Note to self

When I came upstairs from the studio this morning at 7 AM, I had already put in two hours of work. As I fed the girls, I thought to myself, in my old world, I'd have already walked the girls, gotten dressed as I'm still in my PJs, made lunch and would have been long gone in the cold and dark to get to work.

Instead, I had trimmed a quilt, made a quilt backing, inventoried my quilting threads, and loaded the next quilt onto the long arm. Am I relaxed?  You bet! Am I loving it? You bet! I'm working my way through my e-mails, creating folders, making things happen and I actually feel like I'm on top of things. I've still loads of work to do and I haven't sewed "for fun" since I was laid off. Well, except for the Monday sewing. Nope - I've got other stuff to do! And I'm focused like there is no tomorrow.

Now I've placed my fabric order for four more magazine quilts - they're very small but super cute and it's not even 9 AM yet. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually enjoying that cup of Peppermint tea. I must be mad! Not buying more! Time to move onto the next one. But this brings up an interesting point which I'll discuss later this week about habits. I'm almost done that book I was reading. Plus I need to make a list of things that I need to blog about - like the show n tell from classes and other things that I keep teasing you about and then never do! What have I forgotten?

I spent some time in the studio last night - trying to keep those areas clear (you know - the cutting mat, the sewing table, and the ironing board). All are clear but the work tables which I'm slowly making progress on. And you'll see in a couple of days what I've done.

I managed to trim that scrap quilt that I quilted for myself a couple of days ago. Then I thought I would look at the second one (same style) and get it ready for the long arm. Look at the note I found attached to the backing.

Note to self

 Can you read it? It says "Quilt #1 first, then use the scraps to make the backing larger".

Seriously? By this time, I had trimmed the first one (I didn't know it was Number 1) and this is all that was left over.

Mere scraps left over from the first quilt

 Well - what the heck is going on here. So I took the two pieces of fabric that I had cut for the second backing and laid them out against the top. One was long enough, the second piece was a tad short, BUT, not so short that one of those scraps wouldn't make it large enough. Never mind that purple quilt - that's the next one going on the long arm!

One backing piece - a tad too short

 Now the backing has been pieced together and it's ready to be loaded on the long arm.

Backing for the second scrap quilt - DONE

 Now it won't get quilted right away as there are TWO more quilts that I promised for Sunday and one of them is now loaded. It's huge. What's with these huge quilts? Oh yes - that's why the long arm quilters get to do these quilts cause they're huge.

Just like the quilt that I finished yesterday. It was huge! But done and ready for pick-up today.

Customer quilt - DONE

On that note, I'm back to the computer (well I'll just continue) to get more writing done. The initial writing doesn't take long, but it's the verification and proofing, especially if it's a pattern. You don't want people to complain because you didn't take enough time to check out the requirements, cutting and all the rest!

Have a super day!

Ciao!