Another marathon

What's with the weather? A bit cold and wet to sit in the backyard, but I was going to take a walk. However, when I looked out the window to see the rain being driven sideways by the wind and the temperature that felt like 4 degrees, I stayed in!

Although to be honest, I didn't have time for a walk yesterday. It was a heads down kind of day in Studio U. There's a deadline looming and I have no time to mess around. I got out my earbuds and plugged into the latest audiobook. I'm now 70% through the audiobook and the quilt is loaded on the long arm! I know - how the heck did that happen? There are a LOT (over 300) half square triangles on this quilt. But they got made, trimmed and sewn into blocks.

I'm just getting the batting ready and will be set to tackle that quilt in an hour or so. I don't think I'll make the UPS deadline today as I have a couple of errands that I have to do. But tomorrow will be just fine.

I love when I get in the zone and to be honest, those audiobooks help enormously. I take mini breaks, stretch, get a snack, but then I'm back in the zone. If I don't focus, I'll miss something in the story. If I need to think about something, then I stop the book while I figure out what needs to be figured out and then back to the book. I think I ripped one small seam because the pieces went on backward.

Needless to say, I'm happy and this will get one more thing off my list very soon. I'm going to have a very serious planning session later this week to get the rest of the stuff organized within my schedule.

Since I can't share a picture of the quilt with you, I'm back to my sorting day last week. I had this huge pile of paper that was my notes when I was writing patterns for Northcott. The stack on the left was all my notes and patter revisions. The books on the right contain a final copy of all the patterns I wrote. So why would I keep all those notes? Zero need, so all the notes were put into the recycling.

More paperwork to sort through

I tossed all the paper that had writing on both sides and added the single sided paper to my pile that I use for the printer. I keep saying that ONE day we'll run out of this paper. And then I find another pile of paper that needs to be sorted through. The amount of paper we have is quite wasteful for sure, but I feel like I'm getting a second life from it by reusing the other side. The key is to STOP printing and saving so much paper. We're making huge headway in this area!

Paper for the printer 

 And the recycling bin was happy as well as it was filled up.

The recycling bin is full

I still have more paper to go through. I have four major paperwork projects to finish off and then if I keep the stuff up on a regular basis, it'll never be as bad! Then I can spend some time going through the boxes of old paper that are sitting in the office. I'm quite excited about the process. It's happening - just not fast, but that's OK.

I did say that I didn't buy any magazines at the Windsor Quilt Show, but I lied. I did throw in three magazines all related to machine embroidery. While the magazines are older, hopefully, there'll be an inspiration or two in them. We all know that what comes around, goes around. So even though they are dated, I'm sure there'll be something useful in there. The techniques will be outdated, but not necessarily the projects.

Machine embroidery magazines

Oh, shoot - I didn't take a picture of my enders/leaders project. I did manage to get a block finished for the block exchange that I'm in. Just need to write in the log book with that project and it's ready to go. Can't share that with you until November. But I was sewing those little red/white half square triangles. I do need to focus because I was working on another ender/leader project a while back and well, that got pushed aside. So my plan is to stick with the red/white half square triangles until they are done. Just like the green/yellow/white one from the other day.

Yep - a few more good focused days and I can get a whole lot done! I'm really happy! Today it's going to be heads-down at the long arm. ACK --- I've decided to custom quilt the quilt. Why or why do I do that to myself when there's a deadline? I could do an overall pattern, but it shouldn't take long to do the custom quilting that I want. We're not talking heirloom (very dense) quilting with loads of ruler work - nope - it'll all be free hand.

Speaking of quilting, here's a short article on choosing the appropriate type of quilting for your quilt. It's not just about the time and experience involved, it's also about the finished look of the quilt. Anyway, something to think about.

In case you're smart, you would have realized that today is Monday. I will be foregoing Monday sewing so I can get this quilt out the door! My own fault that I'm missing Monday. At least, I'm sewing/quilting so I'm OK with that.

On that note, I'd better get myself down to that machine.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!