P.O.E.T.S. DAY. when greed won.

Most of you who are still working will know that the title is Push Of Early Tomorrow,s Saturday. I no longer have to worry about this, but this week it is sort of relevant.
 I have put my crafting away and will be blitzing through a bit later. I want need to vacuum through as the floors are festooned with threads and some sliver trimmings. I am off to Cardigan at crack of dawnish tomorrow, I aim to be at Jame,s house at 9:00 at the latest and will not be leaving much before 8:00 in the evening. This is partly to avoid the traffic now that we are in the high holiday season and partly to avoid driving when it is very hot. I do have air conditioning but when the outside temperature hits the high 20's it struggles, also it dries my eyes out if I have it running all the time.

I am looking forward to spending the day with the children, a new paddling pool may or may not be in their near future. I would love to take them to Poppit Sands but there is the traffic to consider.

I have finished items number 13 and 14.

I had intended to use both of these panels on one cushion, but greed took over. The pink will go to Francesca and I will be keeping the blue. Once I had sewn all those little squares together, and sweated gallons while steam pressing all those tiny seams flat, I knew that it was mine and mine alone.

I am going to look hard at the new cabinet and decide what colours I want to use next week, I also need to tip out one of the scrap boxes, I have 3 all full to the brim. I hope that by the end of September 2 of them will be empty.

I love the process of picking through fabrics, balancing colours and patterns and then seeing what they want to become and what blocks to use to show them off. I love cutting, sewing and pressing and can barely wait to see what comes of all the work. 

Then comes my Nemesis, layering and quilting. I even love binding finished quilts so I am not sure why I have this stumbling block when it comes to getting the things together. 

I have watched tutorials, I have read them and I have books with step by step instructions complete with line drawings and pictures.

I feel that it may be due to the sheer amount of time that the whole process takes, this can not be hurried. I remember reading somewhere that you need to realise that the quilting foot is called a Walking Foot for good reason. Just as it takes time to smooth out and layer Backing, Wadding and Top and get them fastened together. I would love to take a quilting class but have not found one in the past. What I have learned along the way has been almost accidental. 

As a bit of a control freak this does not sit easily with me, I need to get it dealt with and move on.

I am going to search and ask around to see if there are any classes held in the area. I do not even know if there is a quilting group any where close. I will be talking to Hilary next week, if anyone knows it should be her.

There are shed loads of gadgets and gizmos to help the quilter and recently I found one that is helping to save my sanity.

These snips hang round my neck when I am sewing or cutting, they are wonderfully sharp and the point is contained in a soft plastic sheath. When I sew I like to trim threads as I go, there are always threads and when a project is finished I hate having to go over it inch by inch thread cutting. The trouble was that my snips and scissors were constantly hiding away from me, now they can not go walkabout. Heaven.

Ben has been back to the vet, he is on a short course of antibiotics and steroids to clear up the last lingering flaky and red patches. Fingers crossed this will do the job.

I have to phone the surgery Monday to check if my Xray results are back, I am filled with trepidation but equally I want to know what the problem with my left hip and leg is, and get it sorted.

Reasons to be grateful.

1.  Dare I say it again.....Sun filled days.

2.  Another relatively pain free day.

3.  2 more items crossed off my list.

4. A new cushion for my sofa.

5.  A whole day with the grands tomorrow.

I am assuming that the hot weather is helping what ever my hip problem is, or it may be that I am not doing as much walking because it is too hot for Ben. Having said that I have moved him out of the full sun 3 times today. It could be that I have spent time sitting at the sewing machine, but I have been standing to cut and do the pressing. What ever the cause I am very very grateful.

Ben is due a bath with his special shampoo and I am off to do that now, a little walk in the sun and he will be dry in  no time. I noticed this morning that his coat is growing very fast, goodness knows why, perhaps all the pampering his coat and skin is getting.

                        TTFN                                               Pam