Counting on one hand now.

We are so close to the big day.

One nice perk of having things under control (knock on wood) is that I have all sorts of time in my sewing room.  People always ask me how I 'get so much done'.  Well...one secret is that I don't sleep.  An exaggeration for sure but I am an early riser and with that I am up and at it when it's still dark.  I try to force myself to forestall the work of the day until after I've had breakfast but that rarely works.  So, what happens is that I have my day's work done before lunch then have the entire afternoon (and sometimes an hour or two in the morning) to sew. 

Another secret is that I am never, ever doing only one thing at a time.  The kind of work I did meant I had to multi task in the extreme.  My mind works fast.  Too fast for a lot of people.  The DA I worked with and I were exactly the same so we were a very good combination.  We listen, we type, we write and talk all at the same time.  I have friends who ask me constantly how I accomplish everything I do.  What I wonder is what the heck they do with all their time!

I was reluctant to show this but this is my work space right now.  On the left is my ipad with the instructions for the latest quilt...plus I'm emailing back and forth with Carol.  We are talking about cookbooks, among other things.  See the cookbooks on the right?  My phone is by my machine where I am having a text conversation with my daughter.  There isn't anything on the tv right now but I had a Christmas movie on earlier.  There is, however, Christmas music in the background.  The computer on my ironing board is where I am writing my blog post between stretches of sewing.  I am also writing to a friend about the wonderful Christmas gift she sent...there are remnants of that on the ironing board, too.  I won't even mention what is going on in other parts of the house...the oven, the washer, you know...just the usual. 

Anyhow, those thoughts are what bring me to today's post about a project 'on the side' that is not ready to be shown.  I was trimming up pieces and started to wonder if people knew about this very handy trimming ruler.

I am making hour glass blocks.  They come out larger than necessary so need trimmed.

You can see how busy my usual Omingrid ruler is when dealing with such a small block.  I am trying to put that diagonal line on the seam created by the block.

It was all going along swimmingly until I ended up with a point that looked like this. In such a small block that will be hard to adjust. 

I thought maybe my Bloc-loc ruler might do a better job.

This ruler has a groove that fits into the seam created when sewing a half square triangle.  You nudge the little groove in and make sure you have excess larger than the markings on the ruler and trim what hangs over.  Then you flip both the ruler and the block around and really line up the markings on the ruler and trim the over hang from the remaining two sides. 

My hour glass blocks are going into this block but I can't show the actual pattern yet.  There are probably a few people who recognize what I'm doing?? 

Counting today...only 5 days.

Pam