Progress in the office

A lot of new terms have been coined during this time. I've made up one for myself. I've become a porch picker. Yep - Not a porch pirate, but a porch picker!

Diane, who lives fairly close to me, had a couple of quilt tops that she had sewn for our community projects and she wanted a couple of new kits to sew. I volunteered to walk to her house and make the exchange, but could she please leave the items on her porch and I'd make the swap outside. I took the girls and I swear that someone in that complex slowly followed me down the street in their car to see if I was trespassing.

Later in the day, I got word that some fabric that I had requested from Northcott was ready and one of their employees was bringing it to their house. They left it on their porch and I picked it up!! I had to drive, but it was a short drive.

Today, I'm also picking up something and it too will be left sitting outside the door. I'm perfectly OK with that. It's not that these people don't want to see me, it just that I'm not in their normal circles and everyone is trying to avoid as many people as we can. I'm perfectly good with that.

Yesterday I met someone I knew on our walk. We said HI and both continued to walk in opposite directions.

Speaking of which, I'm going to be postponing the appointment to get my health card renewed. I know that I don't have to, but since I'm supposed to be taking my MIL, I'll feel better if we don't go right now. It's all part of the social distancing and if I don't have to see people, then I'm not!

While I was hugely busy all day yesterday and was mostly home all day, I really don't have much to show you. OH -- you'll get to see what I was working on next week. Let's just say that my brain is in very high gear as ideas come popping into my head about the embroidery machine. To the point that I was up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours as I emptied my head. Mission accomplished and so now I'm behind this morning as I slept in. Oh well.

So many more cancellations. Even Spring Market which I had thought of attending as I could drive to Pittsburgh is canceled. This has never happened before, but then this is a time of many firsts. It's going to be interesting going forward as people learn new ways to interact with each other (virtually or not at all) and will that become the new normal? It's going to be a very interesting recovery.

However, I did get a quilt quilted.

Community quilt - DONE

I have a LOT of quilts to trim. I may need a day for trimming and two days for binding. This one is going to Quilts of Valour. I believe that's number two for this month.

What I can share with you is what's happening in the office. I have decided that I'm making my computer desk my priority. I need to deal with all the paper on the desk and then I'm going to take everything else off the desktop, get it all dusted nice and clean and then put back only what I need and make the space more functional.

I figure it's going to take about 4 days for that to happen. I could do it all at once, but I do have other commitments and this is about getting clearing up the junk - there's no deadline.

Even though the table top is clear, there's still a lot of STUFF. All that has been removed and is now currently in the box to be dealt with tonight.

The computer desk is slightly better

There's a mess of hard disks, radio and cables behind the monitor and I want all that tidied up as well.

The "behind the monitor" stuff

So what have I unearthed so far? I found a bunch of samples from my hand dyeing classes. These were made 20 years ago. Why are they in the office? No idea. They are now on the shelf in the stash room with the other hand-dyed fabrics. I could sew them all together and get one very bright quilt!!!

Hand-dyed fabric swatches

I found this photograph. It used to be on the wall in M's room. Why did I keep it? I've no idea, but I do love the picture and I remember taking it.

Photography of a geyser

It was taken at the Geysir in Iceland back in 2010. I was there for a few days on a stopover on our way to cycle in Europe. I used the sports action setting on my big camera and took a series of pictures to "watch" the geyser explode.

I chose five pictures in the series and had them framed. They hang in the staircase on the way to Studio B.

A series of photos for the geyser

I think it's one of my best series of photographs. It's amazing to have the camera capture the motion because, in real life, it happens so fast that your eye doesn't register it. I wish I had one more photo in between the top two below. It doesn't matter, it was a pretty cool experience.

Close up of the geyser exploding

That single photo is now gone. But I found other oddities that I've no idea where they came from. Like a key to a FORD vehicle. We've never had a FORD so where did this come from??? I kept the key - it could be used as the centerpiece of an art quilt. It's small, I'm allowed to keep some stuff.

A FORD key

I found my old wallet that had all my cards in it that I had "lost". I thoroughly checked the wallet and didn't find anything of value so it went in the garbage. I know - it doesn't look too bad, but it's old and worn and well, I have a new one which I don't think I shared so I'll take a picture soon and share that with you.

Old wallet - gone

All my extra cards. I need to go through them one more time and toss out anything that I will never use. I don't think you could even use the HBC rewards card. Then I'm going to enter the cards back into my phone and put the cards in a safe place.

Seldom used cards

I also found this which I inherited from someone when they were cleaning up. I shouldn't have taken it because I have NO USE for it. I'm going to say that it's for a PFAFF sewing machine, but I have no idea.

A box of decorative stitch cams

Imagine if this were how you got to choose your decorative stitches?  Well, this is how it used to be. Thankfully, we're beyond this. But if anyone has an idea of what to do with this, I'd love to know. Otherwise, I have no choice but to toss it.

Decorative stitch cams

And then this happened. This is the cabinet where I keep my stabilizers and I was rooting around in there a couple of weeks ago. Something must have slipped to the back and fell behind the drawers so they wouldn't close properly. Shoot - I had to remove one of the drawers and then decided to remove everything so it could all be sorted out. Now I have that to deal with.

The stabilizer cabinet which is now empty

 I had visions of clearing the cutting table, but if anything - it's now even worse as I added the things that I porch picked up yesterday. Oh well..................

The cutting table needs a bit of work

So, even though I was excited about all this "found" time, it's not really found time. I have loads to do and since I normally work at home, there really isn't any additional time! I was kidding myself! But after this week (with a HUGE deadline), it'll be better next week.

After I finished the work for the day, it was time to hit the next box of stuff from the office. I found stuff like this.

Look books

These are fabric lookbooks that I picked up here or at Quilt Market. Do I really need them? I did keep some, but I don't need ones from 2017!!! I probably don't need any of them unless it's the latest. The lookbooks are also on the internet so I should just throw all of these away and use the online ones. I can do it!!!!

I have one more box of stuff to clear out later today. And I now have a pile of paperwork that needs a bit more attention. Yes - I found more money as well. I know - totally not responsible!!!

After the box clearing later today, I should be able to take everything else off the desk and put it in the box and that will take several days to go through some of the paperwork a bit more closely. So things are happening and I'm very excited about that. Once that's done, I'll pick another surface in the office and deal with that one box at a time. It's going to happen!!  I'll keep going until I lose steam, but hopefully, that won't be for a while.

On that note, I'm off to get a LOT of work done today. I hope you are all working on something useful at home. I still have pictures to post that I didn't have time for today.

Have a super day!  Stay healthy and safe.

Ciao!!