 Good morning, everybody. I'm live just a few minutes early because why not? How are you all today? I am picking out some fabrics for an experiment I want to do this morning. I hope you're all having a good day, a good week. It's been interesting here in the Pacific Northwest to stay the least. I guess I had two viewers and now I have no viewers. Okay. Anyway, we're just waiting for people to come. I'm just sitting here by myself at the desk. We have a little bit of a different angle. This is my computer desk but we would try it and see if we have any issues with buffering today because when I'm usually when I'm broadcasting I am broadcasting with the desktop which we're looking at right now and watching on the iPad and I always have the iPad buffers so I'm not sure if it's my signal from the computer or if it's YouTube or Wi-Fi or I don't know. So I thought we'd give it a shot and experiment this morning. So we're at the computer desk and I am picking out a few fabrics because I want to do an experiment making some hexagons for some English paper piecing. I just thought I'd pop in a little early because I was ready. So here we are. These are I think they're called charm packs. Charm packs I think. Let's see. Yeah that's the one I was looking for. This thing about bees. I don't know what the thing with me lately with bees is but yeah. Okay. So good morning. Good morning. All right. So this is probably the one thing I'm going to miss my silhouette for is cutting these out. So if one of you has a silhouette who's an art friend of mine and I send you at some point a silhouette file and say hey can you cut a whole bunch of these for me. Now you know why. These are a little cardstock hexagons. I'm getting rid of my silhouette. Good morning Kimmery. My silhouette drives me crazy. I have a silhouette portrait and it's just the only thing I'm able to successfully cut on it without wanting to rip my hair out are these little hexagons. So and I have these as a file. So at some point like I said if I end up sending you some that want to use the file and say can you cut like me a hundred of these like don't be surprised because yeah that's a thing. Anyway so I thought we would do some experimenting this morning. I like to do one of my slow stitching things I'm liking doing is English paper piecing and I like having these done ahead of time. I'm sorry I'm just like kind of scattered this morning anybody else. Before we get started with this yes those of you follow me on social media and here on YouTube know we've had some fires and on the West Coast and I'm not too far from some of the big Oregon fires and we are good now but our air quality at one point was 501. So it's much improved now and I'm able to go outside and go walking yay. But we're all good. They are getting control of the fires and making progress. So yay now we just have COVID to worry about. So English paper piecing I don't know a ton about it and I'm pretty new to it. It's a way of doing applique work on quilts. That's of course not what I use it for. There's lots of different ways to do it but traditionally what you do is you take your shape and you wrap the fabric around the shape and you baste you baste around the edges and then you give it a press. That's a lot of steps for me and then you have to rip the stitches out so I'm not really about that. So I like using this sewing basting glue in which by sew line which I get at Amazon which is really great but I saw recently somebody used Elmer's washable school glue which had never occurred to me. Why can't you use that? It's a washable school glue. So we're gonna try it this morning to see how it works. So I'm going to just put my hexagon on the fabric and then I just cut leaving about a quarter of an inch. I need to do the cover on my slow stitch book. If you follow Ann Brook textile artist then you know what I'm talking about. If you don't look her up here on YouTube and this is my book and all the pages are done in it. Oops, where are we? There we are. All the pages are done in it except for the cover. Trying to figure out. There we go. So I need to do the cover now. Yeah. So I need to do the cover now. So I wanted to put some of these on there though. So usually what I do is I take my glue stick and I just run it around the edge of the car stock and then just fold it over. But you know I haven't seen these glue sticks in stock anywhere in the shops. Not that I've been out to lots of shops lately because hello COVID. So you have to get it at Amazon but you know Elmer's washable glue you can find everywhere including Dollar Tree. So if it works how great would that be? So then you just fold it over, push it down and then you're ready to do some English paper piecing. Hey Kathy! So that's one done with the sew line and I know the sew line works really well because I have a whole bunch of them here in the jar. Oops as I throw them everywhere. So then let's try the Elmer's because I want to see if that works. Let's try this one. So again I'm gonna find a place on the fabric. You don't have to be super neat about cutting these out. So you know right up my alley. We're gonna do some kind of daily