What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I went to bed last night utterly exhausted! My afternoon walk was only to the library, yet I did well over 13 KM in the day! How did that happen? Back and forth to the long arm, back and forth to the storage room, moving boxes and fabric, and everything else! 

But -- Studio B is almost back to normal, and I'm so excited! 

First, let's chat about advent calendars. For whatever reason, I got on a roll with advent calendars this year. M got an adventure calendar, and she's already solved the first clue! I opened up ...

 Another AMAZING day with Karen. It's incredible how much one can learn by observing, and I did a lot of observing. I'm thankful I had that opportunity!

Once the event was over and I could cash out (more on that another day), I was on my way home. It had been raining like cats and dogs earlier in the day, with gale-force winds. Did I want to drive in those conditions? However, the rain stopped, and the roads were dry on the way home. But the wind? It was windy, and I had to keep a firm grip ...

OH MY GOODNESS - Tammy --- you're the best! Tammy just saved me a trip to IKEA and money! Instead of buying a desk with drawers, did you know you can buy a drawer unit that fits under your table? I just Googled them, and there are MANY options, so that looks like an excellent idea for ALL of my worktables. I might buy one to test it out and then see how that goes! Thank you, Tammy!!! It looks like I'm only going to find them at my favorite online store. So be it! 

And the item that I ...

The writing is done! Am I getting better? Or am I better prepared? It seems to take less time than it did in the past - I think my hands are getting faster at getting the thoughts on "paper," and I'm better at editing as my grammar improves. I used to fight with Grammarly to understand what they were telling me. It does NOT like Passive Voice, and I used to struggle with writing in the Active Voice. It's all good -- the writing is done!

So many Advent Calendars -- so little time! Is it next year so I can order one? OK --- so that's pushing time limits a wee bit. But now that I've investigated advent calendars and found out how inexpensive some of them are, compared to the quilting ones -- I want a different one. Maybe I could "cheat" and buy one for myself this year!! No one will know! 

Had great presentations yesterday, and OH - boy -- I should learn to read the instructions. I seem to make things up when I'm sewing, and well -- if it works and it's ...

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get on the bandwagon with what everyone else is doing? Advent calendars have been around forever (as has almost everything in this world -- more on that another day!). When M was home, we had MANY advent calendars, and it was fun to watch her open each one -- some had chocolate in them, some had other goodies, and one was to build a Santa's workshop that we lovingly put away each year so she could reopen it the next. 

Since she moved, there have been no advent calendars. Well, that's ...

You do not want to see my house at the moment. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, and there hasn't really been time to keep things under control. I swear as the day went on yesterday that it got worse!

Here's that heap of quilts that need to be bound. I was hoping to tackle that this morning, but that's not going to happen. 

Quilts to be bound

The cutting table is buried, and I need to cut stuff this morning. I doubt there'll be time to deal with it, so all ...

We had a great sewing day on Monday. One of the things that I love, and that is impossible to have in person, is our presentation. We do a show and tell of what we're working on or what we have finished, and we can share photos from quilt shows. It's so much fun! I was supposed to be doing some real work, but I puttered and put stuff away instead. I didn't take a photo, but Studio B looks much better, but not by much! I'll share that tomorrow. I have projects to make and ...

 I don't know what it was, but I couldn't sleep last night. As a result, I got up and watched a work-related video, and then it was REALLY late for me, and I got up late, and the blog is late, and my entire day will be behind! Do I care? Not really! I like being on schedule, but it isn't going to happen today, and guess what? It's my schedule today -- no pickups, no dropoffs, no Zoom. It is me alone who dictates when and what I do!

Based on the state of the house ...

Well, it was a crazy day, and I got lots done. I just didn't get everything done that I had hoped to! Why is that? Because everything takes a long time to do and I did a few extra things. So I'll be working on that other stuff later today!

There is a thief amongst us, and I will have to do something about it. I hate when people do things behind you and don't come clean. 

Who is the thief? Well, she has four legs and lots of hair. I was in the kitchen, and I ...

