I had chocolate for dinner!

Yep - I had chocolate for dinner last night. Well technically I had chocolate and a salad!  That's healthy - right?  Now why did I have chocolate? Well my cook has disappeared for a couple of days and I've had to fend for myself. God forbid if he sees that I ate chocolate for dinner. But I was working and I didn't really want to stop to make something to eat. I happen to have a chocolate stash in the studio and that was good enough for me.

He's back today so I even tidied up the kitchen, emptied the dish washer, reloaded it and vacuumed up the dog hair.  All those domestic things that I don't normally do. I even took the running shoes off the kitchen table!!  That's a whole other story for another day!

I noticed that the quote of the day yesterday is "Living the Dream".  Yep - that's pretty much my life at this moment. I mean - I got to sew all day yesterday for work (HEY - I had to test one of my patterns and I ended up making a number of changes to make it easier to understand) and then I got to sew all evening for myself! A bit of reading tossed in (those Dalziel and Pascoe books are addictive), a few e-mails and phone calls about some upcoming super exciting projects, chocolate for dinner, fabric arrived in the mail from a personal shopper  - see what I mean?  It doesn't get better than that!

I finished the bag pattern that I was testing. It's sitting in the graphics department waiting for them to pretty it up and then it will be available for you to download for free.  It's super cute. I won't tell you which one until the pattern is available cause you'll all want it. But the moment it was made, I decided that I could have fun with this project and already going to rejig the pattern in a different size for a very specific reason. Just wait and see. I already pulled fabric for it!  Can't wait to get that made!

I'm pretty fast at sewing stuff, but when you have to write instructions so someone else can follow along, that slows me down a LOT.

Then the day was over and it was time to do my personal sewing.  Yep - the top is done, the backing is done and well both pieces are loaded on the long arm ready for me to quilt tonight.  Yes - I think I just might make that deadline tomorrow!  But not before, I decided to fussy cut the TWO borders on the quilt and miter the corners. Just wait until you see - it's a bit of a nightmare and NOT something I would write a pattern for. It isn't perfect and you'll see why, but I'm over that perfection thing!

I made good progress on the design (in my head) for the next deadline quilt. That's a good thing since I don't have a lot of time to get it completed. All the supplies are now assembled and ready to go. That process will start tomorrow evening.  Thankfully this one just needs pictures - the quilt doesn't need to be there.

Don't forget, today is the fourth day of QUILTsocial with machine embroidery. Some more great ideas and tips for machine embroidery or just check out what I'm up to!

On that note - I'm out of here.  A super busy day planned.  I'm making extremely good progress on getting things caught up and organised which makes me even more organised as I have more time.

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!!


PS - if you're going to be in the Toronto area this weekend, make sure you plan to come to Black Creek Pioneer Village.  It will be the location of Quilts at the Creek - a GORGEOUS outdoor quilt show.  I will have TWO quilts hanging in the show. There's going to be an amazing display of red/white quilts for Canada's 150th, gorgeous quilts for Quilts of Valor, my Sesquicentennial quilt will be there so you can see it in person if you missed it at Quilt Canada.  The pattern is available for free download on the Northcott web site.