Focus focus focus

 Oh my gosh!!!!  A totally random question, but a good one. Who will play the duck? Thanks to someone for posting that on the blog yesterday. If you know what that means - well, then you are a fan of Louise Penny. I bet some ducks have agents! 

WOW -- yesterday was another amazing day. OK -- in the sleep department, it wasn't amazing, but who cares -- naps are always good! OK --  why won't my Fitbit sync this morning? I'll figure it out later. 

I had a super productive day, and then we had the Virtual Retreat from 6 - 9 PM. My friends never disappoint me. They kept me entertained, and I got loads done!!! Let's check it out. 

I started the morning with this. The cutting table was piled high with stuff, and well, I need to get it organized. A lot of this has been sitting on the floor, and I've been walking over it as I walked to the embroidery machine. Time to tidy up!

The cutting table is a mess

And a few extra things are sitting on the left side of the cutting table. I did clean a wee bit of this up, but not too much. Not yet. Its time will come soon. 

More boxes of stuff on the floor

Well, well, look what I found. FIVE more of those tiny pinwheels. This is why one must clean up regularly. You never know what you're going to find. That will give me 82 pinwheels and two half-square triangles left over. Good thing I didn't plan a project yet!

Five more pinwheels

Here are three quilt tops that my MIL sewed together for the community projects. Two of them are string blocks made at some point, and the other one is made from some velvet squares that I had from somewhere. Those quilts, plus the ones that Diane and Rose made, are now tucked into the storage room, and I'll be searching for backings in a bit. Yikes -- so many quilts to quilt!

More quilt tops for the community projects

Speaking of quilting quilts, I got this GIANT customer quilt done yesterday. I'll try to get it trimmed today and load the next one on to quilt it tomorrow. 

Customer quilt - DONE

Yep -- I've started on the customer quilts for September and taking orders for late October/November. If you want something done by Christmas, I'd suggest you book a slot soon. Time goes by quickly, and it seems that many of my customers drop more tops off when they pick up! I love them for that, but the slots fill quickly since it's only one of my freelance jobs. 

Then it was over to the embroidery machine, where I was determined to get those fiddly embellishments done for the Kimberbell quilt. I mean fiddly -- this one involved a water-soluble stabilizer, two layers of tulle, and mylar!

Layers of material to embroider

But look -- the balloons are done. 

Embroidered Mylar balloons

This is the quilt that I'm working on -- Hello Sunshine by Kimberbell. The quilt top is done. 

The pattern for Hello Sunshine

As is the binding and the backing. 

The backing and the binding for Hello Sunshine

And now, all the embellishments are also done. Some of these are still slightly damp - they had to be dunked in water to dissolve the stabilizer. 

The 3-D embellishments

The only thing left is to finish the hand stitching on the green strips, which will be ruched for the rind of the watermelon. I think I'll get the hand stitching done today, and then they will all get put into a bag and stored with the quilt as it gets moved to the "to be quilted" pile. 

And that leaves an EMPTY project box. 

Empty project box

It's still empty, but I'm sure I'll find something on the current project table that can get slotted in there. 

But that wasn't all that happened. All that happened BEFORE the Virtual Retreat. I was going to stitch another four of the leaf blocks during the retreat, but then I thought -- the machine is set up, you've got people to entertain me, and so I plunged on and did all eight of the remaining blocks. 

Eight more leaves - DONE

And that means that all 18 of the maple leaf blocks are DONE. Completely stitched. Oh my goodness, I was jumping up and down (OK - in my head). This is HUGE. This is one of the two projects I chose for my UFO this month. I've done some work on the other project, which won't take long to finish up. Two weeks in advance of the deadline. Who am I??

The 18 leaves for my UFO project - DONE

Now I'm thinking of what to add as a goal for the UFO for next month. I can do a stretch goal, and I will. Perhaps I'll pick two blocks from the quilt and complete them? I want that quilt done by the end of the year, so I may have to do more than two. 

And I emptied two more bobbins! Someone asked what I do with these bobbins. I toss them. These are the bobbins from the pre-wounds. They technically are NOT made to be reused. I know - that sounds wasteful. You might reuse them, but I have so many bobbins for my machines, so I toss them. 

Two more empty bobbins

In case you think I cheated and used the same bobbins as yesterday, I did NOT. In total, the work from the weekend used up FIVE bobbins. Now not all of these were complete. Some of them were partially used. They may not be appropriate for the embroidery machine (close to the end), but you'd be surprised how long a pre-wound bobbin will last after the "empty bobbin" message comes up on the screen. 

Five pre-wound bobbins are gone!

WOW!!!!  I'm so impressed at what I can do when I focus. Yes -- I went for my walks with the girls and then another one in the afternoon. Hey -- I took the long way to the mall and went to Wal-Mart. I haven't been there in a long, long time. I had a peek at the magazines but resisted buying any. And I've had a hankering for one of those darn pumpkin spice muffins. I know -- Anyway -- I walked past not one, not two, but THREE Tim's on that walk, and even though I had money and a mask, I did NOT cave!  I came home mufflinless, and that's probably a good thing. They are laden with calories that I don't need. 

My disrupted sleep resulted in getting a lot of paperwork done! That is good. Maybe I need to do that more often? NO -- I like my sleep. 

It appears that I've been lax on setting up the clubs for the fall. I'll post more details on that tomorrow. We have EQ8, Embroidery (including Kimberbell), or they might be two different ones. 

Today is also a Virtual Retreat sewing day. The weather is crappy - rain, cool, and clouds, so it's a perfect day to sew. Here's the link. Remember, it's also part of our Monday sewing day, so we have show and tell at 11 AM. I always include an unusual sewing machine in our presentation. Wait until you see what I found! 

Here's the link.

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85132911786?pwd=T3EyMjh2UnJndUZ3eG1ld0lEdHAyZz09 Meeting ID: 851 3291 1786 Passcode: 073041

Start time: 10 AM!!!!!!!  Goes until at least 8 PM tonight. 

And that's a wrap for today!!!

Have a super day!

Ciao!!!!