Has this ever happened to you?

Another amazing day yesterday! I'm such an optimist that it's hard to have a truly bad day.

Yesterday I took a workshop. I'm not good at workshops as I'm a bad student, but this workshop was very interesting. It was learning to draw on the iPad. I can't draw very well. I could if I practiced a wee bit more. My doodling has certainly improved since I started doodling years ago. Same goes for my free motion quilting - the more you do, the better you become and the more accepting of yourself you become.

The intention of learning to draw on the iPad is that eventually, those drawn designs will become computerized designs that I can stitch out on the computerized longarm. Marilyn (our instructor) has been doing this for a number of years and you should see what she does with it. Her quilting (some free hand and some digitized) is absolutely stunning. Her process is not just winging it - there's tons of planning involved but the end result is so worth it. How can I ever convince newbies to machine quilting that it takes tons of time to plan out a design? All of the amazing stuff is very carefully designed and planned. 

It's because of Marilyn that I bought that silly iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil last year. Well, I got to play with it for real yesterday. First up - did you know that those darn pencils have to be charged? Thank goodness that Diane was sitting next to me so I was able to use her charger. And soon I was up and running. Now to find the box that the pencil came in to get my charger. It's on my desk somewhere. Little things like that before we even started the class were worth the price. If I would have fiddled on my own, I would have figured it out, but I don't always have time to fiddle. I need to schedule fiddling time in my calendar. Already done - Tuesdays will become my "learning day" at home.

We learned how to draw, how to trace, how to open and save files and my favorite - working with layers. Actually, because of my work with Photoshop Elements, I'm pretty good with the layers. It was a super day and I learned a ton. The ideas in my head are swirling faster than I can process them. I'm going to have to start simple! Take ONE motif and draw it out, then transfer to the long arm software and stitch it out. When I get that down pat, then I can move to more complex stuff. Wow!!!  Learning is fun!!! And there's always something new to learn.

Here's part of my flower that I "drew" yesterday.

My flowers

Now, this was a very quick drawing. Imagine what I could have if I were to take more time. The ideas for applique, paper piecing and other uses like the computerized designs are overwhelming!!!  The possibilities!!!!!

We finished a wee bit earlier than expected. I have FREE time - yeah!!!!  It's amazing to have free time. I was in an area where there were a lot of quilt stores and the old me would have been off shopping in a heartbeat. The new me said - get home and get something done! I stopped to do two errands on my way home. And was home by the time I said I would be home originally.

I sat down to read the local paper and OH SHOOT - there's a sale on sweaters at Mark's. The exact kind that I wanted to get. So I hopped in the car and went to get sweaters which just happens to be beside PetSmart so I got Miss Murphy some dog food as well. Got three long sleeved cardigan sweaters for $114 including tax. That was worth the drive. Alas, dog food wasn't on sale. Dog food is never on sale!

I should not confess this, but I'm going to. Years ago, I had all these good intentions. A student of mine passed and I promised to finish some of her projects. And well, you guessed it - some of those projects are still not completed. It's bad and really sad. Anyway, in this case, I was able to reconnect with the daughter and we were texting last night. YES - I will get those projects done for her to honor her mother who was tragically killed in an accident. Audra was a great student of mine and attended many classes. I had already finished one quilt and it's been sitting here for a long time. Two more are waiting to be quilted. That leaves two more that just need to be pieced. I pulled out the stuff last night  - oh yes - I knew exactly where it was. It would appear that the blocks for these last two projects are done - the tops just need to be assembled. Thankfully none of the tops are large so it shouldn't take long to finish them up. 

I haven't set a date yet for delivery, but I'm excited to be able to get them done and to their rightful owner.

Because I had pulled that project off the shelf, I decided that I needed to put a wee bit of order in that room. I was tired of moving stuff around. So I rejigged some stuff. Looked through some bags and added stuff and guess what I found?????   Yep - the moment that I used my spare little binder book for deadlines, I found the original!!!! Why it had got stuffed in a project bag is beyond me. Now it's going in the box with the other books. I moved all the pages from the other book to this one.

The REAL little deadline book

So now there are 18 projects with deadlines in that book. Not all have a deadline yet, but they will have. Those deadlines run between December 3 and July 1. It's all doable, none of the projects are big, but some will require a lot of work. That's why it's going to be equally important to check the deadlines with the Task Master (weekly) to ensure that I'm not running around like an idiot again. I love pressure and I love deadlines - just not lots at the same time.

Has this happened to you?  It's dry weather season and my lips were dry. Actually, this happened over a month ago, but I'm only getting the story to you now. I didn't know if I had any lip balm so I bought one that I thought would be great. Burt's Bees. It was actually Lip Shine which was probably my first mistake. I've used the product in the past and had no issues. However, I do find that the product is very "sticky and thick". Well, my lips were getting worse. They were hurting and they were icky. I was accusing the cook at our house that he was using too much spice and it was burning my lips.

So I stopped using that product and found a regular ChapStick. The difference was incredible. The burning went away, my lips became soft and smooth again. There must be some ingredient in that product that didn't agree with my lips. Seriously????  Then I did a wee bit of research about lip balms. Turns out that many of the products are bad for you! In relation to the products included in them. Now I get it that this is one group's finds, but interesting. By the way - if ever you can't read the label on something - take a picture of it and then enlarge it on your phone!!  There's a LOT of stuff in that Burt's Bees Lip Shine. Here's another article - this one says that ChapStick is bad, but I find that works just fine for me.

I guess the bottom line is that if something doesn't feel right - don't use it! I won't be purchasing that product again and I'll be fine!

On that note, I've got a ton of stuff to do today. No classes, no appointments, just me and my technology tools - the sewing machines, the camera, and the computer. I can hardly wait to dive in!!!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!