challenge for October in my art Facebook groups. Both of them. By popular vote we're calling it Artpocalypse 2020. And I heard there's a prompted words list which I will be releasing probably Monday next week. And so you guys can all get ready. You know what that works really well. Yeah next week's live though has to be probably on Wednesday because I have a telehealth doctor visit on Tuesday. Only day they could do it Tuesday is Tuesday. You know they want to do one of those annual reviews of my medication. Fun times. Good morning Lisa. So in the only day she could do it was Tuesday. So next week I think we'll try broadcasting on Wednesday. And we'll talk about what I'm gonna do for October. You know what Elmer's glue works great. So this is the one done with the Elmer's washable. This one. And this is the one done with a sew line basting glue. So whether you end up using these in your mixed media and just gluing them down as is or you start sewing them together for some English paper piecing. You don't need special basting glue. If you're like me and you don't want to stitch it. You don't need to go get one of these. You can just go get some Elmer's washable glue. That works just great. Yeah right now I'm work I need to work on the cover of my slow stitch book. And for that I need I wanted to put some hexagons on the cover since there's lots of them in the book. And I also wanted to experiment with the different kinds of glue Lisa. And yeah the Elmer's glue seems to work really well. So Elmer's washable school glue. This one is easier if you're taking your slow stitch traveling. This one is easier to travel with because it's thinner and smaller. But this is cheap. You can I mean you can get Elmer's washable school glue sticks at the Dollar Tree. Alright let's do a couple more because I need some for my book. Question is which ones do I want to use? I pulled out a bunch of fabrics as we were going live. I don't do. So our poor Lisa is in one of the smoky affected areas of California for those that are unaware. The areas the air is clear up here where I am but I think it's kind of icky where Lisa is. Yeah so Lisa as you know I'm letting go of my silhouette portrait and I like these little hexagons because they work for lots of things. I usually cut them on the silhouette. This one is an inch and a quarter. So I'm gonna probably need to find an inch and a quarter hexagon die if you guys know of one because I'm letting go of the silhouette either that or one of you who has a silhouette and wants to cut in a bunch for me. Because yeah my silhouette pissed me off this week. You know I got up to look for fabric and it's right next to me. Hello. So if I want to make some of these to actually use on that cover then I should probably use fabrics I've been using for the cover. We'll make some out of this one and this one and this one. Good morning Linda. Yeah I know we're getting rain. I'm not sure Lisa is. We'll make some more bees too. In fact we're supposed to get rain starting like tomorrow through Saturday. Okay so now that I know that glue works of course we don't throw the little scraps away because this can be used as cabbage and stuffing for you know making pin cushions or little pillows or something like that right. We're getting rain thank goodness. I felt like I was in jail. I mean I don't mind staying at home and being a homebody. I'm an introvert but you know only when it's my idea not when it's not when you tell me you have to that's the whole different thing. Yeah that's too small. All right let's cut some of these. Oh there's a little piece right there. That'll work. Let's see. Oh they measure the side. Okay so if you measure the side on these I need my reading glasses hold on. It's a three-quarters of an inch if you measure just the flat side. It's a little teeny tiny hexagon. Again if one of you has a silhouette cutting machine and it and you like it and you know how to use it then let me know because I'll send you the file. Yeah Estella I you know I'm for those that don't know I'm a California native born and raised and I have so many friends and family down there. I hope that you guys get some relief soon. I mean California always has a fire issue every year but this year is worse than others. So these little hexagons are great to do with those like bigger scraps that you don't really know what to do with but you don't want to throw away. Usually what I do is I just sit and go through the scraps at the end of a project pull stuff out that I want to make in a cabbage like this take other stuff I want to make hexagons out of and I just make a whole bunch which is why my little jar is full. Let's see yeah it's actually just under an inch Lisa it's about three-quarters of an inch oops see it's about three quarters of an inch yeah I have a big shot Kathy and so when I want to do something like this I usually prefer to use a big shot honestly anymore the only couple times I was pulling the silhouette out was either to make these or to cut stickers and stickers for myself out of my own artwork but also for the Etsy shop and to be honest we're gonna be transitioning the whole Etsy shop sticker thing and