What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 It was one of those days. I still have a couple of quilts to trim, and that other quilt is almost off the long arm, but the top is still pinned to the leaders. It's lying nicely on the long-arm table, and I'll deal with it on the weekend. 

We had two AMAZING club sessions yesterday. One on EQ8 and the other on Digital Cutters. So much information and so little time, and I hope the participants get as much out of the sessions as I do. We had design exercises in EQ8, and it was amazing to ...

You know, there are days when it seems nothing goes right. Well, that was NOT yesterday - at least not in the morning. This is a story about a quilt. The quilt does not belong to me, and I'm not picking on the owner -- it's just one of those quilts that well -- it just doesn't want to get finished. 

This is a giant quilt - it's 99 by 109.5. I was making excellent progress yesterday -- I was ahead of the game, and by lunchtime, I had started quilting the quilt and had a couple of rows done ...

 And so another crazy day has passed. I accomplished a lot and finished late in the day again! I don't know why that is. I start early enough in the day but never seem to get the "real" work done until late. I must start looking at how I do things. I eeked out 12 KM and then, at the end of the day, realized that I had forgotten to drop stuff at Diane's house. Sigh..................

Oh -- I got a response from Watergirl Quilt Co about the hera marker. There is quite the business behind those hera markers ...

I hate when I wake up and realize the answer to a problem, and it's too late to fix it! I was doing machine embroidery last night and couldn't get the third hooping to match up. It was close but not exact, but I went ahead anyway. This morning, I'm pretty sure I know what happened. I do not have any way to verify that, but it irks me that I didn't think of it last night. 

The good news is that if I didn't tell you there was an issue, you'll never know ...

Here's my latest commission, and although I live in California, and the client lives in the southeast USA, it was made with help from one of the best Judaica machine embroiderers on the planet, Marilyn Levy of Ontario, Canada. It's a tallit (prayer shawl) for a young man's bar mitzvah. 

Like all my commissions, this one started out with a  discussion with the young man's family. They wanted cotton, with a leafy design, in blue and grey, so I drew up choices.

They liked #1 best, the simple vines. What was most unusual - and why they ...

WOW --- -what a wild weekend. I'm almost thankful for Monday and only a sewing Zoom to attend! There are so many lightbulbs going on, and people are getting excited about the possibilities of what they can do with their tools. I don't know how the rest of the groups felt, but I was WAY overstimulated yesterday. My brain was going in a thousand different directions, so I decided to walk to calm everything down. 

Of course, Miss Murphy was right at the door, begging for a second walk. I told her I would take her if we could ...

 You never know how much you accomplish until you have to put the pictures together for the year end review for your blog.  I'm happy to report I had a good year.   To make the post less picture heavy I put 9 projects per page and kind of sort of sorted them by type.  Quilting, Machine Embroidery and Cross Stitch.  I know I missed a couple embroidery projects so I'll post them at the end.  I will also do a WIP parade on a separate post, time permitting.  Thank you for looking.

Well, I'm a big liar! When I wrote that my space is in good shape, if I had been Pinocchio, I couldn't have sat in front of the computer as my nose would have been too long! 

OK -- so it's not that bad, but there are definitely things that need to be dealt with, and so I  will be right there with you as we clean up our spaces. This time next year --- I'll have EVERYTHING under control! I can hardly wait! 

I am being truthful when I say that NO MAJOR issues need to be ...

Yesterday I paid all of the bills for the rest of the month, picked up a ...

Yep -- I have the best friends ever! I love our Virtual Monday Sewing Group! So much fun to get together, and you would think after this long that we would run out of things to talk about. Nope! However, we have ZERO tolerance for anything political, those who used to be royals, and COVID (anything related to policy). I never want to shut someone down on a call, but if I have to, I will! 

Our calls are so much fun and well --- what happens at Monday Sewing stays at Monday sewing. A while back, we started a show and ...

