What's your lifestyle?

 Oh boy -- everything takes way longer than planned! I've got so much sewing prepped and ready to go - I just need the time to sit at the machine and get it done! I did get a lot of sewing done, but it was for a project today, and of course, that Long Time Gone is consuming HUGE amounts of time, and I don't seem to be making progress. 

This might be the picture I showed yesterday - well if so, it's a bit more advanced than that. Yep - same picture as yesterday  - I didn't take a new one, and I'm not running downstairs to snap another photo. 

The churn dash block

But that's OK -- any progress is progress, and that's all I care about. But once this quilt is done - well, this block and those last four pineapple blocks, then things will move along quickly!

However, I undertook a massive job yesterday, and it took as long as I thought it would. I'm glad it's done. 

Here's how my day started after walking the girls. I had a GIANT quilt to get done. I knew it would take all day and yesterday was the only day in the coming week that I had nothing on the schedule, so I thought it best to bypass a few other quilts that are smaller—those I can get done in a day with something else happening. Don't worry -- this one was on the schedule - it didn't really bump anyone - just the specific of the week that it would get done. 

I had to use 120" wide batting, and that's a lot of batting hanging there. The quilt is something like 103" by 110". Good grief - who makes quilts that huge these days??? One person comes to mind!!!

Getting ready to start quilting a giant quilt

And this is always a welcome sign - the end of the quilt. It literally took all day. 

The end of the quilt

And here it is. It's a combination of blocks from Farm Girl Vintage and Farm Girl Vintage Two. A fun quilt with all the fabrics she chose. 

Customer quilt - DONE

And here's a close-up of the quilting pattern. That took a bit of time to stitch out, but I think she'll like it. Now to trim it later today. 

The quilting motif

I have two classes today and an errand, so I think I'll spend the rest of the time cleaning up some stuff, and I have a couple of things to finish cutting—no sense leaving all kinds of fabric hanging out on the cutting table. 

And in the prepping stage for today, I had to start another quilt. You'll see it soon. These are the colors I chose. BRIGHT, and I LOVE them. OH - and the background is white. 

Colors for a new quilt

And it warms my heart to get pictures like this from M. She was at a fabric store and looking at fabrics,  needles, thread, and zippers. Love you!!!  I'm on standby in case she needs assistance. 

M's fabric shopping trip

Here's a couple of pictures of toadstools? that I saw yesterday on the walk. These guys were just outside the entrance to the forest. Isn't it a bit early for them? But we've had a lot of rain. 

Toadstools

Close up of the toadstools

So here's my story about lifestyles. Trust me - I have tons of stuff to share with you, but there isn't a whole lot of time each morning, and you'd be bored if it all came in one day. Patience!!!

As you know, one house just recently sold on our street, one is currently up for sale, and one is coming soon. I bet they are madly getting rid of stuff in the house. Apparently, one of them is a hoarder - I don't think a real HOARDER, just someone who likes to keep stuff. 

Two of the three households also have cottages. The third might as well - I don't know. But in chatting with one of the homeowners, they said they found a house in a neighborhood where they could walk to things. WHAT????  Are you kidding me? Walk to things? We can walk to the mall, the dentist, the doctor, the hospital, two grocery stores, restaurants, the library, the community center, and at least three Tim's - we can walk to ANYTHING from our street. I almost choked when they said that. 

Let's face it - if they don't walk here and I've NEVER seen them out walking - not in 17 years of living on this street - they will NOT walk once they move. Maybe once to try it, but it's a 30-minute walk to their new downtown - it's not going to happen. I just chuckled to myself and thought - "yep - and I have some property in a swamp that you could buy!"

I was chatting to someone else about staging a house. Why do they bother? Well, it boils down to lifestyle. When a house gets staged, you're buying into this pretty and calm and fairytale-like lifestyle in that house. We all know that it's a bunch of crock - NO ONE's house looks like that on a regular basis. OK -- if your house looks like a magazine spread - hmmm - then you can't be a quilter or have pets!! 

I know I will resist when we go to sell, and they want to stage the house. Where are people's imaginations? Or are they so crazy that they need to be led to believe that life is all bliss? Oh well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. By then, most of the stuff will be gone in our house (except Studio B, of course), so I guess it won't matter. By the way, DH has caught the bug as well. He cleared a lot of stuff from his office, and I managed to find a home for it all. Old TEXTBOOKS from how many years ago? Seriously??? I couldn't persuade him to part with them all, but we got rid of a few. 

So here's the other thing - I laughed when I heard that two of the three people selling had cottages. Why? I know this is a lifestyle thing. We did not have a cottage growing up, and I just don't see the fun in getting in the car after packing it up with supplies, driving through ridiculous traffic. Then you spend the weekend maintaining the cottage and then pack up and come back home. Why would I do that? 

Now, if your backyard looks like this, I don't mean this in a mean way. But if your backyard looks like this, it's boring. What are you going to do with all that green space? Oh - you have to cut the grass. But what else? Where will you sit? Where will you lounge and read? Or nap? Where's the shade? At least two of the three houses have backyards like this. 

Is this a fun backyard?

We decided to make our backyard our cottage to enjoy every day - even in winter. OK - so I don't sit in the gazebo in winter, but I enjoy looking out and seeing what's going on. 

The view from the gazebo

For the most part, our backyard is 100% maintenance-free. I do have to weed some of the areas, and we put mulch down every two years. And someone comes twice a year to tidy it up, which I could do, but I don't want to. Now I will give the previous owners part of the credit for the backyard. However, we took it one step further. There was a small pond in the backyard. The gazebo and the shed were there, as were most of the trees and shrubs. We just got rid of the grass and enlarged the pond. Added rocks and stones and VOILA - a beautiful cottage environment right outside my backdoor that I can enjoy 24/7. 

And yes -- I did take a break from that giant quilt, and I was out in the gazebo. And YES, I had a nap after I had my snack and did a bit of reading. How could you not? The sound of the waterfall, the tinkle of the windchimes? It's like a lullaby. And peaceful - just like at the cottage. 

So it's all in how you look at life and what's important to you. Just don't get fooled into thinking that someplace will be amazing when you don't live that lifestyle now. How many people move into a retirement home and never take advantage of all the programs and activities available to them? 

Anyway, our lifestyle is pretty quiet, but I love to walk, and I know that the forest was what sold me on this house. I walked the forest the day we visited, and I said YES, and I've enjoyed that forest every day since. 

Well, enough about that. It's time to get moving. I've got some presentations to prep, and then I'll spend the afternoon with more prep. Good grief - at some point, I'd like to say that all the sewing is caught up. That's NOT going to happen until Long Time Gone is done!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!