I'm gonna be cutting them by hand because it's just the silhouette just the software frustrates me. I hope that that changes Lisa and that you guys get some relief. I have to admit to you all it's kind of weird sitting here working at the computer desk yeah the big I love the big shot it works really well it's a good machine and honestly these days I have very little patience for electronics that don't want to work easily if you need an engineering degree to use the software it's not happening in this house I'm not stupid but I just don't have the patience for it so once you get a bunch of these made you can go press them I don't generally I just stick them in my jar but I'll show you how I sew them together for those that have never done this before yeah I need to I'm gonna be checking online online later Lisa because yeah I'm just the more I've thought about it the more I've thought that the silhouette means to go I do have it listed for sale in a couple of different online places but there's no takers if one of you all is interested private message me it comes with rolls of the sticky vinyl stuff and the iron-on stuff and extra blades extra mats like I'm getting rid of all of it cut out one more so wasn't sure what I was going to do this morning because I have as usual like 10 projects on the desk having trouble focusing this morning because you know hello corona brain so this is something that's kind of nice to do you know when you you know you're just in your creative space and you need to sort of de-stress but you need to not have to think too much this doesn't require lots of brain power and you know usually again like with the slow stitching I just it's one of those things that I you know I'll just turn up the music sometimes I get really crazy I turn off the computer I plug in this who recognizes that it's like generation two I think it has a water spot in there you go see the water that moisture spot but it still works so I'll plug that in and I'll play some music no computers I will bring my phone upstairs because it's happened a couple of times where the phone rings and it's downstairs and that's kind of a pain in the neck so I'll bring the phone up but I'll turn it to silent and just sit and create and that's a great way to de-stress and right now don't we all need that so these are so you just sit and you just glue all the edges now if you if you were going to be traditional about this those of you again those of you who have done this before know you would sit and you would based all these I would much rather glue this because it's much quicker and after you sew them down or sew them together you have to take that little piece of paper out or and or the stitches and so that's a lot of extra steps you don't need to do hello Tanya how are you we're working on some more slow stitching today and just having a chat here at the computer desk to be honest because I couldn't decide on what project to do this morning and I was just announcing to for everybody who missed it who's just joining is what time is it 10 12 for everybody who's just joining next week we will have a live but it'll probably be Wednesday instead of Tuesday because I have a telehealth medication review with my doctor and she could only do it Tuesday so we have some new logos and branding coming out for my art business and social media soon over the next couple months my daughter is in graphic design and marketing and advertising and she's been helping me we finally after a few months of back and forth and mom a few a few statements like God mom just pick pick one we finally decided on something and so that's coming out soon there are some sticker flakes that are coming out I am creating the sticker flakes here at home I'm hand cutting said sticker flakes after printing them so there will never be a ton of them in the Etsy shop because they take a while to do that being said I'm keeping the cost down as much as I can and so things like that will be coming soon heck if some of you wanted to have like some of these hexagons and things and you know don't want to be bothered making them you know I could glue a bunch of them up and put those in and little kits too if you all are interested let me know what you'd like to see there will be some stuff in the Etsy shop that will be that's there right now that'll be going away or there already has gone away so you just sit and you just glue them up like this de-stressing and whether you're you need to do something like this Estella and that you don't have to think about or maybe writing is your jam and when you're stressed out cool painting something that doesn't require one thing I find I can't do when I'm super stressed is something like cross stitch because I I I think requires too much brain power for me when I'm stressed out to have to sit there and count and then if I miss one I get really mad and it just makes my stress horrible so I just can't do that but things I don't have to really think about that I can do without thinking too much like these this is great Kathy sticker flakes are just like sets of loose stickers already they're not on a sheet they're already cut out and you