'24 Tuesday-To-Do Week #9: Why is it HOT?

Happy [almost] March!

Time to link up and report in.  When you're done here, hop on over

to Tuesday To Do and Sew & Tell to see what everyone else is up to.

It has been insanely warm here--hot even.  I don't understand,

and someone needs to make it stop.  Seriously.  It's currently

9pm and we have the windows open and the ceiling fan going.

In February.  When we should be having blizzards and such.

Ugh.  At least my step count is getting back to more normal

numbers with all the golf, gardening and other outdoorsy stuff.

(Averaged 10,612/day but prefer more like 12+K)

Onions can take pretty cold temps so after tilling some lovely

soft soil (that I take full credit for) I planted 250 of the little guys,

getting a nice start to the gardening.  Hubs has been busily

assembling my new, even-more-raised beds as his time allows.

I've also been chipping away at the yard work.  All of these

early starts are great but I suspect there is a freeze, or five,

yet to come that will nix the fruit crops along with all the

leaves and flowers that are happily going about their biz.

Onto my week in quilty things:

* * * Week 7 Priority * * *

1) Finish Blog Hop quilt project #1

 I easily finished the main part but then I had to add some

border action.  Except I ran out of my background fabric.  BUT,

all is well, more arrived and she's all done now.  She's getting

quilted today (unless I go golf!) but that's all I can share there.

2)  Work on border ideas for star quilt

Look, I just can't decide and since I've plowed through all of the

neutral scraps that are in this, maybe I'd better just not add one.

I moved on to piecing all of the geese so I'm good to go for getting

them into long border strips.  I made lots of extras to accommodate

 that would-be extra border though so hmmm, what about those?

Here's a little tip:

Trimming is not my favorite part, esp with all that fiddling to lay

pieces out just so.  I'm not known for my patience for one thing.

And when I drink a couple cups of coffee on an empty stomach,

(which is almost daily) my hands can get kinda shaky, ya know?

Not sure if this is a new idea to anyone but with small pieces,

I leave them chained (as in pic).  If you pull them lightly taut,

 they'll line right up and then you can trim 2 or 3 at once--I just

go with however many line up exactly with the ruler.  And zip,

you're done in no time.  Then you can slice those chain thread

"connections" quickly (but carefully!) with your rotary cutter,

repositioning the chain if needed to make that easier.

Mass piece-trimming goes so much faster this way.

Now here's an awesome tip I came across this week:

I enjoy sewing binding on by hand but I choose to machine bind

since it takes small fraction of the hand-sewing time.  Years ago

I came across a way of connecting that final seam that I thought

was pretty much the bees knees.  But last week Lisa Bongean

kinda rocked the whole bee hive by taking that up a solid notch.

I was getting ready to bind a quilt at the time so I tried it out and

yep! Pure honey.  Check out the Easiest Binding Ever vid here.

Enough on tips and helps.  Back to the things finished:

3) An older finish:  Gnome Quilt #2

Another recent accomplishment:  a second gnome quilt.

I actually counted it as a finish last year even though I was

waiting on binding fabric.   Well it's officially done, pics and all.

(A little concerned that the camera wasn't quite level for that pic.

Should I be?  That was even my second go at it. The quilt is straight!)

4) Hubs and I worked on my biz records:  not only is it ready for the

accountant/taxes, I finally settled on my system of keeping track

of it all.  I've felt so disorganized these two years but it really took

that long to learn exactly what and how I need to set things up.

Noteworthy:  I might be the only quilter out there whose hubs

knows to the penny how much I spend on fabric and supplies!

(For the record, he barely raised an eyebrow.  I'm actually more

concerned than he is!)

Lastly I organized my patterns (tossing some) into 2 binders.

And that's it.  There's not one thing out of place in my studio.

What else is there to do then but quilt?

* * * Week 9 Priority * * *

1) Finish Blog Hop quilt project #1

Just need to get it quilted, labeled and bound.

Oh, and take pics and write the post.

2) Finish scrappy stars top

3) Should I make another quilt for the blog hop?  Decide.

4) Finish charity quilt top 

5) Garden and yard work

Time to get rolling on these things so until next week,

happy quilting!