What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I am ANNOYED!!! And I'm annoyed at myself! 

I'm trying to get organized for the events over the next couple of weeks. The first one is tonight. So I'm organizing the samples, and I'm missing ONE. Actually, I'm missing a couple of samples. Now, thankfully, both of them are small and would take very little time to redo. It's the principle of the matter. I had one in my hand last week, and I swear I left it on the table. 

I've been searching for it, and nothing!! Thankfully, I had it in ...

Over the years, I've shipped many quilts to the US to be photographed for a magazine, and they've been shipped back to me. Other than paying shipping costs, I've incurred no other cost. No duty, no brokerage fees, no HST. 

Three of us in this area were fortunate enough to have quilts accepted to the CherryWood challenge, and those quilts are winging their way back to us. One person was notified that her quilt was coming home, but she would have to pay $150 in brokerage fees and duties to get it. Seriously?? The quilt belongs to ...

It's always exciting when a quilt is completed.  This one is from a set of Cherrywood fat quarters given to me in 2022.  It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do.  What I did know for sure is that I didn't want little tiny bits - these fabrics needed to be left big.  I found a couple of beige-brownish neutrals and used a shadowbox setting that just barely shows up.  And to make this a quilt of size, I had to find a couple of fabrics from my stash, but I think they blend well ...

Oh my --- I've got a taker for the brown paper! Yeah --- I'm so glad to find a home for it. I didn't get a chance to go through any more of the bins and didn't touch much on the cutting table. Where are the days going? But it's time to get things organized for 2023 and I spent some time (a lot of time) with my calendar yesterday. Dates are organized  at last! And now it's time to get that information out to you! 

Everyone who expressed an interest in the embroidery software club ...

Wait for it -- it was NOT a challenging day!

So the oatmeal is pretty bland this morning. After taking my afternoon to the library, I realized that I should have gone in the opposite direction to the grocery store to get almond milk and bananas. I did NOT have time to do a second walk. Guess where I'll be walking today? 

I had to drop a book at the library and told myself I did NOT need to go in. I didn't even take my library card. I didn't spot anything on the highlighted shelves, but I ...

Do you ever have one of those quilts you can't get right? I have one, and I swear that every time I turn around, there's another mistake in the darn thing. Don't get me wrong -- this is not a pattern issue; this is an operator issue! 

We had our last class for Wonderful Woodland yesterday, and I'll share the pictures later this week as I give the others (and myself) time to get caught up. But I swear, the last three blocks have been a nightmare. I made the wolf block at a retreat in May ...

 OK -- so I got the sewing part of the homework done, but then I didn't get to work on making the presentations! Oops! 

Two of three are completely done and ready to go. The Zoom links are sent -- just one more to finish off. I had a couple of other things on my mind yesterday. One of them being that darn Cherrywood Challenge -- I NEED to get that done. The deadline for entry is TOMORROW. 

I'm happy to report that it's done! All that remains is to take pictures, which I'll do later today, and complete ...

 Have you ever had one of those days when the stars are aligned, and everything works out exactly as you want? 

That seemed to be the case yesterday. And I have to say that nothing was earth-shattering -- it was just good news all around. 

It started when I got this e-mail. 

While I knew this update was coming, I can now download and install the new software. The last time a new upgrade happened, I had to wait months for my turn. They don't want to overload the support team, so they stagger the updates. We paid a high ...

Thanks for your patience and understanding with my blog posts over the last couple of days. As Linda noted in the comments, signing up for classes because of FOMO (Fear of missing out) results in UFOs. Plain and simple -- you get a ton of UFOs. And because you are working on a class that your friend wanted to take or that you feel you absolutely must take NOW, you don't get to work on projects of your own choosing! 

And the only thing that happens is the generation of UFOs and GUILT. All I can say is to use ...

Things are settling back to normal! As we get back to normal, I think we all need to take stock of our lives and see what changes need to be made. We CANNOT just go back to normal. We need to evaluate what we what in life (we only have one, and the clock is ticking!), how and who we want to spend our time with. What projects will we work on, what groups will we join, what classes we'll take, etc.? 

Helen recently listened to a decluttering your life lecture from TWO different organizations, so we know it ...

