The dirty dozen (s)

So it was the last official Sit n Sew on Sunday. I had work to complete for a customer - you'll see in a minute, but I also had time to work on something for me.

Here's the deal - I made a list of 12 UFOs that I wanted to complete in 2017. I was silly and actually put thirteen items on the list - a bonus. How thoughtful of myself - NOT! There are still four items left to finish on that list. All of them are piecing (one has some fusible applique), but I don't think any of them would take too long to finish!

Then we have the list for 2018. Originally there were twelve items on that list and there's still six projects to finish.

And if we were to chat about the list for 2019 - oh - there's still ten on that list.

YEP - I'm going to make a new list for 2020. I know - call me silly, but I am making a vow to myself to NOT push these things off again.

I have a goal and that is to complete at least one item (hopefully more) from each of the three lists. Then to set out goals in The Taskmaster to get more completed this year. I've made enormous progress on some of them as they required hand applique or embroidery. So it's not like I've been slacking. I just go slowly.

Why am I telling you this? Because one of the projects I worked on at the Sit n Sew is an item from the 2018 list.

Remember all that applique I did earlier this year? On my Gingerbread quilt???  Well - it's almost together.

The blocks are trimmed, the embroidery ends are tucked in and the top is now in two pieces. I ran out of time this morning to get that last seam stitched. A job for later today.

The gingerbread quilt

This was started in 2007 as a Block of the Month at Jillybeans's in Oakville (long since closed) and over ten years later - it's almost done! The big issue now is borders. A long time ago, I had purchased this striped fabric which I thought would make a great border.

Now that I have the top together and see the fabric with the quilt, I'm not so sure.

Striped fabric for the border

The colors are PERFECT. I'm not sure if it's too busy? Or just not the right feel with all that applique, but I'm not convinced that this is what I should be putting on as the border.

The pattern calls for a plain border of the background fabric and I think I'm liking this better. The problem is that I don't have enough of the background fabrics to make that happen. Although I didn't look through the stash.

Plain border

 I'm sure that if I can't find the exact fabrics, I can find something that'll work. I'm sure any beige/light tan will work. I'm not worried about finding something to match up. Getting this quilt completed (not quilted) will be awesome and I can hardly wait to check it off on my list. BUT that's not going to be my one item on the 2018 list to be completed before the end of the year. OH NO - I have other plans. One of the other projects on the 2018 list is the UFO project I've been working on all year. I'm sick of that quilt and my goal is to get it completed as well.

Now I just need to schedule some days in the calendar that are UFO-related and I-m, good. I just scheduled THREE UFO days between now and the end of the year to get these projects done or at least as many as I can work in. Yeah --  and if those quilts weren't on any list, they wouldn't be on the radar. So the list isn't working quite as well as I wanted, but it's working and I'm sticking to it. My goal for this coming year is to focus on those lists. How will I do that? Through the UFO club which I'll chat about later this week. I might want to take some time today to actually find all those projects!

I told you, I'm so motivated that it hurts. And I'm focused on cleaning up this mess. I've seen huge leaps and bounds this past year so I know it can happen.

What else did I work on? Well - here's the customer project that I did. I have the "best" customers. They want something made, yet they don't want to make it so they ask me to do (for a price of course). Besides quilting quilts, I make labels and attach bindings. This time, I got to make a duvet cover using a quilt top. Yikes!! Nothing like trial by fire!

I started out by quilting the quilt top to a large piece of fabric. We used a quilt backing. That was to protect the seams from the pieced top from fraying. No batting.

The quilted top of the duvet cover. 

Then I trimmed off all the excess backing. The biggest job and thank goodness for the work tables was to trim the back of the duvet to match the front.

Trimming the back of the duvet cover

I pinned the heck out of those two pieces and serged up three sides. It even has loops inside to attach the duvet cover to.

Serging the duvet cover together

The edges on the opening were turned under and the snap tape was meticulously pinned in place and then sewn with the sewing machine.

Sewing the snap tape in place

The snap tape is now in place.

The snap tape is sewn into the duvet cover

There's the final duvet cover. It worked out way better than I imagined. The extra fabric behind the duvet cover provided a LOT of stability. I'm really happy with the project and would do it again and might even find something around here that would work to make one for myself.

The completed duvet cover

I also managed to get a customer quilt quilted. It's delivered.

Customer quilt - DONE

There are three more customer quilts to go this week. A Quilts of Valour quilt as well and then some of my stuff.

