So the morning didn't go well so far

It's still early in the morning and things haven't gone as planned!

I had to get up in the night and do you think I could go back to sleep? Nope - that wasn't happening. I was going to get up, but I thought NO - I'll "force" myself to go back to sleep. Well over one hour later, I decided to read a bit. That did help, but I completely slept through my alarm and when I did wake up, my spin class was already in progress so no spin class this morning. GRRRR!  I must have heard the alarm on the phone ring because it was in bed with me. I don't remember a thing!

Well - no sense fretting over what we can't change. Let's just make the best of the day as it is.

Usually, I'm good if I wake up, but I think I was excited. Excited about getting my quilts done. Good grief! It's fun, but not that much fun.

I did manage to get that URGENT quilt done. I got started early yesterday and it was off the machine by lunchtime. I'm very happy with the results and it got photographed which you won't see and it's already on its way to its destination. The quilt got trimmed, it got bound and the sleeve was even hand stitched to the back! And it had my little label in the binding.

As I was finishing up that quilt, I was going through the remaining seven quilts to see which one would get on the machine next. I decided to put a customer quilt on. I have two huge ones and one that is not so big. I decided that the one that wasn't so big would be perfect. However, look at the backing.

Backing for a quilt

This is one of the reasons I do NOT like wide backings.  Don't get me wrong, they are great, but they are HUGE and customers just get it whacked off in the shop, (wash it - in this case) and expect that it's ready to be loaded.  NOPE -- customers need to check that the backing is square and that there's enough. For some reason, this backing has a big WOW in it.  Needless to say, this quilt didn't get loaded. I'm going to have to lay it out on the table and see if it can't be fixed (at the customer's expense of my time!).  I have a feeling that the backing was loaded crooked on the bolt - a huge issue with wide backings. If it doesn't get cut properly, (which is easy to do because it's so big), then this happens. One entire length is completely out of whack!

The lesson to be learned - when you are bringing a quilt to your long arm quilter, make sure the backing is squared off, edges are neat and even. Your final quilt depends on that or you will pay for me to do it for you! Which is why I prefer to seam the backing. It's way easier to deal with two lengths of fabric to ensure they are straight.

So I loaded one of my own quilts (that was among the remaining 7). Of course, it needs custom quilting, but that's OK - that was in the plan and it's not huge. I started quilting it last night and I'm loving how it's turning out. I think I was excited last night to continue quilting which of course I wasn't going to do in the middle of the night. I don't think that would go over well in our household!

I hope to finish that one and get the next magazine quilt done today as well. That's the plan. But I have an errand to do that will take a couple of hours so that will bite into the day.

Remember yesterday I was lamenting about not getting things done? Well, someone on Facebook reminded me of a decision that I had made years ago. One year, I decided to keep track of my finishes for the year. The ENTIRE year consisted of doing group projects, the block of the month for the guild, exchanges for groups, mysteries, etc. NONE of it was technically on my radar screen. And NONE of it advanced any of the UFOs that were in my house. After that year, I vowed to NEVER do a quilt/block swap/quilt swap or whatever that wasn't absolutely on MY radar screen.  If I can't get done what I already have, why would I want to do the SAME project that others are doing?  I'm beyond the need to fit in with the group because they are all working on the same thing. I have so many projects that I bought because I want to do them. Those are the ones getting priority at my house.

And I learned something the other day. Do NOT take liquid Calcium on an empty stomach. I thought that the milk I had used for my smoothie was bad, but nope, I realized that it was the calcium. Who knew?  Anyway, taking liquid calcium on an empty stomach is very bad news!

I see Lexi and Murphy have been up to no good. You can check it out here.

On that note, I better go and get myself organized for the remainder of the day.

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!