OH MY!!!

Did you read that article about the large family that came to Canada? The one with the quilt at the end? I'm halfway through the story - it's fascinating. Just goes to show how one small decision can change the world for someone. If you didn't get to the story the other day, here's the link again.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth at the CreativFestival to say HI!  Sorry - I saw and waved to some of you, but customers come first! It was loads of fun and the time seemed to fly by. Next thing I knew, we're in the process of tearing down the booth.

I didn't end up buying that expensive item. I'm going to get it from another source which will be better so that's good. But I did get around to say hi to a couple of people and I managed to get the information that I needed. It wasn't what I wanted to hear, but I got the info. Just means that I have to rejig an upcoming class. Oh - one more piece of knowledge to tuck in my head.

While I have a ton of knowledge in my head, there are always learning moments. Keeping those embroidery machines working was no exception. Normally at home, there are ZERO disruptions to the process. You start the machine and you keep feeding it thread changes or trimming and that's it. But there were numerous occasions when the embroidery process was interrupted for a number of reasons. We needed to demo the other parts of the machine, the machine got UNPLUGGED were the two main ones.

It's one thing to do an autosave of the design when you take the hoop off - that's easy to get back in the right place, but quite another when the machine gets unplugged and you've no idea where the machine was in the embroidery sequence. But I'm good - I know how to figure it out! 

Which is good because I have another issue that has to be resolved. It involves machine embroidery, my Halloween quilt, and my sewing machine. I got some advice yesterday and now that I know it's possible, I'm going to experiment and get it figured out.

I was up way early this morning and decided that I had better get that studio back in order. Not only that, but I had three trunk shows last month and there are quilts sitting all over the house. Time to get some order back in the place. There's a stack of quilts to go upstairs where the completed quilts rest when not in use. There were a few tops that needed to be placed back in the tubs of "to be quilted" quilts. Quilts to be hung up that have been off the wall for months.

That entire "to be quilted" area in the studio was a mess. I had dug out quilt tops and not replaced them. Tubs were open, quilts were everywhere. Space was getting to a premium.

So this morning, I got it all cleaned up and then I had the shock of my life.

There are a "few" tubs of quilts to be quilted. And if you remember, the backings and the bindings are already made and folded together with the top. Now if I wanted to find a specific quilt, the process could be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but a while back, I sorted and labeled everything and created my BIBLE.

The TO BE QUILTED BIBLE

There is a page for each tub and I tried to group similarly themed quilts together. For instance, one tub has all the small table runners in it. Another has mystery quilts. I know - it's a shame when you have a TUB full of mystery quilt tops that need to be quilted.

With the help of the book, I was able to get everything back into the appropriate tub in a very short period of time. And here they are - FOURTEEN tubs full of quilts that need to be quilted. It's sinful!

Fourteen tubs of quilts to be quilted

There is also one more tub and an IKEA bag that is filled to overflowing that also houses quilts to be quilted. Plus there are about 6 or 7 quilts that have been earmarked as priority ones for myself and they are sitting on the quilt rack in the "next to be quilted" order.

MOre quilts of mine to be quilted

I hadn't been too diligent about adding the new tops that I finished this year. Now that is all documented and I'll get it into the computer file and reprint the pages that need to be updated. Oh yes - a couple of quilts have been removed from the tubs because they are DONE! Not enough, but some.

Then I thought (as a lark) that I would tally up the total of the pages. An involuntary bad word popped out of my mouth when I saw the total. No WAY?????  Oh god - this is bad.

Without coming right out and saying the number, if I quilted ONE quilt per week - it would take me over FOUR years to get all of those quilts done!  God help me, but there are 210 tops in those tubs. Now how the heck did that happen????  That's pretty scary! The biggest problem is that I'm adding to that total all the time. However, I did stop the flow somewhat as I've done a fair amount of my own quilting this year. Obviously NOT ENOUGH!!!!

This is another area of the "to be quilted" pile. But these quilts do not belong to me. Some are customer quilts (only the top area) and the bottom part is filled with donation quilts. Actually, a couple of donation quilts are on top as well. So I'm doing OK on the customer side and will get back to that this week. There's about a month's worth of work there.

More quilts that don't belong to me to be quilted

That's totally obscene. And let's not even think of all the UFOs that haven't made it to this "to be quilted" pile yet. No worries - it will happen - we just need to focus and have a plan. And I'm getting better at both.

On that note, I'm out of here. Got a meeting today about longarming so that's good. It's going to be a fun day and I can't wait.

Let's not forget that the remainder of that studio has to be cleaned up and I want to do some sewing for myself later today. It's going to be a fairly relaxed day and I can't wait.

If your husband or children are ragging on you about how much stuff you have, send him pictures of my stuff and say he has nothing to worry about.

Have a super day!!!!!


Ciao!!!!