Wildlife sightings

It was a glorious day yesterday! I accomplished a lot, saw a lot, and well - just a great day!!

Often, when I go for a walk, I take my phone. Not because of the social media, which I'm hardly on these days, and I don't miss it a single bit, not because someone might text me or call me - I rarely get messages, unless it's from M who wants to know what's happening with Little Bear. Nope - I take my phone because it has a fantastic camera on it.

I stopped to take a picture of this beautiful flowering bush on my neighbor's driveway. Well, imagine my surprise when the flower I chose to take a picture of had this inside. That doesn't look like a bumblebee, but it doesn't look like a wasp. I'm not sure what it is. But I got this great photo of it.

A visitor in the center of this pink flower

At lunchtime, I went outside to look at the pond. The fish go crazy whenever I come near the edge of the pond, so I was trying to sneak around and WHOA - what's this in the middle of the pond???  A frog. Now I'm not sure what kind of a frog that is (is it a toad?). Anyway, he was sunning himself on the lily pads and quite enjoying himself. I was wondering if there was a frog in the pond as I thought I heard him the other night. Where did he come from?

A front in the pond

And then to top it off, I saw these two critters running away when I went outside. Where the heck did those geckos come from??

The geckos running away

OK -- the geckos are fake. I'll tell you about them in a minute.

I had a phone call to deal with, so I did miss part of the Monday sewing. I've decided that I have enough handwork to do that I'm going to do that during the Monday sewing session - just like when we met in person. I added a few more things to this pile, as I might as well get it all in one place. And it's incredible what you can do in four hours of dedicated sitdown time.

My HUGE basket of handwork

The first thing I did was to sew the sleeve on my Dream Big panel. The darn sleeve was made weeks ago, and it never got stitched in place. The Dream Big panel is pinned to the design wall as part of my film set. Now, if I want to actually hang it up, I can do that.

Then it was off to remove more papers from those string-pieced green 60-degree triangles. I still have a few to go, but I was happy with my progress. Remember that I used the pages from a Yellow Pages book as the foundation, so all that paper has to be taken out. And I found that it's better to remove it BEFORE sewing the units together.

Removing the paper from string pieced blocks

Little Bear thought it would be great fun to help me take the papers out of the garbage once I had put them in. He's a garbage picker and loves to play in the trash.

Little Bear removed some of the papers from the garbage

OK -- back to those geckos. These darn things have been sitting around for MONTHS. One needed to be stuffed (well, it needed to be finished being stuffed), and the other one just needed to sewn shut. I finished stuffing the one during the Monday call.

The geckos that needed to be finished

 Then I had to find some matching threads and put the zipper foot on the Designer EPIC 2. It's a bit of a hassle to sew that seam, but with all the space and the piecing power on this sewing machine, it wasn't an issue.

Sewing the geckos closed

And then they were off to play!

The geckos at play near the pond

I think they wanted to jump in and play with the fish, but I held them back!!!

I had to move this box from the bottom of the stairs. That white blob makes me think that Little Bear is sitting in the green box. In fact, that's my knitting bag!! Since those two items at the bottom of the stairs are handwork, they did get moved over to the laundry basket that houses the rest of the handwork.

That is my knitting bag, NOT Little Bear

Oh, here's my handwork basket again before I moved those two things over. Let's just say that there is a LOT of handwork to be done. I'm on a tear - let's get this stuff done. I want to have "new" stuff hanging out in the studio. I'm tired of looking at this old stuff!

The handwork basket

OK -- so then it was time to hit the sewing machine. I got the last two pieces of the border on Easy Street. Yeah!!! That's been hanging around for a LONG, LONG time, but now the top is done.

The Easy Street quilt top is done

I cut TEN strips for the binding, and that's made.

The binding for EAsy Street

Remember, that Easy Street was a mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter from several years ago.

Time to make the backing. WAIT A MINUTE! Thankfully, I realized that a corner was cut out of this hunk of fabric before I started to cut the backing. I started from the other end, and this is what I had leftover. Now that labeling system works like a charm!! Did you get all your yardage labeled yesterday? You should - it saves loads of time.

