Patio progress

 I seem to be taking my sweet time to unpack everything from the retreat. It's SUMMER, and I'm in summer mode -- slow, and I'm OK with that. 

They are making progress in leaps and bounds in the front yard, and the girls and I christened the patio last night. 

The new front patio

They still have some stuff to plant, but the three "big" trees are in. Let's not forget my little patch of grass has to go in. I don't want it; the landscaper does. I'll let him win, but then, I might ditch it -- I'll see how it goes. He is giving me a lesson on how to use my trimmer, and I see I'm also going to get new grass on the boulevard section as they ripped that out yesterday. 

The driveway crew did not return to finish placing the rebar in the boulevard section of the driveway, and I learned that they had set the neighbor's lawn on fire the day before when they were cutting the steel. Sigh! Thankfully, that neighbor (a young adult whose parents haven't been home since before the pandemic) won't notice or care. We have to tell him to cut the grass and that the pump for their backyard pond is running dry. Sigh!

The girls were totally confused last night when I took a chair out to the front and took them with me. "MOM -- we have LEASHES ON -- we should be going for a walk, not sitting here. This is BORING!" They did settle down, but there were too many new smells to really settle down.  

Why are we NOT walking? 

But I had some neighbors stop to chat, and that's the intention of the patio - get to know the neighbors better! It's already working, and we're not done yet! It did feel weird as the patio is a bit high, and you feel exposed, but I don't care! 

I have to laugh as my neighbor (where I'm parking my car and who loves to garden) is out there all the time, chatting to the guys. She would be there on her hands and knees if they let her!

My neighbor supervising the work

I think Lexi is missing her Dad. He's away for a couple of days, and she needs to feel connected, so as I'm eating lunch, she's lying on my foot. She really is a Daddy's girl!

Where's my Dad? I can't survive without him

Murphy, on the other hand, just wants to play ball. I think she will prefer the back to the front because she can play ball in the back and there are squirrels to chase and well, I might sneak to the front when I want to avoid her! Not that I would ever want to do that!

Let's play ball!

I snapped this photo when walking the girls yesterday -- how fortunate I am to have this beautiful green space so close to the house. I hope everyone is taking advantage of any green space near them. You would NOT believe the calmness that the forest exudes! I think there's a term called "forest bathing" and I have to say that it's fantastic! That forest was the deal clincher when we bought this house, and it's been a lifesaver! 

Forest bathing

I'm sure you don't remember, but a while back, I was looking for the quilt novels by Carol Dean Jones. I found this one at Quilt Canada, the first in the series (of twelve books). I'll have to read this and then be on the hunt for the remainder of the series. But if I don't like it, I don't need to. But sometimes, these light, fluffy books are a good diversion! 

Quilt novel - the first in the series

I got a bit more sewing done and one more customer quilt. 

Customer quilt - DONE

As mentioned, I'm in slow-motion mode. I have things to do but don't seem to be too motivated to make them happen. Hopefully, I can be a bit more productive today as there are some things I need to get packed up and done. And I have some computer work that I really want to finish, so LESS time reading and relaxing and a wee bit more time getting serious and being an adult! LOL! 

I would like to return to my decluttering, but I haven't made it there yet. There's still stuff to clean up in Studio B, and I want that to be my priority. There are tuffet kits to get ready to send and projects that need to be sorted and put away. 

OH -- here's something from the retreat to share with you. The sewing room on the back of the house has windows on three sides and backs onto a wooded area. One day, we spotted this little guy or girl. By the way, we were at Seams Appropriate near Huntsville. 

He was along the edge of the clearing and happily grazing on the grass. We were quiet and watched him flicking his tail to keep the bugs away. It was so cute because you saw the big patch of white under the tail. 

A fawn grazing t the edge of the clearing by the house

Then he heard us and popped up his head to look at us. "What is all that noise, and it is safe to check it out?" 

Who is there?

Then he bounded right into the clearing and very close to the house. He knew we were there and stood for quite a while, watching us as we watched him. 

Hey -- do you want to play with me? 

Then with a flick of his tail, he turned and bounded into the forest. So adorable!!! The following day, near the lake, I spotted a mommy deer and two babies. I wonder if this was one of the babies? It was so cute because he was intent on listening to what we said!!

