Improv at its best

Yesterday was all about improv. We were supposed to have our modern guild meeting but when we arrived at the meeting location, the door was locked. The City (who is supposed to open it for us) did not. Now what? There are almost 30 people waiting around and no space to meet. HEY - let's go to my house - it's five minutes away! So we bundled back into our cars and within minutes, the studio was crammed with people!

Thank goodness for sewing days - there wasn't much stuff on the tables as there had been a sewing day on Thursday and another one today!  A quick move of a couple of things and we were in business. It was a wee bit squishy, but we didn't do too badly! That's how flexible we all are! And I learned a new technique for paper piecing which I want to try. I have a quilt to make and that is going to be my technique. More on that when I get to it. I'm a wee bit behind, but soon it will get on the project table. Still choosing the fabric.

After the meeting, I was off to teach a class. When the class was over, it was a bit busy in the store, so I helped out for a bit. There was one lady buying fabric which is normal in a quilt store. But I'm not just talking about several cuts. NO - she was buying MANY cuts and MUCH yardage. And her husband was with her and he was moaning and groaning!  I won't tell you the final total of her bill, but it was the MOST that I'd ever heard anyone spending!  WOW!!!!

The urgent quilt is on the long arm - it's not going to get finished today. I'm aiming for tomorrow to finish it. Instead of quilting last night, I decided to cut one more of the quilts that need to be made. It's actually a pattern that I'm testing for someone so that is interesting and you have to be a bit more careful about the cutting and piecing instructions to make sure they make sense. No looking at the pictures and skimming over the instructions like I normally do! I'd like to get it quilted before the machine goes in. Let's see on that one. I do have some flexibility with some of those quilts - it's just that some of them have NO flexibility! Those are getting priority - well almost!

As I was editing my photos this morning, I realized that I never posted the pictures from our Kaleidoscope class. The reveal from November. I had better do that!  Let's aim for this coming week.

I had to get a few things prepped for today.  But I got a wee bit of a wakeup call when I went to sew the borders on my Kaleidoscope quilt. They were TOO BIG!!!  Are you kidding me? And it's a pieced border so hard to just chop it off. So I "repaired" it - or should I say I fixed it?

Anyway, I took a wee bit larger seam in five spots along the border and now it fits. Which is going to cause problems for the next bit so just wait to see what I've got in mind for that.

Shortening a pieced border

Two of those pieced borders are sewn on the quilt and the other two are pinned on.

Working on my Kaleidoscope

So what happened? It would appear that all the seams on the 16 blocks were a tad too large and made the quilt about 3/4" smaller than it is supposed to be.  Oh well - it was bound to happen one day!

But all is good and this quilt is now on my radar to get done. Now that I've fixed that mistake, let's forge ahead and take this off the list. Yes - this one is on the 2018 UFO list. It's MARCH and I haven't completed anything on the list. I'm working on two or three quilts on that list, but with little focus, nothing is getting completed. Same for the leftover items from 2017. I'm working on a couple, but nothing is getting completed. Time to focus!!!! 

The only problem is that the only time I sew on my own stuff is when there is a sit n sew day and a lot of what I have to sew is borders or sew the blocks together and there isn't a lot of room with the others here.  Once that long arm machine goes away and this crunch is over, I'll have oodles of time to get those projects done!

I thought I would share with you how I buy a kit!  When I was in the US last year (September - in Missouri), I saw this gorgeous quilt on the wall. I didn't want to buy the kit, but I sprang for the pattern.

Over & Down Under pattern

I just loved the quilt but thought that I could find my own fabrics.

Ronda and I were shopping on the way home from our retreat in February and look what she found at Country Concessions. Actually, she found the entire kit (of which there was only one), but they had extras of the jelly roll used in the quilt. It's flannel!  Oh god - I might as well spring for the jelly roll. Then I don't have to search for all those fabrics and it's way cheaper to buy the jelly roll anyway. 

Jelly roll for the quilt

 I didn't have the background, but I thought I should be able to find something at a shop near me rather than buy more fabric that day.

I'm at The Hobby Horse and I found this deep chocolate color. I wanted black, but this will do. A quick text to Ronda to find out the quantity. OK - buy a wee bit extra - just in case.

Background for the quilt

Imagine my surprise when I got home and realized that the fabric that I bought for the background is the EXACT fabric called for in the pattern.  Normally, I don't care about that, but I thought it was funny that I was NOT going to buy the kit, but in fact I ended up doing so in a very round about way!

Now to find the time to sew this. I'm NOT supposed to be buying anything that I can't sew right away - we won't talk about the dog panels that I bought yesterday!  As I said - once the machine goes in, my schedule will clear up nicely so I'm super excited about that! It's going to be hard to find a way to keep pushing myself with NO deadlines.

The time change has come and gone in my house. A total non event!  I have three clocks to change but I use my phone as my time keeper and so I'm good. Go bed early and there really isn't an issue!

Oh yes - times have changed and DH and I have this conversation all the time. It involves Tiger Woods and golf. Let's just say that without Tiger Woods, golf is boring. I don't say that because I don't watch golf and I don't care what Tiger Woods does. But I called my Mom yesterday to chat and what is she doing? She's watching golf! My MOM????   Seriously???   She hates ALL sports, but then she did watch all the Olympics live.  Oh no - she was super excited because Tiger was playing well.  Life is full of surprises! My Mom would die without the TV and yet when we were kids, our TV watching time was closely monitored. Now I couldn't care less whether we have a TV or not - haven't turned the darn thing on in EIGHT YEARS!!!!!   I can't believe it's eight years since I gave up TV. NO regrets.

Oh speaking of giving up things, yesterday was weigh-in day.  Two more pounds - GONE!!  I'm super excited about this. Four more to go and we have three more weigh-ins. And not to go on about this, but it's very simple - count the calories in and count the calories out. Make sure that the IN is less than the OUT (and eat GOOD calories). I eat well, not starving myself and I'm quite happy!  That little app (MyFitnessPal) is perfect for keeping track of the calories.

On that note, I'm out of here!!!

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!