UFO day

Yesterday was a UFO day! The morning started off a wee bit slow - don't ask me why, but it did.

Then I was able to gather steam and I made up for the lost time.

Here's what I accomplished.

I started the day off by making the backing for this small wall hanging. Even though the wall hanging is small, I had to piece the backing. I had loads of fabric choices but wanted to find something that somewhat coordinated with the top. I think I did a great job matching the backing to the top. There's nothing left for the sleeve but I'm sure I can find something that'll work. That moves one more quilt into the "to be quilted" pile.

The backing is done - ready to be quilted

I then plunged ahead and made the binding for the Gingerbread Joy quilt. This is a Sue Garman block of the month. Sadly, she passed away several years ago (she worked for NASA), and her patterns were amazing! I just learned something very interesting. Her husband, Jack Garman was in the NASA program and saved one of the lunar landings. Anyway, the binding is now made and this one has also moved into the "to be quilted" pile. I hope to get this one done before next Christmas. It's all about setting priorities!!!

Gingerbread Joy quilt moved to the "to be quilted" pile

As each project is completed, it's time to tidy up what was left in the project box. There were quite a few of us working on that gingerbread quilt as it was offered by a local store (Jilly Bean's Pride - no longer in business). Someone made the quilt but didn't use the small blocks. I may have had an idea of what to do with them when I first inherited them, but I didn't write it down. I was going to make something from them - there are 10 blocks, but then I decided that they should go into the orphan block box for the moment. I may have more red/green/cream blocks in there - I may have a panel that will work or I'm sure I'll have something where they can be used. For the moment, they need a home and the orphan block box is where they'll reside.

Extra blocks moved to the orphan block box

Then it was off to work on one of the UFOs on those three lists. OH WAIT!!!  The Gingerbread quilt is on the 2018 list. It's now crossed off. There are still five more items on that list, but I'm working on one more from the list that I could have finished by the end of the year. I'd be very happy with that.

Time to move to one item from the 2019 list. I pulled out my embroidered Halloween quilt. I've been working on this forever! A while back when I was trimming the blocks, I noticed this. ACK!!! The last bit of the embroidery didn't stitch out. I must have run out of bobbin thread and didn't notice. The block got unhooped and well - it never got finished. Remember what I said the other day? NO PROCRASTINATION is allowed. If there's a problem - fix it and move on. (I noticed that I finished the embroidered blocks in July of 2018)

Half of the gold stitching is missing

To make life easy and also to test my new skills, I loaded the embroidery design into my embroidery software and removed all the colors except the one that didn't get finished. For some reason, I was having trouble getting the file transferred to the embroidery machine via USB, so I ended up sending it via WiFi. I should have done that first!! It was slick! That's all because of the WiFi capabilities of the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 2.

The stitches of the missing embroidery

I carefully rehooped the block trying to get it lined up as best I could, although it's never going to be perfect or is it???

I took a picture (with a free app on my phone) of the hooped block and sent that to the Designer EPIC 2 (also via WiFi) so the hooped block became the background of the screen, replacing the grid that you can see above.

Hooped block shows as the screen background

Using the positioning tools, it was a super simple task to move the embroidery design so it matched up with the embroidery stitches on the block. This is MIND BLOWING. I mean - it doesn't get any simpler than this!!!

Lining up the embroidery to the hooped block

Here's a closer picture. It's really one of those things that you have to see to really appreciate, but holy - this is amazing!!!!

The embroidery design is now matched up with the block

Next up was to advance the stitching pattern to match where the bobbin ran out the last time. That's easy using the plus and minus keys to move forward.

Advancing the embroidery stitching to the correct spot

That red crosshair tells me where the needle position is so it's easy to see if it's properly placed.

The pattern is advanced to where the previous stitching stopped

I can also lower my needle to see if it's in the right position. I could also have used Design Positioning (but I didn't) to assist if I needed more precise positioning.

The needle is above to start where the previous stitching left off

And there's the FINISHED block. I was so excited - you've no idea. Excited about the technology and equally excited that the block is done and I can move forward to completing the quilt.

The block is NOW finished

Yeah - the block is done!!!!

The block is done!!!

As the stitching was happening, I thought I had better go through the bag where all the bits of this project resided. That's a LOT of stuff hanging out there. But all of it has been put away now - I found spools of thread, more fabric, and another Halloween embroidery pattern.

Stuff to tidy up!

 I put all the blocks on the wall that had been stitched AND trimmed. This is where I stopped the last time.

The blocks that had been previously trimmed 

Then I got busy and trimmed the rest of the blocks and sashing that were in the bag. Oh boy - the quilt is almost complete!!!

Here are all the blocks/sashings that had been embroidered

I see that I was missing four more sashing pieces and 12 cornerstones. I made quick work of that. I used Color Sort and Color Merge to do all the same sections at one time. You can't see that in this picture, but it was much faster to do that than do each one individually, especially when I had TWELVE cornerstones to do.

Making more sashings

I started to listen to The Haunting of Hill House while doing this. I thought it would be appropriate to listen to the scary story while making my cute Halloween quilt. I see the TV series is MUCH different than the book. I'm not watching any trailers to throw me off.

I didn't take a picture of the quilt with the cornerstones and the last sashing completed, but trust me - all the embroidery is done and I'm starting to sew the blocks together. I wasn't looking forward to that task as I thought the stabilizer and threads would add a lot of bulk. Nope - if the blocks are trimmed properly, there's no bulk!!! It's going together like a charm!!! I found the border fabric in the project box and once the quilt top is together, it'll be a question of the binding color. Do I make it that light green or the dark green??? I'll wait until it's done and it'll speak to me!

The quilt top - almost done

I found these fabrics in the project bag as well. A HUGE piece of that dotted fabric. It went into the basket of Halloween fabric. I kept the light green out just in case I want to use it for the binding. And the fabrics on the left? They had been pulled to make the second Halloween embroidery project. I put them back in the stash. Gosh - if I decide to make that second quilt, I'm sure they'll still be sitting in the stash!!! I may pull them back out again - I'll think about it today.

Extra fabrics in the bag

This UFO should be off the list by the end of the day. I've NOTHING booked for today. Yep - it's Christmas Eve, but we have no plans (well - we are getting our new furnace!) and I'm OK with that. I see others stressing and shopping and getting all worked up. Why do we do everything at ONE time of the year? If family time is so important, why not get the family together more often? I just don't buy into the trend of Christmas - because that's what Christmas has become - a trend. Do more, buy more, entertain more, and stress yourself totally out. Not happening at my house.

I'll post the list of classes later today - I've run out of time. And it'll be nice to have them all listed in their own separate post. One day - I'm going to have a calendar for you to browse!

I arrived at the gym this morning to the arrival of two police cars. No lights flashing so that's a good thing. Turns out there was an UNRULY member from a different location of the same club who got into a fistfight with another member. He was an older gentleman. Obviously had some issues about something. All was good when I left.

I also went for a long walk with the girls in the afternoon. It was such a glorious day - how could you stay in the house???? I need to move up and work in Studio U when it's so gorgeous. But I went outside instead which is better. Almost 16,000 steps yesterday.

On that note, have a wonderful Christmas Eve. If you're out - do NOT drive and drive. Do NOT let anyone in your presence drink and drive. Life is too short to end it so foolishly or to end someone else's life. Don't overindulge - you'll feel like crap both mentally and physically afterward! Enjoy your family time as I'll enjoy mine.

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!!