To-Do Tuesday #18 & Monday Musing

Two of our friends host a weekly linky party. Brenda at Songbird Designs has a Monday linky party called Monday Musings. Our friend Carol at Quilt Schmidt hosts To-Do Tuesday with a linky party as well. We will share our weekly updates on both of their websites.

Yikes! Mondays roll around quickly these days. A three-day weekend is nice but I almost forgot to write a post for the linky parties. I’m out of the habit but trying to get back into the routine that I’ve missed! Happy Labor Day to our USA friends!

To-Do for last week:

1. Photograph and list some items in our Etsy shop
2. Make a game plan for going forward
3. Two limit list for a stress-free week

To-Do #1

Last week, I shared that Sue and I went through our pile of finishes (!!) and made a separate pile of things to list.

I managed to get 10 items listed last week Saturday but those were the smaller, easier items. Now I had to start digging through these items for some baby quilts or other smallish completions. How to stage them is always an issue for me! These are two that I had forgotten about. The first one was a pattern test and I am over the moon happy with how it turned out. The second quilt was our first quilt-along. I’m still amazed at how many friends joined in and our blog was only a few months old. Maybe it’s time for me to host another QAL – no-stress, of course.

I did it, I did it, oh yes indeed, I did it. There are a whole 16 items listed now. Barely a dent, but it’s a start. My friend, Karla, reached out and recommended eRank. It’s a free website that gives tips on how to improve your Etsy rank on searches. Some of my listings are rated at a “D”. Yikes! Okay, it’s a learning process and I am slowly going back to correct some of their suggestions.

To-Do #2

On “The Master List” have been four of these Halloween panels. They were quite a labor-intensive process that Sue thoroughly enjoyed. First, the design had to be traced on the fabric . . . which required a new fancy lightbox. Then, all the embroidery stitching was done by hand with fancy threads, too. After that, heavy coloring was completed with crayons only to use a process to melt it in place. The final process was to finish it into a fairly large wall hanging or quilt. We stopped prior to that last step. Who wants a quilt of Halloween witches? Who wants a big ‘ole wall hanging of witches and where would it hang? We don’t even LIKE Halloween . . .

So, it went into the “think about it pile” for a while. Amazingly enough, we did think about it! Four table runners seemed to be the best option. They could be listed in our Etsy shop if we ever got them quilted. But first . . . we need an appropriate backing for them. So you can see a hint of the backing fabric as well as a much better photograph of two of the panels on the longarm. I managed to sew a binding on all four pieces but I’m still hand sewing them down.

We even used a nifty panto called Pumpkin Patch for quilting them but more on that later. I suspect some of these are not destined for our Etsy shop . . . Bye for now!

What To-Do Next Week?

1. Finish two penguin toppers, or a Dr. Seuss quilt top, or a journal cover?
2. Sew the binding on two snowman toppers?
3. Maybe nothing – no stress!

♥ ♥ ♥

Check our sidebar or our Linky Parties page on our website for more quilting fun. Like/follow us on our Facebook page and I’ll also be sharing updates on Instagram.