Teacher's Know Best

 Oh, my --- I had another fantastic day! Do you ever feel guilty when you have a great day? Not guilty for others, but do you deserve a great day? Sometimes, I do, but then I've worked very hard to achieve this flexibility in my schedule, so I don't feel guilty. At least not for long. The more I do, the better I feel, and those days are becoming more frequent. I LOVE it. 

Let me start with my teacher's story, and then I can get on with the rest of the day. I think I was struggling with the fine tip on the glue bottle during one of the applique classes. It had been clogged for eons, and even boiling water wouldn't soften the clog of glue. One of the participants used to be a teacher. I think it was kindergarten. In the younger grades, where glue is a staple of the curriculum. She suggested that I use vinegar. I hadn't had a chance to get to the glue as I have several bottles. But I needed glue yesterday, and that darn bottle was in my hands, and of course, it was still clogged. 

I grabbed a small dish, poured some vinegar in it, popped the glue-tip applicator in, and let it sit. When I came back several hours later, the vinegar had attracted a ton of fruit flies—ACK! Where did they come from? However, the glue was softened, so with the aid of a pin, I could remove the glue plug, and my applicator was clean as a whistle!

Thank you, Brenda, and now everyone knows how to remove clogged glue!!!

Cleaning the glue bottle applicator

Of course, I now have those fruit flies to deal with. Hmm—if they were attracted to the vinegar, I'll put out more, catch them, and then throw the whole mess outside. So that's what I'm doing this morning. I should have done it last night!

Speaking of pins, I was weeding another section of the backyard and was surprised when I discovered this. 

A rusty pin was found in the garden

Yep—a rusted intact pin in the garden. There's only one way it could have gotten outside, and that would be Murphy. But it must have been there for a long time. I remember the first night we brought her home, and she attacked my pins overnight, but she hasn't since—at least not that I'm aware of. 

But this section of the backyard is now clear of weeds. There's a big tree in the backyard, and one of its roots is in this section, and suckers were growing off it. I got out the clippers, and they were all gone. 

Lexi inspected the cleaned garden patch

I need to visit my neighbors. They have creeper vines in their yard—two different kinds—and they are starting to encroach on the fence. I went into their yard last year and dealt with it, but the parents are home this year, so I had better ask permission first. 

Now, this area needs some mulch put down. Well, I spotted mulch on sale at the hardware store when I was there the other day. I had errands by car in three different directions, so I picked one of them, and on the way home, I stopped to buy mulch. 

Hmm -- how many bags do I need? Ten? Twenty? How big are they, and will they fit in the car? I decided on twenty bags, and they are now stowed in the garage. 

Twenty-one bags of mulch

Let's say it's a good thing I didn't go for more than twenty, as it was a tight squeeze to get them all in the car. I actually ended up with twenty-one. I had a store employee helping me put the bags in the car, and we miscounted. They were worth 3.50, so it's not a big deal. 

Good thing I had help because while I can carry things with my left shoulder, I have ZERO strength if I try to lift above my waist. It's a pain in the butt, and I'm not happy. I could get them out of the car and into the garage as I wasn't lifting them. Just pulling and carrying. And I'll be able to take them to the backyard. I HATE being injured, but it's part of aging and life. 

So, I'll be back in the garden tonight and will try to spread some of the mulch. 

Good grief—I was at Michael's, and all the Halloween decorations are out!!! School has just let out for the summer!!! The staff must be going mad, as all those haunted buildings had quite loud sound effects!!

Halloween decorations are out!

I didn't find what I was looking for at either the hardware store or Michael's, so I'll have to buy it online. I found it on Etsy, so I must order that today. 

My new focused system is fantastic. I'm not even tempted to move to something else. In the scheme of things, I'm technically not working on one thing as I'm quilting, trimming a quilt, or pressings craps, so it's not one thing, but it's all focused, and that makes me very happy. 

Speaking of scraps, I  organized myself to watch another episode of The Quilt Show. 

Set up to watch The Quilt Show

I had watched for about five minutes when I got a call, so while on the call, I pressed scraps. Do you want to see what happened?

The basket of scraps

Doesn't it look like I made a dent in that basket? Let's look at the previous day. 

The previous day

Yep—a definite dent. Why haven't I touched that basket of scraps in the past? It's almost like I need to make a game of something in order to do it. It doesn't matter what I did; the fact that I'm making progress is all that counts. And I'm committed to cleaning up that mess. I now have two nice tubs of fabric for the 365-day challenge, and this mess will be cleaned up. It's a win-win all around. 

Something else happened yesterday that I'm thrilled about. I had my next project off Mount Projects, and it was my UFO, which I've been working on since January of this year. I'm about sick of it!!

I needed to fuse down the remaining pieces on three borders. 

The first one was easy, and before I knew it, the pieces were fused and glued in place. That's why I needed the glue bottle I mentioned earlier. I did have to cut two more of the smooth-edged leaves. 

One of the three borders is ready for stitching

When I went to do the second border, I realized that I was missing some pieces. Namely, those oak leaves would be a hassle to trace and cut. 

This is the perfect opportunity to stop, take a break, and dig out the Scan and Cut. Well, I didn't have to dig it out; I just needed to plug it in. I bought a new book about the Scan and Cut machine, so before tackling my leaves, I read the first 8 pages of the book. Then I sat at the cutter and went through those eight pages. Hmmm -- I learned stuff about my cutter. I'm going to go through those eight pages again later today. I want to solidify that stuff in my head. 

Learning about my digital cutter

Then, because the oak leaf pattern was already scanned, I pulled it up and duplicated the number I needed. I fused some fusible on the wrong side of my fabric and cut. It took ONE minute per leaf, and they turned out beautiful. 

Cutting the leaves

And then it was easy to finish the second border. Everything is fused in place and ready for stitching. 

The second of three borders

All that is left for the fusing part is the bottom border on one of them. I have everything ready, but I need to open a seam to insert the canoe into the waves, so that's a job for later today. 

The two UFOs - Cabin in the Woods

Then, I need to start stitching. That will take a long time as there is a lot of applique, but I better get at it. I think I might do some every day rather than focus 100% on it, as I'll bore myself to death. But no worries; there are lots of small things on Mount Projects that can be used as a diversion. I'll see how it goes, but first, that last border needs to be finished. 

The giant quilt is loaded and ready to go later today. I have one car errand, which I'll do this morning, and then there's some paperwork to tackle. If I don't keep on top of that, it becomes chaos. 

I went back to the office table to find that overdue book. Eureka—it was buried, but it was there. So, it must be returned to the library today so my account can be unblocked. 

Can you believe we are still NOT done with the EXIT Game Advent Calendar? With our schedules, it's quite a challenge. We had been doing great but got stuck on Number 19 and had to mull that over a couple of days. We ended up having to look at the first clue to realize what needed to be done. 

Then we arrived at door 20, which was a round hole, and that stumped us as well. But we chatted it out and arrived at the right answer—it was a total fluke! So, we peeked at the first clue to see where our logic went wrong. OH!! I get it. It all makes sense AFTER you know what you're doing. 

Door 20 in the Advent Calendar

I'm happy to report that we did another puzzle last night, and it was pretty easy, so we're back on track. We have three doors left, which should be easy to get through, and then we'll leave the next one until September. 

Here's a photo of my cutting table. Things get laid out, and then they get put away. It's NOT a storage area, and for that, I'm thankful! 

The cutting table changes daily

There's much more to tell, but I've run out of time. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!