What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Well, it was a long day, and not without a few glitches, which HAD to be solved. But the good news is that everything got done! I even used up all the extra samples I had made the day before. I wasn't sure I would use them, but I did! 

Everything for Project Two is tagged, bagged, and labeled. It's all packed and ready to go to the airport early in the morning. 

So, my original plan to take a carry-on didn't happen. As I set aside stuff to take, I wondered how many pairs of scissors ...

I see no one dared to comment on that quilt pattern! It really is in the eye of the beholder what the "correct" way to place those ribbons is. The fact that we are different is what makes the world go round, even if we don't always agree. 

The same is true for a directional print on the border of a quilt—do you turn the border upside down?

I hope you had a chance to check out the classes that I posted yesterday. You have time to think about what you want to learn, and we should always ...

One final word on doing things alone. It's not that I don't have friends - I have friends and acquaintances I could call on to do some things. It's not that I couldn't drag DH along, but here's the thing. We need to learn to live with ourselves and FOR ourselves. When we are alone - how do we handle a crisis? How do we handle the good times when we have no one to share our victories with? How do we handle the mundane things that happen every day? If we don't know how to ...

It feels like Ground Hog Day at my house. Another day and I did the exact same things as the day before!!!

Someone suggested that I take my handy labeler and put labels on those drawers, and that would be awesome since I sometimes open the wrong drawer. BUT WAIT—I'm going to show you something about those labels, but it'll have to wait since I do not have a picture of it this morning. 

The latest community project quilt was loaded on the long arm and quilted. I've got a good system going, but it still ...

I "caved," got a scrap of paper, and made a list. It was a short list, but it was a list of sewing/quilting things I wanted to accomplish. Mostly, I wanted a goal for the Cabin in the Woods applique. I know this will sound silly, but I wanted a place to stop so I could move on to something else - at least for that day. 

It's kind of what I aim for with the monthly classes. If we tackle a huge project and stick with it until it's done, it gets boring, and that's all ...

Before I forget, I wanted to elaborate on two things from yesterday. The first was that jelly roll quilt. 

The jelly roll quilt

Years ago, when trying to figure out what to do with my scraps, I read about a famous quilter who loves to work with scraps. Cut your ugly fabrics into strips, she said! So I had a bag of 2½" strips, which never got used, and some 1½" strips, which are still unused. 

When Diane was sewing all those quilt tops, I gave her the bag of 2½" strips, and she made the jelly roll quilt with ...

What are they doing to my forest? OK, so it's a woodlot, not an endless forest, but I call it my forest—it sounds more impressive! There are a number of entrances to the forest from the sidewalks surrounding it. Since we have lived here, all but one of the entrances has had a paved path for a brief distance into the forest. In all cases, the pavement has prevented erosion on the trails (small hills), which has been good. 

You've heard me mention the erosion. That has only been in the last five years? And I swear ...

OH MY GOSH!!! Here's another reason why those hairbands are so important! And not just any old hairband. I have no idea where I bought the orange hairband I wear today, and I have no idea how long I've been wearing it. But yesterday, I mentioned in one group that I had known one of the attendees for several years but met for the first time last month at Quilt Canada. 

Oh no -- she says! We met years ago at Quilt Market! She remembered the orange hairband! People do NOT remember me per se - it's that darn ...

 Before I forget, here's the photo of the reorganized books. 

Reorganized bookshelf

The top shelf is all the quilt-themed novels, which I'll deal with another day. The middle two rows (and there is a double row on the second from the top shelf) are all series books. I'm a stickler for reading books in the order in which they were written - at least in a series, and so if I want to read a particular author, I check my shelf and correlate it to the order of books and what I've read and I either grab ...

What did I say about getting three things done in a day? Despite having good intentions, I only accomplished three things and not all of what I wanted to do! I finished a few projects on Mount Projects, but I'll share those tomorrow. They were needed for the machine embroidery class this morning. 

A customer quilt was also finished, and all quilts have been trimmed! 

Customer quilt - DONE

The third thing I did wasn't on my list, but it was a task that needed to be done. I'll be away for a few days at a quilt ...

I had to chuckle as I went to bed last night. Someone sent me this in the morning, and that's how my day went!

I needed a picture of a package of needles, so I dug out my bag of needles. 

A mess of needles

The needles are ...

I will post the information on the textile recycler when I have the specifics. I have two potential contacts, and once I firm up, I'll share. That might be an incentive to go through the remaining three blue bags of scraps. 

Something profound is happening to me, and I'm so excited. But it's not really exciting, it doesn't involve anything exciting, and most people would say that I've become a very boring person. 

I have found the BEAUTY of downtime! I have a few classes to finish off the summer, but I booked myself off ...

You are going to be so proud of me! I'm so proud of me! 

OK -- before being proud, I'm pretty embarrassed, and I think I should preface what I'm about to share with you with this statement: 

My name is Elaine, and I am a hoarder! 

This all started because we were pulling samples for Quilt Canada, and one of my colleagues always has labels on all her samples. I have to blame someone, and she gets the blame today! Although this blame is a POSITIVE thing. She uses laminated business cards. So the question was, did ...

Oh, so help me now! I took a wee detour yesterday, and it was fun! I was supposed to be quilting a quilt and continuing to work on putting Studio B back in order. But this happened instead. 

Today, we have two sessions: Machine Embroidery and our Many Blocks projects. As of yesterday morning, I had nothing to share with either group. And while I get it that we're all busy, I like to have some to share (it sets an excellent example for the group!) So, I was off!!! It was a total tangent, but it needed to ...

I'm almost giddy with delight this morning. A far cry from last week!

Why? I have the house to myself today, except for the girls, but they're OK. Don't get me wrong, as DH is extremely self-sufficient and doesn't need constant attention, but I'm perfectly OK if he's away. He even offered to buy me groceries yesterday! It's raining outside, so there is no guilt about being in the garden and no danger of wanting to sit in the gazebo! Even better? While walking yesterday, I glanced at my calendar to see what ...

My Pegboard, white, cut to fit the space, painted stripes, electric orange tape. Baskets, cups used for additional space, labeled

So today I read an interesting post on my Sewing/Quilting Organization list on Facebook.  A member was looking for ideas for the use of a pegboard in her sewing space and asked for pictures.  My first thought was lots of people must have pegboards and they all must use them the same way.  

Apparently, I was wrong.  As goes it with a list of 110K (yes you read that right 110,000!) quilters/sewers, you get many opinions and ...

 So this week, it was brought to my attention, how much social media has changed over the short life of the internet.   In the late 90's, it wasn't unusual to connect with other quilters on different sites including www.quilt.com.  There were also forums (Reddit type)  where you could ask questions and form groups.  I joined a quilt guild that was active but just virtually.  At the time,  it was all very new and

Way back in 2022 Gailen Runge and I had a long chat on Quilted Features about a whole lot of things, psanky eggs, Sew Emoji. Our first official meeting was at Quilt Market in Houston while working with Generation Q Magazine, I got to make a speedy delivery for Jake Finch.  One of my favorite things… Continue reading The Book Report: Blog Style

 Okay, it's guilty pleasure confession time....One of my favorite things to do when I'm avoiding working in my studio is to look at videos and TikTok of other artists' sketchbooks.  It all started with me looking at my daughter's best friend's TikTok page.  Brittany is a trained artist and it's been fun to watch her develop into this amazing professional.  Here is the one that started it all.  She spent the year doing a lot of figure studies.  That led to one of my favorite hashtags #sketchbooktour | TikTok where there are a ton of ...