ONE BIG STAR

Don't you just love a day that is productive ... one where you just keep crossing things off the list? It's just the best feeling in the world. That's saying quite a lot for one who generally does not like lists. I think it might be the Gemini sides of me at war with each other ... one liking very much to be organized and the other hating boxes and loving to just have the day happen as it comes.

So, this morning was filled with left brained organized kind of stuff ... bookwork, website store updates, answering emails left from yesterday. The best part of my morning was working with paypal and smartcart regarding my website and learning I had set up everything correctly for accepting international payments. One more piece of the puzzle in place for those of you having difficulty placing orders for digital patterns on my website store.

And the afternoon it was time to play. I've been working with a design collection to go with the piece I already have in place for the Big Star pattern. You can see from the picture one of the ways I like to work with the design process is to create a quilt top mock-up using the Electric Quilt design software. I use the mock-up I've created in conjunction with my digitizing software to create what I call a quilt plan. I now have a visual idea of what the quilting might look like on the quilt top.

Now the best part about this project today is one of my UFO's just happens to be a Big Star quilt from about 3 years ago. I'm sure I'm not alone in getting a UFO tub out only to find the whole top is together except for the borders. This one had the top and bottom borders already in place. However, I'm ready to quilt this quilt NOW! ... so, cut off the borders I was adding. Now I have one border surrounding the big star in the center. It is square, but will look great on the diagonal across the best. And, finished looks really good.

I've added a couple of square blocks, a medallion, and a triangle to this collection in addition to the star ray which was digitized about a year ago for a friend. You can see Deb's Big Star quilt by visiting her blog and checking out her quilt gallery.

Yes, you caught me with the ripper in hand. I dropped in the first triangle just right, but lost my head on the second one and didn't leave the 1/4" breathing space all the way around. That just means I'll put on the earphones to the IPod and listen to The Memory Keeper's Daughter while I take out all those stitches. Listening to a book helps make the ripping time go a little faster.

I wonder if you're like me. Do you ever create your list for the day and the end of the day? Sometimes when I feel like a need a little extra pat on the back, I go through my day just before bed time, make a list (yup, even add it to the computer calendar ignoring everything on the list that I didn't do) of all the things I got done and then go back and check them off. Done! Completed! Finis!

Click here for more information about my class EQ Out of the Box & Onto the Quilt.