That about wraps it up for me today! I'm off to spin class again! I like spin class, but there are days when I wish I could eat anything I wanted and didn't have to worry about taking the calories off! Once I get there, I'm good - sometimes, it's just the anticipation of getting there. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!

Me and my machines

What a whirlwind day! I got so much done, and I had three machines going simultaneously! I actually worked later than I had planned, and I HATE when I do that because if I don't get my 8 hours of sleep, I'm tired, and it takes me a while to get moving. Note to self: DO NOT miss that bedtime hour - it's bad news for the next day!

The day didn't get off to a productive start, as I was on the phone until lunchtime! That was NOT in the plan, but it was all good and was work-related for the most part, so I didn't mind. Then I got busy and worked away in the afternoon. 

I laughed as someone sent me a text asking if I had spent the day in the gazebo. I wish! While I don't have a full-time job in an office, I have a tremendous workload with all the freelance stuff, and I would bet that I work way more than 40 hours a week at my "job." However, that's not every week, I get many days of vacation, and I have tons of flexibility. By the way -- they meant that as a joke! Well, I sure hope they did!

Before I show you what I did yesterday, here's my situation on the Virtual Challenge for the Pacific Crest Trail. I've just crossed the Bridge of the Gods from Oregon to Washington. 

Crossing the Bridge of the Gods

I'm now in the LAST state before I hit Canada. I started this walk on August 25, 2021, and I gave myself ONE YEAR to complete the walk. At my current pace, I should finish before that deadline, but there's still 740 KM to walk. 

I've read several books about the PCT, and everyone mentions the Bridge of the Gods. I had no vision of what it looked like, but I checked it out as I crossly it virtually. Amazing what Google and the yellow peg man can do. Here's a picture of the bridge. 

Bridge of the Gods

Once I'm done with the PCT, I'll get to choose another walk! I'm going for the long ones first and then onto the short ones. There's another long challenge in China of about 3,500KM. Then I'll evaluate what is left and pick the next longest. This way, I'm getting good value for my money! 

I'm not going to share all that happened with you today, but you'll get to see it as the classes/clubs occur. 

Here's a peek at Studio B yesterday. The PFAFF creative icon 2 was doing embroidery, I was quilting on the Husqvarna Viking EPIC 2, and the long arm (AQS Millie) was also working. 

The workspace when I'm working!

It was great fun and not complicated to keep all the machines running. A bit crazy, but not difficult. This side of the room was busy long after the long arm was finished. 

Here's the customer quilt that got done yesterday. I used black batting since the front and back are both very dark, and this fabric and panel are very cool with a night sky on them. NO -- you can't see it in the picture. 

Customer quilt - DONE

I needed some yarn for what I was doing on the embroidery machine. And chenille works perfectly for the design, and chenille happens to be a big thing right now, so I now have a wee collection of chenille yarns. I knew I had that intense pink at the top of the photo, but do you think I could find it? Well, I took a deep dive yesterday, and I found it! Now all the yarn is together. 

A collection of fuzzy yards

I randomly chose an embroidery design and then wondered what yarn colors to use to make it look decent. OH MY -- wait until you see what I did. It looks so cool. I have to finish it this morning as I ran into a problem last night, and it was already past my bedtime. Something to figure out this morning. 

I got out the table for the deck, and I had lunch and dinner out there. It was so beautiful out that you wanted to be out, so I was, but not for as long as I would have liked. 

Look at my green wall in the backyard. It gets thicker every day. That wall is worth every penny we paid for this house! 

The edge of my backyard

And there is one tree in our backyard with long-reaching branches -- as I sat near the house, those branches may provide a cover one day! I doubt it, but it was neat to look up and see how far they are growing.  

Long-reaching branches

Is anyone familiar with this author - Carol Dean Jones? She writes quilt mystery books - nothing too earth-shattering,  not like the current novel I'm reading by Paula Hawkins  - A Slow Fire Burning, which is a page-turner! 

Anyway, I found this one book the other day at K&A Quilt Studio. My library doesn't have any of them, and I do NOT want to buy the series. So if anyone close to me has any that I could borrow? 

A quilting mystery by Carol Dean Jones

I really did NOT need to buy these panels, but they are beautiful, and I've been to many places on them, and they are CANADIAN. This one is about parks in Canada - one per province. 

And this one is of places in Canada -- again, I've been to many of them. They are digitally printed and absolutely stunning. I also got these at K&A Quilt Studio, and it's called Canadian Road Trip if you want to find better pictures online. 

