January 2, 2017

After almost two weeks of doing next to nothing it was a shock to the system to actually wake up and plan to do a bit of work. I’ve accomplished a lot too; I’m on my third cup of coffee for the day so that may be part of the reason for my success.

I’ve been taking down a few Christmas decorations every day; the tree came down on New Year’s Eve but I set aside today to get everything down and put away for next year. Except of course for the one or two decorations that get missed and are usually found about March or April. A few gifts that we received for Christmas have been added to the collection. I’ve set a reminder for myself to check out the second trunk of Christmas stuff that is still in the shed; I’d really like to combine everything into one spot that will sit under the Christmas tree box.

Over the holidays I was anxious to get started with my new ruler templates for free-motion quilting. I did a bit of playing on a practice sandwich but I hate wasting my time and wanted to get at “the real thing”. The Guild ladies all say we should practice new techniques on our Community Quilts and I had one in mind that I could start with. The last few projects have been small and I was able to sandwich them using the island in the kitchen. I tried the same method for sandwiching this quilt but I had very little success. At the end of the session the quilt back was completely rumpled and puckered and there was no way it could be quilted in that state.

I had some other options at this point – I could wait until the next bee and pin baste it on the tables there (although I’ve never had very good luck doing that) or I could wait until the next bee and try to spray baste it. We don’t use the spray basting method inside though so I’d have to wait until we had a dry bee day to proceed with that method. The last option was one I tried to avoid but it ended up being the right thing to do – I got down on my hands and knees on the floor and pin basted! I may not have time to start any quilting today, but it is ready to go when I get some time.

I’ve also done several loads of laundry today. My last load is in right now and it is the fabric I need for the last two steps in my Celtic Cross quilt, which I hope to have ready for the quilt show in April. I don’t usually pre-wash my fabric but this is done with batiks and it is recommended that they be pre-washed. This quilt will continue to be my bee project but I may also work on it at home (after the quilting is done) because I’m sure the photos of our show quilts will be due in February. Fortunately it is only a photo of the completed quilt top they need, not the completed project.

There isn’t much time left in the afternoon and I have a lot of mess to clean up so I’d better get at it.