I think this was a first for me, but the third day seemed to be way busier or as busy as the previous two days. How did that happen? It's actually exciting - some of those people have multi-day passes (it's so worth it as there is much to see and hard to get done in one day!). But exciting to see so many people out. Today is the last day! This is the last day of trade shows for a couple of months! Isn't that exciting! Maybe not to you, but it is to me. I won't have any mad sewing (well still have four magazine quilts, but they have spaced out deadlines which I'm going to be working ahead of) and more blogging with QuiltSocial, but I'm going to be spending my weekends doing fun stuff. And I hear there is a retreat coming up real soon. I'm already planning what to pack. Do I dare restrict myself to one laundry basket? Oh that's just silly! Load the car!
I think what I'm going to do is take ONE day this coming week. It's going to be a planning day. Planning for work - what needs to be done, (i.e. what patterns need to be written), how to be more efficient at how those patterns get written, future designs and figure out numbers/goals/objectives for that kind of stuff. I also have a ton of videos that I want to get produced. So far I've been working by the seat of my pants and I'm not happy with the results. NO - that's not right - I'm happy with the results, but not happy with the process - that's probably a better way of putting it.
So I'm going to sequester myself in my office or at home and figure out how to move forward in the most time-efficient manner. And I really need to look at that calendar of mine and make sure that everything is scheduled. Speaking of scheduling - can you believe what I did? So in years past and well most situations in my life - it appears that I'm a last minute girl. Not sure why - but that's me. So I thought I would be ahead of the game and I would do my stuff with Quilts at the Creek. Remember I mentioned that the other day? So the quilts are entered and I signed up for the workshops. I was chatting with the ladies from the Quilts at the Creek show and Val says, there is some bad news. Oh god - what did I do? Well, it appears that I was even more efficient than I thought and I signed up for the same lecture and workshop TWICE!!! See what happens when you do things so far in advance? You forget you did them. No worries - all is good, but we got a good laugh over that one.
I also need to sit down with that Task Master of mine. There are two things I need to do. What is the list of critical quilts with deadlines? List those with the deadline. Then work backwards to make sure that they will in fact get done on time. And I need to absolutely, positively be diligent about keeping that list up-to-date. No ifs, no ands, no buts. That will become a crucial part of my planning going forward. Remember my motto - Prioritize - Focus - Win? Well, I'm good at focusing, just not so good at prioritizing and if it isn't written down, it's not on my radar screen.
More wheeling and dealing at Quilt Canada yesterday. I have to say that I'm pretty excited about some upcoming stuff and can't wait to get started.
I also had a peek at what was happening at Canada's Big Quilt Bee. Jackie gave me a tour towards the end of the day. All I can say is that I had to pick my jaw off the floor. They have four long arms in those rooms, they have sewing machines and everyone was quilting quilts! The sheer number of blocks and tops (didn't I predict that a couple of weeks ago?) is unbelieveable. I did take some pictures.
 |
| Blocks, tops and quilts |
 |
| These are ALL tops that need quilting! |
 |
| Busy bees! |
They'll be doing the final tally later today, but the project will NOT be wrapped up for a while. All those tops and blocks have to be finished.
It's too bad that more people didn't provide finished tops. How many of us are sitting on stacks of fabric that could be donated for those backings? It would have been a great way to get rid of some of that stuff!
I think I have 8 more quilts to quilt and then I'll be done with our part. Someone will bind and we can move on with a clear conscience.
I've learned over the years that "be careful what you wish for" because often times - it will come true! And in ways that you had never imagined. I think that is what happened with this Quilt Bee. What I would like to see is more people pitch in to help finish this project. I'm not aware of how it's all working, but this is huge and the last thing we want is for these quilt tops/blocks to end up in someone's basement! I'm pretty sure that won't happen, but there is a HUGE amount of work to be done!
They have reached their goal of 1,000 quilts. What will the final tally be? I predicted 1,500 on my blog. But - well - I'm going to leave that thought hanging until they do the final tally!
Now how can we keep this generousity from our quilters/guilds going through the coming year? How can we keep this exciting momentum from Quilt Canada? Oh - if only I could wave my magic wand and all would be done!
Before I forget, I taught an all day class on perfecting the hand applique stitch. The ladies were from all over - Sudbury, Powassan (do you know where that is?), near London, Ontario, Ottawa and Montreal and even Chicago. What a fun group and we all learned some cool things. I'm going to be showing some of the things that I learned from them later this week. I LOVE when I learn from the group and I saw some exciting things. Thanks to all of you - it was a great day!
On that note, I'm going to get to the show early. I've not really seen any of the quilts and I need to do that. The show closes at 4 today and once our booth is down, I'm going to stay and help pack up the show quilts. Then home for a rest because tomorrow is a heavy sewing/quilting day and no time for dilly dallying!
Have a super day!!!
Ciao!!!!
Again - thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth yesterday. So nice to see you all. I have one last lecture this morning untiil 11 and then I'm around for the rest of the day. I'm the one with the Canada flags on my head!
No comments:
Post a Comment