Pandora's box (es)

I'm late this morning. Back from the gym where I eeked out 32 KM in an hour. And I'm an idiot. I was at the gym on Monday and when I'm done my workout, I like to sit for a bit in the steam room. I saw a note saying "the spa would be closed all week due to repairs".  Oh, shoot. I didn't go in the steam room. Well, this morning, the HOT TUB (AKA the spa) was dismantled. I see - they call the hot tub the spa. Now I know. Needless to say, I had a great 10 minutes in the steam room! I'm all pink and wrinkly.

I stepped on the scale this morning. Not bad news - still not over that buffer zone of mine, but I think there are a few too many cookies being eaten! I can't help it - it's winter and I need that extra layer of fat to keep warm! OK - after I eat this last package of refrigerator cookies - that's it! And I'm going to do a detox in January to get myself back on track!

In case you're wondering, the magazine quilt is NOT done. I got the top pieced and it was loaded on the long arm before lunch. But there was a lot of stitch in the ditch and I was bored since I don't have an audiobook. OK - I could have downloaded another one. I did find two other books that I wanted to listen to - both of them are now on hold.

Anyway, the quilt is almost finished. There's about one more hour of quilting and then binding and sleeve. It'll go out this afternoon. I'm OK with that.

Today, I'm sharing with you what I worked on at Monday Sewing. This is one of my UFOs from 2017. It's called Misty Pines by Patti Carey and was published in a magazine a while back. (McCall's Jan/Feb 2013). I taught this class several times and sold kits as the fabric was very specific. Check out this link from 2015 where we are having a class.

Misty Pines by Patti Carey

While the quilt itself isn't complicated to sew, it's complicated by the fact that there are 12 fabrics that are very close in value and pattern and you need to keep them straight. LABEL LABEL LABEL.  These are the blocks/pieces that are completed.

Completed blocks

 When I made the kits, I had 12 baggies each with the pieces from one of the 12 fabrics. There was a paper note in each identifying the pieces. As I was working on the blocks above this past week, it became pretty clear that TWO bags are MISSING!!!!   How could that be????

The bags from the kit I made

When I was prepping this project for the Monday sewing bag, I must have "lost" two of the little baggies? They were all together in another zip loc bag. I don't remember what kind of a container they were in. I thought there were two boxes - one for my quilt and one with all the extras in it. 

But I have the bag with all the leftover scraps. No Ziplocs with pieces. 

Bag of leftovers from cutting the kits

 I cut those kits years ago - I am certain that I would not have short changed myself. That means they are in the studio somehwere. But where???  No time to look today and I can move to the next component to sew which is what I'll do on Monday. But ACK!!!!  I'd better find that bag or I'm going to have to do something very creative to finish the quilt.

Then I worked on the little paper pieced blocks for the other quilt for my Mom. This is the fall quilt. These little quilts are going to be the death of me. I hadn't sent the other two because of the postal issues. When I spoke to her last week and mentioned that I'll be putting them in the mail soon, she says "oh - we don't have room for that on our door as we have a wreath!" Just shoot me in the eye!! Quick!!!

Paper pieced blocks

This past Monday I was searching through the toolbox on my sewing machine. Not sure why I was doing that. But I found something interesting. At our last retreat, Katheleen was having trouble with her glasses. The screws were loose and no one had a small enough screwdriver to help her out. I'm hoping that she managed to get her glasses fixed by now. But look what I found in my sewing machine toolbox. A teeny tiny little screwdriver. The kind you need to repair glasses. Now, why the heck is that in there? And where did it come from??? I've had that sewing machine for almost 20 years. The screwdriver has probably been in there for 19!

Teeny tiny screwdriver

At the Sit n Sew on the weekend, we got to chatting about Pandora bracelets. I mean - who doesn't have one? I know there are people that do not have one, but it seems that a LOT of people have one or more. I have one and I don't wear it often. Matter of fact, I don't think I've worn it all year. Why? Becaue there are new charms that need to be added and I have to move those spacers and I'm an idiot and too lazy/too challenged to make that happen. Look - there's the bracelet and FOUR boxes of stuff to add to it!! It's going to be like Christmas when I get it all together!

My Pandora bracelet

It seems like a lot of work to move the charms around (OK - better than the old style of charm bracelet we used to have), but then it was easy to add a charm wherever you wanted. But I dug the bracelet out becaue Ronda is coming tomorrow and she's going to help me get it all together. I did play around with it and I think I can figure it out. Just a question of sitting down and doing it. OK - tomorrow's the day!

I got a bit more work done on Audra's quilt. It's amazing what time you wake up when you go to bed early! I won't tell you. Because the blocks are too small, I had started to take some of the blocks apart and resew them together. OK - I only did that once. Now I'm just adding a spacer to make the blocks the same size. The two top rows are complete and sewn together. The third row is ready to sew together and I have to add spacers to the last row.  I might just get that done in the next day or so and then it can be quilted next week. I'm super excited about that!!!!

Audra's Simple Country Sampler by The Rabbit Factory

On that note - I'm out of here. Loads to do and no slacking off today!

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!