That was intense!

This weekend is Quilts at the Creek at Black Creek Pioneer Village. Yes - it's going to be humid. Take water and dress accordingly. This is the LAST year for the show so you had better come out. Seeing the quilts ruffling in the wind and in that setting is just amazing. One of the traveling shows of the Cherrywood Challenge (Prince is the theme) will be on display. That is well worth seeing.

Every year they have a sort of theme. This year it's all about maps. The challenge was called Map Your World. I'm taking a map/collage class tomorrow which I haven't prepared a single thing for. But they always ask for quilts that follow that theme. I like to participate if I can.

I found something when I was cleaning that I thought would be fun to recreate for this "challenge". Of course, I left it until the last minute. Actually, I had started it but did not get too far into the process. I WANTED that quilt in the show so I was determined to get it done.

I finished cutting the appliques by noon. Then I fired up the Husqvarna Viking Opal 690Q (my everyday sewing machine) and zipped through the satin stitch. Fast, but not fast enough. It took a long time - there were a lot of pieces to applique and lots of thread changes. The main part of this piece are the words. How to get those words on my quilt????  Why I have an embroidery machine sitting at the ready, so I fired up the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC and using the super cool technology like Design Positioning, I got the words onto the piece.

I'm not even sure what time it was by then. I took small breaks, but nothing serious. I had a goal. Jane even offered to come and pick up the quilt. Sorry - it's not done yet. I'm sure she just smiled when she read that!

Now back to the Opal 690Q to quilt the piece. Whipped out my brand new ruler foot and quilted part of it with that foot and the rest was done with free motion. I was determined to get the piece trimmed and ready for binding before I went to bed.

Yep - that quilt was trimmed (it's not huge - about 36" by 20") before I went to bed and the binding strips were cut. I was in bed by 10.

Up bright and early this morning and I'm happy to report that the binding is on the quilt. All that remains is to pin the label to the back and then I'm off to deliver it to Jane.

It's not a super spectacular quilt, but it's FUN. And I love it. I'll share the quilt and the inspiration next week. It's so cute. I'm very glad that I persevered and finished it. I hate having these inspirations for a particular show, getting started and then not finishing. I was determined to NOT let that happen.

I have lots of projects that I want to get finished by the end of the month. I haven't taken a single thing off my wireframe of tasks in Studio U. However by the end of the day, I'll have removed several of the tasks so I'm happy about that.

I'll be binding quilts all day. I think there are five that need binding and I promised (to myself) that all three of the Quilts of Valor quilts would be delivered by TODAY. They are quilted, trimmed and the binding is made so that shouldn't take too long. I still have to prep for the workshop tomorrow and I have a class tonight!!  It seems that the treadmill never ends!

But I love this kind of thing. This is what makes me tick and the days when I don't have a deadline, I'm a total slug. I feel lost. What am I going to do when I don't have a serious deadline? I'll be napping and reading full time in the gazebo. I'm not ready for that yet, but a little less intense day would be fine by me. However, I put an audiobook on my phone and I was happy as a clam as I worked. I didn't even see the time pass.

This is the aftermath of yesterday.

Things to put away

As I went along, I tried to keep things more or less tidy, but I still have all this to put away. I'm not sure how many different spools of thread I used, presser feet and other tools. But it feels good to know where everything is. That's why it's so important that all this go back to it's home. OH - and I found the PERFECT backing for this map quilt. I'll show you that next week as well.

You know that I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I love when it works and hate it when it doesn't. Notice I haven't complained about my computer in a long time. Once I got that new hard disk and upgraded the memory, things have been amazing.

Well, here's some technology that I'm LOVING. If you've been reading QUILTsocial this week, you know that I created a small project and promised to share it with the readers. You need to check out how I shared the file. This technology (created by Husqvarna Viking) is so cool. We tested the links so hopefully when you go to get that file, everything will work. If you don't have the app or the account (both are FREE), then you need to get that. Then it's easy to get the project. All the instructions are on the QUILTsocial blog.

Once you have the app and an account, the next project I send will be as easy as clicking SAVE. You need to read all about at QUILTsocial.

On that note, I'm out of here. I've got two labels to pin on and I told Jane I'd leave at 7 AM to get to her house before she leaves to deliver the quilts.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!