The leftover from the yardage for the backing

Easy Street ready to be quilted

And I'm happy to report that Easy Street is now in the "to be quilted" pile. Yes - one more UFO has been completed!! This is not only a UFO for this month, but it was on the UFO list for 2019. One more bites the dust!!!  It's exhilarating to be making progress like this.

As for my UFO lists for The Task Master, there is one project left on the 2017 list, and it's on my target to get that done later this week. There are still four on the list for 2018. One will become my working UFO for September, and one requires some handwork. It's being prepped so I can work on it during the Monday calls. The other two will likely get rolled over to next year.

There are still 8 on the list for 2019. I'm working on one of the projects, and I hope to have it done for the UFO club meeting in a couple of weeks. I'll grab one or two of the remaining ones and see what I can get done by the end of the year. Some of those will for sure get rolled over to next year.

And there are still 11 on the list for 2020. I'm currently working on two of those and hope to finish one or two more before the end of the year. That's a total of 24 that still need to be completed. Now I could be a total pessimist when I see that number and feel like I'm getting nowhere, but NO - I look at it like this - there were a total of 48 (actually more because of the duplicates of some of the quilts on the 2017 list). That means I'm half done what I started out to do. That's HUGE, as some of these UFOS are very complex. Oh yes - I'm going to get those darn UFOs done! I WILL do it.

After I finished that, it was time to get to work on those community project quilts that need to be bound. I made contact with the Project Linus person who lives very close to me. Yahoo!!!  She will take EVERYTHING. So I want to get all the quilts bound so they can all be dropped off and the Quilts of Valour contact is not far either so I'll make one delivery! I need to get busy!!!

I had several bindings to make, so I used the laser guidance system on the Designer EPIC 2 to join those bindings. It worked like a charm—no need to mark and pin like I always did in the past.

Using the laser guidance system

Here's the stack of quilts still be to be bound. It's much smaller than it was!

Quilts to be bound!

I thought I'd share with you where I put those bobbins that I wound so I would know when to change the needle and clean the machine.

Two spools of thread

And here is a great place to store the bobbins. Actually, I should put them under the cone of grey thread!

Storage space for my five bobbins

I've already gone through one bobbin. I told you, I'm on a roll.

Three bobbins to go

I was busy sewing binding all afternoon, and I needed a small ruler and scissors to help with the final join. AHA - I have a drawer in that new Singer Ironing and Crafting station. So I put my ruler and scissors in the drawer, so they were handy!!! What a smart idea.

The drawer in the Singer Ironing and Crafting Station

And I LOVE this iron - a single touch to shut it off, a single touch to wake it up (at the same temperature as it was when it went to sleep), musical tones to get it to the right temperature, and no hassle with the steam buttons. I'm in heaven!!! I didn't realize how much I hated that orange iron I was using. This one is a dream to use.

The Singer SteamLogic Steam Iron

So here's the binding situation - I got the binding sewn to the back of this quilt for Quilts of Valour.

The binding is sewn to the back of the quilt

The binding is sewn to the back of this quilt for Project Linus.

A Project Linus quilt with the binding sewn to the back

I love having all that space to work. It's amazing!!! And great lighting as well.

Sewing on the binding

I had to make the binding for the quilt that I'm working on above. That leaves ONE more binding to make. Three quilts need the binding sewn onto the front and three quilts that I need to sew the binding on both sides. Yes - I'm making progress, and I hope to get them all finished TODAY. I have to start the prep for my new presentation tomorrow night, but it won't be nearly as bad as it was last week since most of the technology is set up. I'm going to add one more tech component each week. No one will notice the difference, but I hope it helps me when switching from camera to camera. 

One more binding is made

This was the sky last night! A bit of lightning, and it was MUCH darker than it appears in the photo.

The night sky

 And there's the little helper. He just loves to find a bag to plop his little butt in.

Little Bear hiding in a bag

Phew - that was a crazy day, but I'm motivated, and I want some of this stuff cleaned up! It's happening, and I'm thrilled.

I hope you're getting some stuff done. The best advice? Pick ONE thing that's been bugging you and just get it done. For me, it was the geckos! It took less than one hour to get them done. You can do it!!

Don't forget that there's a virtual retreat this weekend. I'll post the link for Saturday on tomorrow's blog. That's Saturday, August 22nd, and Sunday, August 23rd. The retreat starts at 9 AM EST and runs until 8 PM. It's going to be loads of fun, and I've got to get some stuff organized. Stop by and say hi or stay for a while and sew.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!

