Be careful what you wish for.....

A quick word about food before we get to the quilting part of the post. Yesterday was the first day in ONE week of tracking what I eat that I went slightly over the calorie intake. We did go out for dinner but that wasn't the problem. It's very handy on the food app that you can scan an item and all the information on the label is uploaded to the app. That makes it very easy to track the information. The only thing you have to be honest about is the portion size. Does your portion size, in fact, match what's on the label? I've been very good with this.

I didn't overeat yesterday - I wasn't hungry - but there were no spare calories and because it was raining, I didn't get a chance to go for a walk. As a result, I was below my 10,000 steps. I'm not worried, but imagine if every day was like that? Yep - that's how that weight just eases onto our bodies!  One thing that would be super helpful is in the restaurants. They indicate the calories beside each dish and trust me - at first, I poo-pooed that idea, but I scour the menus looking for a dish that is reasonable from a calorie perspective and from the contents. Boston Pizza has an amazing Mediterranean Chicken Salad that is to die for! I love it and less than 500 calories.

Why is that important? My total calorie intake for a day is slightly less than 1,600. So you see the problem if you have a meal that is 1,200 calories.  There's no room to eat anything else or barely!

The nice thing about all this - it doesn't take long to monitor and it's definitely an eye-opener. I also put the new batteries in the scale so now I can have that number connect to my app.  Isn't this all so exciting??

Yesterday was a quilting day. I managed to get this quilt done.

Customer quilt - DONE

 I don't normally do custom work because it's very hard on the back - even on the long arm, but this one was fairly "easy". I just stitched in the ditch between the sashings and quilted the outer border. I believe the owner is going to hand quilt in each block once she puts the binding on. I just have to trim that this morning and it's ready to go!!!  She used wool batting in it and with the loose quilting, it's very fluffy!

As I was quilting that one, I was trying to schedule the next job. I have a big one to get done for pick-up on Monday, but I thought I could slip one of those table runners in before I loaded the big one.

I did a free motion all over pattern on this table runner and I LOVE IT!!!  I won't show you close-ups until the class sees it next month, but I'm sure you can zoom in somewhat to see. Whenever I do these kinds of things I try to have every project of mine do double duty and you'll see this one in some other blog posts as well. I rather like it!!!

Table runner of mine - QUILTED

 Now that it's quilted, I can trim it and make the binding from that backing fabric.

I did get a chance to get some sewing done as well and I'm happy to say that block number 6 of the pixelated apple is DONE!!!  It's sewn to block number 5 and YES - all those little seams are twirled on the back. This quilt is flat as a pancake!

The back of Block 5 and 6 of the pixelated apple

Here's what the quilt looks like now. I haven't sewn that new section on yet, but it's in position.

6 blocks of the pixelated apple

Isn't it great how all those shades of red work together? Some are very orange/red and some are burgundy, but together, they look awesome.

Time to lay out the next block and you can see the pattern in the background. This was from a class by Tamara Kate that we took at Quilts at the Creek last year.

Getting the next block ready

 I decided that I didn't have enough variety of the white/black, so I've been cutting more white/black squares. I had already cut strips, so it's easy enough to cut the squares. A bit more cutting before I can proceed.

Prepping the black/white squares

I had to go into my stash to cut the strips as I had used up everything that was in my scrap boxes.

I got three rows of the Celtic Solstice sewn. They are NOT sewn together yet, but I hope to get more work done on it today because I have to get it off the table by tomorrow morning. I don't mind if it's in rows, but I don't want to have to lay the blocks out again.

Three rows of Celtic Solstice are sewn

I also pulled the backing yesterday and it's at the end of the quilt.


Now here's the "be careful what you wish for".  A number of years ago, I got the bright idea (from Maria) to make pet mats from scraps. Not being happy with just the meager amount generated by myself and our sewing group, I put a plea out to people for scraps. Well - the amounts that I received grew exponentially and soon I had bags and bags and boxes of scraps.

