Happy Seventh Birthday Hazel

She was born seven years ago and she's one of the best and goofiest dogs we've ever owned. She's my constant reminder to take breaks in the studio and has to come and check on me often throughout the day.

Taken early spring

She loves pillows as you can see as well as the water and playing "glove". Happy birthday my precious girl!

After the guild meeting up in Hale, of which I became rather emotional talking about donating all of those quilts, I scurried home after making a quick stop to pick up softener salt at the Standish Milling company.

Let's side track for a second. Standish Milling is worth the trip over! Their salt is less costly than anybody here in Gladwin, not to mention a better quality. But that's not the shout-out reason. Their service to their customers is OUTSTANDING! I no sooner pulled up by the salt and a guy came over and loaded it into the truck before I even finished paying for it. The cashier was extremely pleasant and made one feel at ease. They have a large variety of items in their store and it's a place we'll be patronizing in the future!

Okay, back to quilting. Jim was already home for lunch but had to scoot out to a dentist appointment and I scooted out to the studio. While I was quilting this piece...

An E2E was requested in here

DW was over stitching out the Soothing Log Cabin. Once I got the wall hanging done on Bernie, I got it off and started loading the next back. Meanwhile, Marty's back was finally dry and I was able to get this one set and ready to go for today...

The next one up on Marty

DW finished his thing and he did fine, so I'm not sure what happened to Linda's stitch out on DW previously. It was probably something I did. Who knows? Anyway, I pulled another one of mine out of the tote and am now frame ironing for the Tula Butterfly. That ones going to take a while I'm afraid.  

I was supposed to have a customer come and pick up yesterday, but that never happened. Maybe today?

Happy New Cast

NOT! This cast wasn't put on like the previous as it impedes my third finger movement much more than the first cast. But, good news. Only two weeks for this one!

See how far over the ring finger cast goes towards the middle finger?

Yesterday morning was spent up in Hale and I'm now a new member of the Hale Country Quilters. They do lots of community work, retreats, and education. They are also really good about eating so that may be a problem.😀 I picked up a quilt top from a new customer while I was there and then headed out after the official meeting for the doctors appointment.

I'm a member!

After the guild meeting, and after the doctors appointment, Jim and I scooted over to Costco to get some sugar for Jims jams and I got a few new tops. From there we headed to Meijer and picked up our weekly groceries. We never got home until nearly 7:00 and we were bushed.

I have one customer coming to pick up this morning. I'll be working on the baby quilt on Bernie during most of the day and then getting Diana's quilt ready for Monday. She called on my way up north yesterday morning to clarify some open ended items on her work order. 

Busy Day Ahead

I'll be long arming first thing this morning picking up from where I left off at 7:30 last night. Here's what's on the frame today (and yesterday afternoon)...

Virginia's Giant Clam Shells

I love the color value in the rich earth tones. I worked on it yesterday for about eight hours and haven't even reached the half-way point. Some of the quilting detail...

In the non-linen colored clamshells

A modern feather

Other than finishing the backstitching, nothing was done on Hazel yesterday. Her happy personality is already starting to come out on the piece though, which I'm pleased with.

I'm going to long arm until lunch and then I have to head to the garage to prepare for the trunk show I'm presenting tonight to the Quirky Quilters Quilt Guild up in Oscoda. 

I was supposed to start pulling these quilts Sunday, but honestly, wanted to just leave them in their bins until absolutely the longest I could. I did go through the visual inventory and know which bins I need to pull from so it won't take too long to get all those around I don't think. 

I'm going to pin a number on them while pulling so when we return and I have to get them back into the bins tomorrow, I won't have to scroll through all 15 bin pictures to know where they should be going back into inventory. 

New Guild

The quilt guild I belong to downstate is going to be a thing of the past in a few short weeks. My membership expires on December 31. I am not going to renew. It's too hard to travel down and back for a weekly meeting with a five hour drive round trip. I needed to find a new "home".

I tried a guild north of our new place. Twice. But it doesn't seem to be a good fit. The women there aren't very inquisitive about me and haven't really made an effort to get to know me much. I said something to a few of the ladies that work at a quilt shop near me and they mentioned another guild south of our new house.

I tried them out yesterday. They meet weekly too! Every Monday morning at 9:00-ish and you can bring whatever you want to work on in the four (or so) hours you're together. I brought the Witches along to work on (which is hand embroidery) so that I could talk and get to know the girls without having to talk over a sewing machine.

Yesterday was their Christmas party and they actually wanted me in the pictures when that time came. I already feel like I've been with the group for ages. They welcomed me warmly and were curious about me and the family and my quilting interests.

I haven't been in the studio much the past three days. Saturday dad and Charlotte came for a visit. They loved the art piece I made for them. Sunday we were in Kalkaska all day with my mom picking out our new dining room table/bar to replace the large dining room table we have/had that is too much table for our new house. Yesterday I was at the new guild.

I did manage to fit in some cutting time to prepare for our retreat in January and an occasional Christmas Vintage block that Katie and I have been working on for a few weeks now.

Today I plan on taking advantage of the poopy weather day and getting some "real" work done in here. I'll be doing a lot more cutting up of scraps to prepare for the retreat, but that's not all I plan on doing because the back and hands can only take so much of all of that.