Are you watching the free BluPrint videos? I got hooked. I went through the list of quilting ones and there are loads that I'd like to watch. I may just have to get a subscription for a year and then watch them all. I have a quilt on the long arm that I wanted to custom quilt. It's my own and it's small. I've been meaning to get it quilted for years. I've not been inspired or perhaps afraid to do anything with it.
I did some stitch in the ditch the other day and I'm not happy. But after watching a quilting video, I'm inspired. I'm going to take it off the long arm and do it on the domestic machine. It'll be good practice for this class and it can become a sample for future trunk shows. The quilting is NOT rocket science and I got great tips!
I think the annual subscription price is something like $52 CDN at the moment. That's a bargain. I'm signing up! The quality of the instructor, the instructions, and the presentation is extremely professional. I'm not normally into that kind of thing, but it's something different to do at the moment.
I got the homework out for Vintage Christmas. I decided to put all my blocks on the design wall so I could admire them. Fourteen of forty-two. Making good progress. I'm going to start thinking of how to finish them off - i.e. sashing color and whether I keep the red and green blocks together. I think I will and just alternate them like in the photo. It's a bit challenging to only work with those two colors. Look at the Mr. Cookie block - he's red!
Vintage Christmas blocks so far
But as I was looking at them, I knew that some of the blocks needed buttons and/or hand embroidery. Oh boy - I might as well get this done NOW rather than wait until the end.
I went to my button stash and I easily found 8 small red buttons. They are in a small plastic bag attached to the block.
Candle block with the buttons
Then I needed to find three white buttons for Mr. Cookie. I dug out the big jar of buttons.
Looking for three red buttons
AHA -- I found three white buttons still on a card. Perfect and so that's now attached to the block. Notice Mr. Cookie now has a face. I dug out the embroidery floss stash and dug through it to find what I needed.
Mr. Cookie block is done Here's the basket with all the embroidery floss. It's not that organized, BUT it's all in one place. That's very important.
Basket of embroidery floss I was also looking for some metallic thread and found this package. I needed a white so this was perfect. I love being able to find pretty much anything in my studio. More on that in a minute.
Metallic DMC embroidery floss
You never know what you're going to find. I found TWO boxes of orange floss. Why did I buy that much? I've no idea - it must have been on sale as who wants orange floss?? Well - that much orange floss.
Two boxes of orange floss I embroidered the face on the Dolly block. I seemed to be great at getting the first eye perfect and the second one is not so good. The same thing happened with Mr. Cookie. Oh well - let's move on - it's a tiny little dot! Who is going to notice that once the quilt is together? No one!!!
The Dolly block with embroidered face I HATE embroidering with metallic thread. WEll, hand embroidering that is. It's awful to work with. It's so hard to get the tension right and have the threads lie flat on the block. It's now done and that's all I care about. That means that all fourteen blocks are now completely done or have the bits needed to finish them once the quilt is together. Yeah!!!!
The manger block
And with that, I'm up to date on all FIVE of the ongoing projects. It feels good and that never used to happen, but I have to make it happen and keep it up. It shouldn't be that hard. It was the big applique quilts that used to bog me down. I just couldn't keep up with those.
As I was puttering around the last couple of days and digging supplies out, I realized something. My supplies - fabric, threads, batting, stabilizers, etc. are pretty much organized. They may not be perfectly organized, but I know where they are and they are physically grouped together. It's easy to find something - except for that darn bag of scraps!
My tools are in the same organized state. I know pretty much where everything is. The quilts to be quilted are super organized. BUT the UFOs - that's a totally different story. They are everywhere and stored in nooks and crannies around the two studios. Why? I think it's the sheer number of UFOs that is so daunting. Keeping my Master Lists is helping, but that only covers a small portion of the total UFOs that exist. Do I want to actually list them out? I think NOT!!
What I think would be great is to box them all up and squirrel them away. Labeling the boxes of course. OK - that means I'd have to list them. But then I'd pull out one or two to work on in the week and gradually they would all get done. I'm not starting any new projects that don't need to be started, unless, I know that I can finish it.
That would take an enormous amount of effort and I'm not sure that it's worth it. I got stuff done out of the weekly basket that I took to Studio U, but I certainly do NOT need to add to the basket. There's enough work there for this coming week as well. I'll have to contemplate what to do with those UFOs, but it would be awesome to put them away rather than have them in my face every day. I'm pretty disciplined - I know I wouldn't forget them. How could I if I had a list?
I feel like cleaning and organizing today. You never know what'll happen.
Then I did something that I haven't done in years. I was getting a bit tired - I don't know why. Oh yes I know why. I was doing hand embroidery in front of the computer (in not very good light) and watching the quilting video. I was starting to nod off so I thought a wee nap was in order. I swear I'm like the energizer bunny - if I sit down for too long just watching something - I fall asleep. And by too long - a half-hour is too long!
So I had a nap. I even went to bed to have my nap. And I took a book with me. After a short nap, I picked up the book that I had started the day before. I couldn't put it down. I stayed in bed all afternoon and read. I had to finish the book. It's an excellent book and it totally blew me away. It's called The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. What's amazing is that this is his first novel. Holy - I'll read his books again!
The Silent Patient
That's the last of the physical novels that I had checked out from the library. No worries - I have three shelves of my own books to read and loads I can download from the library. However, I have two books that people loaned to me and I'm reading one of those now.
Susan sent me this picture the other day and I think it's quite appropriate for me. It's a poster that you could buy so I'm violating all kinds of copyright here. Ooops.
The good news is that I did finish all the blocks for the magazine quilt. Phew - I was hoping to get that top sewn together, but hey - it was a holiday!!! I was allowed to slack off. I'll get the top sewn today.
The sad news is that I had run out of bobbins and that meant that I needed to STOP and clean the sewing machine and change the needle. I did that this morning and YIKES - there was a lot of lint in that bobbin case.
A lot of lint in that bobbin case
Holy - it's amazing how much lint builds up with only a few bobbins run through the machine. I do need a mini-vac to help clean out but for now, I use a Q-tip, a brush and tweezers.
That's ugly!
I even fixed the bobbin winder on my sewing machine. It needed to be adjusted as it was allowing the bobbins to just slightly overfill and they wouldn't fit in the bobbin case. I dug out my mini star screwdriver and made a tiny adjustment and all is good.
Adjusted bobbin winder
Then I wound six bobbins and I'm ready to go for the coming week. I'm excited!
Six bobbins
Other than the magazine quilt, I don't have any deadlines this coming week so that means I get to sew on my own stuff!! What will I sew? Oh yes - the stuff in the laundry basket!
What's with the weather? It was so windy yesterday that I almost froze my face off. I did have a hat and a scarf, but it was cold. The girls didn't care.
And oh my god - I have TWO meetings next week. Well, one is a meeting, the other is a series of mini radio interviews on CBC. How did that happen? Planning must go forward and life goes on! I have to say that it's kind of nice to do this kind of thing from home. Commuting is such a waste of time.
But I do need to seriously look at my time and start to get some serious stuff done. I have quilts to design, blog posts to start writing and other things so that'll be the focus of this week as well. But I'm still going to sew for fun and watch videos and get inspired!
If you have a serger and want to learn some neat things, here's a series of videos from The Decorating Diva. It's National Serger Month. I've learned a whole lot about servers in the last couple of months and did things with a serger that I never thought possible.
On that note - you've got a lot to do! Well, if you don't, I do!
Have a super day!!!!
Ciao!! #VintageChristmas #Serger #BobbinCase #Reading