What I didn't do was qualify what I wanted in scraps. I wanted the cutoff ends that people have when they cut a project. What I got was ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

I quickly put a halt to the collection process. A while back, I had to move all the scraps into the cold room because I was trying to clean up under the long arm which is now full of my ongoing projects!  GO figure!  But I'm constantly digging in the bags of the good stuff under the long arm and the piles are getting smaller, not bigger so that's a good thing.

I've potentially found a new home for some of the scraps and so I decided to dig out a couple of bags so I could deal with them.

The first bag was a disaster. I think this person just went to their studio and threw in everything. It was full of crap!! Odds and ends of velvet - little pieces. OK - so that technically is scraps. But there was a whole lot of other things in there as well.

This is the contents of the bag. I spent some time sorting.

Contents of a "scrap" bag

 I sorted out the fabrics. The pile at the bottom of the picture is all cotton (mostly) and some big pieces that could be used to make quilts and there are some smaller pieces that are perfect for scrap quilts. It's currently in one bag. The other stack in the back is knit fabrics for T-shirts. I might donate that or I have a person that might be able to use that. Unless someone wants this???   I'm happy to give this to anyone who wants, BUT you cannot take it unless you have a use for it. The last thing we all need/want is to clutter up someone else's house.

Yardage found in the scrap bag

 The disturbing thing is that I found FIVE needles in the bag and as many pins. Seriously????   What is the matter here - can we not sort through some of this stuff and take responsibility for it?

Five needles in the bag of scraps

 I shall never again make a call for bags of scraps because people just didn't get it.

Here are the other two bags I picked out and they literally were scraps. Nothing huge in the bag - it was all the cutoffs from cutting. And that's what I wanted.

Now to find the bag with the pillowcases or the fabric samples that I was using to make bags to hold the scraps. Then I can make a couple of pet mats.

Two bags of TRUE scraps

 I also found this bag of yo-yos. What to do with a bag of yo-yos?  Well, when I was on the internet last night, someone posted a picture of some fidget quilts that they had made for Alzheimer patients and they had yo-yos on them.  PERFECT - so if anyone is into making those type of quilts - these yo-yos can be yours!!!

Bag of yo-yos

I learned a valuable lesson with this scrap exercise. By the way, I did sort through the entire bag and I did find a home for everything! Or it got sorted into like things and will be dealt with when the appropriate bags are full.

But I'm also cleaning up M's room. I should take a picture. The poor girl won't recognize the room anymore. Well - it's not that bad, but it's going to be totally different in a bit. She has a long desk/counter in the room and right now, all the cupboards are empty and everything has been put in boxes and is sitting on the counter. Do you know how much JUNK can accumulate over the years?  Oh yes - we all know. Well here's my task for you - find one of those trouble spots in your house or preferably your studio and get your butt in gear and DEAL WITH IT!!!!   Your family doesn't want to touch your JUNK!!!! If you think it's useful, it probably isn't. If you have opened bottles of anything - makeup, craft supplies, etc. - TOSS IT!!!!!   And how many DRIED UP pens does one household need?  My goal is to go through a box a week in M's room. Once that is cleaned up, well, I have big plans for that room!!!

Let's not forget that I'm still dealing with the mess in my office. This is the ONLY room that looks like a hoarder lives here, but it's coming - slowly but surely!!!!

I had to laugh as I read Helen's comment yesterday.  Helen -- before I went to work, I used to ask myself, how could I ever hold a day job because there just wasn't time. Well, I did find the time, but a lot of things suffered. Now that I've been given that gift of 50 hours, I'm not wasting a minute!!!

On that note, I'm out of here. I've got quilts to quilt, patterns to write although I don't normally do any of that on the weekend, I have no choice this weekend. And tomorrow is another sit n sew!!!!

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!

BTW - I see that Miss Lexi was busy this morning. Check it out!