The rescue!

 Even though yesterday was the full moon, I slept like a baby! Although, isn't that expression kind of silly since babies tend to wake up a lot! I slept well - let's just put it that way! 

Yesterday was an interesting day. We had a visitor, and the Pony Express is alive and well. Actually, we had a visitor the day before as well. Both were making pick-ups and drop-offs for the Pony Express. And besides the rescue, which I'll get into in a moment, I just didn't seem to be working very fast. I'm not even sure why I was in slow-motion mode. 

I had great intentions of getting those placemats done (the day before), working on the soccer quilt, and doing some knitting, and well, I'm happy to say that the placemats did get finished as much as I could. 

There is a piece of fabric in the center, which I quilted through all layers - the fleece and the backing. Thankfully, I had orange thread on two bobbins in my bobbin holders to do the quilting. I also needed that orange thread to sew the borders on, since it was stitch-and-flip. But I basted the skinny little border on and used a different color to conserve the orange thread. The basting stitches had to be removed as I added the outer border. 

The placemats are pieced! 

Once that task was finally completed, it was time to trim the placemats. Sorry for those silly non-rotated pictures. It drives me mad! But the placemats are fun and bright. I did not add any quilting to the borders - I don't think it needs it. 

The placemats are trimmed

And these are the bits that were left over from trimming. Of course, I kept all those bits!! I can use the small black triangles as enders and leaders for half-square triangles; the larger triangles will go toward making hourglass scrap blocks; and the orange strips can go in the orange scrap box. The fleece - well, I can sew two triangles together to get a square for a hot mat, and I really should throw the other pile away. Those are really too small to do anything with. 

The scraps are sorted

Since I had purchased some solid black fabric the other day, I was able to make and sew the binding onto all four placemats. 

The binding is applied to the back

But not before I ran out of black thread for the top. ACK!!!!! Technically, I could have used any color for that part, but since the binding is black, I chose black thread. 

One empty spool

I got offers from several people to borrow black thread, but then I looked in my bobbin holder and VOILA - there are THREE bobbins of black thread. So I used one on the top and one in the bobbin. Perfect!!! 

Bobbins of black thread

When I was done putting the binding on the back, I put those three partial black bobbins in the retreat box. And when I get home, I MUST remember to stock up on the thread, as I'm almost out of my white sewing thread as well. Good grief -- how did that happen? 

The white thread is almost gone

But no worries because I can always use those bobbins on the top and in the bobbin to get me through the remainder of the retreat. All is good, and it sure feels good to use up those bobbins, but it's going to take a long, long time before they are all gone. 

By the way, when I was adding those black borders, I had just enough for the bobbin. Then it was totally used up!! How crazy is that? I played bobbin chicken and won. I think I had two inches left! 

Here are the four placemats with the binding on, but not topstitched to the top. I need more orange thread for that, and I'm happy to wait until I get home. I made GREAT progress on those. 

The four placemats are almost complete

The center is slightly wonky, but seriously? It doesn't matter. And I will likely keep one of them to show what can happen when you don't use a walking foot to quilt, but I may end up donating all of them. I'm just glad that they are almost done!

The center is slightly wonky

Helen Anne and I braved the wind and the colder temperatures for our walk, and it was fine. I actually think it was warmer than the previous day. Although from the house, it looked like it was almost blizzarding because of all the drifting snow. The little creek is still open because of the running water. 

The creek is still open

Lots of stuff is being made at the retreat, and two more people joined us yesterday, so we are now 8. I used to show all the things people made, but well, I don't anymore. It's hard enough to keep track of what I do. But here are two things that were made, and I asked permission, so here we go!! 

This is the Tula Pink Butterfly quilt that I taught several years ago. This one has a dark background, and it's stunning. Helen Anne made a different border than in the original pattern, and it's gorgeous. I won't go into details on what happened with the border, but let's say there was a wee design element at one point. The bottom line - it's done!!!! Beautiful quilt, Helen Anne!!!!! 