I also vowed to NEVER buy more bicycle fabric, but this one is very cool. So I got a half meter. Sigh...........

Bicycle fabric

Well, loads more to share, but that's all the time today. 

I have one presentation tonight on What's new in the world of PFAFF! And there is a lot to share, so I'll be prepping for that today, and I've also got other work. It's all fun and games!

Have a super day!

Ciao!!!

Sir - you have good service here!

We had an amazing show and tell yesterday at the final class for 2018 at The Hobby Horse. Lots of pictures got taken and I'll share those with you this coming week. No promise on the date - it's a bit of a crunch week. And I want to share the projects that we've got lined up for 2019. More fun!!!!!

Today, I have other stuff to write about.

I was searching in the stash tubs that reside in the studio. This is the secondary stash. Anyway as I was digging through them, I found this quilt top. I made this a couple of years ago. It's like a jelly roll quilt or whatever those quilts were called.

Jelly roll race quilt

Except that it wasn't a race and it wasn't a jelly roll. I took several of these Northcott panels and cut them into 2 ½" strips. I added a few coordinates, joined them all into one long roll and made the quilt top.

The panel that was used to make the quilt

Hmm - I didn't have anything designated for the backing. But it would be fun to put that panel on the back so you can see what the front was made of. I dug through the same tub and found some bits of coordinating greens (Sandscapes and Shimmer). Not enough. Then I dug through my personal stash and found this.

More fabric for the backing

I'm sure between all the bits that I now have enough to make the backing and binding. Perfect. One more "UFO" will get moved to the "to be quilted pile" before the end of the year - I hope. I might even work on that backing today at Sit n Sew.

At the last Sit n Sew, the girls filled my scrap basket that sits on the cutting table. I don't have any pillowcases handy that I can use to make cat mats so I popped over to the Thrift Store after they left so I could get a couple of pillowcases. I know there are lots in that cold room, but to find them is another story. The shopping trip was way faster and pillowcases won't go to waste as I envision a whole lot more scraps in my future.

I always have a quick peek at the bookshelves looking for anything interesting. I found two novels with the word quilt in the title. Amish quilts from the look of the cover. Not the same author either. I've added them to my bookshelf of books to read. 

Quilt novels found at the Thrift store

When I was having troubles with my long arm, I was looking for different clips/clamps to hold some of the cables out of the way. I found this very inexpensive clamp at the hardware store. It works like a charm and keeps all the heavy cables off the floor. That was a great fix!!!

Clamp on the long arm to hold the cables out of the way

I was on a tear to get stuff tidied up as I'm tired of moving it. I did very well I thought. Of course, it doesn't look like that right now as I have a "few" projects sitting out that I'd like to get completed this year. Since there's one corner that I don't need for Sit n Sew today, I shoved it all there. If I'm focused, I can work my way through all that before the end of the year.

Yesterday I was working on a small project and needed to "baste" the three layers together. I wasn't thinking about what batting scrap I picked up, but it happened to be 100% polyester. I think it's Thermolan. Let's just say that it's NOT a good idea to apply a lot of heat to that product.

My batting MELTED

 Yep - the polyester batting melted and you can see how the one end got distorted and it's hard because the fibers melted together. Well - that's interesting! It would have been fine, but because the top of the project needed extra pressing, I was holding the iron in place. I shouldn't have done that with all three layers together. I should have pressed the top WITHOUT the batting inside. Oops!

I got another customer quilt done yesterday. It just needs to be trimmed and then it'll be ready for pickup. I hope to get that done later today.

Customer quilt - DONE

I think I'm down to seven to get finished before Christmas. That's doable. My January is booked also so I'm accepting quilts for February if anyone is interested.

This morning, I'm putting the binding on that MASSIVE quilt for a customer. She's coming today to pick it up. The first round is on and I'm off to finish the second pass which is sewing the binding to the top of the quilt. Yep - way easier with the sewing machine. That's about 450 inches of binding!

Sewing on the binding by machine

Notice anything on the wall???  See that black pennant? That's from the Ruby Star Society. When I was in Houston, they were handing them out. I snagged one and now it adorns my design wall. Can't wait to see what they release in their first collection next year.

Ruby Star pennant

Gosh - remember all those pennants we collected as kids? I'm sure that I still have mine around here and I know exactly where they are. That's scary!!!