just peel the back off and stick them down they're not loose on a sheet or they're not on a sheet they're just loose there there really aren't any different I think generally sticker flakes are small mine are not super small but it's just a collection of like loose stickers you know generally when you buy your stickers they're on a sheet of sticky paper and sticker flakes are generally loose and already cut out from that paper I find I like flakes better because when I'm doing something like traveling with my my work in my journals flakes are easier to travel with I think I can actually preview some of the stickers let me glue this one first I have the sheets printed and I've got them actually on the table behind me yeah mellow music a cup of tea when I'm really really stressed you can tell because I like all kinds of music there I have not yet heard a kind of music I don't like unless it involves lots of racism or foul language some foul language I'm okay with I'm a big fan of pink and some music but I have to be in the mood and if I'm really stressed out I listen to classical music and although I'm not no longer well I'm not a super great practicing Catholic I do listen to church hymns so so these are our hexagons and then what we're gonna do is find a sewing needle one that's not like ginormous this one has actual regular thread on it you know let's zoom in just a little bit see this is a nice thing about being at the desk because I can just zoom in for you all rearrange the screens a little bit there we go I figured out how to zoom in with the camera and not nice close your eyes if you get dizzy easy hang on I'm gonna get it to focus autofocus okay yeah I like all kinds of music there's not as kind of music I don't like really I mean racism music with racism I'm not really okay with but you know and I have a potty mouth so foul language it doesn't really offend me but I kind of have to be in the right me right frame of mind so what you do is you just put two of your hexagons face-to-face come up into one corner and then pull a couple just you're just grabbing a couple of threads oh this is some of that vintage thread hold on I need to get different thread hang on hold the phone let's get some different thread thread is nice and thin but it breaks really easy and I tend to be a grenade gorilla with pulling thread so okay one more time so I've got my two hexagons face-to-face I'm gonna take my knot and I'm gonna fold it kind of flat and try to catch it in some stitches yeah I wouldn't consider myself a practicing Catholic but I do like church hymns especially when I'm stressed out I will also love Andrea Bocelli so then you just do that until you have them sewn together usually I do like three so then that's all sewn together yes Ave Maria is my favorite one so I have all these other ones we made the question is do I want to put one of these do I want to put something from here because you know that's always a possibility like right there somewhere I'm thinking do you all think maybe that one actually that looks nice so that's a nice thing about having like a you know bunch of different ones so then I would match this one up here with the flowered one and then we'll start here in the corner and we'll go across this way again I'm only grabbing like a couple of threads from the fabric each time and like trying to poke around with the needle and grab the fabric that's not attached to the cardboard so trying to just grab the fabric and not the cardstock if you're like me you're gonna need to put your reading glasses on because you know it's little if you're into painting art journaling you definitely can do these kind of things and combine it with your art journaling because you can make these little sort of assortments of attached hexagons and then glue them down to your art journal page staple them into your art journal page something like that okay we're gonna tie this one off do this hide the loose end so they're not sticking out now we're gonna attach this here so I try to do this without actually folding it just bend it a little bit if you do this right you can use your little hexagons over and over again Tula Pink who is a textile artist and fabric designer among other things is here on YouTube on a few different channels besides her own I believe she has a whole series on English paper piecing which is very very helpful she also designed some really great fabric okay try not to poke yourself because a blood on the slow stitching is a bad idea just saying trust me from somebody who's gotten blood on so the slow stitching I recently spilled watercolor paint on some fabric so that piece of fabric we're just gonna have to go in it with it it depends on your mood yeah I'm finding that for the most part when I really stressed out I need just something with no just music no words there's kind of a longish story of behind it which we won't get into but I get really stressed out when I'm driving and so when I'm driving I have always most of the time I have classical music on because I just the whole process just stresses me out okay so now that one's done hey Marion how are you I thought I would start on