Zipping along..........

Yesterday was certainly a very productive day, but I had such a crappy sleep last night that I'm not sure I can be as productive today. I hate when that happens. My sinuses caused some of the problems and then my throat was dry and then I had to get up for a bathroom visit. Just one of those nights. If I need a nap today, well, that's OK.

I did make it back to the grocery store and asked about my missing almond milk. Yep - they had it recorded that some idiot customer flew out of the store and left the milk on the counter. And then I still had to go back later because I had forgotten to buy cranberries and you can't have Thanksgiving dinner without cranberries!

I had to start the day by tidying up some stuff so that felt good. A lot got put away in their respective homes and the rest is still sitting there waiting to be finished. These are items that are nowhere near getting on the finishing list, but no place to store them either.

In case anyone wonders if people use mug rugs? I do. Thanks to Katheleen for this one. I had a hot chocolate (the light version with reduced sugar). I don't want that hot cup sitting directly on my cutting mat and besides, the cup was wet on the bottom. Problem solved with the mug rug!! These make FABULOUS (and personalized) Christmas gifts. You can never have too many mug rugs!

Mug rug in use

Not content to have one sewing machine going, I had two. One was set up to join strips of batting...

Joining strips of batting

 And the other one was set up to make fabric tubes from batting and fabric strips.

Making fabric tubes

 I started out with this mess - 40 fabric strips and a whack of batting strips that I had cut from the leftovers after trimming quilts.

Fabric strips and batting strips

 Of course, I could have taken the easy way out and purchased a roll of this batting but I only have one roll and that's not enough and I like to use up leftovers so I'm good to cut those strips from the batting. Yep - I mixed black and white and various weights and thicknesses. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's going to make a huge difference.

Prepared roll of batting

I'm trying to use up! I had four pieces of orange and once I had cut my 40 strips, I had this piece of orange leftover. Since it was all that remained of the collection, I decided to cut it up into strips as well. I got 8 more strips for a total of 48.

The last piece of this fabric collection got cut up

 In case you're wondering, this is the Orange colorway of the Northcott Artisan Spirit Nature Studies. I used the teal colorway (of the same collection) in that rug that I made a couple of weeks ago. It's very pretty, but what the heck was I going to do with it. I'm not sure I have enough of the teal left to make a complete rug - anyone interested in the leftovers? You can find something to go with it or you can always buy more of this collections as I saw it on on the internet. Do a Google search.  E-mail me if you want it - I'll try to post a picture of what's leftover. I don't want it.

This is what I had leftover for batting after making my 40 fabric tubes and since I had that one piece of fabric left, I decided to go ahead and make those extra 8 fabric tubes.

Leftover batting

 And I have this piece leftover as well, which is going to be the binding. There were a few scraps but those got put away in the scrap bucket. I love it when I can "file" everything away or use it up.

The binding fabric

 Here's what I had at the end of the day. 48 fabric tubes. Now you have to wait to see what I do with them. I've already started, but I'm not going to share that with you until it's completed.

48 fabric tubes

This is how many batting strips remained after I had made the 48 fabric tubes. Still quite a few. It's now in the bin with the remainder of the teal colorway of Nature Studies (that I'm getting rid of!) as well as the blue colorway. My goal - use all of the Nature Studies UP!!!

Batting strips leftover

No worries, I still have another bag of batting strips to go through and cut into 2 ½" strips. I'm thinking that I'm going to have enough to make two more rugs. Which is good - maybe that'll use up all that fabric in the bucket.

Bag of batting to be sorted through

In the future, I plan to keep the bag of batting under control. As I trim a quilt, I'll cut the 2 ½" strips and the pieces that are too narrow will go into pet mats.

When I got bored of working on that project, I decided it was time for another finish. I had to sew the binding onto the front of this wall hanging. I also hand stitched the corners of the binding as well as made a sleeve which is also hand stitched in place. This is finish number 59!  I wonder where Diane is with her finishes? I know she was away last week but it wouldn't surprise me that she found a way to finish something.

Floral wall hanging

 I put my usual little fabric label on this one, but it will also be a sample when I wear my educator (Husqvarna Viking) hat, so I labeled it to death. Since I had stitched out the embroidery and all the piecing and quilting were done as blog posts for QUILTsocial, I took advantage of that and included all that information, including the links on the label.

Now that's a quilt label!

I had one more label like this make so I made it at the same time and they both turned out awesome.

I got a quilt loaded on the long arm so I'll be working on that today and hopefully, it'll be completed by tomorrow. It's a big one and some custom work on it so I can't set the machine and leave it. But I know with my sinus issue that I don't want to work on it all day.

I managed to get a couple of things written in my TO DO book, but not all. If I don't get myself together, I'll start to forget things so that is going to take priority this morning.

And I have a couple more projects that are very close to being finished. I have to maintain pace with Diane!!!  I might work on a binding or two this afternoon for a change of pace.

Oh before I leave, I have to share two more New Orleans links with you. They are creepy so if you're not into that kind of thing - DO NOT go to them. I'm not kidding but I seem to be fascinated with this stuff. I'm just weird - totally fascinated yet scared to death at the same time. Now, why is that? And do not say that my sleep issues are related to the creepy New Orleans ghosts. I don't buy that.

The first is about the house that was used in the movie? TV series? American Horror Story. It's about the LaLaurie Mansion. We heard the same story from our tour guide - does that make it right? No idea, but the place is now owned by someone from Texas and the place is rarely used which is a shame since it looks like a gorgeous place from the outside. The house was owned by Nicolas Cage at one point. It's huge (20,000 sq feet) although it doesn't look like it, I guess they are counting all the back part of the house which was likely the servant's quarters. Well so to speak.

It's amazing how you can look for something and not find it. But the short video above referenced a book and I searched for that and came up with a whole pile of other books of hauntings in New Orleans. Now I can search for those. I know - I'm morbid. Now I want to go back and tour the cemeteries. THAT would give me sleeping issues. They are super creepy!

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a great day!!!!


Ciao!!!