a productive day

It took quite some time, but I have finally set my sewing room to rights. It has been a very long time since I had the entire surface of my ironing board to work with. I had almost forgotten it was that big. For almost a year now if I want to do anything in my sewing room I have to move things from one surface to another and then clear that surface when I need to use it. I figured I better take a picture while it was clean because it probably won't last long.
I then spent the remainder of my day sewing. October Road is now bordered. I like the way it turned out. I had bought a different fabric for my inner borders, but when I was cutting the sashing for my mini Friendship Star I noticed how good it looked with what was already done so I decided to use it there as well.
Here is the finished top of my very tiny Friendship Star. I am not as happy with my worksmanship as I was with the 4 Patch, but that small is really hard.

great things are happening

I am back among the ranks of the gainfully employed. :D I accepted an offer today. I'll be starting on November 1. My commute will be cut in half and I should be getting home at a pretty decent hour so I am hoping I will have more time to quilt than I did with my old job.
On Saturday April and I took a miniature quilt class. I brought my camera, but completely forgot I had it until I was packing up to leave and found it in my bag. The class was amazing. I have always loved tiny things and these are so tiny. This 4-patch will finish to about 6 inches square. I also have some friendship star blocks made ready to assemble into another tiny little quilt. I'm going to add these to my quilt wall. They should add a nice little accent among the giant Jo's little quilts.
Since I lost my job I didn't feel like I could do anything except try to find a new one because I had no idea how long it would take. Now that I have one, I have a week to do whatever I want. Believe me it's been a long time since I have had any time to do any more than what was absolutely necessary to keep the household running. I have decided that I would like to get some projects finished. I seriously debated if I should post this horrible picture, but this is what my sewing room looked like this morning when I went in to get started. I figured not much would get done until it was cleaned up. After spending most of this afternoon in there it doesn't look much different. I spent this evening folding fabrics to put away in my cabinets. Now I just have to find space to put them away.

let's start at the very beginning

This has been a very eventful week here in Maine. Tuesday morning I showed up for a normal day at work and first thing I was called to a conference room to be told that my position was being terminated. You know that dropping feeling you get in your stomach when you just can't believe something is happening? That was me. I gave my all to my job, working nights and weekends. Spending multiple Mother's Day weekends at client sites. Having to have relatives pack for a move because I had to travel to take care of a client emergency. You would think your job would be there for you. Not so. I do think in this case they may have made a grave error in judgment. We had a very small and close office and no one can believe that I was let go. I was an effective, dedicated and loyal employee going more than the extra mile in most cases. I was a go to person who people came to for help. The remaining employees are seeing that it doesn't matter how hard you work, the company has no loyalty. I know of a number who are now updating their resumes and starting a job hunt.
I spent Wednesday making phone calls and I already have a few leads on new jobs. Some good friends (former employees who have left and have been trying to get me to leave for years) have told me I will be much happier in the end. I already feel less stressed.
Soooo what do you do when you lose your job??? You go sewing machine shopping of course! I have actually been looking for a while. My Bernina 1230 has some issues that I have tried to have fixed, but the fixes doesn't seem to hold. After the fiasco with my Bernina 200 I am not attached to the brand as I used to be. I looked at Juki, Pfaff, Janome, Elna and Bernina. In the end I really liked this BabyLock Quest Plus (ignore the mess). It has all of my minimum requirements plus some extras I was really impressed with. It came with this extension table complete with seam guides etched in. Love it! There is also a built in walking feed. It's smooth and solid making for a nice stitch. I used it to put together my October Road blocks today. Very easy to keep a 1/4" stitch.
And for a pleasant change, I'm thinking this must be some sort of good omen. On Tuesday I got an email from LaVieEnRosie saying I had won some cool wool and linen cuts for posting on the Fall-o-ween blog hop. I never win anything so this is a good sign. They arrived in yesterday's mail so I had 2 exciting packages to open last night. She also included this nice tray from Ikea. I love Ikea and I can never go because it is too far so I was excited to have this cool little catch all. It took me 5 tries to get this picture without a kitty in it. They must have liked the smell of whatever finish is on the fabric.

another done another begun

Can you believe it? I finished another Jo's mini today. All quilted, bound and sleeve applied. Ready for the wall. I had to run to the LQS for more of that final border fabric because I wanted to use it for the binding as well.
I also spent some time on my October Jo's assignment. We are making October Road for this month's club meeting. It was a little big for my taste so I cut down the size to make the blocks smaller and fewer of them so it can fit in with the others on my wall. The blocks are going to be 5 inches finished. I got the centers done and my fabrics chosen so maybe I can get some done this week evenings after work.
DH spent this weekend at the building we still own in the town we moved here from. The previous tenants sold their business to new owners. For some unknown reason the town has all of these new complaints about the building and the business. The prior owners had been there for 7 years and no problems. These poor new owners move in and they are demanding all sorts of modifications from different exit signs to steps over a 2 foot wall from an emergency exit that no one uses. There is a walkway beside the building that has been fine, but all of a sudden there have to be steps. DH is taking care of the outside modifications while they make the changes to the business inside. Poor DH, after having worked behind a desk for the last number of years, is not used to all this hard labor. ;-)

done and done

October is already a much better month for finishing projects than August and September put together. Two finishes this first weekend!
My Pickup Sticks is quilted, bound and is sporting a nice hanging sleeve. I can't wait to show it at Jo's club this month.
I also finished and blocked my socks. Just in time too. It was down to 42 degrees last night and supposed to be pretty cold all week.
I have 2 other projects queued up and ready to finish. I'm thinking this will be a good month.