Back to my "day" job

I did spend some more time in the basement and I've started to haul some of the stuff up. In an ideal world, I would bring up several tubs - deal with it and then bring up some more. I'm trying to pick stuff that I know I can easily find a home for or it goes in the Diabetes pickup which I still need to schedule. That's got to be on the list of things to do today.

I've found stuff that well - I've no idea what I'm going to do with it. No - I should say - that I've no idea why I kept it. OK - so the brown paper from yesterday? I was going to do some art projects with it. Obviously, that hasn't happened. So it'll be good to wrap those frames in and then if ever I get to the artwork - I'll find some brown paper.

That's the thing - we save things, including fabric, for just the right project and then when the day comes that we're ready to work on that (if it ever comes), we've found way more things or materials to work with. Stop saving!!!!  Saving is like hoarding! STOP! Just stop!  Hey - I'm telling myself that every day. Can you imagine if I were packing things up to move? There's a LOT more stuff hiding in the nooks and crannies of that basement and it's time to deal with it NOW!

I'm just not sure how fast I can deal with it all. I don't want to fill the main floor with stuff, but I might if I have to. Just means that I'm going to have to get good at getting rid of stuff.

Anyway - it was time to get back to the long-neglected long arm. I managed to get not one, but two quilts completed yesterday. I was a happy camper and the next one is half loaded (just needs batting).

Here's the first one. This one was done custom. I'm so slow at custom - I have two more to do but I think both of those will be easier than this one. This one needs to be trimmed and it'll be ready to go.

Customer quilt - DONE

The next one was a T-shirt quilt. I love T-shirt quilts. I actually taught a class on T-shirt quilts last Friday. We had a variety of topics in the class. Three people were making quilts from their vacation T-shirts. One person was making a quilt from her favorite T-shirts. And one ambitious person brought in three different groupings!

One of the ladies was determined to make a move on her shirt. She cut up all the fronts and we got them sort of laid out in a pattern. I think she might be short one T-shirt or she's going to have to jiggle them around a bit.

T-shirt layout from the T-shirt class

 Anyway, here's the second quilt that I quilted yesterday. This one is trimmed and will be delivered later today. Yeah!!! 

Customer quilt - DONE

Technically, I'm not that far behind in the quilting department. And hopefully, I can get back on track. That basement issue has been a huge distraction to my productivity.

A while back, I was doing some cleaning in another part of the basement and I got rid of the embroidery unit for my Husqvarna Viking Designer I embroidery machine. This machine is over 20 years old! The machine had a floppy disk drive in it and my designs were loaded on floppy disks!!  Then designs went to USB and now the designs just get floated to the machines via the cloud! Not the Designer I. It's been retired as an embroidery machine.

I still have the floppy disk drive and my intention is to take whatever I want from these disks and put them on the USBs.  I think there are some recovery disks in this stack???  DOS???  Anyone remember that? Time to rid of this!

Floppy disks 3.5" 

Oh yes  - I should say that those floppy disks are the 3 ½" size because there was a 5 ¼" as well!!!  My - how times have changed!

Last night at dinner, we were sitting and chatting. Those two orange tote bags with the bamboo wind chimes was sitting at the side of the table. After I had finished eating, I pulled out the bamboo chimes. Hmm - I think I can fix this right now! There was even an extra length of the black cord attached to the chime. All I needed was a pair of scissors and LOOK - the wind chimes are in the backyard!!!

Wind chimes are in the backyard!

So that's kind of embarrassing. It took me all of 5 minutes to fix them. Why have they languished in the basement for years? I'm sure it's going to be the same thing for those tote bag handles. Granted, it'll take a wee bit longer than five minutes and a pair of scissors to fix them, but gosh - I even found a bobbin with orange thread in the bag.  Those are for sure coming to the retreat with the appropriate interfacing to make sturdy handles.

When I go to a retreat, I like to take simple piecing. Then I only need one color of thread and one foot for the sewing machine. This time - it's going to be a challenge. I'm taking a bunch of small projects that just need a bit of finishing. That's going to take a lot of time and coordination on my part to get all the supplies. Yes - if I'm missing something, I could go and buy it, but that's not the plan. I might end up making lists of stuff that missing and that becomes my new shopping list. I shop at my house first and then I can go to the store if I need.

It's all about coordination and focus. I feel a bit out of focus at the moment as there's a lot going on. So I need to pull back again and get back on track!

And you NEED to check out QUILTsocial this morning. It's my week to blog. Today, there's some cool information on machine applique including VIDEOS!!!  If you want to know about machine applique - check it out.

I made it out for a walk yesterday. My girls are NOT happy. I used to go for my walk without them. Let's face it - neither of them is a good walker! But I feel guilty, so now I take them one at a time. One day, Lexi goes and the next day it's Murphy's turn. They do NOT think this is fun. Murphy thinks it's her turn every day!

But I've made the library my destination for the walk. Between DH and myself, we usually have a book or two that needs to be returned or picked up. Sometimes, I go just to check if anything new has been added to the shelves. It's a decent walk from the house and I love the library! That will be a selling point for me for any house - can I walk to the library!

On that note, I'm out of here. It's Monday sewing and after that, I've got a lot of work to get done.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!