Christmas cacti, Cookie & Elsie, new STEELERS quilt

Before Michael headed out to run a bunch of errands on Wednesday morning (12/7), he noticed that once again, his Christmas cacti are blooming:  

They are so pretty!  I headed down to my studio to start loading up the new quilt.  This is definitely the largest quilt I have ever done…but the coolest thing about it?   

Yep, it is a STEELERS quilt….GO Pittsburgh  :~).  I spent almost an hour watching a video on YOUTUBE about how to load up a quilt.  I definitely didn’t get much instruction on this topic when I bought my long arm…and I am always super nervous anyway before I start a customer’s quilt.  I am particularly nervous about this one because it will be the largest that I’ve done AND it has large borders AND I know the borders weren’t measured/added correctly :~(.  I explained to my customer that I will probably get ripples and maybe even a few small pleats, and she understood and was totally ok with that….but by watching this video and loading up a new way, I hope to really minimize that.  It will be a lot more work for me…but my goal is to continue to improve as a long arm-er, so if this helps, I am all for it :~).  When I went upstairs to help Michael unload the car….there was more snuggling going on:  

I am just AMAZED at how often this is happening lately.  My honey brought home pot pies from KFC (which I ate for brunch AND dinner) and I cannot believe how good those things are!  After lunch he was a sweetie and bagged up all of my toffee:

I worked on basting down the entire STEELERS quilt and setting up the program before Michael left again at 5:30 for rehearsal.  Janice and I talked on the phone for an hour in the evening (because of course SKYPE woudn’t work) and then I settled in to knit on my sweater.