Baby it's cold outside!

What's with this cold weather?  It feels like the middle of winter.  BUT when one has things to do in the house, I can't really complain.  I didn't get as much done as I would have liked yesterday, but still made good progress.  

Let's see - I still have a tote bag to finish. I needed fusible fleece and I got some yesterday so that shouldn't take too long to finish up. I wanted to make two journal covers - one of them got made this morning.  And if you want to make a journal cover, check out my tutorial that I posted a couple of years ago on QUILTSocial.  It's fast - I think I made the one cover this morning in less than an hour and I had to refresh  my memory (from the tutorial) on how to do it. They are fast, very easy and you are only limited by your creativity!   I'm making a couple with one of Northcott's new fabric lines to take with me to Spring Market. Let's see, then there is a vest and a stuffed toy that I would like to make. The line is called a Stitch in Time.  comes in TWO different colorways.  While it doesn't ship to stores until January of 2017, if you want your local shop to carry it, NOW is the time to ask the shop to order.  It is orderable NOW, but after these orders, it's gone! 

I did manage to get a couple of things accomplished yesterday - I had two of my ongoing classes in the morning.  As usual, I was perusing the shelves at Sew Sisters and came across a fabric that I had been looking for.  That was a great find.  Then I showed the group the round robin that I'm working on from the Grand River Modern Quilt Guild and got the perfect idea from the group.  It's even hand work, so if I'm smart, I could prep it and sew it on the plane on Wednesday.  It just so happened that the Fusible Fleece that I wanted was on sale at Sew Sisters!

Then off to deliver my sick sewing machine to be fixed.  I think it is serious, John thinks it just needs oil.  Bottom line, I've decided to take my favourite sewing machine to work - yes - I'm going to sew every day  - what the heck!  The machine is almost 20 years old, a few parts don't work - the needle threader and the thread cutter, but I'm so used to not using them, it's no big deal.  Then I'm going to pull that Ruby out and start sewing on that at home.  Gosh, the machine is brand new, although I've had it for 3 years!   Out with the small machines - we're bringing the big guns in!  It'll be great because I was a bit limited in the capacity of the machine I had at work.  I think I might have to buy a new insert for my sewing table. Oh well......   And while I was at Brampton Sew n Serge dropping off my machine, I found the companion fabric to the one that I found earlier at Sew Sisters.   What are the chances of that?????

I took pictures yesterday - we had some interesting blocks, but I'm behind and so going to show you the rest of the class pictures from last weekend. 

Eat, Sleep, Golf quilt by Amy Bradley

The pictures are from the Garden Quilt by Amy Bradley.  I see she has a new pattern out - all about golf. It's very cute, although I didn't buy it yesterday when I saw it at Sew Sisters.   I have many of her patterns, but haven't made any.  I'm hoping to get things under control and actually start to do something for me!  That's FUN!!!!

Garden Quilt by Amy Bradley

It appears that as this class winds down next month, the class size is also dwindling!  Marilyn brought in all her finished blocks and she was the only one that brought in work. No worries - the quality of the work was IMPECCABLE.  I would say that Marilyn has mastered machine applique - she's a PRO at it.  I'm very impressed.  

Marilyn's blocks

more blocks by Marilyn

And one more by Marilyn

Detail of one flower center

Wow - I can't wait to see the quilt finished. At least the quilt top.  I had to abandon mine at some point, but I do hope to get back into it.  Since I'll be teaching a lot less classes next year, there is less prep and less time out of the studio and hopefully I'll be able to get some stuff done for me.  Or I wait until I retire at which time, I'm going to refuse to do ANYTHING outside of the house!  I mean, no volunteering for anything!


Speaking of volunteering, you remember a couple of days ago, that I wrote a post on donations during major disasters - like the fires in Fort MacMurray.  Well guess what - they are inundated with unwanted stuff. In particular clothes.  I think we all need to look at the quantity of clothes that we buy and STOP buying.  Think about it - how many T-shirts do you own?  OK - now how many of those do you actually wear on a regular basis?  OK - so what are you going to do with the rest?   But more importantly, why are you going to buy another one?   I feel the need to purge again - I find pitching clothes is now the easiest thing.  So easy that I can't even remember getting rid of stuff like my housecoat!    There are still things in my closet that I don't wear, some of it is brand new.  I need to rotate things around a bit and get rid of stuff.  I'd like it down to the point where all my clothes fit in one suitcase (except cycling clothes and winter stuff).  Shouldn't be hard - I don't need a huge variety of stuff.  At least the clothes are all sorted by category, so I could pick one category a day and eliminate!!!!!!   It pained me the other day when I pulled out a beautiful sweater only to find that it had a couple of small holes in the front.  From catching the sweater?  Moths?  I don't know, but I pitched it - it's of no use to anyone.  


So if you want to help in any situation, it's ALWAYS best - donate money or check to see that what you're going to donate is actually needed.

On that note - I've got work to do today and I'd better get started.

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!!