Fireside Retreat - Day Five

I'm back home now and while I totally enjoyed my time at Fireside Retreat, it's always nice to get back home. Let's just say the girls were quite excited to see me.

BUT - it was total chaos for a few minutes. I arrived home at 1:45 and immediately unloaded the car. It took me ten trips to the car and back to get everything in the house. Someone stopped by at 1:55 to pick up a couple of things that I had to dig out. Then a customer had an appointment at 2 PM to drop off and pick up some quilts. It was a first-time customer and she was totally thrilled. That makes me very happy.

Let's go back to the beginning of the day! We don't have to check out of the house until 3 PM, but I think in all the years that we've been to the retreat house, only once did we stay until almost the final minute. Even though I had been taking stuff to the car as I finished with it, it still took several trips to get everything in the car. I swear, I'll try to be more organized next time and you all know that won't happen. Even I know that won't happen, but it's something to aim for.

I was hard at work on getting the strips ready for a jelly roll rug. I sewed all the strips together and pressed them. It was now time to insert the strips of batting. Cheap me has decided that it's not worth it to buy the packaged strips. So I've been cutting my own from the leftover strips when I trim a quilt.

So the question is - how wide should those strips be? I've been cutting mine 2 ½". There's talk that they should be 2 ¼" but I don't think I'd cut them 2 ¼". I mean you could but if you cut them at 2 ¼", it's not a big deal. I was able to shove the entire width inside the 2 ½" strips of fabric. Your choice - either way works.

This was my bag of batting strips when I started. OK -- I did take a couple of batting strips from the bag before I took the photo. But it's full - right???

Bag of batting strips for jelly roll quilt

And what do you think the bag looks like now???

The bag of batting scraps AFTER

Yep - I took 1,600 inches of batting scraps out of that bag and it doesn't even look like I touched it. ACK!!!!  It's just like our stashes. It doesn't matter how much you try to use it up, it never seems like you use any. Hey - it would appear that fabric and batting are renewable resources!! 

I had not finished all the stitching in the morning at the retreat house so when I got home, I set up the sewing machine and I plugged in an audiobook and away I went. Next thing I knew, the cord for the rug was finished.

Ready to make a jelly roll rug

You'll notice that I do my stitching on the edge of the strip, not in the center. If you stitch in the middle and use the wider batting strips, you may have trouble. I like the heavier batting (than what comes in the packages) and the slightly wider strip of batting as it makes for a more substantial rug. Just saying!

I would say that I have cut strips to make another 5 rugs??? And a HUGE bag of batting strips that need to be trimmed. I've cut the strips to make the next rug. Perhaps people would like to buy these balls of cord????

After the chaos of my first few minutes went away, I put the food away that I had brought home and I brought everything else downstairs so it could be put away. Yikes - that's a lot of stuff. Now keep in mind, that I did bring supplies.

Everything that was in the car

It looks much better this morning. 

This still has to be put away

I'm trying out a pair of wireless earbuds. I like them as the cord doesn't get caught on things as I rip around the studio, but they are expensive and if I decide to use them, I'll have to share the charging dock which isn't a bad thing. The darn things have an echo when chatting on the phone which can be annoying to the person I'm chatting with. I'm still on the fence about them.

I loaded and quilted this small quilt later in the afternoon and the next one is loaded and ready to be quilted later today.

Customer quilt - DONE

I've got a list of quilting that'll keep me busy until the end of the month and a couple quilts slated for December. I hope to make some good inroads on our charity quilts over the upcoming holidays. We'll see what happens.

Now for some good reading this morning, check out QUILTsocial. Paul Leger is chatting about sticky stuff this week. He's talking about batting spray and several other products. I'll try to remember to post the link every day for you.

On that note, I'm out of here. It's Monday sewing and a snowstorm is in the forecast. I may only go for part of the day as I have much work to be done before I head out to Timmins/Cochrane tomorrow. Don't forget if you're in that area, call Needle Works and get yourself on the guestlist for the events. We're going to have loads of fun!!!!!

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!