Time to get back to work...

I don't have any photos of anything from yesterday as I was out and about running errands and getting my mammogram done. All went well on that front, nothing unusual was found. Good news. I had a very good lunch at Panera Breads. I had the Turkey Harvest Salad. Scrumptious. I believe it is a seasonal thing so if you want to try it you might want to get there soon as I don't know how long they will continue to have it. I picked up some French bread, a variety of cheeses and olives and made a nice tray of these for supper last evening. Have you ever had baked Brie. I love it. I made one of those too. I used puff pastry, laid the whole wheel of Brie in the middle of one sheet, spooned Raspberry preserves on top of the Brie, sprinkled with Pecans, wrapped the puff pastry up over it all and pinched the edges together. I baked it at 400 for 20 minutes. Oh was it good and so easy to make. I should have taken a picture of my cutting board with all the cheeses laid out and the Brie cut open spilling out soft gooey yumminess. I am sorry I never even gave that a thought I was too busy eating it up.

I am going to get back into the studio to work but I also am going to clean up my office and get all of my papers in order. The plan is to spend 1-2 hours each day working in the office and then reward myself with some play time in the studio. I have so many projects to finish before the end of the month and I am really going to have to step up my game if I am going to get it all done. Ok here is the line up of projects. 1. Clean the office, 2. Make the curtains for baby Jake's room, 3. Make baby Jake's quilt, 4. Finish the Christmas quilt, 5. Make BD present for Kate, 6. Make 5 Christmas gifts for the Sewjourner's group, 7. Make Christmas present for Jeff. I also had plans on doing another online class. That might have to wait till February. I think that would be too much to add right now to my plate with everything else I have to do before I leave for Texas at the end of the month. Maybe I can give up sleeping for the rest of the month. Do you think I would be a happy camper or anyone else around me if I did that? No?!? I know me and I know that wouldn't work.

I am excited to say that my baby girl is back to her home safe and sound after what appears, by the photos she has posted already on Facebook, to have been a most wonderful trip to New Zealand. I am impatiently waiting to hear all about her trip.

Well, for now I am going to take some before photos of my office and start tackling the mess that gets left for another day in here. That day has finally dawned. I hope I can find my way back out once I get started. Send in the posse if you don't hear from me tomorrow. LOL...

Have a great day and get at those dreadful jobs. Get them done and off your mind.

Update on craft sale...

We had a great day at the craft sale. First of all, it was so nice to see many familiar faces and have a chance to chat with old and new friends. When we arrived in the morning, there was already a line of people waiting to get in the doors.

We also got reports from shoppers as they came in that it was difficult to find a parking spot. Now that is a good problem to have. Tina and I each reserved a table together so that we would have plenty of space to show our beautiful wares and we also asked for wall space so we could hang our wallhangings. Here Tina is manning the table.

This photo was taken after several hours so you don't see the first thing to sell as it is already off the wall. Tina had made a Steeler's wallhanging and I told her that it would be one of the first things to sell and it was the very first thing to sell as a matter of fact there was a note on our table when we arrived from another vendor who wanted it and as soon as we got behind the table she was over talking to Tina about it. We laughed about that a lot. We both did well as far as sales and as I have always said I make things that I know I can give as gifts if they don't sell so for me it is all a win win situation. I have the motivation to get things done through out the year and I also have lovely gifts to give when ever they are needed. I do want to clean out my older inventory though so that I have newer items for next time. Gift giving time is here so we can take care of that.

Saturday morning before the sale I did manage to load my Christmas quilt on Lola. I am doing an experiment with the batting on this quilt so there will be several posts to let you know the how's and what's of this project. I am hoping that it all goes well. So stay tuned for further updates.

Today, I am off to the "big city" of Hermitage to have my mammogram done and to do some shopping. I could get it done in Greenville which is closer to home but this gives me the excuse to spend a little time shopping. I plan on having lunch at Panera's and pick up some French bread for a wine/cheese and olive dinner tonight with DH. Yum. I can't wait. So for now, I need to get myself organized so I don't forget anything and get ready to leave.

Have a great day. Remember to be thankful for your many blessings and give a friend a big squeeze. LOL...

Tomorrow is the big day...

