This is heaven

I'm a wee bit spoiled. I had a Sit n Sew day on Thursday at my house. Friday was a "work" day spending time on community project quilts. Saturday was the make up class for our Ultimate Block book at The Hobby Horse and the afternoon was spent sewing. Today is a Sit n Sew and tomorrow is Monday sewing! FIVE decadent days of sewing and prepping! It's been loads of fun, but I'll be glad when Tuesday rolls around because I had TWO things that I should be working on! They involve paperwork and that's hard to do when you're sewing.

Yesterday didn't start well when I made a small demo for the class and then forgot it on the cutting table. GRR!! Fortunately, I had enough supplies with me to make it up.

I decided not to take my sewing machine to the sewing day yesterday. I took some fabric that had been bundled into kits for the community projects and I worked on that.

The first one started off with gorgeous blues and tans. There was enough fabric to make TWO Hopscotch kits. We'll have to find something for the inner border and binding, but that's OK. I got all the initial strips cut for TWO quilts.

The initial strip cutting for TWO Hopscotch quilts

The third grouping, in golds and browns, is totally cut and ready to go. It also needs fabric for an inner border and binding. We'll find something later. I want to have these kits totally cut and ready to be picked up by someone at our next community projects day. It just makes it way easier and I know that there's enough fabric to complete the kit. And how fun for our participants to just come and sew!

Hopscotch kit is ready to sew!

This is a class that I'll be teaching at The Hobby Horse on Saturday, September 21. The main cutting is done. It's made with the MINI Sew Kind of Wonderful ruler so there's lots of curved piecing. If you've never learned curved piecing, you'll know how by the end of this wall hanging. It's not huge so shouldn't take long to assemble. That's on my agenda for today.

POSH Santa sample CUT and ready to sew

When I got home, it was time to hit the studios and get some of my own work done. I had to clear the tables for the Sit n Sew today. I had two choices - pack it up and bring it out to finish another day or suck it up and get done what needed to be done. Knowing that I wouldn't have to bring them out for this project again. I sucked it up and finished what I was doing.

Here's my gingerbread block. It's all ready to stitch. The red bits on the candy canes are already stitched to the white fabric. All the pieces are glued in place. Normally I turn under all the edges with starch, but the bottom edge of that roof is going to be needle turned. So this is the 12th and LAST block to be completed. Now that this part is done, it should go quickly. Then I'll have to find another project to work on for Monday sewing. I don't think that'll be hard at all. I might have to take a sewing machine and sew something in addition to handwork. Even with all the chitchat, I find it boring to work on a hand project all day.

Gingerbread block is ready for stitching

I struggled to find a fabric for the door which I had forgotten! Looks a wee bit crooked - I'm not going to worry about that small detail. The crooked little man lives there with the Gingerbread boy.

Here are the hearts for the windows. They are fused to the fabric and I may or may not use them depending on how I feel when I get there. If I could only find that Ultrasuede. Now that the stash room is so much easier to assess, I might try digging around in there to see what I can unearth.

The hearts for the windows are fused

Before I went to bed last night, I had cleaned the tables so they are ready to go this morning. Two of the people coming today were here on Friday so they left their machines. My machine is also set up.

Main sewing space is ready to go

One person wants to work on a jelly roll rug. This worked well on my big sewing cabinet which is no longer in this space. So I rigged this up for her.

Space to sew a jelly roll rug

Yep - she's in the corner, but she can see all of us!

I also got the next quilt quilted. It's for a customer.

Customer quilt - DONE

The next one is already loaded on the long arm and ready to go when the ladies leave today. There haven't been any more incidents of the long arm taking things into its own hands since I first turned it on after the renovation. That doesn't mean the problem is fixed and I must take some time to get that fixed once and for all. Hopefully this coming week.

You can tell that I've been working. Here's my upstairs/downstairs basket. It's full and currently sitting in Studio B. Time to bring it up and put things away. Some of the stuff goes into the recycling, some into the kitchen and some will go upstairs to Studio U.

Upstairs/downstairs basket

I have a bit of work ahead of me. This is my trimming/binding pile. I need to process all of that in the next couple of days. There's not enough room to do with everyone around today, but perhaps when they leave, I'll get to it.

The trimming/binding pile of quilts

One thing I'm having to find workarounds for is the fact that having two studios means that you either carry stuff back and forth or you buy duplicates. Not a lot, but I did buy a new cutting mat yesterday. That one will go to Studio U and the one from Studio U comes to Studio B. So now there's a very good cutting mat in each studio and also a crappier one in each studio. That's for ME, not for the people coming. I think the only other thing I need to buy is an 8 ½" by 24" ruler. I have a 6" by 24" and I hate it. I like the wider one. That's for my next shopping excursion.

When we started to cut the community projects quilts the other day, I realized we had no place to put the scraps on the cutting table. An empty project box served the purpose quite nicely. No need to buy something new. It's now empty and waiting for more scraps.

Plastic project box is great for scraps

I had to move a few things to make room for that extra sewing spot and I thought while I'm there, I might as well empty a couple more boxes of books. Two more boxes of books and magazines are now on the shelves. I really need to get at that and locate all the books. That'll allow me to start moving the rest of the furniture back to its proper place and I can then unpack the boxes that go into those units. I was thinking so much about that that I couldn't get to sleep. I did NOT get up and empty more boxes, but I should have! I'd have been more productive.

And I did NOT wing anything into the stash or the storage rooms. That's only for stuff that has been processed, sorted and packed. Nope - I hid everything in an empty corner of the basement.

I found a few more things. I doubt that anyone will want these items, but you never know. There's a bunch of little goodie/gift boxes for the Christmas season. Anything I mention today is free.

Little treat boxes with Christmas/winter theme

I have a ton of containers and I LOVE to have my stuff organized into its own containers. But I think I've reached the stage where I don't need all the containers that I have. So these are all going to be donated if no one wants them. The one on the left is a set of three nesting tins with a sewing theme. A big clear glass container with a screw lid - great for buttons. A plastic container with a lid and a round tin with a winter theme.

Containers up for grabs

Oh - that darn plastic one with the handle photo bombed this photo. Pretty cheeky I think! Anyway, this time, there are twelve small plastic containers with lids. Great for snacks or beads or buttons. And then two plastic containers with dividers. Great for sewing machine feet or small sewing tools.

More containers up for grabs

There's more stuff - I just didn't want to bore you with it all this morning. Somehow, I think the same thing is going to happen in my Studios as happened on that shelf of community projects stuff. I will take out loads of stuff and still won't look like anything has been removed. But the area is going to be super neat and the goal is to keep it that way.

Case in point, it was a snap to get ready for the group today because there was hardly anything on the table except that gingerbread block which I had spread from one end to the other - oh and those containers!

On that note, I'm out of here. The group will start arriving in an hour.

Have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!!