I sat in front of my tablet and was adjusting the angle when it registered a skype call. It was my tapping buddy. It was my turn to be the client. We did some tapping and some matrix reimprinting. It lasted about an hour and a half. Chris came home for lunch just as we were saying goodbye. I called Myra to see if she had any ideas for the backing of my quilt. She did, so I packed up my quilt top and binding fabric and black market fabric. I went over to her place. I gave her the black fabric and she cut off two yards for me, keeping the rest. Then she went through her stash looking for something wide enough. She had some sheets, but they were all the wrong color. She had one piece of green that was just barely wide enough and printed to the edge. But it hadn't been washed. She traded it to me for the 10 yards of black fabric. I went home about 3. I called Chris to tell him Mandi invited us to her party tomorrow. He said he could go with me, so I texted her back. Then I sat down to type up all the wine and age sayings I had collected. I narrowed it down to four. I decided to stitch the sayings on the bag I bought for Mandi, starting at the first stripe and just continuing around the bag. That way I would not have to center it. I used the settings on the embroidery machine so I would not have to hoop it. I chose a thread that I hoped was wine-colored and not brown. I stitched and got a big thread nest. I stopped to re-thread the needle. Later in the stitching, the magnet closures got caught on the machine. So the line “Aged to Perfection” came out not so perfect. I pinned pieces of batting over the magnets so they would not come in contact with my electronic machine again. I measured the phrase, then stitched again, this time centering it on the second white stripe. It worked very well. But I spent hours taking out the first imperfect stitching. I took a break to eat the rest of the beef. Sadly I was in too much of a hurry to get back to ripping that I did not properly clean my hands and I got spots on the bag. I washed my hands and continued to rip. When all the stitches were out, I took some tape and dabbed up all the loosed thread bits. Then I went out to find another saying for the other side. I decided one saying per side was enough. I got sidetracked auditioning more fabrics for possible bindings. I really wanted to use the piece Myra gave me but it did not go with the only fabric that made a good binding. I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to slash it at an angle, slide the wide edges closer together and re-sew it. But then I remembered the bag. I chose another short saying: “Age gets better with wine.” I typed it into my machine. I calculated how long it probably would be and centered that amount. Chris came home from work. I stitched, guiding the bag fabric and keeping the handles out of the way. It worked well and I was able to clip the jump stitches easily. I rubbed at the spots with a wet wash cloth and hung the bag up to dry. I went back to obsessing over the quilt backing. It seemed that using one of the wide tan backings might not be so bad. And if I did that, I could look for colors other than green for binding. Indeed, I would have to. Then Chris was ready to watch TV. We sat together and watched two episodes of Merlin. Then he went to bed, while I took some magnesium, vitamin C, and melatonin. Then I typed up my blog and went to bed.
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