Where's the tattoo?

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Most of us won't get to see our mothers today, but I haven't seen my mom on Mother's Day for years! But I always call and I'll be calling later today.

As I've been tidying up, I came across this Mother's Day present from M and got a good chuckle out of it.

This was a note tucked inside a CD case. The CD is missing, but apparently, it had a playlist for ME. I wonder what songs she picked? I'm sure I'll find the CD somewhere. WAIT - I'd better check the two radios that I'm going to give away. The CD compartment is still taped shut on one radio so it won't be in there. Just checked - the other one is empty.

I don't think she ever got that tattoo on her arm. I'm heartbroken  😀😀😀😀

Here's the note that was inside.

A note from the kiddo

I'm not sure how old she was. These notes are just the best. I might hang onto this one. It's still in the pot that needs to be dealt with.

There are a lot of things that we can't control right now. Well, there's a lot of things that we can't control on a normal day. But guess what? We can control the stuff in our house and what goes on in our house. I'm thrilled beyond words that I'm finally taking the bull by the horns and dealing with the stuff in my house. Until the day I die, I'll probably always have too much, but my goal is to get it under control and when I'm done with something - it goes!

I feel so much freer. I feel way more focused and I definitely am getting more done. I'm not there yet, but I'm making good progress and that's all that counts. I can see the light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm going to be saying NO if someone offers me stuff in the future. Well - I'll be giving it some very serious thought before I say YES.

I decided there's no time like the present so I went down to the boxes of stuff that's been set aside for community projects and I did a wee bit of sorting. I filled a laundry basket with the yardage that can be sorted and put together into kits to make community project quilts. There'll be a bit more to add as I sort through some more stuff. I pulled out three boxes of scraps that still hadn't been sorted. And with all the stuff that I found in that laundry basket, it's now all in one place and I'm starting to sort through it all.

This was one of the boxes that I went through yesterday. There were a LOT of big pieces of fabric in there. It's now in the laundry basket with the other yardage and will be sorted into kits.

Going through a box of scrap fabric

I went through that brown bag of scraps as well. So that was a good day - a box and a bag.

This is what still needs to be sorted.

Boxes of scraps and random fabric to be sorted

I dumped a small bag on the worktable this morning so I can work my way through that today. Once those boxes are gone through - that's it - there shouldn't be any more rogue fabric at my house.

OH WAIT - I still have a lot of bags that were donated to make pet mats to go through. I just want to bang my head on the wall for that silly, silly, silly thing I offered to do - take other peoples' scraps. What the heck was I thinking? That's a whole different story and I'd like to get some of that done as well. That's an intimidating pile, but it's smaller than it was. I can do it!!!  And imagine how I'll feel when all that sorting is done? It'll be glorious and then just focus on getting it used up!! That I can do very well.

Here are a few things I found in the bag and box that I sorted through yesterday. A bunch of half-square triangles and a pattern.

Half-square triangles and a pattern

I sorted the smaller scraps that are suitable for the strings quilts by color. Those got put into the appropriate bag of scraps. There were some bigger squares and they got put into another pile. I'll cut them into squares at some point and they can be sewn together to make another quilt.

The sorting process

If only I had a sorting hat, as in Harry Potter. I could wave my magic wand and everything would be sorted. I watched a couple of episodes of The Quilt Show while I did the sorting. It worked out just fine.

I also found some big triangles that I can add to my box so I can make more quarter square triangles.

Big triangles for quarter square triangles

The trick to all this is if you have NO IDEA what you have, then you can't use it. Now that like things are being put in the same spot, it's easy to use it up. All very logical, but it's taken me YEARS to figure this out. I know that some of the fabrics I'm going to go through today are from 20 years ago. Just wait for that.

I took a picture of the weekly laundry basket. Nothing has changed. I did forget that I have homework to prep this week and I haven't added that container yet. I will confess that I've been working on other stuff, but it's trimming quilts and making sleeves. Not "real" sewing. That gets done in Studio B. Don't worry - there's a method to all this madness.

The weekly laundry basket

I'm almost finished the blocks for the magazine quilt. Then I MUST get myself in gear and work on my UFO or the date will have come and gone and I'll owe $10. We can't have that!!!!

Here's something else that needs a home or it's getting tossed. This is a sample pack of Quilters Dream Batting. I have two - I don't need two.

Quilter's Dream Batting sample pack

Includes samples of the different kinds of batting

My big project for the day was to quilt this customer quilt. It was huge and took a fair amount of time. But it's done. I now have a couple of quilts to trim.

Customer quilt - DONE

I didn't take a picture, but I also trimmed my Dream Big panel that I had machine embroidered a while back. That wasn't an easy task since there are no guides. I just cut. It turned out very nice and I'm working on a facing for it today.

So I still haven't found those bodkins and that bugs me. But what bugged me more was the fact that I couldn't close off the ends of serged stitches on the pet mats. They were sitting on the counter in Studio U and were bugging me every time I looked over there.

Then I had a brainstorm. I have YARN needles. I have PLASTIC yarn needles which would do the same thing. I dug them out - I think I bought this pack of needles when I was a teenager. Still in the original packaging. Note they were MADE in the USA.

Page of yarn needles

They worked like a charm and I got all the thread ends tucked inside. The pet mats are now packed away ready to be delivered/picked up. I'm a very happy camper about that.

Tucking in the ends of serger thread

Do I have a timeline for getting everything tidied up? The sooner the better, but I'm giving myself 20 years.  Once I get everything tidied up, I have to start using what I have and getting ready to downsize. So I give myself 20 years to use it up! I'll probably be so tired of quilting by then, that I'll be happy to give it away! I wonder what kind of fabrics will be in style in 20 years?

I'm reading a fun book and very appropriate for Mother's Day. It's called Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson.   It's a short book and I listened to more than half of it yesterday. I hope to finish today as it's due in a couple of days.

During our current crisis, the one subject that no one seems to be talking about is our immune system. Why aren't we focusing on how to build a stronger immune system so that if we are exposed to the virus that we won't get it or if we do, that the symptoms will be mild??

I'm not sure you can access this PODCAST, but it's about boosting your immune system. I must get myself organized and listen to PODCASTS on my phone instead of an audiobook. Darn - the PODCAST player is in the same folder as my Libby (audiobook player). I just ignore it. Well, I'm not going to ignore it in the future. Now, what PODCASTS can I listen to??

Here's something else that I think is fun. The fact that we should be laughing MORE. I couldn't agree more. I do need to smile more - I don't know why I don't, but I need to make a mental reminder to smile all the time. It's fun and makes people wonder what's going on!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day. Don't forget to practice physical distancing. The word is now - practice physical distancing, not so much stay at home.

Have a great day!!!!

Ciao!!!