Can you believe the change in the weather? It's positively gorgeous outside. I almost feel like getting out the lawn chairs! OK - it's not that warm, but compared to what we had last week, this is amazing.
Today is my parents anniversary. Oh my - it's their 65th anniversary. Yikes - I didn't realize that it was a milestone. Oh dear - good thing I figured that out before I called them. The day of their wedding - the temperature soared into the 50's F and water was running everywhere. Hm - a magic date?? I doubt it - just a coincidence. Besides they don't live close to me. Just checked - they're under an extreme cold warning at the moment with -25 C as the current temperature but feels like -36 with the wind chill.
I had the most amazing day yesterday. I puttered around the studio, listening to my audiobook which I finished just after lunch. Great book - awesome author. The Whistler by John Grisham (if you're into the lawyer/crime type of book.
When I look at what I have to show for pictures today, it may not look like much, but there were a couple of things that I didn't get pictures of ..... yet.
I started the day off with these two blocks.
These are a couple of the pieced blocks for the gingerbread quilt. A 12" block and a 6" block from Month 12. That leaves the applique block from Month 12 that has to be glued down and then stitched. A job for Monday - everything is prepped and ready to go.
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| Two pieced blocks for the gingerbread quilt |
That leaves Month 10 and Month 11 that I haven't touched. Each one has three blocks - one is appliqued and two are pieced. They are also in the Monday sewing bag and hopefully, I'll get some work done on the applique prep for one of them. I'm super excited that not only did I make my lists of those UFOs for the year, but I'm making them a priority in my sewing days. This is the ONLY way that those things are going to get done. A day set aside or a monetary incentive! At least for the applique quilts! While I love applique, I realize that it's not my favorite because it takes so long.
I normally do NOT participate in any kind of sew along or group exchanges. I have done many of them in the past and most of the projects are not completed so why start more? However, after chatting about it at our last retreat, I couldn't help but get one going. I think I mentioned yesterday that I had struggled with the topic that I chose for myself. Isn't that crazy? If I can't get it in my head, how will the others?
However the good news is that I designed a block (so they don't even have to come up with one) - the blocks will all be the same. It's what they put in the block that gives them lots of choices! I made good progress on my block yesterday. I added some embroidery so had to search out a design online. That is now stitched out and the block is mostly together. I guess we can share what we make. The rest of the group will eventually see it. That's a photo for tomorrow.
The blocks were to be exchanged by the end of last month. Oops - missed that deadline by a wee bit. But I have a reprieve until this Wednesday. It'll be done today. I already have the next person's box and so I was on a roll and while listening to the audiobook, got this traced and cut. Not a fun thing to cut.
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| Block for the group exchange |
The best part? I've completed the satin stitching around the edges. Oh yes - that was a fun task. I almost put myself to sleep by staring at the needle for so long. I did take a break halfway through. I added more stuff to the block before it went into the box. Bottom line? That block is done and way before it's due at the end of February. Yeah!!!!!
Then I was off to the embroidery machine again where I made another block for the Hello Sunshine quilt. No, you can't see it yet and besides, it needs to be cleaned up! You'll get to see that next week once we've had the class. I think I'm almost prepped for that class. I really want to get one of the quilts together, but all this embroidery is slowing me down and I have pieced blocks to make for both Hello Sunshine and Jingle all the Way. No worries - all is under control. The quilts will get finished when they get finished. In the meantime, I'm up to date and progress is being made - that's all that counts.
Next up for the day was to get back to those two blocks for the UFO homework for Stitcher's Garden. All the quilting was done - you saw that yesterday. I got the frame glued in place and it's now stitched down. I was hoping to use a different colored chenille yarn than the bright pink I used on the previous block. It wasn't going to happen. So bright pink it is for the second block and it's already stitched in place. I even thought about asking all of you if anyone had dark purple chenille yarn, but then I thought - this block has to be DONE by Sunday. The flowers are almost completely stitched in place and then the borders for both blocks have to be done. That's a job for today. I figure another hour and that homework will be finished. Days before it's due!!!!!
I had checked my yarn stash and I didn't have any dark purple chenille yarn. I knew I didn't but bets to check anyway. I thought about driving to Michael's to see if they had any. But I didn't. Instead, I walked to the mall to see if Wal-mart had any. It was a glorious day and perfect for a walk even in my big rubber boots. Along the way, I had to drop some books at the library and popped into the grocery store to pick up more liquid calcium. I did just over 15,000 steps yesterday. Of course, you know what that means? More calories got added to my daily intake and there I was at 7 PM having a bowl of steel cut oats, with a banana and some raisins to fill up the missing calories from the day. But there is nothing like a good bowl of oatmeal to fill you up. That was AFTER I ate dinner. It's been almost one year since I got to my desired weight and my five-pound buffer. With the exception of a wee blip near Christmas when I gorged myself on sweets, I've been able to maintain that weight with NO issues. I give a lot of credit to MyFitnessPal - the little app on my phone that tracks what I eat every day.
Oh here's my big ball of pink chenille yarn. I was going to offer it up to someone and then I remembered that I have a job for the remainder of that ball. You'll have to wait for that. Not sure when I can get to it, but I hope to in the near future. There's so much in my head and only one of me!
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| Big ball of pink chenille yard |
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| Another empty spool of thread |
This morning as I'm loading a customer quilt, I was pressing the top as it had been sitting for a while. A lightbulb went off in my head as I was pressing it. Remember that random bag of red thread and bobbins I found the other day? What the heck was it for? Well - I'm going to be doing some embroidery before I put together my 150 Canadian Women quilts and that thread was for the embroidery. DUH!!!!! The little bag of thread (minus the presser foot) are now with the blocks.
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| The bag of the red thread was for the 150 Canadian Women quilt! |
But as I was pressing the quilt, I came across this. Please be careful when putting your quilts together. I think this person ran out of the border print and while it's OK to SQUEEZE that border in - it will distort and when you cut corners? Well - quilting this quilt isn't going to make that corner issue go away.
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| Cutting corners!!!! |
Part of that missing fabric will be disguised by the binding, but not all of it. I'll have no choice but to trim ALL the borders smaller than they were originally cut in order to make that problem disappear. The moral of the story is - you MUST fix all problems as you go. I see this situation often when people are piecing blocks in classes. If you're short now, what will you do when you need to sew that block to the next one? FIX FIX FIX as you go - there are NO cutting corners.
Not to worry - this problem is fixable. It just means the borders will be smaller than originally planned.
Here's the quilt - loaded and ready to go later today.
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| Quilt is loaded on the long arm |
A while back we chatted about puzzles. Would be fun to have more time to do them, but I'm OK if I sneak in one or two a year. And remember I showed you that huge puzzle at a local toy shop? It was (at the time) the largest jigsaw puzzle in the world at 40,320 pieces. Well it would appear there is an even larger puzzle(42,000 pieces) and it's being worked on at a store NEAR ME - OK - it's an hour away but still - that's relatively near me!!! I LOVE the picture. Where would I work on that? I know it's worked on in sections but still - it's HUGE.
I have NOTHING much open in my computer this morning and it's slow as molasses. I'm going to have to restart it just to speed the darn thing up. But NOT until the blog is done.
I took some pictures when I was at the mall. It's going to take forever to load them. I'll do that tomorrow once I've rebooted.
Have a super PRODUCTIVE day!!!!!
Ciao!!!
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