I'm behind! There's no other way to put that gently - I have my schedules and my TO-DO lists, and I'm not slacking off - things just take longer than planned! I had a plan for getting some major writing done, and I did get some accomplished. BUT, as I write, I think of something else to add (I need to STOP that), which involves a picture or two more and more editing. 

The bottom line is that I got one of five assignments done. And I've got pictures for the next two (well, most of them). It ...

I'm back home after two wonderful days sewing with friends! There was so much chatter going on that I was in grave danger of not accomplishing a single thing!!

And I wasn't alone. I saw this at Colleen's sewing machine at the end of the day. A partial seam that had been that way for most of the day!

A half-finished seam!

I'm always amazed at the amount of stuff that gets shuffled from one person to another whenever we meet. I delivered three quilts that had been quilted, and I brought home three more that ...

So if anyone tells you that things are not back to normal - they are lying! Where did all the people come from yesterday? Granted, it was a rainy Saturday afternoon, so people probably had nothing better to do. The shopping plaza parking lots were jammed. I had to zip out to get dog food. The store itself wasn't that busy, but then there were other stores in that plaza. 

I went to the Costco parking lot to find a geocache. NOT a parking space to be found! I parked in the plaza beside Costco and got the cache. Then ...

 I was going to mention that I didn't get much done yesterday, but then I thought about it, and I'll just keep my mouth quiet about that. 

I know some people had trouble finding Facebook Live. I was following along on my iPad, and it popped up the moment we hit the Live button. There was a minor issue, and it wasn't scheduled as an event, but it should have been Live right at the QUILTsocial link. 

BUT before we got there, I had a wee technical issue. We had tested everything the day before. And everything ...

 A REST day!!! Could yesterday qualify as a rest day? I did take a couple of breaks - sat outside in the gazebo, had a scheduled Zoom call with friends. But that doesn't qualify as a rest day. I had a LOT of sewing to get done, and it's done, but I can't share with you - not yet. You'll see it next week, and I'm so excited, I could burst! 

I also finished quilting the Trend-tex challenge, which took way longer than I thought, but I'm happy with the results. It's trimmed and ready ...

It's one thing for me to send you off on an assignment every day for decluttering our houses, but quite another if I'm not following along. Part of that is time constraints as I go through this current series of presentations. After this coming week, the number per week will drop by two, and that'll make a HUGE difference. I'll also have most of them tweaked to my satisfaction with videos and samples made so the prep time will drop. Phew! That'll be nice to have a wee bit more relaxed pace. 

Well, I got ...

 I'm thrilled to report that it was so much easier to walk around yesterday than the previous day. The plow had either come back, or sidewalks had been shoveled, and snow had melted. However, I think that we have more snow coming today. Oh boy! The piles of snow on the sides of my driveway are high, but nothing like I've seen in the past. Let's hope this is the LAST big dump of the year. It sounds like this snow has hit hard in many places that don't normally get snow. Hopefully, everyone will get ...

I'm a bit out of sorts this morning. I have only one photo to share with you. Well, that's not entirely true - I have two of them (actually, there are four!). Yet, I took a ton of photos yesterday, but it was to share with the Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks class last night, and the others were for our Long Time Gone class this morning. 

Oh my -- I'm loving the Tula Pink quilt. I wasn't sure how I would proceed - I knew which quilt I wanted to make, but how to go about it ...

Let's not panic, but it's back to work today! I had a quick peek at my calendar and realized that I have classes starting NEXT weekend. Well, a sew-along, embroidery club, and a whole lot more. More on that tomorrow in case anyone still wants to sign up. I'll be working on all the e-mails that I owe to new and returning students tomorrow. No choice now! 

I made great progress yesterday. The magazine quilt is ready for the binding to be put on this morning, and it'll get picked up later today. The photos for ...

 WOW -- It's amazing what I can accomplish when I focus! The current projects are assembled on one table, totally out of sight when I'm sewing. Well, they are behind me when I sew, so technically, I can't see them! I did place a few odds and ends on the cutting table that need to be addressed, and the ironing surface is clear. So is the sewing table EXCEPT for the Cherrywood Challenge. 

There's NOTHING to distract me. I started a new audiobook, and I was good to go. I got so much done!

I'm happy ...