To toss or repair

Is it nap time yet? Yes, it's going to be one of those kinds of days. While I'm not super sick, I've congestion in my nose and chest, but I'm not hacking my lungs out. Still, I'm tired. I'm going to write this post, then it will be nap time.

While I did spend a good part of yesterday either snuggled under several quilts on the sofa or in my big chair (but not big enough to be super comfortable) reading a book, I did manage to get some stuff done in the studio.

Amazing how little happens when there is no deadline.

I got the second of the rag quilts together. That means it's time to get the snips out and start clipping those seams. I might be able to manage that while I lazing around. I'm not sure, but that heavy flannel quilt would sure keep me warm.

The second rag quilt is assembled

The person who gave me the rag quilts was making two of them. The first one, I assembled ONE quilt. This second one, I split into two. Gosh, that first one must have been huge which is why it took forever to snip the seam allowances!!!  Hopefully, the process will go a wee bit faster this time.

There were a few bits left over which I thought would make a nice cat bed. I was missing ONE of the small squares so I cut one from my flannel scraps (can you guess which one it was?). This should be super easy to snip the seam allowances. I might just manage that today.

Raggy flannel cat bed

Let's see - I put the binding on a quilt - only the one side, but I also prepped the sleeve for that quilt and one other quilt that I had bound during my binding marathon for QUILTsocial this week. There are quite a few more that need binding (from my quilting marathon of the last couple of weeks). I'm going to attempt to do a couple a day, but in theory, I'd like most of the binding done by next Thursday which shouldn't be a problem.

I've got two quilts (they were the largest ones) trimmed and so there's a wee bit of a gap in the work tables. A wee gap!!!  You can actually see the surface of the table!

Progress is being made on the work tables

 But if I consider that the machine has already been gone for one week and will likely be back in two, I'm way behind and that would be a lot of stuff to pack up for the retreat! I'm not worried. It'll happen.

Here are the quilts waiting to be bound sitting on the other set of work tables.

Quilts waiting to be bound

Something else that I need to get working on is a couple of challenge quilts. Now I don't care if my challenge quilts are spectacular. They are usually a place to try something new. The moment I opened this package this morning (this is the Trend-Tex challenge for Quilt Canada in Vancouver), I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it. I dug out a source that I needed and hopefully later today, I can get working on it. I'm not sure how it will end up looking - I'm just going with the flow on this one.

The fabrics for the trend-tex challenge for QuiCanadaada

 The fabric is a cotton lawn so it's creamy smooth. I'm only going to use the fabrics included in the kit, so I'll be limited in how big the piece will be. That's where I rely on my intuition. Just let the cards fall where they may.

I had a wind chime in my backyard. It's been hanging in the gazebo for years and I noticed a while back (OK - last year) that the blue piece (that the wind catches) had fallen off. The cording had rotted through. I had to find the piece of glass as one minute, it would be there (as I was sitting in my lawn chair and looking through the railing of the gazebo) and the next it would be buried - thanks to a pair of hooligans ripping around the gazebo.

I finally rescued the piece and when all the work was being done in the backyard, I decided to bring in the wind chime so I could reattach the piece of glass.

Broken wind chime

Now you'd think this would be an easy job. Pull out the old cord and insert a new one. Nope - that cording must have been glued in place because it won't budge. Oh crap, I finally decided to toss the wind chime and just get a new one. How expensive can they be? I popped down to Rona yesterday, but they no longer sell them. Seriously????  Yep, when they downsized, the wind chimes got nixed.

Back home to search the internet to try and find a wind chime. Gosh, I found some that were HUNDREDS of dollars. I don't want that!  Anyway, after a more thorough search this morning, I found an outdoor store not far from me that sells all kinds of backyard stuff. They are probably closed today but I'll be popping by tomorrow to see what I can find. I'm excited!  I love hearing the little tinkle of the wind chime and this is NOT something you can buy online. I choose the wind chime based on the sound, not the look. I don't want a big booming sound, and I don't want a little tinkling bell, I want a decent sounding wind chime.  Yeah - can't wait for tomorrow.

I've got two links for you today. It's the last day of my blog posts on binding quilts on QUILTsocial. As you could probably tell from the posts, I'm super excited about all that I learned this past week. It takes bindings to a whole new level and I can't wait to start using some of those techniques. Maybe even later today!

The second is about quilt books. I love books about quilt history. I've got quite a collection of them, but always on the lookout for more. I came across this new book which I shall have to try and find somewhere. I hate to pay full price for them because they are expensive. And I've been able to find oodles of them at guild garage sales. Thanks, ladies!!!!  Anyway, here's a link to an author that looks very interesting if you're into that kind of book. The author's name is Roderick Kiracofe.  I have two of the Quilt Digest (I'm certain I have a third, but couldn't locate it this morning). I also thought I had his main book, but nope - I don't have that one.  So if you happen to be downsizing and you have some of these historical/picture books of quilts, let me know and we can talk. I already have a big collection so I might already have whatever you're getting rid of!!!  And I really need to make it a priority to upload all my quilt books to Collectorz - the software that I use to catalog the books I've read.

I'm a big user of the public library. Often, I'm somewhere and I see a book and I think, "Does the library have this book?" (as I'm too cheap to cough up the money for the book, especially if it's fiction).  It was very difficult to access the library catalog through the internet. So I would take a picture of the book and then check when I got home.  NO MORE!!!   There's an APP for that!  The APP is called BookMyne - available for free in the Play Store and it gives you access to your account and the ENTIRE library catalog of YOUR library. Even better, you can scan the book's ISBN and see if the library stocks the book you're looking at.  WOW!!!!   I love that!!!!    It's not just for my library - it's for all libraries that had connected to the app - you start off by selecting your library.

OK, now I'm tired and for sure, I need a nap before I tackle those bindings.

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!