Time to sew!

Super day alert!!! I accomplished a lot yesterday! OK -- not everything I should be working on, but that's OK - all progress is good!  

I tried printing something, and of course, my printer wouldn't work. So I'm going to attempt that again today! I swear, there are days when technology crashes on me, just to keep me humble! 

I am determined to NOT let any of those year-long classes become a UFO so let's see what happened. One of the projects is done, which you'll see when I post the show and tell. But one down, four more to go. 

OH -- rather than switch the order of the pictures, here's what I have to share today. I noticed that the heavy equipment had been removed from the stormwater pond near my house. When Lexi and I crossed the street to have a look, not only were they gone, but there was water back in it. We spotted a large flock of Canada Geese enjoying themselves!! Astounding where all this water comes from. I suspect it is fed from a stream or something as we haven't had a lot of rainfall since they finished working there. 

The stormwater pond

I opened the package that I had received on Friday. Yep -- there are the new leaders for the long arm and a few other small things. 

New leaders for the long arm

Do I need new leaders?? You bet! Somewhere along the line, I managed to rip this big hole in one of them. How? I use a curtain rod to keep the clamps in the UP position, and one day, it somehow ripped the canvas leader. I never even heard it tear - I must have had my headphones on that day! 

 A rip in the leaders

You see, I'm a pinner, and I have some weak spots along the edges of the leaders, so there are weak spots along the edges. Once the new leaders are installed, I will start using my leader grips instead of pinning. Then it will be imperative that I get extra fabric to work with for the backing (almost everyone is very good with this) because if not, I have to add some waste cloth to their quilt backing, and I won't be happy about that! 

Holes from pinning

OH -- for something different, I stopped by the mall on my afternoon walk. I had a couple of errands to get done. Christmas is coming! There's Santa's chair, and that tree is HUGE. Gosh -- I remember when the center of this mall used to be a mini-golf course, and then there were stores, and now it's this vast open area. It's actually quite pretty!

Christmas display in the mall

And here is the quilt I worked on yesterday. Yep ---a huge one, and I hope to get it trimmed later today. 

Customer quilt - DONE

OK -- so then I turned on the sewing machine to see how much I could accomplish. Keep in mind that I'm listening to a thriller - a LONG thriller at 19 hours. It's a pretty disturbing topic and graphic, so I'm not recommending it to anyone. Last night, just as I was trying to finish the chapter, the headphones died! NOOOOOOOO!!!!  So I got my earbuds so I could finish the chapter. I now have 2 hours left to go, so I should finish the book today!! 

It's so disturbing that I want to kill the villain! And make that a slow death!

Now, let's look at the sewing! Here is my barn block for the quilt along at Thimbles and Things. 

Barn block for the sew-along

And I had to lay out my blocks to see what they looked like together. I'm going to use an on-point setting for my blocks. I can see some blocks that I won't use. I don't like the way they appear in this photo. Thankfully, I'll be making more than I need and so I can audition the ones I want to keep. 

All my barn blocks to date

I'm not sure if I posted this, but it's the first set of blocks for the Wanderers Wife quilt, which we just started at Thimbles and Things. 

Block set number one for Wanderers Wife

And I finally finished the set of blocks for this month for Boho Heart. Most of those blocks were done, but a couple hadn't been completed. Now they are done! I'm up-to-date. The next class isn't for two weeks, so I've got some time to get ready for that. But the weeks are super busy, so I'd better get started! 

First block set for Boho Heart

The quilt that I'm struggling with the most is Urbanologie that is taking place at Oh Look Fabric! 

I was using a pack of 10" squares, and I was running out of some fabrics. I did NOT like this pear, but that's all I could do. Then Diane let me pick through some of her Tula Pink scraps. 

The two-color pear

OH -- I found enough of that same fabric that I could fix the pear. So I did that yesterday. The rectangles were cut, but not the curved cuts - so I braved that process, and it all fit nicely together. I like it much better now. 

The pear after it was fixed!

Then since I was on a roll and trying to listen to as much of that book as I could, I forged ahead with the arrow block. We had to make SIX arrows. I had started them but made a mistake in the trimming process, so they sat for months. 

All the new pieces got cut last night, and since I was still engrossed in that darn audiobook, I kept going. The hard part is done! The units are trimmed and ready to sew together later today. 

Components for the arrow blocks

We had to make two pineapple blocks. One of my blocks was done, and the other block was partially cut. Now it's cut and ready to sew together. I'll have to do some trimming on this one, but that's OK. 

The pineapple block is ready to sew together

That leaves the large feathers. We had to make FIVE of them. I've done one. So hopefully, I can get caught up on all those blocks later today or at least during the coming week. 

The bits for the feather blocks

One border needs to be on a quilt by next Sunday morning and some random blocks. It will be a busy week as I still have serger samples that I'm working on! 

For the first time, I decided to lay out all the blocks for the Urbanologie quilt. Yes -- it's very scrappy, but I had no choice because of the 10" squares that I started with. This was NOT the type of quilt to use 10" squares. Live and learn! I thought I would remake some of the blocks, but I'm not going to. This is the way it is. It'll be a good reminder of how I like scrappy, but not necessarily like this. It's not bad, and once it's all together, it'll look a whole lot better. The blocks are all random things, so it fits that the color is also totally random!

Urbanologie quilt so far

Here is my current pile of stuff to sew. It's under control, and I hope by the end of the day that a lot of that will be gone! 

Stack of current sewing projects

Five quilt classes will be ending at the end of November. Then I have the month of December to ramp up for the five new ones starting in January. I know I keep saying that I'll share them with you, but I also need time to process the sign-ups, which will happen this week. 

I've just had loads of other things to put my mind to! When I put my mind to something, I can get it done! 

The way I write is I spew out a bunch of stuff. Then I go back and refine it. Then I go back and edit it and check the grammar. I'm in the last stage of that for one overdue document! I've still got more writing to do, although I did get some accomplished yesterday. 

Anyway -- it was a glorious day yesterday, and today is going to be even nicer! I'll be out for a long walk in the afternoon. Making sure that I do my stretching every night is making me much more comfortable on the walks! If I don't stretch, I'm not happy. If I stretch, I can conquer the world. Will I stretch? You bet!!!

On that note, I'm out of here because the girls are waiting!!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!