OH - you're wondering about the title of today's post. Well, I was at Tim's yesterday. It's rare that I go now, but from time to time, I grab a tea and perhaps a cookie to go along with it. Hey - I'm allowed - do you know that I've maintained my weight since March. I have that 5-pound range and I've never strayed above or below.

Anyway - I no longer go the Tim's that is closest to my house. The service is  S  L  O  W.    And they have two lanes painted on the driveway but people panic and think you're going to steal their place in line so instead of forming two lines like rational human beings, they make one line that extends into the street. I hate that.

This other location has the two ordering panels and the service is fast and good. Yesterday when I arrived at the window, I started to say "you have the best......."  when he said to me "we don't have oatmeal raisin cookies - is chocolate chip OK?" Since he already had the chocolate chip cookie in his hand, I said "sure". Then he handed me my tea. I was driving away when I smelled that it was NOT a tea but in fact coffee.  I parked across from the drive-thru window - he looked at me and I shouted - "it's coffee, not tea". He shouted to the back - "black tea" and then I exchanged the coffee for a tea in the drive-thru while I was on foot!  I know - not allowed, but who cares. It ended up being a black tea, not decaf, but I survived.

It was just hilarious that the day that I'm telling them that their service is the best, they manage to screw up my entire order!!!!  Still - they were extremely fast even in fixing the error. I wonder who got a decaf tea instead of their coffee?

On that note, I'm out of here to attempt to finish off that binding before the sewists arrive!

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!!

What a novel idea!

Despite the fact that I've moved my big computer up to the office and despite the fact that I complain bitterly about the S L O W  speed of the laptop, I continue to use it. So yesterday when I finished the blog, I moved my chair in front of the big computer so I would be reminded to use the other computer this morning. And here I am on the other computer which needed to be rebooted this morning after installing updates.  I just can't seem to win!   And of course, this keyboard is different than the laptop so I need to move that pinkie over just a titch more in order to get the caps! Now I'm surrounded by computers and laptops with three of them going at once!

I'm going to update the photo editing software as well and then I should be good to go.  

While I was in Paducah, I came across my favourite bookseller.  I've mentioned them before and gosh - I don't even know their name, but they have all kinds of back issues of some of the magazines which I need to take inventory of. But guess who I saw?  Yes - those quilt novel authors that I had met at Road to California. 

I really enjoyed the mystery series  - well the first book, which we are unable to get through the library and the library won't order "old" books.  I bought the second one. I think I will donate these books to my guild library as I certainly won't read them again and I don't want the darn things taking up valuable room on my bookcase (OK - the real reason is that someone will have to dust them - no not that either!).  Nope - once I read a book, it's gone because I'm trying to make every effort to get rid of things that I no longer need or want. 

Someone talked about hitting their closet and I was thinking the same thing.  I did that a number of years ago and since I haven't really bought much since then, it wouldn't take that long to go through everything and get rid of what I don't wear.   That will have to be a July job as my schedule is pretty packed until then. 

Book 2 of the Harriet Truman/Loose Threads series

Arlene Sachitano is the author of the Harriet Truman/Loose Threads series.  Harriet is a long arm quilter and the genre of the book is a mystery.  I quite liked the book. In the picture below, Harriet is holding her 10th book which was just released.

The second author that I met at Road to California is Patience Griffin.  She writes about the quilters in Scotland. The books are romance and a touch racey!  I mentioned that to her and that is what her publisher wanted!  I hate when that happens.  I liked the premise of her books and those one (go figure) are available through the library! Anyway - it was good to see her again and she was all cute in her Scottish outfit.

A third author was with these two. Her name is Marie Bostwick.  She also writes quilt novels and I have one of them which I have never read!  Oh - I better get that out and read it.

A Single Thread by Marie Bostwick

And here are the three authors.......

Marie, Patience and Arlene

I have to say that I'm bogged down in my reading right now.  I'm reading Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini.  It's not about quilting, but Jennifer has written a lot of quilt novels.  Too much politics?  Too much going on right now?  I'm not sure, but I might have to abandon it!  (GASP!)   It is taking forever to read and not for lack of time.

On that note, I'm out of here.  Got an appointment (at last) to get my snow tires removed. This is why I hate them - a pain to maintain and store (I know - the practical side of things!) but the car is overdue for a tune-up so I can't wait any longer!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!!