If you think there is a hole in the design on the bottom row, the half-square triangle at the point doesn't have much contrast. It's already been verified!!

We never know what Susan will be working on. She has several grandchildren and always seems to be working on something for them. She wanted to make a car seat poncho, and this is what she came up with. She never uses a pattern - she just wings it! It's adorable, and she made it with the two-sided fleece, and it's soft and so cozy. If I were the baby, I'd never want to take it off!! 

Car seat poncho

That is the same style of cozy fleece Princess Lexi sleeps on at home, and she loves it! But only if her bed is made!

A couple of the ladies went shopping, and boy, they were taking their time. But it's their retreat, so you can do whatever you want. And they had gone to a chocolate shop and a quilt store, so you can see why it took so long! 

Around four PM, I received a distress call. Their car broke down, and they were not far from the house but were waiting for CAA to tow it. The car was making a big racket, but they could run the engine to stay warm, so they didn't need an immediate evacuation! They gave me an address so I could track their location, and I was waiting for their call that the tow truck was arriving shortly.

As I was driving down one road to turn onto another, I saw the tow truck lights flashing and knew I was close, and they were exactly where I envisioned them. As I drove up behind their car, I spotted the tow truck driver standing outside it with a large wrench in his hand. What? NO WAY!!! The lug nuts needed to be retorqued? 

This tow truck driver was excellent (CAA in case you didn't catch that before). Instead of immediately hooking up the car to the truck, he asked questions. What was the problem? What did the noise sound like, etc? Well, it turned out that the lug nuts on the wheels were barely hanging on. He could remove some of them with his bare hands!!! Yikes—they are lucky they stopped when they did. 

I often see signs on the toll highway to get your tires retorqued after switching tires in the spring and fall. I never do, but this was a good indication of what can happen. So I waited until he was done, and then he drove off, and I followed their car to the retreat house. All seems to be fine. This is something that this person does every year - she gets the tires retoqued, but this year, she didn't get back to the garage to have them do that. 

So it was all good and a good lesson. But something else happened. While I was driving down the road, I glanced up and OH MY GOD -- the full supermoon was out, and it was spectacular. So I stopped MANY times along the road and took many pictures. WOW --- it was stunning. 

A full SUPERMOON

The colors in the sky changed as I drove, and it was fascinating to watch. If I had NOT received the "distress" call, I would have totally forgotten about the super moon. 

This picture was taken from the house's porch when I got back. 

Another shot of the supermoon

After my placemats were done, I dug out the knitting bag. Here are my thirty squares for the afghan. Yeah --- a couple of them have the knitted sashing done, but many are just blocks. I also checked out all my tools in that little tin I showed the other day. 

Thirty blocks for my afghan

And I found this gorgeous half-done set of hand warmers!! I LOVE them and have a few pairs, but this pair is very delicate, and the yarn is lovely. 

My hand warmers

I must get myself back to finishing those. I had a peek at the knitting this morning, and well, I'll explain what I'm doing tomorrow. It's quite the job I have ahead of me. Actually, it's super easy, but using some new techniques like casting off and sewing at the same time! I did it on some of the other blocks, so I can do it on this one. The only problem is that it looks backward (the wrong side is showing up on the right), so I must investigate how to fix it. 

And that allowed me to pack another bag that can go in the car! Yeah!! One less thing to pack when we leave. 

One more bag to load in the car

I also dug out another scrap project to work on, and the knitting. I dug out another puzzle from the retreat house and may or may not start it. It's only 350 pieces, so it should be easy to finish. 

Well, that's it for today! Things are going well - just need more time, but that's a constant issue. 

Today should be a quiet day. I mean, no one is coming, no more drop-offs or pick-ups, and well, I should be able to stay focused - I hope!!!

Have a wonderful day!!!

Ciao!!!!