 Am I the only one experiencing this issue with my phone?? Hello? Is anyone else out there? I submitted a claim yesterday, and we'll see how quickly they move. In the meantime, I will NO LONGER be answering my phone. It's just too frustrating to have a conversation with anyone, and you will have to get in touch by text or e-mail. 

While I didn't get a chance to watch all the pomp and circumstance of the Queen's Jubilee yesterday, I watched some of the replays. I swear that Prince Louis stole the show. His facial ...

 I sewed for a good part of the day, but I was in slow motion mode, and that's OK. I managed to get all the homework done for the class last night and the two classes this morning. OK -- that's a lie. While I did get the homework done for last night and the presentation went together, I still need to make 7 more blocks for The Butterfly quilt. I was thinking I'm doing great - I've got everything cut. Then I realized that we needed to make EIGHT blocks, not four, so back to the cutting ...

Never say never. You know what I mean. For years, I would zip from one project to another and often worked on several projects at a time. The studio was a mess, and so was my brain, apparently. Lately, I've been trying to focus on one thing at a time. OK -- that's not true because when I'm working in the studio, I often have one of the automated machines working simultaneously -- either the long arm or the embroidery machine. So that's not one project at a time. 

However, the workspace is much neater, and I'm ...

 I love it (NOT!) when the connection isn't good on a call -- "Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?" Well, that has happened mostly on Zoom calls. Now, however, it's happening on my cell phone. In the last several days, whenever I'm on a call IN THE HOUSE, I cut out, and I go outside to take the call. Not always practical. What is causing this issue? No idea, and it's going to be something challenging to diagnose. 

I would love to walk into the cell phone store and tell them my problem, and ...

So I took a drive downtown Toronto the other day. I choose to go on Sunday when the traffic wouldn't be so bad, and I'd be able to find decent (and cheap) parking. The parking was cheap -- $10 for the entire day, and I could even locate my car at the end of the day. I don't know downtown that well, so I take special care to note where I parked. I have visions of wandering the city to find my car, and since I parked in an underground parking lot, it would have been impossible to ...

I see the inevitable has happened. The price of regular gas has hit $2.00 a liter. Remember when it hit $1.00? That was an issue as the pumps couldn't display the price. Well, did they take into account that someday it might be $10 a liter? I'll have given up my car by then. 

Someone mentioned that raising the price is forcing people to buy electric cars. Seriously?? If anything, it should be encouraging people to buy more fuel-efficient/smaller vehicles, but that will NEVER happen. People will absorb that higher price and think nothing of ...

 Guess what?? Yep -- we're back at a quilting retreat. YES --- I know that I'm fortunate to be able to go as often as I do. When we first started going to quilt retreats, we used to rent the same house for every retreat, and it was the same group of people, and things were easy! 

When that first house closed down, we moved to another one that was a bit closer, and that was fun. Then that one closed down, but we found another one even closer. This time, we're at a different one -- we first came ...

So what happened yesterday? This is April -- the Easter Bunny has already come and gone, and we get this? 

A winter wonderland

Thankfully, the roads and sidewalks are dry this morning, but we do NOT need this snow. The landscapers are supposed to come and open my pond this morning, and I was going to clean up the backyard (from the dogs), and well, I was out when it started to snow. So the yard didn't get cleared. Sigh..................

I'm happy to report that I was able to finish all the quilting on my Cherrywood Challenge with the ...

I have a ton of sewing and quilting to do, but honestly, I would walk into Studio B and feel totally overwhelmed and uninspired. I realized that the mess of stuff everywhere is very discouraging, which takes the fun out of sewing. 

Yesterday it was all about changing that! It was the sort of day that you cannot plan or schedule. You are either in the mood or you are not. 

If I want to use the tools and machines that I have, I'd better make room for them, or it will not happen. And I tried to get ...

Thanks for your patience and understanding with my blog posts over the last couple of days. As Linda noted in the comments, signing up for classes because of FOMO (Fear of missing out) results in UFOs. Plain and simple -- you get a ton of UFOs. And because you are working on a class that your friend wanted to take or that you feel you absolutely must take NOW, you don't get to work on projects of your own choosing! 

And the only thing that happens is the generation of UFOs and GUILT. All I can say is to use ...