The full moon

I'm grumpy this morning. Very grumpy, and it's attributed to the fact that I'm tired. I'm tired because I didn't have a good sleep last night. Did it have anything to do with the heat? Oh no. Did it have anything to do with the full moon? Oh yes!

Just before I went to bed, I saw a headline about how the full moon affects animals. In the middle of the night, I could hear Murphy pacing. Upstairs, downstairs, upstairs, downstairs - it was insane. I finally got up and put her on her leash, and she went in the backyard for a pee. She still wasn't happy, but she did settle down eventually, or I fell asleep and just ignored her.

Good grief - what's going on?  I can hear DH making a ton of noise. Apparently, there's a bird in the bedroom. I wonder if that was the source of Murphy's unrest?  Not sure how the bird catching is coming along - I'm keeping clear of it.

If that were the only reason for the lack of sleep, I might be OK. But I didn't go to bed until quite late, which is very unusual for me. That was totally my fault, and I learned a VERY valuable lesson.

I was working on a giant quilt. It's almost 100" square. I don't dislike big quilts, but they can be tricky to load, and they can take a long time to quilt. I had to go back to it several times yesterday as I had a few other things to do.

There were 9 rows of a somewhat dense pattern. Because of the size of the quilt, each row took a long time to stitch out. I was just advancing the pattern to the LAST row. Things had been going well, and I don't know if I touched a wrong button, but the pattern disappeared, and the computer rebooted. This is NOT a good thing when you haven't saved the pattern. AH -- you've got to be kidding me!!!!

I hadn't taken a photo of the settings. Each pattern gets sized uniquely to the dimensions of the quilt, and I had relied on the ruler in the computer to do the measurements for the width. I restarted the computer, reinput the numbers, and advanced to the last row. All of this took a long time because of the number of stitches involved. At last, I reached the last row, and I'm ready to stitch.

Then after a bit of stitching, I realized that something wasn't right. I took the stitches out and fixed the positioning. Then I started stitching again and realized that something else wasn't right. OH NO!!! More ripping. Then I realized what I had done - I had inserted SIX patterns into the length, NOT five like the original was. I knew that, and I swear I had inserted five. Guess what? I didn't look - I just touched the button five times. I'm such a dolt!!! I must have touched that button one extra time and didn't realize it.

By this time, it was quite late, and I just couldn't deal with it - I'll finish ripping this morning. Before I turned everything off, I saved the new design, which is now the same as the original. Trust me - I'll be double-checking before I start quilting this morning.

I learned two lessons - that is, to create the pattern and then hit SAVE so that if something goes wrong, I can just reload the pattern. Once the quilt is quilted, the pattern is no longer needed, and I can delete it. OR take a photo of the settings with the number of designs and the sizes. Then I'll be good if I need to restart.

I'm laughing now, even though I still have that one row to go. Through the day, yesterday, I was so careful with that quilt - watching for the bobbin as one bobbin didn't do one row. The last row arrives, and everything was looking good. Then BAM -- everything quickly went to pieces. But all is good now.

So I'm grumpy from lack of sleep. BUT this means I'll be due for a well-deserved nap in the gazebo later today.

As a result of all that babysitting, I didn't get much else done. I did get the two quilt blocks sewn that needed to be made, but I didn't get the write-up done. That's a job for today.


The other day, I was chatting with Ronda about some kits that we had to do, and perhaps we could take one to our August retreat. That could work. She suggested the Santa panel that we both purchased. I said that I wasn't sure where it was, but it was likely with the rest of my kits. She pipes up that as long as I didn't move it, it was on the bottom of the shelf in the stash room. I checked! She was right!!! 

Kit on the bottom of the shelf

What's hilarious is that she knows where stuff is in my house, but she can't find fabric in her own home!!! And can you believe that she blamed ME? Apparently, one day on the blog, I suggested that she (along with all of you) tidy up something in your house. She has put the fabric is a safe place. So safe, she can't find it to cut it up! What a lark!!!


This was on the lawn of one of the neighbor's houses yesterday. I'm sure that that 16-year old boy feels special!

Birthday greetings!

I took a wee shopping trip in the morning. I needed to find that fabric for the Aviatrix Medallion quilt. I figured I would likely find something at Len's Mill in Cambridge. So I had a couple of companions with me, and we were off. Don't worry - these are companions in my bubble.

When I saw some of the shelves, I didn't have much hope.

This is how it is supposed to look

And this is how some of the shelves looked—a total jumble.

A jumbled mess

I was looking for three fabrics, and I found two of them. Actually, I found the third fabric as well. I'll share some of them with you later. But here's what I found for Aviatrix Medallion. Actually, I found two fabrics that I think will work. And looking at this photo this morning, I know they will work. I got lucky!!

New fabrics to finish Aviatrix Medallion

So that's off my shopping list now, and I feel good about that.

I had to laugh, as if you didn't mind chocolate past the Best Before Date, you could get all kinds here. Not only did they have Easter eggs, but they had other chocolate as well. I didn't buy the eggs.

Easter Eggs for sale

It was a quick trip out and a quick trip back, which was good because I was dealing with that large quilt.

A big quilt on the long arm

No one will be the wiser once I get that last row done today. Here's the thing about the computer. And I'm knocking on wood as I say this since that row isn't stitched out. But I remember the lady I took a class from say - as long as the registration mark is still on the quilt (which it is), you can get anything to line up properly. This isn't really something they teach you how to fix, but if you remember that computers are pure logic, then it's easy to work out the logic and make it happen. 

I know that I'm only scratching the surface of my computerized long arm. I should shut it down for customer quilts in August and really play with it on my own or on some of those community project quilts. Hmmm - I might do that.

I had to laugh, though, as I was rolling through the huge piece of batting which I supplied. Yep - there was a piece of that gold thread. It must have got picked up off the floor somehow. I'm sure that I'll be finding that gold threads for years. It's good for a chuckle.

The gold thread has resurfaced

I didn't just shop at Lens Mills - I did shop at my house as well. I needed to find a couple of other brown fabrics to finish off the Sleeping Dogs Lie quilt. I found three that will work just fine. They are now waiting to be cut. To top it all off, there was a sleeping dog "helping" me choose the fabrics. 

Shopping at home

So that long list of things to do is still looming today, and some of them HAVE to be done today. I'm working on another quilt later today, but while it's also large, it's not nearly as large as this one.

Things are quiet upstairs, so I'm guessing the bird is now outside. I wonder how the heck it got in the house? We do leave the screen door open for the dogs, but it's not a huge opening. But you never know. But the bird didn't come into the house this morning as I haven't opened the door yet.

I slept in this morning - does that surprise you? And I don't feel so grumpy now.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!