You might be a redneck if.....

...you use DUCT TAPE on your finger to protect it while sewing!!!

Do you THINK I could find a thimble this afternoon??? Good golly! I wanted to finish up the binding on the last side of the quilt; and I can officially cross Cassie's 30's off my WIP/UFO list :0) The duct tape took the "edge" off the pain in my forefinger. My skin sure isn't accustomed to working with a needle for so long!

But regardless, the quilt is done. Wooo-hoooo. (And JUST in time for bed tonight!--the last stitch was sewn at 8:20, and by 8:30 all were up to bed....)

The quilt definitely isn't big enough for her queen size bed, but.....*shrug*......she still loved it.

Anyway, I spent some of the weekend downstairs with the new machine. My in-laws came up for the weekend, so I showed my MIL the machine yesterday afternoon and let her "play" for awhile. In the meantime, I organized up some of my scraps (YES----STILL ORGANIZING and cleaning!!! Is there EVER going to be an end?!?!?)

We also went to the LQS to purchase two more fabrics for a quilt that I'll be making for a friend of the family who is celebrating her 60th birthday at the end of August. Naturally, I needed to inform our LQS owner about the new machine :0) She's so great! Also, there was a quilt hanging on display with some kits under it, but no "pattern only" package, but she shared this website with me: Red Rooster (Jill Kemp) ---the pattern I was looking at is: "It's the Berries", and it's downloadable from this site. Trust me---the LAST thing I need right now is a new project, but I'll print it out and keep it in mind. It would be a way to burn up a lot of the "flowery" small prints from my Grandmother.

*chuckle* Having JUST said "the last thing I need is a new project....."
......Today, I did a no-no! I started a new project!!!! Eeee-gats! But it's SUCH a cute bag---and I have NEVER made a project other than a quilt or table-runner, so I was in the mood to try something new. I downloaded it from allpeoplequilt.com: Lazy Days Bag. I had some bright fabric nicely ironed and folded from my week of organizing, so I was excited to start. I have put about 4 hours into it, and have the front and back pieced (sorry, no pics tonight), and OMG! The pieces are sooooooo small! I hope to wrap that up tomorrow, which should be possible, because I don't have much on the agenda :0)

I didn't run yesterday (BAD ME!), but I did get out this afternoon for a 3-miler (GOOD, but yet BAD me!). It should have been 6 miles, but......I SWEAR the clouds decided to part and disappear as SOON as I started running! The sun was too much, along with the head-wind on the way back. So----I will plan (and hopefully carry out this plan) to run 6 miles tomorrow with Candace after dropping Cass and Caitlyn off at summer school. Hmmm......I wonder what "educational" video I can pack tomorrow that last about 70 minutes??!?!? (and I will NOT feel guilty about it, either.....)



So, after some time outside it was time for baths and relaxing before bedtime. The Emperor's New Groove was playing on Disney, so we watched it and headed to bed by 8:30. The stories of choice were: "Barnyard Animals" for Candace; "The Icky Sticky Fly? Frog?" (something like that) for Caitlyn; and "Don't be a bully" for Cassie. (she and I took turns reading a page at a time.)

And yes...those are popsicles that Candace and Caitlyn are "eating." Is that a bad thing right before bedtime??? *shrug*

She arrives, and put to work straight away :0)

At precisely 12:02 pm, the lovely UPS man arrived. We were in the midst of eating, but bolted out to the deck right away to watch our buddy hoist the box out of the truck and place in the front entry-way. The way he lifted and carried it made me worry it was QUITE heavy. However, once we finished lunch, and after I snapped this pic, I carried it to the living room, no problems :0)

By 12:35, I was digging in to the box. I only opened the top cover and saw all the books and paperwork, and the excitement was starting to seriously hit me. So much, in fact, that even Caitlyn couldn't resist giggling at mom's excitement :0)

So, for the next 20 minutes (or so), I looked through the paperwork, and more importantly, the user's manual. How FUN!

Finally, at 1:00, I dug into the rest of the box, and set all the pieces out on the floor. So many goodies :0) It was actually quite fun opening the bag of goodies (feet, bobbins, etc) and organizing them into the included Bernina "cabinet" (for lack of a better word.)

Amazingly, I didn't take it downstairs and play until about 2:00. There were a few things that needed to be done first---cleaning up from lunch, etc.

And then, PLAY TIME! For the first 20 minutes or so, I played with many of the stitches. I didn't think of taking a pic of the fabric swatch. there are SO many choices----SO FUN!
So then, looking around the sewing room for something to "try" for real lead me to this block I pieced last year when I was attempting an original creation for "Quest for a Cure."
I didn't care for the workmanship on the block, so it's been lying around since. Perfect opportunity here, though. When I bought the machine last Sunday, I also purchased some verigated (sp?) thread. Again I thought---perfect opportunity here. I choose 2 different quilting decorative stitches to travel along the center seams. I used a scalloped decorative stitch along the edges of the purple pieces; I free-motioned in the pink flowered areas (using the hyped-up Bernina Stitch regulator). It actually IS quite nice and easy to use! I then put on the walking foot, and quilted the corner purples pieces in about .5" inch grids.

Ahhh.....SO nice having a top-quality machine! It will definitely be a "honeymoon" for quite a while!
Then, what to do next? Finish a UFO! I grabbed Cassie's 30's quilt (okay, not ACTUALLY all 30's fabrics, but close enough). I only needed to quilt the piano-key borders, and was done with that in about 45 minutes. I cut up some yellow fabric to use as binding, and sewed it on too. So....her quilt is ALMOST done. I started hand-stitching the binding to the back last night at 10:00 while watching Comedy Central (this is only the second quilt that I've used REAL binding on---otherwise I use the "cheat" method of rolling the back fabric to the front and sewing it down by machine). By 11:30, I had ONLY finished HALF of one side! My goodness----this takes a long time!!!!

What's my favorite aspect of her so far? Ooooo...toughy! I LOVE all the stitch options, hands-down. BUT, I think it's the start/stop button while doing free-motion. I don't have to concentrate on both my hands and foot getting together in sync---I only have to concentrate on my hands when it's running in "cruise-control" mode :0)
Happy Sewing everyone :0)