Shifting Bottlenecks

There was no transcription work in the queue at 5:30 a.m. yesterday—when I usually start working—nor was there work when I checked again at lunchtime. That happens occasionally, for a lot of different reasons. When it does, I accept the gift of a bonus day off and find other things to do. My piano student came for her lesson mid-morning. She is motivated and making good progress. I put the second Delectable Mountains border on the quilt and sewed on three of the four solid inner borders. I cut half the rectangles needed for the final two Delectable Mountains borders. And all day, the house was filled with the smell of a very large piece of pork cooking in the roaster. Our Mennonite Women group is providing the meal for the comforter-tying party. When our girls were younger, the church’s youth group hosted a fellowship meal after church one Sunday a month. Each family took a turn providing the food. I always made pulled pork. It’s easy to make in crowd-sized quantities, so I offered to make it for today’s gathering. Others are bringing salads. We’ll have ice cream for dessert (thinking of you, Margaret!).

I haven’t yet tried out the new cutter. I need a few more accessories. When I began researching which cutter to get, I found the lack of information a bit frustrating. It was hard to know what combination of trays, adapters (so I can use the dies I already own), and cutting plastic I needed. Also, the Accuquilt store on Amazon does not offer the full line of Accuquilt products. I ordered what I thought I needed—and what was available—from Amazon, but it turns out I got the largest adapter and need a larger tray to use it. The cutter only comes with the standard-size tray.

I went to the Accuquilt website yesterday intending to order the larger tray. While I was browsing, though, I got a popup screen announcing that all of the Studio dies were 50% off. That was too good a sale to pass up. Dies are not cheap. I picked out a couple of the dies on my wish list and got another popup screen announcing that I was close to free shipping and an extra $20 in rewards cash. I added one more item to get me over the top and placed my order.

At that point, I looked at my account and discovered I had $50 in rewards cash, so I went back and bought two more dies. When I used my rewards cash in combination with the sale price, the total for the second order came to $2.52.

I am excited about using the 5” square die:

I cut a lot of my larger fabric scraps into 5” squares to sew together to make comforter tops. Right now, I cut them by hand, and while I am adept at flying through scraps with my rotary cutter and ruler, being able to cut 80 five-inch squares—80 squares, ya’ll—in one pass is going to speed things up considerably. That’s almost half a comforter top right there.

[Just for comparison’s sake, I will note that the 5” die for the Go! cutter only cuts 12 squares in one pass. That’s why I never bought that die; it didn’t save me much time over cutting by hand.]

On those days when I am playing amateur systems analyst, I think long and hard about my workflow and where the bottlenecks are. The problem is that when I speed up one part of the process, the bottleneck shifts to a different location. I have visions of being surrounded by piles of 5” squares—like the poor spinster in Rumplestiltskin in a roomful of straw—attempting to sew them into comforter tops before dawn.

Vittorio is going to need another spa day soon. I’ve been working him like a rented mule on this commission quilt top. The only time he complains is when lint builds up underneath the needle plate. He starts to make a growling sound, so I stop, clean out the lint, replace the needle, add some oil, and he’s good for another long stretch.