I've got almost THREE FULL weeks with NOTHING booked (except two private classes) and the rest of the time is mine to book how I want. It's starting to get filled with things for me. Like today is a clean-up day. A day that I am NOT allowed to reschedule. So far, I've been doing great with that aspect of it. I don't think I'll get to the office today as I still have a few things in the basement that need to be taken care of. It's all good. OH - I just booked a cleanup day for the office. No excuses now. I can't put it off any longer!

Even though today is a cleanup day, I have some paperwork to clean up so I guess that fits in the theme of the day.

Before I go, I will say that our monitored smoke detector works just fine. DH was merrily cooking something at extremely high heat (don't go there) and was standing right there as the meat (not for me) is merrily smoking away. Why???  I've no idea. Anyway - our standard smoke detector went off and then the monitored one went off. That's the one we have to pay attention to because the voice at the other end was prepared to send a fire truck. NO - we don't need a fire truck, but thank you for being there!!!

I should have taken a picture of that monitor when it was BRIGHT RED because of the triggered alarm. Or Murphy who was perched upon the ottoman (where she's not supposed to be) or Lexi cowering in her house because they were freaking out. All is good!

The fire alarm monitor

 In the event, I do tackle the office today or part of it, I took some "before" pictures. What a mess!

On that note, I'm out of here to hit that paperwork!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!

Sit and Sew aftermath

Oh boy - what a day! I just love our Sit n Sew days and wouldn't trade them for the world. There were ten of us toiling away and boy  - did we get work done! I'm so happy with what I accomplished - well - wait for it.

Diane arrived nice and early and we got to work putting the mitered border on her HUGE quilt. The top is done and I noticed that the quilt (and the backing) stayed behind to be quilted by me! That's OK - we'd already made that arrangement.

Then she got to work on finishing this small table runner. It's now quilted and bound! Yeah!!!

Diane's table runner in the quilting process

Claudette was working on wee tiny pieces! Lots of them, but the finished project is going to be so worth it.

Tiny reindeer hooves

This is the pattern that she was working on - it's called Glee by Happy Hollow Designs. Very cute!

Claudette's table runner

Linda is doing handwork these days. I LOVE all her prepped hexies. It's so fun that an entire project can fit into this little box.

The hexie box

She's making the traditional English paper pieced flower. Well isn't that traditional? It's the most common I suppose.  A variation of the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.

Making flowers with English paper piecing

Did you see how excellent those clips are for keeping things sorted? They are a very useful tool to have in your sewing kit whether you're English paper piecing or not.

And what is she doing with the flowers?? They're being appliqued (by hand?) to a background.

The flowers are then appliqued to a background

Pauline was also busy with hand stitching. She got the binding hand stitched on two more placemats. They will make a lovely addition to the dinner table over the holidays.

Pauline's placemat - DONE

She also cut out this project. It's a free download and you can find the pattern here. Thanks for the link, Pauline!

The fabric has been cut for this quilt and is ready to sew

Ruth was also finishing up a table runner. She quilted this (it's from a class from a couple of years ago). It's hard to see the quilting in the picture, but I love the style of quilting she did in the white parts. Nicely done Ruth!! And even did some free motion quilting. No fear!! The binding is now on and she's hand stitching it in place.

Ruth's table runner

Sharon was working on the blocks from the July Shop Hop. I think these were the blocks from this past year. The color scheme was blue and white. I'm not sure how many blocks she got done - I wasn't paying attention. But progress is being made. By the way - can you believe that Sharon has only THREE UFOs?? Three??? She has kits and other things to make, but as for UFOs, there are only three! That's partly because of our UFO club this past year. More on that very soon, but not today!

Sharon's blocks from the July Shop Hop

Elaine was also working on the blocks from the July Shop Hop and she got two of them done yesterday. I think she must be almost finished by now. I LOVE that curling rock.

Elaine's July Shop Hop blocks

Helen Anne was finishing up this piece that she started in a week-long class with Jane Sassaman. Jealous!!!!!  The piece is gorgeous. Designed and created by Helen Anne. I LOVE the organic look to the piece. It's brilliant!!!

Helen Anne's piece influenced by a Jane Sassaman class

She worked on something else which I'll share with you in one second.

Oh, shoot - I forgot about Liz. I was going to take a picture of what she was working on and then we decided to wait and then I forgot. Well, she's back on Sunday. I'll get the picture then.

So what did I work on?? I started with this. Do you know what they are? They are witches' legs of course. This is a UFO from years and years ago. It's on my Dirty Dozen list for 2019. I've carried it to numerous retreats and never got it done. TODAY is the day. No more procrastinating.