What happened in the office?

WOW -- I'm almost speechless at what is happening in the world. Yesterday, it seemed that every minute there was a new development - a closure, a cancellation, reduced hours, services shut down. It was getting to the point that I was afraid to check e-mail. However, it's all for a good cause - we need to get a handle on flattening the curve and many companies have stepped up to the plate to make that happen. Individuals have done the same. My gym is closed! ACK!!!!  But walking outdoors is still an option and even though the weather is yucky this morning, we'll be out there.

I'm sure we're going to see many more changes occur today. We do NOT need to panic!

Now don't get me wrong when I say that I'm so excited I can hardly sleep. Matter of fact, I was sitting at the kitchen table last night until about 9 PM which is VERY unusual for me. Normally I don't sit at the kitchen table after dinner and never that late. However, I was going through another box of stuff in the office. I know!!!  This is GOING TO HAPPEN.

I'll share what I found tomorrow as I have a bunch of other stuff to share with you this morning. I did a wee bit of tidying in the office and look at my computer desk.

My computer desk

There's actually a place to work. What a novel idea that is!!!  I packed all the stuff from the desk into a box and that's what I get to deal with today. I'm psyched about this and even though I have a lot of work to do (since I mostly work from home anyway), I feel like I have a bunch of extra time. I'm going to make good use of all that extra time.

One more box of office paperwork

Even though I've mostly just shifted some stuff in the office, it actually feels "cleaner". This is going to be great!! Enough whining!! I'm sure all of you are breathing a sigh of relief about that! Let's keep the momentum going. And how about all of you? Is there a space in your house that you could tackle?? Even pick something small - the junk drawer in the kitchen. The sock drawer in the bedroom. Pick something and get it tidied up!

A very small group of us met for Monday sewing. It is now canceled for the next couple of weeks, but it was very therapeutic for us. We discussed all the details of the current situation and many other things in great detail. I'm glad I went and I don't feel that we were being irresponsible in attending. None of us have any health issues that would put us in a high-risk category.

So for the next two weeks, there is absolutely NOTHING on my calendar. OH wait - I'm lying. There is a conference call this Friday, but that's allowed!

I have something very exciting to share with you. I was going to use my metal rods to stuff this gecko last Monday. But then I remembered that I had two stuffing forks so I decided to wait. OH BOY - I'm so glad that I did. They are strong (two different sizes) and they have a small prong at the end. Stuffing those toes was a piece of cake. So if you're into doll making or any kind of detail stuffing work, you MUST buy these stuffing forks. They are sold through this website by Barbara Willis.

Stuffing forks

On my way home, I HAD to stop by the pet store to get dog food. I had emptied Miss Murphy's bag of food in the morning. Oh yes - people have been hoarding dog food as well. The kind I normally buy is out of stock. They did check the delivery for later this week. They are getting THREE bags of that kind. I simply bought another type. She doesn't care what she eats as long as she eats!!! People - will your dog eat more because of the virus??

The dog food aisles are pretty bare

When I did get home, I went for a walk. There were a few things I needed at the grocery store so we walked there with my trusty backpack. That's definitely one way to not hoard - if you have to carry everything home!!!

The meat section was pretty much decimated! There was a bit of pork in another aisle.

The meat aisle is empty

Oh wait - they did have packs of hamburger in another aisle. I notice the packages are large and look at that sign which was in MANY spots around the store. I think that's shameful that a sign like that even needs to be posted. Our infrastructure is NOT in danger.

Don't be greedy!!!

The bread aisle was pretty much empty as well. I didn't even check the TP aisle. BUT I don't eat bread so I didn't care. I like the Ryvita crispbread and the shelf was FULLY stocked with those. My favorite one is the Muesli Crunch. With a bit of cheese, they make a great lunch. Try them out - they are delicious!! Especially the Muesli Crunch.

The Ryvita section

And if you wanted bananas, there were loads of bananas. That's about double what they normally stock.

Lots of bananas

The price of gas is very low and it's going even lower tonight. Shoot - I thought I was doing great when I filled up at 96 cents a liter. I'm not even going anywhere to use up the full tank of gas so I could take advantage of the even lower price. I could just drive around for the fun of it. No - I don't think so.

