No Sewing Day

Yesterday got off to an early start. I left early to get a haircut. (I'm happy with my new haircut too! No, I won't post pictures on purpose.) Just prior to my leaving a couple of guys showed up to take a look at our basement. They're from a reconstruction company and will handle all the work if we hire them...and we probably will. Also, we received a call from someone in Colorado about our insurance claim. We believe her purpose was to smooth over our ruffled feathers about the piss-poor service they've provided so far. As it turns out, our "claims specialist" has been out sick, and that was supposed to explain the poor service. It didn't. But it did explain the delay. So now we're waiting for him to come out to have a look and to "confirm coverage." Once that's done, the work will start right away. I'm just hoping it will happen before the weekend.

A haircut was my only task as I ventured out among the English, and so I came home fairly unscathed. I'd missed my slow stitching in the morning, and so I took it up right away upon arriving home. 

Having finished this section, I moved my hoop and realized I'm about 5/6 of the way across now. I really needed to get onto tracing my next project. I've been dreading tracing and coloring this next piece for the Pieces of the Past quilt. As I mentioned a few days ago, the next section will encompass what I've outlined in aqua below.

A dreaded task is better accomplished among friends, and so Sadie was there to help out.

The pattern was printed in four large sections. I needed to trim them, overlap them properly, and then tape them together. Phew. It's always trickier than it looks.

And then I cut the fabric and pinned the pattern to the back for tracing. The fabric was cut 24 x 46 inches. It might be the largest embroidery canvas I've ever worked with. When I'm tracing a large pattern, I like to take the whole kit and kaboodle upstairs to the dining room where I can sit by the windows and look out. It also gives me better light. This piece was way larger than my light wafer.

Just FYI, this is a link to the light wafer I have. I really like it. It's very bright and has a slim profile, which makes it great for traveling. It isn't cheap, but I didn't pay as much as it's listed there at the link. I got mine on the previous version of Mobstub. (It used to have a different name, which escapes me as I'm writing this.) I paid substantially less for it. 

So I went to work tracing. It took about an hour to complete the lines.

It's probably a little easier to see with the coloring added. I really dislike the coloring part, but it does add a lot to these embroidered quilt blocks.

Smitty sat across from me at the table, gazing outdoors and wishing for better weather.

There's still a little to do to ready the latest embroidery design for stitching. I need to heat set the color, add a muslin backing, and then hoop it up. And there's no hurry because I'll still be working on the Heartland Barns piece for another couple of days. 

Next up on the machine sewing circuit is to start quilting the Paintbox Pizzazz quilt. This was one of two projects for the 2019 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. It's been lounging on my sewing chair for the past couple of weeks, letting its wrinkles relax out. I wish the same technique worked for facial wrinkles.

Sadie has been using it as her fort.

This morning I'm taking off early again. It's time for my monthly pedicure. With all that's been going on, a little pampering will be nice. When I get home, I'll finish readying Pieces of the Past for stitching, and then I might get started quilting this rather large quilt. Everything in my sewing life is big right now. Except Sadie: She is adorably small.