Motivational Monday!

How is your list of projects coming along? I have to confess that despite prepping a couple of those monthly UFOs and taking them to the retreat, I didn't work on them. Yikes!  That means I better start buckling down soon or I will be miles behind!

And I keep "panicking" thinking about a project that isn't on my deadline list. Then I check - oh yes - it's already there. I did end up with another very urgent project yesterday that has to be done by next week. Thankfully it's not big. I had complete option to do or not do, but I choose to.  That means TWO quilts, same deadline date. All in a days work!  Thankfully, both are fairly uncomplicated and one is almost together.

Here's a very sobering thought though about our projects. I spent five days at the retreat sewing. Granted I didn't sew as much as I normally do - I did slack off. It was a vacation after all.  But five days dedicated to sewing. While I did get projects done or very close to being done, it was alarming how much didn't get done. And this is only a teeny portion of the entire mess.  Oh dear!

I'll share with you over the week what I got accomplished. I did take a few pictures of some of the others' projects as well and will share those with you.

This is a project that had been cut for a long long time.  At least two years so I guess it isn't that long ago. It's all batiks.  I don't think these came from my stash - I do believe I bought them. It's so bright and cheery and I absolutely adore the colors!  Very tropical and I''m in love with it.

Bright batik quilt

I motored through this quilt very quickly with no or little regard for the placement of the strips, although there is some order to the strips.

As I mentioned, I had cut those two pink side borders and put them on at the retreat.  The length of the quilt was designed to have no borders on the top and bottom, although that is easy enough to change.

What do you think?  Border on top?

Same width as the sides

Narrower than the sides

Personally, I like it without the border. It's unpredicatable and I like that. But easy enough for anyone to add the top/bottom border if they wanted to. I think no border adds to the jarring effect caused by the high contrast of colors. So no top and bottom border it is!    If I were to put top and bottom borders, it would have to be with a slightly different pink. That helped the decision!

Here is what's leftover. Yikes - there's a LOT of fabric strips left over, and lots of those little pink rectangles that are already cut.  Hmm - a couple of options come to mind. See - there's that same problem again - what to do with the leftovers. Make a quilt? Add to the stash?

Leftovers

I ended up adding them to my batik strip stash. There are a couple of pattern ideas in that box and one day, I may end up making something else with the batik strips.

Batik strip stash

Two different pinks

While I was on a roll putting stuff away, I hung this quilt up for the pictures. Stored the bits and thought I might as well choose a backing fabric at the same time.  I found a bolt of this NON BATIK fabric in my stash. Yes - there is a fabric bolt stash!  I think it's perfect. I haven't had time to make the backing yet, but I hope to get down there later tonight. The good news is that the bolt stash is very slowly being depleted and NOT being replenished!

Backing for the batik quilt

I worked diligently on the editing process for QUILTsocial. You know I have a love/hate relationship with technology. Well here's a new one. I like to use Grammarly (an add-inn) to check spelling and basic grammar. It certainly does slow down the process in some applications. But I choose to live with that. I decided to do my editing on my newer computer and I was having a very hard time as the cursor was jumping all over the place for words that had been highlighted as having an error in them.  Oh my god - I thought I was never going to get done.  I switched computers - problem solved.  Seriously????  It may have something to do with the different (newer on the new computer) operating system???  I've no idea.  I guess all editing will be done on the old computer. No big deal - I just thought the newer one would be faster.  However for inserting captions, the newer computer does works better. Go figure! Thankfully  both computers are fired up, sit pretty much side by side and easy to switch from one to the other.  I'm learning!  And one day (as if!) all my technology problems will be over. Well - my life will be over too!


If you're looking for some great quilting designs, check out these Minute Motifs by Handi Quilter.  Some great ideas.  Don't forget to try them on paper first!!!   I am very serious about that. Don't think that I'm just saying that off the top of my head to give you more work.  NO - think about this - if you try to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time, it's very hard. Your brain can't compute doing two different things at once. That's the same for machine quilting. If you're learning how to do free motion (and get the stitch length consistent, learning how to move the fabric) AND learning a new stitch at the same time, your brain goes into over load and can't function at anything.  I'm not kidding!!!!   So learn the new design on paper. Your hand and brain are very comfortable with pen and paper.  Once you get the hang of the motif (muscle memory for your brain), it's much easier to get to the sewing machine and stitch it out.  It may take a few trys on the sewing machine to get the design moving properly, but so much easier if your brain has already been trained in a safe, non stressful environment.

Well - I'm off to work. Got loads of writing to do today and trying to get things organized. I have little bits of this and that all over the place and I want to be organized with lists of what needs to be done in this category and what needs to be done for another one. I'm sure once I get that to happen that I'll feel much better and more in control.

And not that it's huge, but I eliminated 6 pieces of paper from the office and a box of stuff that needed to be thrown out. I had no idea that the box was full of things destined for the garbage.  I feel better already!

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!!!!