Gas price is low

Now to the quilting stuff. I'm so excited about the next couple of weeks. I do have some work that has to be done and I have a couple of quilts that I'm working on, but I also want to make a quilt during this time to remember that I did take some time to have fun during the shutdown.

I dug out my TWO shoeboxes of orange scraps. I have several ideas swirling in my head and I might add a bit of white to this as many of those oranges read pretty much the same value/color. I'm going to play around with some of that later today.

The two orange scrap boxes

Oh - and when we were at the Monday sewing, this is what I worked on. I got the June seasonal wall hanging completed. Well, I got all the applique cut out and I finished it at home.

June seasonal wall hanging

Then I went to work on the August wall hanging and it's now done as well.

August seasonal wall hanging

These were designed by Patrick Lose in 2012!!!!  Here's what they look like so far. Remember that only the January one has the satin stitching done. The rest are waiting for that. Happy St. Patty's day by the way. My little leprechaun is wishing us all a good day.

The seasonal wall hangings

I had started to work on the September wall hanging, but I ran out of fusible so I couldn't go any further. Now my studio is very organized so when I got home, I opened up the cabinet underneath the cutting table and pulled out another pack of fusible. Oh yes - I could be isolated in my house for years and probably NOT need to buy anything.

Fusibles

And I got myself organized and got one more quilt quilted. This one is going to a local community group or the senior's home. I need to have a chat with them one day. But NOT for the next couple of weeks. Besides, this needs to be bound. I have a LOT of binding to do.

Community projects quilt - DONE

 The next quilt is loaded on the long arm and ready for this morning.

I'm looking at the quilting schedule for the rest of the month and I should easily be able to get everything finished. I toyed with the idea of pulling out another quilt or two. BUT - I decided to hold off until I have completed what's on the list. Let's not get too excited here!!!!

Well - I have to deal with e-mail this morning. I have cancellations that need to be rescheduled. I have a bit of stuff that I saved from the office box cleanup yesterday that I would like to deal with. Honestly, I didn't save much. Most of it went into the recycling and that's a good thing. It was "hard" to let go of some of the stuff, but seriously - do I need that? So much of what I'm tossing, I could access on the internet if I chose, which I likely never will. Let it go  ....... let it go.............

I hope you are all finding ways to cope with the current situation. It's going to be a challenge for all of us as we all have different things that we need to cope with. I think we all need to patient. It's going to take time and even once life gets back to normal, it's not going to be the same normal that we knew. I think we need to prepare ourselves for that. There is going to be a NEW NORMAL. What that will look like, no one knows at this point.

In the meantime, dig out a new project (just because we're allowed during this situation) or dig out a UFO. Or if you're really insane, use the time to declutter or tidy or why not do both because you might get bored of one or the other. I do have a couple of pictures to share with you that Elle sent to me. I'm going through e-mail today. If you have pictures of your projects that you want to share, I'll be happy to post them along with my stuff!!

Have a super day!!!  Stay healthy and wash those hands!!!

Ciao!!!

Shiny and bright

Some days you have a lot to show for what you did and some days you don't. While I'm getting work done, those worktables do not appear to be getting cleaned off in any way. I'm OK with that. I know it's going to take time and I'm working on one thing at a time. Focus! That's what I keep telling Murphy when we go for a walk. Focus!

No tidying needed to be done yesterday as things are looking good on the sewing station tables. I completely forgot about the cutting table. I fired up the embroidery machine. Actually, that happened on Sunday!

I started out by hooping a stitch and tear stabilizer.

Starting to embroidery on a stabilizer

 Then I added sone very BRIGHT and SHINY stretchy fabric. I had to very carefully babysit this design, mostly because it was very stretchy and slippery fabric. But after staring at that bright fabric in the brilliant lights of the Designer EPIC 2, I was seeing stars whenever I took my eyes off the fabric. Yikes - that was hard. How does anyone sew with this stuff all day?

Adding bright and shiny fabric

And slowly from that bright shiny fabric, a GECKO was born.

A gecko is being born

 Someone gave me some Quilter's Dream batting that she no longer wanted and when I asked what she wanted in return, she asked for a gecko. OK - I can do that. The color request was blue and green. I've got lots of green and scraps of blue. So this is what we got.