It's like the Night before Christmas at my house. All is calm! And I love it! It's super easy to keep all my spaces clean and tidy - trust me, they go through many transformations in a day, and it can look like a disaster, but because everything has a home, it takes mere seconds to put stuff away. And yes, constant refinements will be made as I go along, or I'll unearth something else that needs to be dealt with. It's going to be an ongoing process for years to come.

However, at the rate I ...

 No quilts got bound yesterday! I swear - I had everything ready to go, and other things got in the way! How does that happen? At least I got lots done, so I was happy at the end of the day, and the number of quilts to quilt before Christmas is getting smaller every day. I hope to be done by the weekend!

I want to ensure that if there is stuff on the cutting table, I focus on that! That is how my system is supposed to work. So two quilts were sitting there that needed me to find border ...

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 ...

I'm excited to hear I wasn't the only one that loved the York Heritage Quilt Show. Sadly -- it's over, but there's so much in the quilt world to keep us entertained! The organizers should be very pleased as the show was well organized and had lots of entertainment. 

I'm back home. I finished up at Thimble Quilts and Sewing Company (Windsor) around 4 PM and headed home. In the SNOW!!! What's that all about? I heard it was supposed to snow yesterday EVENING, not in the morning. Around 11 AM, I went out to ...

Thanks, Carolyn, for the offer to bind quilts!!! I will start working on the binding as soon as those quilt backs are DONE! Only three more to make! 

I never get too much done on a Monday, as I seem to chat more than I sew! But I got the next quilt loaded on the long arm, and the next piece of machine embroidery prepped and ready to go. Plus, I cleared up a few things, and those worktables are almost clear! So it was a good day!

Worktables are almost clear!

Oh my -- I have serious allergy issues these ...

 You had better sit down for this one. Even I was exhausted when I went to bed! 

I'll start with the quilt report. Yes --- more quilts are done for Quilts of Valour, making numbers 5 and 6 of eleven. Can I get five more done by Thursday evening? 

Quilts of Valour quilt Number 5

Quilts of Valour quilt Number 6

I know I will - - I'll make it a priority. Even with automation, quilting two quilts in one day is time-consuming! 

Four of the remaining five quilts

And I played bobbin chicken, and I won! I was getting close ...

So many sewing artists have embroidery capability now, so let’s put that to use in a sew along! If you don’t have embroidery on your machine, don’t fret, you can just find a cute motif on some of your stash fabric to fussy cut for this step. Or you could do a quick hand embroidery for this step. For those with machine embroidery capability, get out your stabilizers and pretty autumn threads. I’ll give you the overall idea, and you can use what you have to finish as you like.

I loaded my embroidery hoop with ...

There's no customer quilt to show you, and no embroidery got done. Yet I was scurrying around all day. I'm away this coming week (OK -- so I'm off to a quilt retreat - the last one of the year), and I spent the day getting everything prepped. 

I had some sewing projects that had to be cut so I could sew them. I had stuff that had to be stripped off the design walls so I could package it to take. I had to get the sewing machine feet and threads organized. There was no panic packing; each ...

 A note about the BIG guys, like my "favorite" online store. Someone commented about Wal-Mart, which was probably the first big store to take over the retail market. I remember when they opened up a store in my small community -- no one wanted to shop anywhere else. 

And let's think about the quilting community for a second. Who do we know that is doing the exact same thing? Yep -- that is the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Think about it -- they exist in a small town that was dying, so they were able to buy up a bunch of cheap ...

 Wow - I haven't blogged since April, hence the picture heavy mention in the title.  I keep thinking about it but then...  

I have been keeping busy with life in general, quilting, cross stitching, decorating, keeping out of the heat.  I also took a quick trip to California to see my friends and check up on my father-in-law.  But you aren't here to hear about all that, you want to see some finished (or semi-finished) products.  

First, quilt finishes.

Wonky Log Cabin - used some Amish fabric my mom bought me years ago and some solids from my stash.

Made ...