A Recap of my Thursday~

Woke up bright and early to get a head start on the day! Look what is finally off the floor! I quit counting how many photos had bits and pieces of this quilt peaking out from somewhere in the picture!!

So once the machine was going I got the binding sewn onto this shop sample, talk about a major poop factor running short on the binding and the shop being 80 miles from my door! Once I remembered where I had put the left over fabric I was thrilled to find a salvageable piece to finish it up!

The machine is still going and in between advances I got it hand stitched down and ready for drop off Friday when I go to the shop.

Woo-Hoo! We at noon now, and making some nice headway, haven't had breakfast yet but I'm not really hungry so just keep plugging along~

Now I get this off and trimmed and my heart sinks, I didn't calculate the 'border' being cut down and it throws the balance of the quilt totally off, even by the picture you can see it. So I started debating cutting it down, it looked 'right' when I would fold an end up and I was leaning towards the dark side but the kids pointed out how the graduations didn't look good doing it that way so we started looking at the light side and that settled it! Everyone agreed what needed to be done and promptly left the room while I dug out the cutter~they had never seen me do something so drastic!

Here's a closer shot of what I removed, it is perfect now and I just accidentally deleted the shot of it, when I finish hand stitching the binding down I'll show it in it's full glory!!

It was only about 2pm now and the kids had lunch already and I missed it, but we'll be getting supper going at 5 since Scottie is off at 6, so whats a couple more hours! I still have lots of time to get more stuff done! Then I had a thought, what if I played for a little bit on one of my own projects?!? After all that was already accomplished I could call it a day, and it would be my own time right? Well before I let myself totally go, I got the binding sewn on and started thinking about what I would pull out, there 2 tops needing quilting, one an easy allover will finish it fine but the other one I wanted to use as a practice piece for learning some of the different functions of the IQ....................

After a 20 minute search I whipped this baby out! Dug through the stash for a suitable backing, got it pieced ironed and loaded! Oh yeah, school is now started! I have had no classes and only a couple hours of training the day the IQ was installed, so everything I wanted to do was going to be by what I have found on the Internet at a wiki-iq site. Even then and still now as I write this I still don't get it all but am a step closer and think I will bite the bullet and sign up for some classes at the HMQS Show in Utah this May. Especially after getting just a little taste of what this computer will do!!!

I didn't get very good shots but here is a little idea of what is going on! The hardest thing for me I think is going through the library of designs and picking what to put where, I know in my mind what I want but finding it is a different story! Need to take an afternoon and go through and organize them better! This is the progress I had made, way cool!

By five thirty I had also completed stitching in the ditch all the logs on the cabin and put 2 pineapple medallions on either side of the cabin in the cream section, I originally wanted a field of flowers or even a wheat design but I couldn't find what I was looking for so just moved onto another idea while looking through the catalogues, pineapple medallions is what I finally decided on and they look cool although they weren't as easy to do because the sides on the cabin aren't the same size, the left is smaller than the right, tough lesson because I didn't catch it until I copied the design to the other side and they were way off. So they are truly unique!

But again, I am not beating myself up over it because I am having fun and learning as I go! I am really getting excited now because I can smell supper cooking and I am starving! Court made chocolate chip cookies minus the chocolate chips and I had one with a cup of tea to hold me over around 4!

It's now 5:30 and my cell phone starts a ringing! Hmmm, don't recognize the ring as everyone who is important to me has a special ringer, it's Joe, our Pastor's son, he is calling for his wife Julia, they are on the way to the hospital, her contractions are 5 minutes apart and its for real!

A little history, they married 5 years ago and we got to be pretty close, her Mom lives in Michigan and when she got pregnant with their first she asked if I would be there with her! What a total and complete honor it was to be asked that! She had a beautiful little girl Rosie, who is 3 1/2, all those breathing techniques I learned with my brood I passed on to her and they asked me to be there with all 8 of their children's births, that's how many they plan on having!! Haha! Fast forward a year and a half later and little miss Violet enters the world!

And now I am happy to introduce Elliot James! He came into the world at 12:47 am, weighing in at 6lbs 15oz and 20 inches long! And absolutely beautiful!!

It was 2 am by the time I got home, had some dinner, a cup of tea and promptly passed out!

Only to get up at 7am to head to the shop, I contemplated calling off but we had our Christmas dinner/meeting planned after the shop closed for the day. Yikes!! Enjoyed dinner and the planning for the New Years Classes and BOM projects and a little bit on the upcoming expansion and boogied out of there by 7:30, promptly jumped back to 8:30 at the Arizona State line and had one more stop to make! Thankfully my VBF (very best friend) had the teapot ready for a nice cup of tea to have with our short visit. It was a perfect ending to the crazy 2 days!

And did I mention the 7 quilts that came home with me?! 4 for quilting and 3 for bindings. Miss Darlene asked if it was possible to have the 3 bindings done by next Friday when I go back and I just couldn't say no, she was waiting for me at the door when I got to the shop and she is just too funny when it comes to the bindings, she absolutely loathes it, she tries everytime to just do it but always ends up dropping the projects off to me!

But first I have to finish my cabin....................