A Quilt Shop Surprise

Since I've started working at the local quilt shop I have made quite a few amazing new friends. Besides my co-workers, there are regular customers that I've come to know. One of the customers, Linda, I met during my first week; she was wearing a Tomahawk Fall Ride t-shirt and I just had to ask her about it. The TFR is a Harley-Davidson sponsored event and every fall there's a motorcycle rally in Tomahawk, Wisconsin where there are social events, bands, scenic motorcycle rides all weekend long. It happens the third weekend of September every year. It's an event my husband an I have participated in for many years and when I asked Linda about her shirt she said she loves the event and we discussed our past years attending it in great detail. 

After that first encounter, Linda would look for me whenever she was in the shop. She is an expert embroiderer and I mentioned I'd like to get an embroidery machine some day. She suggested a specific model to me and that's the one I purchased earlier this month. 

So today Linda comes into the shop to see me. She brought me a Christmas gift! What a nice thing to do. The gift was a Sulky Mystery box that she had ordered. She actually ordered herself one and an extra for me. I am so touched by her generosity. I was going to try to save it to open on Christmas but I just couldn't stand it. I had to open it today...

I am truly lucky.

Embroidery Machine Progress

I had a little time to play with my new machine today. I downloaded a coffee file to embroider. But even before I could actually do the embroidering, I had to get some embroidery thread. So the last time I worked at the shop, I bought 35 spools of thread. It felt like a good start. 

I also picked up some stabilizer and ironed it to the back of some scrap fabric. Here's the result of my first try:

I can't wait to see what this machine can do but I'm pretty sure I need some lessons first. I'm following the instructions in the manual but I'm still worried I'm not doing something right. 

The Pop Up Shop

My friend Rose owns a coffee shop called Hillside Coffee House. She decided to add a pop up shop to her shop. She invited a few artists and crafters to bring in some goods in to sell. Here's a few of my quilts:

If I find some free time, I just might finish up some holiday table toppers and bring them over there to sell. 

Our Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree in a new spot - the dining room. Since the dining room and living room are connected, I thought I would mix things up by moving the dining room table over to the side collapsing it to its smallest size. 

The tree itself is from Jeff's friend, Greg's tree farm. We drove out there to peruse the trees this year. Usually we just order a tree and let Greg pick it out. I walked the trees three times and every time I stopped at the same tree. It was a Charlie Brown tree with so many bare spots that the entire back of the tree was basically missing. It didn't have a price tag on it because Greg didn't think it was sell-able. We made a deal and I took it home. He did warn us to be careful since there was an entire bare side he wanted to make sure we didn't set it up to where it might fall forward.

Jeff wanted to trim back all the weird branches that were sticking up but I stopped him in the nick of time. I wanted those to stay. It was part of the appeal. It seemed like a pandemic year kind of thing to do.

Once decorated, it looked pretty good. 

So it's a different kind of tree in a new spot in an unusual year. It all seems so appropriate.

A Lightbulb Moment

I made the Christmas lights quilt called A Lightbulb Moment from the Best of Moda Bake Shop book. I used Moda Grunge just like the sample in the book although I don't think I used the exact same shades of colors.  The quilt top went together very quickly. The blocks are pretty large and there's lots of negative space.

Once the rows were sewn together, the fun part began. I laid the rick-rack out to make the connectors between the lightbulb blocks. I used fabric glue to hold the rick-rack down before sewing. 

There was a decision point as to whether I should quilt it before or after sewing on the rick-rack. I decided I wanted to quilt over the rick-rack instead of having it "float" over the quilting. It just made more sense to me.

Football Tote Bags

A little over a week ago I made some Packer totes for a customer. She asked if I could make the same bag from Bears fabric. Since I work at a quilt shop close to the Illinois-Wisconsin border, we carry Bears fabric and Packers fabric. It amazing how many requests we get for Vikings fabric but the answer to that will always be no. So anyways...I could make the Bears tote bags.

I picked up some navy blue canvas strapping for the tote handles and they were completed in a jiffy. 

I will ship them out in the morning so the customer should have them by Saturday. 

Elna Expressive 830L Embroidery Machine

When I started working at the quilt shop I wasn't all that interested embroidery machines. In fact when I mentioned that I had sold my embroidery machine I would get gasps, like I had hurt their feelings. I just didn't use the embroidery module, it took discs and the designs were pretty small. It wasn't as useful for me as I thought it would be and I thought someone who wanted to embroider should have it since it was going to waste on me so I sold it. 

Then came embroidery machines that use a computer cable or a USB port. Wow how things have changed. And I got to watch all the embroidery class participants and the embroidery club people show off their wonderful projects. There's so much more to embroidery machines today. I still wasn't sure I wanted to invest in one. 

Then I found out about something called an employee discount. I wish I didn't hear about that. Now I was sold. So I saved up my paychecks. And I saved up some more paychecks. 

And here we are! I went to work yesterday thinking today was the day I would buy a machine. That didn't mean I would really go through with it. I've talked myself out of many big purchases. But by the end of the day I still wanted to take the machine home. Yay! 

Now if only I knew how to use it!

What's on the design board?

December is starting out on a pleasantly relaxed note. After stressing about having too many client projects, there's so much satisfaction when they are done. However they aren't ALL done. I have one more to complete. That one has a due date of December 16th so there's time. I don't plan on waiting to finish it but it does feel good to know I have a proper amount of time before it's due. 

The project is a table topper/wall hanging for a couple who purchased a fall version from the fall festival. They hung it in their house and now they would like to change it out for Christmas. I promised to send photos of a variety of unfinished tops, then they can pick the one they want and I will finish it first. A few of them are on the design board. 

Here are a few more:

I'm happy that everything is falling in place and this project will be done soon. I'm ready to start decorating the house for the holidays. Here's to hoping all of December is relaxed and easy.