The poor quilter or what happened on Day Two of the retreat

I know—I said NEVER, and will likely be saddled with fleece and flannel forever!!! But more progress in that department in a minute. 

As I surveyed what I'm working on at this retreat, the title for the blog came to mind. By poor, I mean someone with not much of a budget. I finished cutting all the fleece into usable bits. A job that most people would have just said no to and tossed the fleece. I get enjoyment from it. 

Then this happened. 

I had to hand-stitch the facing around the collar of this jacket that I made last year. I decided to stitch that facing all the way down from the front left hem to the front right hem, and that got done. This job has been sitting at home for a long time, and I was "forced" to do it here. 

The facing is hand-stitched in place.

All that remains to finish this jacket is the closure, and I've decided to use snaps. To put the snaps on it, I've decided to buy a table press, which is those large machines that make it easy to add snaps, rivets, etc. When I'm back, or even today, I should take care of that order. 

Then I was looking through the Country Registry to see if anything was exciting in it. There are always some good nuggets in it, and of course, it gives you access to all the local quilt shops. If you wanted to do an "old-fashioned" road trip in your province, this would be a great thing to get your hands on. 

Anyway, I spotted this comic, and it sounds appropriate. I have a pair of shorts to fix for DH, and sadly, they've been sitting on the table for a while. I left them at home, but I'd better dig them out as soon as I get home. On one of my walks with the girls, I figured out how to fix them!

Does this sound familiar?

The elbow on DH's favorite dress shirt wore through, and he asked me to repair it. Well, I can, but you won't ever wear this in person. He could wear it on Zoom. Then, before I could actually investigate the repair job, he asked that I turn it into a short-sleeved shirt. So I ripped the cuffs off yesterday. 

Removing the cuffs from a dress shirt

That was quite the job because all the topstitching was tiny, but all I needed was one loose stitch, and I was away to the races. I am going to put a cuff on the sleeve, and I'll use the dark fabric on the inside of the cuffs to make that happen. So I had to harvest those dark blue pieces. 

There are multiple buttonholes in this shirt because it is designed for cufflinks, not buttons. 

The shirt cuffs are removed.

Then my next job was to remove a few more raindrops from the Prince-themed Cherrywood Challenge. By the way, the next theme will be announced on June 10th. I will see what it is, but then I'll say, "That's nice," and let it go. I will not buy it again -- it's just become too expensive. But I like a good challenge, so I'm going to follow my poor quilter rules and make a challenge, but likely something from scraps? 

My Prince-themed Cherrywood Challenge

It's a nasty job, but doable. I have a new plan for the raindrops, and I'm excited to see the new design. It's a bit tedious, so I've decided to remove at least five raindrops a day, and within a week or so, I should be done and ready to redo them. OK -- maybe two weeks! The umbrella and the heart will stay in place. Each raindrop is satin-stitched and then fused to the background, but as you can see in the bottom-right corner, I've removed all the fused pieces without damaging the background or the raindrops. They can be reused!

What has been removed so far!

I know -- many of you would let that one die in a corner, but I absolutely love rescuing things. WAIT—I do NOT need to rescue your stuff. As you can see, I have plenty of my own things to rescue. But thanks for the offer. 

So these seven raindrops were removed before I shut that project down last night. 

Seven more raindrops are removed.

And this is what it looks like this morning. When you have a nasty or boring job, make sure to do it with a good movie, good company, or break it up into bits so you don't get fed up and never touch it again! OH MY GOD --- can you believe what song is currently playing on the radio? Purple Rain -- I kid you not!!!!! What a coincidence, and if I were a spiritual person, I'd say that a sign from up above to keep on trucking with this project!!! What a strange coincidence!!!!

More raindrops are gone.

Then I decided to work on assembling some quilt tops today. I took the bins of fleece to the car to free up some room, and I took an evaluation of what remains in my five bags, one of which is my knitting. I found not one, not two, but THREE bags of squares that are ready to assemble into quilt tops. That should be a no-brainer task for today. 

Before going to bed, I laid out the squares on the design wall. Yep -- I could spend hours rearranging the squares, but this arrangement looks good to me. 

