What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Oh my gosh -- two excellent stories about using the good stuff or getting rid of it - read the comments from yesterday! And yes - it was a thing to pick that china pattern! But so much of it never got used. I'm excited to see Tammy using it every day, and I bet you think of your grandmother! 

So here I am in the big room at Springhouse Retreat and blog writing. I've been up for a while but haven't started sewing yet as I have some work to get done. That was a challenge as I'm ...

Thanks for the vote of confidence on my split 9-patch! I'm going to cut more strips and continue! 

The last day of the retreat is always sad because everyone has to go home. But it's also exciting because you get to come home, unpack, and see everything you did! 

Before I came home, I was determined to go through that bag of Oh Canada scraps and sort it out. This is what happened. 

I found several bags with pieces from various projects, but it was a hodgepodge. I unsewed any pieces that were sewn together. I also found ...

As of this morning, at 6 AM, I have not touched ONE project I brought with me. WOW—can you believe how well I packed? It was another very successful day, and I'm excited. However, I'm also learning (well, I know this) that having a plan is vital! 

In the past - long, long ago - I would flit from project to project. In my "new" life, I'm pretty good at sticking to one thing. I don't get distracted by what others are doing. I'm focused. There has to be a plan, or I will never get ...

I'm happy to report that my neck is feeling better. It's still sore, but it really only affects me when I first get up or when I put my head down, like on the pillow or lying on the floor to do my exercises. I just support my head, and all is good. 

YES - I've been stretching with the foam roller before bed, and I'm feeling much better. I've barely scratched the surface of what I will get into with the new exercise regime. I''m pretty excited about it. It's the bloating in ...

 Oh gosh—I just realized I'm eating my breakfast in front of my new laptop. That means there's going to be a mess of splashed milk! So I must be cautious!!! The bowl is moved off to the side! 

This is the most productive (knock on wood) retreat I've been to in a long, long time. I dug into the second bag of projects as I had finished everything in the first one, and I'll be taking that to the car later today. There is no sense in keeping all this crap in the house, and ...

It's an interesting retreat. Heck, all retreats are interesting, but they are always different. It's never the exact same group of people who attend. It's funny, as when I first started going to retreats almost 20 years ago, we were a set group of nine people, and we went together for years. Then things happened, and that group fell apart. Now, we have a larger group of people; it's never the same mix each time. That makes it interesting! 

How am I feeling? I'm pretty good. I'm realizing that I can't sit well ...

Late—I'm going to be late this morning. No, not because I was sleeping. Oh no—chatting! I accomplished stuff yesterday and actually accomplished what I planned. However, I did my fair share of chatting, and well, isn't that what a quilt retreat is all about? So I'm good with that!!!

I am still thrilled with what I'm accomplishing, and that's all that counts. So what did I get done? Have a look. 

I got all the flannel I brought sewn into squares. There are 107 squares measuring 6 1/2", so that's a ...

Well, this is my first blog on the new computer. All is good—I'm connected to the Wi-Fi at the retreat house. What is impressive—well, not really—is that everything is FAST!!! My goal will be to keep the crap out of the memory and the storage to keep it fast! 

By the way, we are at the Springhouse Retreat in New Hamburg. It's a great place to sew! I got a chuckle when I went to bed. Some people have mentioned that my bedroom is cold, so imagine my surprise when I saw winter-themed flannel sheets ...

Hey, it's good to be back home again! If you want to hear John Denver sing it, check this out. I still find it amazing that you can find pretty much everything and anything online! He died in 1997, and while the internet wasn't what it is today, it was still there! So that makes sense, I suppose. 

We had loads of wind yesterday, but nothing that transpired into a storm—at least not where I was or where I live now. 

We had the windows open at the retreat house, and at several points, what we were ...

Today is our last day at the retreat (Springhouse Retreat), and then I'm home for 3 1/2 weeks before I need to go anywhere. I'm almost giddy knowing that! The vertigo is still there but very mild. I can feel it on the periphery of my brain, if that makes sense. So, I'll look at those exercises when I'm home to try and get rid of it completely. 

Yesterday was one of those days! I was having an issue with a tool that I needed to finish my blog posts, and my ingenuity solved it ...

