Sorting and decluttering

So --- did you give any thought to those almost completed UFOs that could be done in 60 minutes or less? 

I stared around Studio B, and oh boy—the number of projects I found in that category would blow my mind. I'm not even tempted at this point to group them. So this is what I started with. Two pet mats were sitting beside the serger; all they needed was one seam to close them up and tuck the ends in. 

Two pet mats - DONE

And now they are done and sitting in the Pony Express area. Seriously? That took less than five minutes! I wonder what I'll work on today. But what a nice feeling and a quick win! How many more quick wins can I get? I have no idea, but I must remember to tackle one daily! 

The other thing I tackled yesterday was the drawers of beads. There were four of them, and they were a mess. So while we had Monday Sewing, I started sorting them. OH MY GOODNESS—what an eye-opener. 

The mess of bead stuff

Then I started to sort. I'm not ready to get rid of the beads yet, and now that they are sorted, I may actually find a use for them. There is one drawer for seed beads, one for funky beads, one for kits (those I should probably find a new home for), and one for tools. How many pairs of jewelry pliers does one person need? Wait! Don't you buy another when you can't find the first pair? I honestly do NOT know what went on in my head sometimes!

Sorting the bead stuff

And now the beads are all neatly stowed back where they were. 

The bead drawers are sorted

Should I need something (like sequins), I know exactly where they are. I have many sequins and want to keep them as I need them occasionally. Did I get rid of anything? I found many larger beads, and someone mentioned they could use them for fidget quilts, so that bag is on the Pony Express. 

Beads that were donated

I also found this fabric. Oh gosh—it was designed by Mark Lipinski and the collection was called Katmandu by Troy Corporation. I remember buying it to bead it. I can't remember if it was made for that, but I found lots in the drawer. I will never put beads on that, so the fabric went into the stash—or it will later today. Yep—the cutting table needs to be cleared again! 

The fabric that I was going to bead

Here's the thing -- you can't yell at me for continuing to mess up the cutting table. Anything that has a home and needs to be put away goes on the cutting table, and it then becomes a quick task to put it away. If something doesn't have a home, it sometimes doesn't make it to the cutting table, as I need to think of where to store it. 

Now, something amusing happened at Monday Sewing. One of the ladies asked if anyone knew of a Lori Holt pattern called Bee Happy. It's a cute pattern and YES - I know of it. She bought the book at her thrift shop for less than $2. But you need the templates to make the quilt, which I think is a real money grab by the designer. Sorry, but true. At some point in my life, I found the templates or bought them for some reason, but didn't buy the book. So between the two of us, we could easily make the quilt. 

The big question is where I stored those templates. I'm going to start looking later today. The bag would have gone into a basket or box of other odd things. Hmmmm—that could be anywhere. I know exactly what the bag looks like! 

While I have made a lot of clothing in my time, I've never done much with changing a pattern. But now, I'm trying to eliminate a bust dart. Oh yeah!! I've got it figured out, but I need to redo it today as I wasn't 100% happy with how it turned out. Well, it turned out, but my pattern is too flimsy, so I need to start with a piece of paper, not the pattern I had originally traced onto a lightweight stabilizer. 

Eliminating a bust dart

I think I mentioned that the deadline for the Cherrywood Challenge was this past week. I got mine in 20 hours before the deadline. Carla (the owner of Cherrywood Fabrics) posted a short video the other day about the number of quilts they received. The first year, when Wicked was the theme, they had 114 entries, and the number of entries has varied over the years. Last year (Poppy theme) was a record at 465 or something like that, and this year, that number was blown out of the water! I figured the number of submissions would be high based on the theme, Abyss. 

Do you want to hazard a guess? Sit down, as the number is insane!!!

Number of Cherrywood challenge entries

That's incredible!!!! The colors were fun to work with, and the theme was fun, so I could see why people wanted to enter. Now, the crazy job of three mystery jurors is to select 225 of the 570, which will form the official traveling show and the book. I've seen a few of the entries on IG, and none of them look like mine, nor did anyone use the techniques I used. But what are the chances of getting selected? It all depends on those three jurors and what they are looking for. 

If mine doesn't get in, I'm not worried. I'm just thrilled that it actually got done and I LOVE it. This is the kind of thing I'd like to spend more time doing! And I could potentially use those seed beads on something like this, but there was no time! 

Apparently, they got many entries in the last 24 hours (mine included) and many in the final hour. I wouldn't leave an online entry submission to the last hour! That would tempt the fate of technology, which would fail for me! 

I'm reading an ebook and listening to an audiobook, and both flip back and forth in the timeline. They're quite different, so they're easy to keep separate. But I'm reading to the point in both where I NEED to know what is happening or what is going to happen. Hmmm—how do I manage to squeeze that into my day? 

So while I was curled up in my chair last night, guess who was trying to entertain me. Her ball had been hidden earlier in the day, and she had fun unwrapping it, but she didn't succeed in getting it out of the stuffie! You are not done, Murphy!

MOM -- are you watching me? 

We've had some rain, but enough to generate this growth? This is growing on a section of a tree chopped down several months ago. It's crazy that the fungi grew that much! 

Fungi on a log

So what is with this weather? It's crazy and cold. DH is away again and sent me a picture of the temperature where he is. It's 35 Celsius there, and it's 3 Celsius here! I bet he's glad he's away again! 

It's a pretty wide-open week, but I have writing to do and some prep for the weekend classes—only two. What will I do with all my free time? Don't worry—I have quilts to quilt, that writing to finish, and trying to find those templates! 

Plus, I will try hard to work on one 60-minute or less project daily! That is more of a memory thing than a time thing! That would clear up a huge amount of space! How about you? Are you onboard? Just think how much you will appreciate it, and it's not a big deal to get those done. Even if you do nothing else in the day, get one of those done each day, and you'll be way ahead of the game. 

And I don't mean that my memory is bad—it's just that until it becomes a habit, things like that tend to get sidelined by other things! 

On that happy note, I'm out of here! It will be a silly day, and I might as well get it started. 

Have a super day!

Ciao!!