I was going to stuff it on Monday but forgot to take the stuffing tools that I had found so I just got him cut out and now he's ready to stuff.

The gecko is cut out and ready to stuff

Here's a better picture of the gecko. He sort of gets lost in the fabric in that photo above. I just realized that while I unpacked my bag from Monday sewing, I hadn't processed anything in the bag. It's still all over half of the cutting table. Oopsy - a job for later today.

The gecko 

I know this gecko is going to be loved and he's going to get a name. I wonder what they'll call him?

No - I didn't have time to clean up the stuff on the cutting table because I was busy. I started the day off by getting one more block done for the paper-pieced mini quilt. This is a birdhouse made of three sections. They are not trimmed and therefore not sewn together. That doesn't matter - progress is being made. Two more blocks (four more sections) to go.

One more paper-pieced block

Then it was onto quilting. That little orange board with the list of quilts was saying, "you have a job to do TODAY or you'll get behind".

That meant that I had to get the top together for the Dresden Plate quilt. The top got sewn together and I did NOT rearrange any of the blocks. I left them as they were. I had originally placed them because of the light and dark of the background and that's how they stayed.

I had to make the backing fabric and I was careful with how much I took off that big hunk of fabric. That was one thing that I used off the table. But it wasn't taking much room.

I found three pieces of batting that I could join to get the size needed for this quilt and then all three pieces got loaded on the long arm and I was away. Except that I wanted this quilt custom quilted so it took a long time.

With the rainy day outside and no chance to take a walk, it seemed to take forever and I was tempted at one point to finish it today. However, there's another quilt on the list for today so I persevered.

The quilting in the background

As I got started in the background, I thought I should have used a slightly lighter color thread, but that's OK.

No robot quilting this time - it was all me

I don't think I should leave it so long for the next freehand quilting job. I felt a bit rusty! That's not good. But I soon warmed up and I was good to go.

I wasn't sure that I was going to like what I had done, but once I got going, I was happy! And when I took it off the long arm - I was ecstatic with how it turned out. I was even tempted to NOT give it back to my Mom. But I'll make sure I get it back when she doesn't "need" it any longer.

Dresden Plate quilt

Some of those fabrics are pretty old. For the life of me, I can't remember who she said made the darn thing. I'm pretty sure it wasn't her. My grandmother??? 

Anyway - I'll get all the info next week. I dare not ask her on the phone as I want it to be a surprise. I think for freehand, I did a pretty good job on all those curves. Like I said, once I got going, I was good and had fun as well. I think I'm going to wash the quilt before I give it to her. It'll soften up that dense quilting in the background and make it look more vintage. It's not stiff, but the washing will soften it a lot.

Quilting on the Dresden Plate quilt

I also had time to trim the quilt last night and guess what? There should be enough of the backing leftovers to make the binding. I cut the backing about three inches larger on the sides and some extra along the bottom edge. Loads to make the binding. That's a job for later today.

The backing leftovers

And that will be one project done for next week. I have three more that I would like to get done. I'm working on them and I don't see why I can't get them done. Two need to be finished, one is OK if it's a work in progress. You'll see what I mean when I get there.

So here's a blog that I want you to follow and I want you to share with ALL your friends. It's for the NEW OUTDOOR quilt show at Black Creek Pioneer Village called Quilts in the Village. Just go to the bottom of that first post and HIT the FOLLOW button. Then whenever a new post is posted, you'll get a notification. Yes - I'm helping them out with some publicity. For now - follow the blog and the rest of the information is coming. Registration for putting a quilt in the show is coming next month. Get involved!!!!

And here's an interesting article on sewing machine maintenance. Take a look at the pictures of the needles in the article. HOLY -- that's why you need to change your needle regularly. Thre are some other good tips as well. BUT DO NOT touch the tension on the bobbin case unless you know what you're doing!!! I'll have more comments about this article tomorrow. I don't have time this morning. It's spin class day and the blog gets written before the class.

The rain finally stopped and we managed to get out for our second walk just after dinner. The girls were so happy. They didn't understand why we couldn't go out in the pouring rain. Silly girls!!!

On that note, it's time to get moving.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!