A well oiled machine

l, I did it - almost. 

I have two classes this morning via Zoom. The invitations have been sent, and the presentations are done! OK - so I'm missing a picture for one slide. I still need to sew what I'm putting on that slide, but I have ONE free hour before the presentation, so that shouldn't be a problem. And I got 7 of 9 blocks sewn, but that's OK since there are three sets of identical blocks in different sizes. One of each at least got put together.

I'm in good shape, and so far, only one small thing got deferred to Monday. But that's OK. It's my UFO project that's due tomorrow at 11 that I'm worried about. I think I'll be sewing into the wee hours of the night if I want to get it done. OR - I could just say, "screw it! - it's only $10" and enjoy the day!

I'm big on making and keeping commitments to myself, so I'll see what happens after this morning's classes are over.

I spent a good deal of the day in Studio U, which was OK with me. I had the window open and holy - you can really see what goes on in the neighborhood from that vantage point. Nothing exciting happened, but with the window open, I didn't feel so isolated in the house.

However, I had a lot of marking to do, and so I took my project outside and sat in the backyard with the girls.

The great outdoors and Murph's butt

There are a lot of units to be marked in our Summer Moon project. Technically, if I sewed them on the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 2, I could use the laser and not do any marking, but then I wouldn't have been able to be outside!

Marking squares

It was a bit windy, and some of my squares kept blowing away, so I had to cover them all with my book.

The class is going to hate me this month, but then every month, there's a ton of marking to do.

Here are the two blocks that got assigned for our Vintage Christmas sew-along.

Block One for Vintage Christmas

Block Two for Vintage Christmas

Remember that I'm only using one red or one green for one of the colors in each block, and the rest is white or grey. It was a bit tricky with that candy cane block. My background is white, and since the strip in the candy cane was white, I had to switch to a light grey. No one is going to know that when it's all together.

We're almost at the halfway point for this sew-along. I know we could all whip through those blocks much faster, but then I couldn't keep up with the other projects and still have fun. Besides, this is OUR HOBBY. What's the point of ripping through something FAST just so you can start something else. We should be enjoying each and every stitch.

I'm not into fast sewing, but I'll be sewing fast later today! Just for the sake of $10. I think I'm going to have to get my sewing machine serviced. No big deal as I have lots of other sewing machines to sew on. I swear the needle bar has moved one needle width to the left, and that's not a good thing when you're trying to sew a ¼" seam on a teeny tiny block.

It should probably be serviced anyway.


More porch pickups yesterday. This is a pile of things that have been spoken for and need to get moved out of the house. I have a second stack with smaller stuff by the front door. So this is what it looked like before one of the porch pickups.

Stuff that needs to go

And this is what it looked like after the porch pickup. That stuff belongs in three different places, but no rush on any of it. It's tucked away.  I guess I could be smart and just move all the stuff to go in one spot. Then my living room would look a bit tidier. And there's a box in the office that goes to donation. I might move everything to one spot on Tuesday!!

What's left to be picked up

So, in addition to getting all this homework prepped, my neighbor asked me to make him a mask. First, he asked if I could make him one that looked like Dark Vadar. Ah NO. But I have Star Wars fabric that he could have. I had to run around the house to find supplies. Yep - I had everything, and NO - I did not cut that wire with my good scissors. The wire cutters did that job. The best news? I knew where all those supplies were, and it was easy to get them assembled.

Supplies to make a mask

I highly recommend if you're making a project, that you assemble ALL the supplies BEFORE you start. It sure saves a ton of time.

I didn't know if he wanted ties or elastic. I started off with some black elastic. Oops - he wants ties. I had to rip out the elastic and insert ties. Since I had supplies for both at hand, so it wasn't a big deal. And here's the mask. I dug off the foam mannequin head in Studio U. HEY  - I LOVE this hat, and it doesn't look too bad on me. Could you see me wearing a hat???  It's kind of cute, but probably not suitable for an "old lady" like me. I'm at the point where I don't really care anymore!!!!

Mask for a neighbor

It drives me crazy when I see people modeling masks they made. AH - now, the recipient has to wash the mask or breath in your germs!!!!

Despite being so busy, I got in my 7 miles of walking. That is my TOP priority every day. I must say that my face looks pretty tanned. It's mostly a windburn since we haven't had much sun. BUT there was sun yesterday, and there is sun today. I'm even wearing shorts EARLY this morning. First time digging out shorts for this season. I LOVE IT!!!!

Let's see - the next couple of days are going to be brutal (my own making so I can't really complain). Today is prep for UFO, tomorrow is prep for a Monday morning presentation, Tuesday is clean up the mess I've created the last couple of days and prep Studio U for the VIRTUAL RETREAT which will consume the remainder of the week. I love having something like that to look forward to!!!

I hope to see some of you during the Virtual REtreat, which takes place on May 27 - 31. I'll have a ZOOM meeting going from 9 AM - 9 PM so you can drop in to visit if you want. I'll be sewing!!! I can hardly wait because things will be so much more relaxed!!!  But then I thrive on this kind of pressure so I'm not complaining and it's not like I'm totally chained to the sewing machine. I'm still reading a real book every day as well. And I pulled a few weeds in the backyard.

I read some bad news yesterday. BluPrint - the service that was free for a couple of weeks a while back, and I PAID $50 to subscribe to is apparently shutting down. Yikes - I'd better get in there and watch a couple of classes before it shuts down completely. I don't know how public that information is, but one of the teachers received a letter that she shared. So - if you're a BluPrint subscriber, get in there and watch those classes. I'm so not good at remembering that I have these subscriptions. This is what used to be Craftsy. There's no mention on their website. I just checked for the class that I was watching, and I don't see it. Now where the heck did it go???

On that note, I'm out of here. I've got ONE more thing to sew (4 small seams) before my classes this morning and then upload the photo to the presentation.

Have a super day - enjoy the weather if it's nice and even if it isn't. That means you can stay in the house and sew guilt-free.

Ciao!!!