Making the witches' legs

  I knew there was one block to be completed, hence the reason I had to make one more set of witches' legs. They were cut out - just needed to be sewn. Then I realized that I had one extra block. Why??? No idea. I also had to finish the block with the moon in the top middle. I'm happy to report that the quilt top is DONE!!!!  All witches have the appropriate body parts, the border is on and it's done!!! The pattern is called "If The Hat Fits" in a book called Frightfully Crazy by The Buggy Barn. 

Pattern by The Buggy Barn

 So what happened to the lone block?? I had some scraps of fabric left from the Fat Quarters used to cut out the witches. The pieces were literally the perfect size (well almost) to put borders on the extra block, but only if they were offset like they are in the photo. Works for me!!! So the second "top" is also done. That was a bonus - I don't get points for that one!

A small witch wall hanging

Hmm - what do I have for backing? Oh - I've got the PERFECT backing for these two projects. Do you see what I see?? There are tiny witches on this green print.

Witches on a green print

That backing couldn't have been more perfect. So now the backing is made for both. And guess what? The bias bindings are also made for both of the pieces.

The bindings and the backing are DONE

So here are two more projects that got moved to the "to be quilted" pile this morning.

Ready to be moved to the "to be quilted" pile

Speaking of quilting, I've had an unusual request. Make a duvet cover for a customer using a quilt top. Hmmm - the seams were NOT serged on the quilt top so that presents a problem. That was fixed by quilting the quilt top to a piece of fabric that'll act as a lining to prevent fraying. It was very weird to not have batting between the layers, but it worked out just fine.

Quilting with NO batting

The top of the duvet cover is now completed. The next job will be to lay it out and trim the top and the backing so they are the same size. Then it gets serged together. I'm using snap tape to close it up and then it'll be done! All in a day's work!

The top of the duvet cover is done

(Check out the rest of the duvet construction at this link)

We all got a nice Christmas present from Pauline! Don't you just love these reusable bags? I love the saying and the bag is not too big. Perfect for carrying stuff to class. Thanks, Pauline!!  Greatly appreciated. It's now stored in my bag closet where it's easy for me to get a bag when I need one. There will be no placing things on a flat surface for a rainy day. Nope - it's get hung up in its own space! It's so easy to find an appropriate bag when I need one! Now to get the rest of the house in the same shape. It's happening!!!

Reusable bag

 So what else was Helen Anne working on? She finished this quilt top. It's one of those from our Community Projects quilt kits that we made a couple of months ago. We just made up the pattern and Helen Anne changed it a wee bit more! But I LOVE it!!!!  I see a couple more things I'd like to do with this. Perhaps we can write a pattern. That's in the cards - just need some time!!!!

Helen Anne's quilt top for the Community Projects 

 Speaking of that, once the ladies were gone yesterday, it was time to rejig the room and get ready so that six of us can work on Community Project quilts today.

Ready to work on Community Project quilts

I've got two sewing machines set up. One to sew bindings on three quilts. One to make binding and I'll add a serger later so we can make quilt backings. I've laid out all the quilt tops that we've received since our last Community Project kit making day (two months ago). NINETEEN quilts need binding or backings. Yikes - it's going to be a busy day!!!

The tub in the foreground is the start of our search for backings, but someone else gets the fun task of sorting through these four giant tubs to label all the fleece and Minky pieces so that they can be used for backings as well. Some of it, I'll keep - like the Minky, but everything else is up for grabs today. Once all those pieces are labeled with the size, it'll be a snap to match up a top with a backing.

Tubs to sort through for backing

And if we get all those tops assigned a backing and there's time left, we'll start making kits for the next round. I think the kit tub still has five kits in it and I pulled some fabrics that are partially sorted into kits and hopefully we can get some of those done today. My goal??  Make twenty more kits? I'm not sure that possible, but why not?

Then we're going to have fun because the next Community Project sewing day (on January 17th) will be all about sewing up string blocks. There are TONS and TONS of strings cut that need to be sewn into blocks. So if anyone wants to come and join us that day - you're welcome! All you need is a sewing machine. No need for super-accurate seams - the string blocks are easy and very forgiving. And the other option is improv blocks. Those are fun as well and no need to be super accurate. So if you want a fun day - we can accommodate ten sewists - let me know.

Phew - it was another 10,000 + step day and I didn't even go for a walk other than walking the dogs!

I've got everything set out (on my crowded little sewing station for the Sunday Sit n Sew) and I can't wait! These sew days get me so motivated which is good. That motivation needs to last until the end of the year. There is still ONE for this coming Sunday for Sit n Sew if anyone is interested. You can work on your own project. Loads of fun!!! And cheap!

On that note, I'm out of here!

Have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!