It's a Start

Good morning, my friends. It's true I said my shoulder spasm was better yesterday, and it was. Still, I was being pretty careful in the way I moved around yesterday. It meant another pretty slow day. At least the floor got mopped. After that I spent some time on my slow-stitching, and generally took it easy. 

So, it was late in the day by the time I made my way to the sewing room. I was ready to start cutting things out for the Fantastic Felines project. This was the project I chose for the "Quilter's Choice" section of my white board. I'm going to attempt to use three panels in a single quilt. First...this one.

I decided to save the name of the panel. Maybe I'll use it somehow. It could go on the back too.

The larger sections are 6-1/2 inches and the smaller sections are 3-1/2 inches. When I cut the "many-words" section, I cut it into quarters to be used in the cornerstones. Those four sections ended up at 3-1/4 inches. They can be any size since those will be used in the quilt cornerstones. I might make them larger than the ones shown in the pattern. It will give me room for wider borders. When everything was cut, I had these pieces to work with:

Next...this one. I don't know the name of this panel, and there isn't any other information in the selvage edge. 

I left a little extra fabric around these sections when I cut them. They're a little larger than the 6-1/2 inch sections above. I can use them as is, or I can make the blocks from the first panel a little larger by adding a border to them. The alternative is to trim the blocks from this panel a little smaller. I left the extra fabric to give me some wiggle room. Also, I saved the extra white fabric from the edges.

And, finally, this one. 

When these were cut, they were 3-1/2 inches, like the smaller sections of the first panel. These will be used in the pieced blocks. Probably, I won't use all of them.

And then I went to work cutting the fabrics for the pieced blocks. I noticed the date on the selvage edge of this one. I only learned to quilt in 2008, and so this must have been one of the first fabrics I purchased for my stash. Also, it had a note pinned to it with the amount of yardage. I used to do that early on when I was better organized and didn't have so many scraps. 

Since I'm not sure how many pieced blocks I'll use, I only cut a few of these. I'll just keep sewing until I've used them up and then cut more as I need them. There's another size to cut from this fabric too, but I ran out of time.

There is still another fabric I'll need to cut for the pieced blocks, and so there's still more cutting to do before I can start sewing. Still, I'm hoping I'll get into the sewing today.

While I was cutting, Mike was creating a non-skid thingy for my sewing machine foot pedals. The one shown below is the foot pedal for my domestic machine. I have one of those plastic mats used in offices to make it easier to roll my chair around. This foot pedal sits on the plastic mat when I'm using it. 

So, he used his 3-D printer to create a sort of "tray" where it sits.

On the back, he glued some non-skid pads, and now that puppy sticks firm to the plastic mat and won't slip away from me. 

The quilting machine upstairs needed a little different design. There, I have no plastic mat, and the foot pedal sits on the carpet. So he created another "tray" for that to fit in.

This was his "beta" version. He put ridges on the bottom. The ridges worked well to hold it fast in the carpet, but they broke off. It's a problem with the materials he's using. It's difficult to explain in writing, and so I won't try. Just know that he's working on a bottom that has something more like plastic spikes. And that will dig into the carpet a little and give it some sticking power.

So that one is still a work in progress, but he's getting the kinks worked out.

There's not a whole lot on today's calendar. I haven't done any exercise for several days...quite the opposite, in fact. And so I'd like to get in a walk on the treadmill. Aside from that it's going to be mostly sewing. It's been wet, gloomy, and chilly the past few days. I think we'll still see some better weather before we move into the really wet months. For now, we're getting a taste of what is to come.

Okay, so it's a pancake morning. Time for breakfast, and then I'll settle in with my slow-stitching.