Well, there is little more to be done now except get organized for tomorrow. There isn't time to create anymore masterpieces, it is time to make sure everything is priced, that I have all the needed items for the sale and to look as professional and pulled together as possible. My job for today is to gather everything up that we need for our display tomorrow and to make sure all of my items are tagged and in good shape. Easy peasy.

Yesterday, I started out good in getting organized but got distracted pretty quickly. I organized all of my class notes from the dyeing to design class I am taking and put them all into a binder. I then got distracted by a project that I have been wanting to do all week. It is a pincushion/caddy. So I pulled out the supplies I needed and had it whipped up by lunch time. Here it is.

It turned out to be a lot larger than I thought it would but I really like it. It does require a lot of hand stitching to put it together but it goes together easily and quickly. You can store rotary cutters or scissors in the caddy and you have lots of room for lots of pins and needles. I think I am going to use this one in the living room for when I am stitching bindings on my quilts. I can put the spool of thread in the caddy part with my scissors and everything will stay all neat and tidy.

I hope to see many of my family and friends at the craft sale tomorrow at the Clarks Mills United Methodist Church, it is from 9AM to 3PM. The ladies make really good food for lunch so you can plan on making an event of it all. There are always fantastic vendors selling lots of great hand crafted items.

Have a great day.

The process of a Mystery quilt ...

Yesterday I worked on the Mystery quilt that I started back in January and I am pleased to say that it is no longer an unsolved mystery. It turned out pretty awesome for not knowing what we were making at the time.

I love it when I can use up fabrics from my stash and not have to buy a thing to complete a project. For this mystery, we received directions on fabric requirements and the components to cut them into before we went to the retreat. At the retreat we received several sets of instructions over the course of the weekend with the steps to complete it. I am very pleased with how this turned out and like I said I didn't have to buy anything to finish it up. The quilt was just small enough that I was able to back it with a beautiful butterfly print 45" wide fabric from my stash.

It has all the colors that are in the front of the quilt and I had enough of the dark blue/green batik to bind it in. I used this stencil to mark out the quilting motifs and used bits and pieces from the stencil in the different squares, triangles and the border.

In the other areas I used continuous curve. This was not a super fast quilting job but I enjoyed it and am very pleased with the final product. I think this could be a great baby quilt or table topper.
You can see some more of the motifs in this detail shot of the quilt.

I finished the last stitch in the binding last night while watching a Castle marathon.

Well, today, I am going to go back into my studio and play for a while and maybe even clean it up. I would like to do some fabric dyeing but am not sure yet if that will fit into today's activities.

I hope that you will try to solve some of the mysteries of your projects by breaking them down into doable steps and keep at them till they are done. Have a wonderful day.

Finishing up some UFO's...

UFO's in the quilting world are not Unidentified Flying Objects they are Unfinished Objects. As I was trying to decided what to do yesterday in the studio I pulled out a table runner that I had pieced and even had layered on the batting but had not gone any further. I dug around in my stash and found an appropriated backing fabric for it and loaded it on Lola and quilted it. I usually don't quilt such a small item on the longarm but I was wanting to use Lola and thought I would see how fast quilting a smaller item would go. It was fast and I enjoyed it. I also made one more casserole carrier since I had the metal rings for it. I used a cream with blue print that if it doesn't sell will become mine. The fabric had come from my mom's stash and I really like it. I have enough fabric left over that even if I sell this one I can make another one for myself. I call that a win win. I also pulled out of my stack of UFO's 2 quilt tops. The first one is a mystery quilt that I did at a retreat last January. I did some pre marking and spray basted it together. It is 45" square, now that is a piece I should have put on Lola but I want to get good control and accuracy when quilting this piece so I am doing it on Lilly, my Janome sewing machine. I plan on quilting it today and getting it finished for the sale. The second quilt top is my Christmas Dresden Plate quilt that started out as an online quilt block swap. I have always wanted a scrappy Christmas quilt in the Dresden Plate block so this was the perfect way to get them. I pieced the blocks together at that same retreat last January and I thought I had the perfect backing for it but unfortunately it is just a bit small in its original size. I am toying with some ideas to piece the backing some to get it to be wide enough, it is long enough but just not wide enough. Once I get that figured out I am going to load it on Lola and quilt it. One of the recent online quilting classes I took taught us how to quilt this type of block with templates and I am excited to try it. Besides I need to finish it so I have something Christmasy to put on the couch.

