The end of an era!

OK - I listened to a good portion of the final broadcast by Roger Ashby on CHUM-FM. It was such a bittersweet event. I'm happy for him that he's retiring, but I'm going to miss him. I have to say that I shed a tear when he did his final few minutes. But here's the good thing - I'm liking the combination of the new team. Jamar seems to tone down the announcer that I'm not fond of. Oh boy - did I just say that out loud? Well, it beats listening to Christmas music 24/7.

Yesterday was a busy and productive day, but at the same time - a few frustrations. Now here's one good reason to delay things. I have some travel in the new year and the SAME dates have been floating around for months. We finally got the word on Tuesday to book the tickets. So I did because otherwise, I would forget or leave it until the last minute and potentially pay more. Within 24 hours of booking that ticket, we got word that those dates have been changed! Seriously???  Why send out a note to book when they were going to change the dates. I had to pay a change fee which will be paid by someone else, but still - that was a little incident that I didn't need. Next time - I'll wait to book!

I managed to get that large reversible quilt done. It wasn't a fun quilt to quilt and despite the issues with it, it turned out very nice. I'm not sure how I'm going to trim it and part of me wants to leave it for the customer to do, but I'm a nice person so I'm going to do it for her.

Here's side one. It has a big vertical horse panel in the center. Look at those huge borders so there's room to trim.

Side one of the reversible quilt

And here's side two of the quilt. This time a big horizontal horse panel in the center.

Side two of the reversible quilt

Now here's the issue with the quilt. In a normal world, the backing is supposed to be about 3 inches larger than the front on ALL sides. This allows the front to "float" on the back. It's easy to hold things in place and easy to quilt because you can see ALL the edges at the same time.

In this case, the top part was wider than the backing but shorter than the backing. Does that make sense?? So as I'm basting it, I had to go by feel to catch the backing in place. The customer got confused and I know that because of the note that included with the quilt. I'm going to give her a note back with the proper way to make the backing. I also had to join the batting. Again - I don't mind to do this stuff, but it costs the customer MORE money and if they are willing to pay, then I'm willing to do.

A slight issue with the size of the backing and the quilt

It's all in a good days work although I was tired when I finally got it finished after dinner. It was definitely a mental challenge. Why didn't I just refuse it? Because I do like a challenge but that one almost did me in!

I have six more customer quilts to get done before Christmas. My goal is to get three more done this week so they can all be delivered by Monday. That will leave 3 to do in the next two weeks and then there's already a list for January. Not worrying about those at the moment. So I'm in good shape.

Next year, I'll won't get behind as I now have a routine.  Don't laugh!!! I've been way more disciplined this year than ever! I do want to get all of the community project quilts done as well, but there are a few of them. At least most are small and should be easy to quilt.

Did anyone get their hands on this book? I finally finished it yesterday and returned it to the library. I agree with EVERYTHING in the book except the way they do the final binding join. What a shame to have so much good information spoiled by that one silly thing. But seriously, if you're new to quilting or know someone who is  (or you want to brush up on GOOD practices in the quilting world) - this is the BEST and most COMPREHENSIVE book, I've ever seen on how to cut fabric, figure out yards, add borders, piecing, etc.

The BEST and most COMPREHENSIVE quilt book around

I put Volume 2 on hold yesterday. There are 6 books in total. I wonder what I'll learn from the other books???

We have a sit n sew today! Yeah! I love Sit n Sew and as usual, I've big plans. Let's see what actually happens. I'm not the most productive on these Sit n Sew days. I'm way more productive on my own time - most days!

So that meant clearing the tables. I had to park all the extra sewing machines in the sewing machine garage! That's a lot of serious sewing power right there. There's another Sit n Sew on Sunday, I doubt I'll unpark any of those machines until after Sunday.
Serious

Serious sewing power parked for the moment

I had a wee bit of serging to do and then noticed that I was almost out of thread on that one spool. I dug out another spool and managed to catch the end so it was easy to pull that thread through. I love this serger. 

Oh - don't forget to tie off that spool of thread!

In addition to quilting that quilt yesterday which required a LOT of babysitting, I was cutting out the next magazine quilt. OH - I don't think I'm going to have enough fabric. Shoot - I was off to the quilt store to get more and at the same time, I finished my shopping for the guild meeting tonight. We've got a bunch of games planned and I have two Santa sacks filled with goodies for prizes. It's going to be super fun!!  The Santa Sacks are by Jen Holden.  We use these instead of stockings at our house!

Santa sacks filled with goodies for the guild meeting tonight

And at last, I had a chance to empty the scrap basket and filled a pet mat. I'll be getting rid of it today so that's why I needed to get the serger out. 

Empty scrap basket and one pet mat made!

I finished off the quilt submissions this morning. Five different collections - 6 different quilts. I hope they like at least one of them. I'm quite happy with them all. I want to make them all!!

I also managed a quick trip to Indigo to see what new magazines were out. Because of the postal situation, I haven't received some of them and I know there is a new quilt of mine out there. I must try the Chapter's near me - but that will have to wait until tomorrow. As I was browsing the magazine section, I noticed that this Indigo seems to have loads of the British magazines. It seems that every one of them had a freebie attached. Yarn to make something, templates or patterns or stamps. It's a wonder they can fit these bulky magazines on the shelves!

I also hit the grocery store so my steel cut oats tasted much better this morning with unsweetened almond milk rather than regular milk. I do have the best kid who alerts me to stuff like that! But I resisted - oh yes - I resisted.

While things are under control, I somehow feel out of control at the moment. Probably because I'm not fully prepared for the meeting tonight. So that will happen later today and once that is done - I'm totally back in control and it'll be nice!!!

Here's a great note about memory. It would appear that note-taking with pen and paper is still way better than the computer. (check out that link) I agree that if you write something down, you're more likely to remember it. That's a given. I've not tested myself to see if I'm better with the computer than paper. But I have lots of notebooks that I hand write in and each has its purpose. I would be totally lost without them.

On that note, it's time to get the day started. HA - I've been up for hours! And I don't mean just one or two!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!