Mom - there's nothing to eat!

We're all familiar with that phrase. Except that my kid is gone. That was me who said that this morning as I glanced into the refrigerator this morning. I got a text from DH yesterday asking if I could stop and pick up groceries. Ah - since I left the house about 8 AM and wasn't planning to be back until about 9 PM, I don't think that's going to happen. I come home to find that he ordered pizza for dinner and there is NOTHING - I mean NOTHING to eat in that fridge or the cupboards. No bacon, no bananas for breakfast. No soup - pretty slim pickings. Good grief - you think he could have gone to the grocery store. Oh well........

Yesterday was a bit of a crazy day (as usual). I had three classes to teach and then zipped off to a meeting and then dinner. I'll share the homework from two of the classes with you this coming week.

But I've been up for hours this morning and I've been pretty productive already. Well, most of it was prepping for today which is another Sit n Sew. I've got bindings, I've got backings, I've got embroidery - everything is prepped and ready to hit START. I'll be sharing all that with you in the near future!

I started off this morning by getting out the hot glue gun. I've been known to hot glue embellishments to some of my projects. In this case, I had three quilts that needed a bit of repair. All is done, but well - some of these pieces are damaged just from being carted to trunk shows. No worries - I'll find time to stitch/fix them up at a later date. But for the moment, the bits that were hanging around are now back on the proper pieces.

Hot gluing embellishments to the quilts

Here's MY set up for today. I've got a serger and two machines ready to go, plus I have another machine to the right of that. You can just see my orange stool at the bottom of the photo. Actually, there are three embroidery machines so technically I could get them all working at once since I do have a LOT to embroidery - Hmm - that's a thought!  But that would be too noisy with others in the room. Mind you, we're only going to be five today. But still. It'll be bad enough with one machine going.

MY sewing station for Sit n Sew

I dug out my Halloween quilts and hung them up on the design wall this morning. So cute! It's hard to remember to hang them. Isn't that bad?

Halloween quilts

Shoot - I have about three lap quilts with a Halloween theme. They are hanging around the house - well not hanging up, but around. And then there's my embroidered Halloween quilt. See that one block is still missing? I have some repair work to do on it. And I'll share that with you when I get to that point.

Halloween quilt

Notice that there is only ONE fabric hanging there for the outer border. The last Sit n Sew group nixed the purple border that was there. I think that was a wise choice. Now to pick a fabric for the cornerstones and get those embroidered so I can get this thing together. I might have some time to work on it today????  I've got BIG plans for today and there's only so much that can be done.

Here's that table I was talking about yesterday. My sewing machine is to the bottom right of that picture. It's a portable sewing table so it's not overly huge and this table was supposed to give me room to work on large quilts. Well, that's not happening. It became a dumping ground for things that needed to be sewn. So given that today is a dedicated sewing day and there's quite a bit of space to work, I might just get some of this done!!!  And that would get rid of a few UFOs as well.

Table of STUFF to finish up!

I'm so excited that I'm so prepped I can hardly wait for 8:30 to arrive.  And I'm super ready for the upcoming retreat. I was bustling around doing something the other day and I quickly pulled some projects (those Dirty Dozen UFOs from 2017 and 2018) and they are in the retreat bag. One HUGE IKEA bag. To heck with trying to fit it all in a laundry basket.

Oh -- someone had asked me the size of my main studio room. I measured this morning. It's 22 feet by 24 feet. And there's a darn pillar right in the middle of it. I would love to get rid of it, but then the house would fall in so that's not an option. I knew someone who had their house jacked up and inserted a massive steel support beam beneath the house so they could get rid of that post in their family room. Obviously, they had money to burn. You could buy a lot of fabric and probably a new sewing machine for the cost of doing that! Not happening at my house!

Anyway - there are seven 6 foot banquet tables set up at any given time. There's a cutting table which is also 6 feet (it's an IKEA table with storage underneath), there's the Reliable ironing board and then in the corner, the one with that messy table, there's my big sewing cabinet that's fully extended at all times, my small portable sewing table (which I use all the time) and a 4 foot table. In a pinch, I can add one more 4 foot table beside this grouping. And if I move my crap off that 4-foot table, we can fit 11 people in to sew. I have a long section of bookshelves in this room as well that's tucked along one of the walls which I would LOVE to extend. I need to extend it as there are way too many books on the floor.

Keep in mind that my projects and fabric are NOT in this room. There are storage rooms for that stuff. And the long arm is in the other side of the basement. Yes - I'm lucky! Very lucky - it didn't come without a lot of complaints from someone else in the house. But seriously if he can't even get out to do the groceries? Well - I digress.

Here's an interesting article about textile waste and what to do with it. It's from Quilter's Connection blog and talks about Vancouver, but we should all look to see if there aren't similar programs in our area. I used to make pet mats from my scraps, but now I give them to Diane who makes pet mats. And I keep the small scraps. Oh - I have a very cool idea to share with you later this week about what to do with scraps. If you live in the Region of Peel, they have an excellent website that you can search for almost ANYTHING and you'll get information on how to get rid of stuff that still has a life. 

I really, really need to schedule some days (in the spring) where I focus on getting rid of the excess stuff from our house. Just two days would make a huge difference. You know what - I just popped over to my calendar and scheduled two days in March and I marked them in HUGE letters and also added a note to NOT RESCHEDULE those days. I'm pretty good at respecting a commitment if it's written down.

One last story to share with you before I go. As you know, the long arm died the other day. I found an electrical supply store and was there at 8 AM yesterday when they opened. I had to wait a few minutes as the man was late, but that's OK. I was very patient. He tested all three fuses that I have. Yes - the one that was in the machine is DEAD. It was black and I suspected it had blown. It's the FIRST fuse ever to blow on the machine and it isn't that uncommon. The other two were fine. BUT upon investigation, the amperage of the other two are different. There are two different fuses used on some machines. I'm suspecting that those extra fuses are NOT the right ones for the machine, hence it wouldn't work when I inserted them. I've got a pack of 5 of the same one the blew and I'll try it later today. I'm hoping it works and I can't bear the let down if it doesn't. Total denial!!!!  I'm going to call my Dad later today to ask what is the difference between them and why one would work and the other doesn't - all that technical stuff. But I like to know this stuff.

Anyway, the man at the electrical supply store was very helpful and he asked me what machine I was using the fuses in. I told him, but I think he had no clue what I was talking about. I should carry a picture of the long arm with me so people can see it!

On that note, I'm out of here. I'm debating taking the girls to the park. It's wet and they're going to get filthy. I think we might just go for a walk.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!!