Obsessed with order

 A great day! I mean, how can you have a bad day when you get to "play" all day in the studio. I had stuff that I wanted to get cleared up, quilts to quilt, and well - I still did NOT turn on the sewing machine! OK - I turned on a machine to do some embroidery, but no sewing. That's for TODAY. 

The first thing - I might be able to get rid of my books by selling them off! So here's the thing. Someone posted on Facebook that they were looking for a particular book. They had found it, but the price was $50. HEY -- I have that book, so I decided to look for it. 

I scoured the bookshelves, which are easy to do since all the books are on the shelves - no boxes, nothing on the floor. It would be easier if they were sorted by topic, but I digress. As I searched, I found something that I was looking for, and I didn't even know that I had it. 

I can tell usually tell just by seeing the cover if I have it or not. But this one? I vaguely remember the cover. But my new friend, Micheal, from New York City has a quilt in this book, and I was going to find the book online. Well, turns out, I didn't need to. 

Baskets (New Quilts from an Old Favorite)

And there's Micheal and his quilt. I read the story, and I love his story. I'm not sure I understand his methodology for putting the quilt together, but that's OK. I was a bit distracted at the time as I was sitting in the gazebo, and snacks were falling on the floor and being scooped by the girls. 

Micheal's Third Place quilt in the Basket book

Here's the book I was looking for, and I was about to give up when I spied another section of books on the top shelf that I had ignored the first time around, and sure enough, there it was!! So the book will be in the mail on Tuesday. I'm selling it, but not for $50. If someone else can use it, why should I keep it when I've never cracked the cover in how many years? 

Applique book - GONE

I'm also in discussion with someone else about a Block of the Month pattern that is available online but for a crazy price. I'll never use the pattern, so why not get rid of it. So - if you are looking for an obscure book or pattern, let me know. I may have it. I may not want to part with all the things you're asking for, but if I know I won't use it, I'll be willing to let it go. 

I loaded the next customer quilt on the long arm, and I smiled as I did so. This is the busy sashing on the quilt. Notice how flat those seams lie. Do you know why? 

Nice flat seams

Yep - the intersections were twirled. You don't think it makes a difference? Oh yes - there's a HUGE visual difference on the front of the quilt. There are NO ridges along that sashing which there would have been if the seams were not twirled!

The seams are twirled

And here's the customer quilt - DONE. Another giant quilt. Not quite as large as the one from the previous day, but very close. 

Customer quilt

As I said, at one point, I fired up a sewing machine to do some embroidery. 

Doing some machine embroidery

When I long arm, I use a scissor minder (a magnet) attached to my shirt. I ALWAYS put the scissors back when I'm using them at the long arm. 

However, when I'm sitting down at a machine, I seem to be good at leaving them on the table. No wonder I get a LOT of miles in some days. Those two machines were at opposite ends of the studio. 

The scissor minder

And the scissors are not in their right spot

My embroidery isn't quite finished, so I'll show you when it's completely together. The embroidery part is done. 

Machine embroidery in progress

This is why it's important to keep that cutting table clear - so I have room to work. It looked like this yesterday! A total mess, but that's OK - it got cleared up by the end of the day. 

The cutting table covered with work

It looks like this morning. I think there are three things on there! I'm excited about that. However, it means that there's a lot of work to do. 

The cutting table this morning

Oh - I finally got those itty bitty pieces cut for one of my ongoing quilts. That's a lot of cutting, but it all came from scraps. Not many scraps - no dent in any of the blue scrap boxes. 

Blue bits cut for teeny blocks

More blue bits

And now, this is my stack of sewing that needs to be done! It's HUGE. But no more prepping - it's time to sew, and now that the cutting table is clear, my biggest goal is to NOT add anything to the cutting table that isn't part of this stack. i.e., I have to sew some units together BEFORE I can trim them - that sort of thing. The current project table is in good shape - still a long way to go before that's clear, but the bottom line is that everything is orderly - and CURRENT. 

The prepped pile of sewing

Here's a pile of handwork stuff, so I know what I'll be doing later today when I watch a movie that I need to return to the library.  

The pile of handwork

There's a paper piecing project which I MUST get working on. Actually, this is the next phase of the paper pieced project, and I need to open the lid and see what needs to be done. OK - that might go on the cutting table so I can evaluate it. 

The paper piecing project - ready to sew

And even the ironing surface is clear! 

The ironing surface is clear

Do you know how good it feels to have everything under control? I have a bit more writing to do to get that up to date, and more will get done today. It's amazing what a couple of "slow" days can do! 

Now I need to get busy at the sewing machine to plow through that stack of prepped stuff. Some won't take long to finish up, and others - well, there's a significant amount of sewing there. I'd better get working on it because I'll be working on the next round of homework for the ongoing projects before I know it. 

I'm not completely up to date with the ongoing projects - that's part of what's in that huge stack of sewing. But I'm not that far behind. 

So the Trendtex Challenge needed to arrive before April 5. It made it in plenty of time! I mailed it on Monday, and it arrived on Wednesday or something like that. And now to see what the next deadline is. One project is a bit overdue, so I really need to work on that instead of that big pile of sewing, and I might get started on that later today. I don't envision it'll take too long to complete. 

I'm loving watching the videos from The Quilt Show. I'm almost at the end of the DVD series that I purchased years ago. I don't have a membership, although I think I did at one point; I never watched any of the shows online. There are loads of videos out there - some free and some not, but I find that I'm then "glued" to the video and not paying attention to what I'm doing. If I'm sewing - great, but then I need to cut and well - then I miss part of it. So I don't think I'll be watching many more videos. 

Here's my last blog post of the week for QUILTsocial  - all about quilting. Check it out!!!

On that note, I'm out of here. I'm excited about the day. Don't forget that if you're looking for a particular book or pattern, let me know. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!