Celebrating the holidays this year was very different. Our work schedules used to limit the time we had available to spend with our extended, far flung families during the holiday season. This year, the celebrations spanned a 10 day period as we were invited (and expected) to attend all sorts of events. While great to spend time with everyone, I was so thankful to be able to celebrate a low-key Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with hubby and the dog at home. Today (Boxing Day), I saw hubby off on a mission with Team Rubicon. Thankfully, the annual tradition of down time for me the week between Christmas and New Year’s continues.

I can now finally exhale.

Today will be nothing more than napping, reading and picking up a late lunch from Panera Bread. There MIGHT be some quilting going on today, too. I have some blocks to make for the Scrappiness is Happiness QAL. I also need to prep for the virtual NYE Mystery QAL I decided to do with Stitchin’ Heaven and Craftsy. Never participated in a mystery quilt before. Thought this would be a fun way to try it out.

I’m also itching to put Miss Carmella (my Singer 301A) to the test. The plan was to put her away until the Sew Purty 301 Workshop sometime next spring. I couldn’t wait. She’s had a mini-facial, oil, grease and a bit of dis-assembly to figure out her tension issues. Turns out, she was missing a piece of her tension unit. I “borrowed” the missing piece from one of my FWs. Problem solved. OMG, she now sews like a dream! Thanks to AndyTube and Sewing Machine Rehab channels on YouTube for sharing what they do about the Singer 301 machines.

Now, to see if I can locate a replacement part for the tension assembly, so I don’t have to purchase an entirely new tension unit.

The fountain at the Smyrna Market Village. It was 15 degrees when I took the picture.

I didn’t realize how many specialty rulers and plastic/acrylic templates I’d accumulated until I had to pack up my entire sewing room for painting. Quite an investment sitting in that drawer! Reorganizing the template stash has been like going through old high school yearbooks. It tells of my quilting journey as many of those templates were purchased during my days as a beginning quilter. My advice to my younger quilty self would be: “Girl, save your money!”

Many patterns call for the use of a template to make the design. Designers include a paper/printable template with the pattern, but they may also offer a template that is sold separately from the pattern. Do you automatically buy the plastic/acrylic template that goes along with the pattern, if it is available?

My answer? Not necessarily. It depends on the project and/or how likely I’ll use the template again.

Most of the time, I’ve found tracing the paper template with a super fine point Sharpie marker onto heavy duty template plastic provides satisfactory results.

I did buy the Perfect 5 and Perfect 10 rulers after attempting to make a project in one of the books with a regular 5″ square ruler. Those rulers get used for so many other projects.

Inspired by something on Pinterest? Follow the link to an often free tutorial and printable template. Need more? Start with Quilter’s Cache for basic block instructions and then Google it.

Acrylic templates, dies for die cutting systems and SVG files (Cricut) make a lot of sense for shapes you are going to cut repeatedly.

Splurging on a laser cut kit can be totally worth if for the right project, especially if you love the designer’s color way and time is at a premium.