The vertigo is better and seems only to affect me if I bend down. My world no longer spins behind closed eyes while lying in bed. But I need to watch some of the links/sources you are providing. It's one of those things—do I want to cut into my sewing time or watch the video? How silly of me! My health should be a priority!

OK—so I had some real sewing at the treat yesterday. I had gotten to a point on my QUILTsocial posts that I couldn't progress further without another tool, which I ...

The vertigo is better this morning, but yesterday, when I bent down to help someone find something on the floor, that was NOT a good thing! At least it's not affecting my enjoyment of the companionship of friends and sewing or writing, so I'm good! 

I accomplished a lot yesterday, although I can only share a bit with you. Boy, oh boy, sewing is humbling! It's so easy to get distracted and make a mistake. Good grief—you want to whack yourself for doing that, but there's always a plan B, so one must move on ...

The sun is shining and burning off the mist, and it looks like it's going to be a glorious day! 

My vertigo seems to be somewhat better this morning, which is good, but I had one bout that made me want to throw up and die. It can do nasty things to your head. Once I'm up, I'm OK, so get up! 

I didn't have a chance to follow up on some advice I received yesterday, but hopefully, today will be a slower day! We had some visitors, and someone else joined us here at the ...

Someone mentioned that they are also in the process of doing a file sort/reorg. Yep—it can be tedious, and we'd all rather be sewing. For myself, it's the satisfaction of knowing that I've gotten a little closer to the ultimate goal of getting that stuff all cleaned up. That feeling now supersedes sewing at my house! 

I don't spend a lot of time sorting, especially if I'm not in the mood. Aim for 15 minutes a day. Surely, we can give up 15 minutes of sewing time to push ahead with the decluttering ...

Well, the whirlwind that is my life is ramping up! And we talked about the "next week" syndrome yesterday. "It'll be quieter next week - I just need to get through this week." Well, that quiet next week never seems to arrive! But it's all fun, and I love what I do, making the chaotic schedule much more doable!

However, I'm at a retreat, yet I'm not at a retreat. I'm at home this morning. I swear DH looks at my calendar and says -- "oh, DW is away this week, so I should go on a ...

OH, OH, OH -- I see more book recommendations. I've added a few to the list but will review the rest of the comments tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for that --- it's fun to read, and expanding the genres I read has been one of the best things. It just goes to say that we can learn from others. 

I can't remember what I said about the quilt history story, but I will research it more, so you'll have to wait for that. 

In light of that research, I'm appealing to someone on the last Virtual Retreat ...

I'm back home today, even though the rest of the group is still at the retreat house. Based on my and DH's schedules, it made sense for me to come home. I have two days to regroup while he's traveling, and then I'm off again. Only three more weeks and the travel for the year will be done! Yeah!! Thankfully, none of the trips are long, but it means coordination because of the girls. If we didn't have dogs? Well, we'd probably never be home!

I'm sorry to miss the last two days ...

Even though I was at the retreat all day and had no other commitments, I did NOT seem to accomplish much, and that's OK. While we are at a sewing retreat, it's technically a vacation, and I'm free to do whatever I want!

When I first arrived (it seems like ages ago), I spotted a stack of jigsaw puzzles. Some of the furniture has been moved around, with a nice table beside those puzzles. After a quick perusal through them, I pulled out a 1000-piece puzzle. None of these 350 ones for me! 

I started by laying ...

Multitasking - good or bad? 

By the way - I fixed the link in yesterday's post. Good grief -- I attached a link but hadn't actually copied it from the web page, so it just pasted in the previous link I had copied, which was classes from a store. Sigh!!!

Someone here was talking about coaching for a job interview, and it was highly recommended to NOT mention that you can multitask! I agree -- we get buzzing around and don't do any job as well as we could if we focused on one and then moved to the other. WAIT ...

 Wow -- it's Day Two of the retreat, but I've barely done anything!

It was the first day of my events introducing the new products for Husqvarna Viking. The biggest one is the Designer EPIC 3. I need to tweak the presentation a wee bit as I went over by 20 minutes! But -- there were a lot of questions, and I'm OK with that!

The weather looked horrible in the morning, but the temperature was amazing, and I went for a 1 1/2 walk! That isn't going to happen today! It was warm, and I was ...