Today's post is brought to you by the letter E

E is for the Empty space where my machine used to be...

My machine is off taking a little spa vacation so not much sewing going on here.  It had been starting to sound a bit clackity-clack and with houseguests arriving and several trips coming up it seemed like a good time to take it in for a cleaning.  Dropping if off at the store was harder than leaving my firstborn at camp but hopefully it'll be home soon!  In the meantime I'm hoping to work a little magic on the empty desk it sits on.  I "rescued" this from the dump.  It works but it's not pretty!

E is for Enders and Leaders...

I also cut a stack of 2 1/2" squares from repro scraps to use as enders & leaders so I'll be ready to go once my machine comes home.  Once you get in the habit it's so nice not to have to worry about big thread knots and it lets you know if you have tension issues before you sew all the way down a jellyroll strip.  If you don't know what I'm talking about you can check out Bonnie Hunter's website http://www.quiltville.com/.

E is for Elly Sienkiewicz workshop project...

With no machine I had to switch to handwork and this has been in the UFO pile for at least 7 years.  It's not really my style so I don't know what I'll do with it when it's done but after doing all those french knots I really should finish.  I love applique and once the prep work is done it's portable.  Yesterday I took this to the pool to work on while watching the kids swim.  Boy did that get a lot of funny looks but if this heatwave keeps up I'll be done in no time!