My scrap quilt

These are bits of flannel scraps that I pieced into 6 1/2" blocks at another retreat. They are easy to sew together at a retreat, so they were placed in the retreat project bag. This morning I sewed the first two rows together and will work on the rest after my walk, and I hope to have it done by lunchtime. Then the next one (also flannel scraps) will be put on the wall. 

It seems there are a few jigsaw puzzlers amongst us, and I broke out the puzzle I brought. We set up a 7th table in the sewing room, and as people pass by, they drop in a piece or two. See how I'm sharing!!!! 

Project on the jigsaw puzzle

Remember the wrap we talked about yesterday? One of the ladies had to go to the dollar store, and she found this in four colors. 

Wrap in four colors

The only thing we thought of after she bought the colored ones was whether the color would migrate to the thread. So now you are warned, as are we!!! We don't know—we are just asking the question. 

We did take a trip out in the morning, and I needed some cash. Can you imagine where this ATM is located?

The conveniently located ATM

That would be in a QUILT STORE. Namely, Creekbank Sewing, which is located 30 minutes away from the retreat house. 

Getting some cash

This quilt shop (A Bernina dealer) is owned and operated by a Mennonite family, and several years ago, they moved the store from a trailer on their farm (actually, I think it was two trailers) to a location just off the main road. It was a wise choice as it was much easier to get to and has much more visibility. 

Well, the owners of this shop are SMART. There is no question about it -- they are smart. The staff are well-trained to upsell, have full product knowledge, know each sample, and are very attentive! Very attentive. I remember once, when we visited the previous location, all of us walked out of the store coveting a Bernina sewing machine. YES --- even me! It was hilarious!"

I can just imagine them getting intensive in-store training on how to do each of the things I mentioned above. If a customer says, "Oh, that won't work for me," I swear they have been trained to show a different side of that class or product. Whoever trains these ladies should be out there teaching other people to sell. They are masters!!!

We all know that if you pay by credit card, the fees the vendor incurs are ridiculous. And many small shops ask that you pay in cash or by debit. They do not have access to debit at this store, BUT they have provided a no-fee ATM, so you can more easily get the cash you need. Seriously??? 

If we can prevent giving any money to the big credit card companies, why not? It sure helps the little guy, and I think some places will charge that fee back to the purchaser. Anyway, I got cash from the machine. As I handed the cash to the lady, I said, "You will probably just put this money back into the machine for the next person!"

They have a wide variety of classes at the store, and there is always something going on. The number of owner classes they hold is obscene. I'm sure there are issues in some areas, but let's say that this store appears to be a well-oiled machine. 

I'll share what I bought at a later date! It's for one of my classes, and I'm not quite ready to share yet. I have one more decision to make, and then I need to figure out dates. I will give you this hint—there is more than one class!!! I miss teaching, and since I'm not teaching much elsewhere, I have total freedom. 

And then last night, I got some emails requesting dates on my calendar for SVP events!!! I must have been so disturbed that I had a dream that I was about to teach a class on Husqvarna Viking Designer Epic 3, and none of the machines had been unboxed, and we were about to start. Now that's a nightmare in my world!!!!

I went for a walk in the morning, and it was glorious. Slow and steady. I stopped to admire two hawks or vultures as they soared on a draft. Amazing to watch. Two of the other retreaters were already out, and we crossed paths at one point. They commented that when I walk, my right arm doesn't move, but my left arm does. NO WAY. But then I paid attention to it as we all continued in our separate ways, and OH MY --- they were right. My right arm does not move when I walk. Holy !!!!! Who knew? So I tried to be conscious about it, and when I stopped thinking about moving my arm, it stopped moving!

I walked to the end of the driveway last night, and somewhere along the line, I got bitten by a bug, and the lump at the back of my neck is gigantic. My body doesn't like bug bites, and I seem to get lumps from them. Dratted bugs!!!!

Hilarious!!!!

I had one of those nights. I tried sleeping in bed, but I got restless legs before I could fall asleep, and I was done. I slept on the couch and surfed the internet for hours before I dozed off. I think a nap is in order later today. Thankfully, that doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's darn right annoying. 

Well, on that happy note, I'm out of here. I have three quilt tops to assemble today and at least five raindrops to remove!!!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!