So this is what I will be working on the rest of this week. It feels good to get these UFO's done and out of the way. I feel lighter and more energized as I finish each one. It also opens up the mind to other projects that I want to do once I have this craft show out of the way.

I hope that you have a wonderful day. Lighten your load by finishing up some of your UFO's, those can be any project that you have not finished yet you understand, and if they are something that you know you will never finish pass them on to someone else. It will still lighten your load and it will bless someone else so be blessed and be a blessing.

Finally got those last 2 journal covers done...

Yeah. The last 2 journal covers are done. I got out my scrap bin and pulled out strips and pieces, pressed them and then started putting them all together. I like the idea of the journal covers but until I figure out a better construction method that will afford me the creativity that I want I am not having fun putting these together. I did try adding pockets to the fronts of these last 2 for pens or cell phone. We will see how these sell, I might have to make some more for my sketch books and pencils. Here they are. Totally made from scraps.

So now that I have the journal covers done, what will I make next? I have 4 days before the big craft sale so I have time to make a few more items to sell, but just what should they be? I have been toying with the idea of some more table runners they are quick and easy. I found a tutorial this morning for a pincushion/scissor caddy that could be a lot of fun. (I am thinking of making those for some gifts that I will need though, so I might wait on that idea.) It will come to me when I get to the studio. I am ahead of the game though as I got a customer quilt off the frame yesterday and attached the binding, I just have to do the hand stitching now but I didn't think I would even start it until after the craft sale. Last evening I added the hanging pockets to 2 wallhangings and a label to one of them. So over all I got a lot done in the studio yesterday.

My next big job will be tackling the organization of my office which will begin next week. I think if I work at clearing the paper clutter an hour a day I will get it all organized in a week maybe two. I really dislike the paper work end of business but I know it has to be done so I will bite the bullet and get 'er done. Next week. LOL...

Well, I am off to the studio to get something else done so have a wonderful day.

The trip to be thankful for...

Well, it has been a whirlwind Thanksgiving week/end. I made it safely to and from Virginia and spent a wonderful weekend with Michael, Meghan, Avery and Meghan's parents Karen and Jim. We had lots to celebrate with Thanksgiving and Avery's 3rd birthday that is actually today which we celebrated on Saturday. We had a wonderful very tasty Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings. I only got a picture of the turkey as Jim was carving it but let me tell you it was very good so were all the trimmings.

Here are Michael and Avery sitting on the steps waiting for the meal to be served.

We did go out shopping on Black Friday, Meghan and I found 1 quilt shop and Joanne Fabrics, the other 2 quilt shops that I wanted to go to were no longer in business. Oh well, I found fabric for the baby quilt I have to make for baby Jake at Joannes so that was a win. I even have the quilt pattern idea figured out.

Here are some photos of Avery's birthday party. Her and the cake.

Daddy helping her with one of her presents. Play Dough. Oh what fond memories.

Meghan helping her with another present.

Avery fell head first into the bag as she was trying to get to the bottom to the presents. We had to clear off the table and put her puzzles together. Here is one of them.

She had a great time. The cake was so good and rich along with the ice cream. It was a nice afternoon.

I got home yesterday early evening. It was a long trip but other than one accident that brought traffic to a complete stand still for about 45 minutes (which happened right at a rest stop exit so I was able to get off the highway for a while) things moved along pretty well and traffic was not excruciatingly heavy.

I did stop at this cute little antique shop just outside of Leesburg, I try to stop everytime on my way home, and I found this quilt top that just cried out to me to be mine.

It is a drunkard's path block but I have never seen this pattern layout before. I can't wait to design a beautiful quilting motif to compliment the block design to perfection it also needs a border added to it. It measures about 48" x 72" I haven't actually measured it but I think the blocks are 4" blocks so that's my guestimate.

I am so ready to get back to work on my quilts and get ready for the craft sale that is this week end at the church. I hope to see many of my friends there. Have a great day and I am thankful for each and every one of you. Have a safe first day of hunting season whether you are a hunter or not.