!

It's going to be another crazy day and I have to teach a class. Note to self - NEXT YEAR - book NOTHING extra in the month of October!!!  Just in case there is a silly project (s) to get done for Market!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!