In over drive!

My brain has shifted into overdrive and I can't shut it down!

This morning is the LAST broadcast for Roger Ashby at CHUM-FM. Even though I haven't listened to the show for the last couple of years and NOT because of Roger, but because of his co-host. She just doesn't work for me and that was enough to not listen to Roger. Sad but true. Even now that I'm listening to CHUM-FM on a temporary basis and I find myself shouting at the radio at some of the things that she says!! It's bittersweet - he's such a great guy and I'll miss him, but I'm liking the new guy so I hope I might switch back and forth a wee bit?

I've discovered these last couple of days that my steel cut oats taste way better with ALMOND milk rather than regular milk. I use the unsweetened almond milk so it's not a lot of calories. I must get to the grocery store today. If you haven't tried almond milk with your cereal, you don't know what you're missing. I know that the first time M brought home almond milk, I was disgusted by it. But try it - it definitely adds a flavor to the cereal. I don't drink it but I'm sure it tastes great to drink.

I did not leave the house yesterday except to walk the dogs.

I started off by loading a quilt on the long arm. I was going to quilt the quilt as well, but I had so much trouble loading it that I decided to let it simmer overnight before I tackled it. Why so challenging? A reversible quilt, so the customer made the top and the backing practically the same size!!!! Both pieces directional. My brain just wasn't working first thing in the morning and I loaded what I thought was the larger piece but in fact, it wasn't so I had to take it off and load the other piece. Bottom line, it will get quilted - I'm not happy. I'll be discussing the issue yet again with this customer. Nuff said - let's move on. Thank goodness it's the kind of quilt that can be trimmed so the ugly edges (from not having enough backing to play with) will be trimmed.

I had a few e-mails to answer, got those done - one urgent piece of information to get done today. Finished another book. OK - so I must have elevated my level of sophistication when it comes to reading books. As mentioned, I finished that lengthy character novel the other day. The next book on the list was the latest Jane Evanovich - Look Alive - Twenty-Five - Stephanie Plum. I'm not sure that I can continue to read that series. I get it that the books are based on slapstick humor, but seriously - how much slapstick can one person deal with???  I didn't really enjoy the book and was glad when it was finished. I think it's time to close down that series. It borders on - well, just not my thing anymore.

Even though I felt like I slacked off yesterday, I did accomplish some things. I got some black/white and white/black strips cut. I didn't calculate, I didn't cut, I just started by cutting these strips. I'm sure that I don't have enough and as I get closer to the end of the project, I'll be calculating as I don't want any leftovers.

Strips cut for the ender/leader project

Of course, this didn't even put a dent in the black/white basket of fabric. This went back on the shelf. The small scraps went into the black/white scrap box.

The black/white fabric basket

 And I did do a wee bit of sub cutting. Then I couldn't find the bag that was sitting on the messy tables around my sewing machine for the rest of the project. I'm sure I'll find it today.

Smaller pieces sub-cut for the ender/leader project

At some point in the day, I glanced at my calendar to see what was in store for the week and realized that we have an appointment at the vet that I've pushed off twice already so we better get there today. Tomorrow is a Sit n Sew - oh shoot - I thought it was next week. And I've a class to teach on Friday and my last class for the year is on Saturday. Oh dear - that changes up my week considerably. Not the classes, but the Sit n Sew. That's an entire day that I had planned to do something else. Oh well - it'll all work out!

I unpacked a few things yesterday and I'll be doing a lot more today as I get the room ready for the group tomorrow. On my travels, I found some bee fabric that'll go in the mix when we do the bee collage from Laura Heine. 

Bee fabric for the collage quilt

Here's one more license plate for the Row by Row. This one from The Quilting Barn in Earlton. Yeah - I've got to find something to do with some of the other license plates that I've collected.

License plate

 I also cut a quilt kit because I needed a picture of it. There's a quilt coming out in a magazine and the fabric is quite specialized but I've loads of the darn fabric so I'll be selling off some of my stash in the form of kits. You can watch for that. The quilt is simple as its the fabric that makes the quilt. So here's my cutting scrap basket. Way overdue to be emptied. Hopefully today.

Scrap basket

As if all that wasn't enough yesterday, I had a couple of quilts that I needed to get off to the call for submission from one of the magazines. Well my brain kicked into overdrive and after browsing through fabric catalogs, I settled on a couple of collections and opened up EQ8 and I was off. It was hard to shut my brain down - so many ideas tumbled out. I'm going to have to start writing and selling patterns just to let all the ideas out.

Anyway, one of the fabrics was a huge challenge. I knew exactly how I wanted to cut it and how I could cut it in person. But how to do that on the computer? So I spent the evening, slicing and dicing fabric on the computer. I couldn't quite get the effect that I wanted. Then I found some new tools in EQ8 - OH - these are awesome tools. At this point, I was working on the Image worktable, not the quilt or the blocks.

I almost had the image tweaked to what I wanted, but not quite. I opened up Photoshop Elements in the hopes that I could tweak the photo there. ACK - still not quite right. Off to bed, but I couldn't sleep so I was up into the wee hours of the night and I figured it out!!!!  HA -- I might not be good with technology, but I love playing with the software. Then a couple more ideas came to mind so I put those on paper as well. I could probably fill the entire magazine with my ideas! Four ideas sent last night.

I'm finishing off two more this morning and then I'm done for this round. Although there are loads of other collections that I want to do something with. It's hard to stop!!!

So I'm a happy camper on that front. On the time front - not so much!

On that note, I'm out of here. I've got a lot of work to do today and there's zero time to take a break to read the new book that I started yesterday. No MORE books from the library for a long time. I still have a stack to read and I should be reading my own now that I've collected the darn pile!

Have a great day!!!!!


Ciao!!!!