What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I have to laugh because I got several comments on how to prolong the life of a gluestick. And all of them are probably good. However, I would bet that the one that I had was OLD - ancient even! I might have been able to revive it, but it's gone. But thanks for the tips! I still have about four more glue sticks, so they might go in the freezer or wherever I should put them. Gosh -- I'm amazed at all the tips and tricks for everything! Why don't I know these? 

And just like that, I ...

 I had one of the best nights of sleep that I've had in a long time. No aches or pains, no waking up with thousands of ideas flowing through my head. Just one long continuous sleep! Yeah! Now, if we could only bottle that and make it happen every night, that would be awesome!

Somehow, the stars are NOT aligned at my house, and I will be happy when today is over. Why? Well, have a look. 

On Friday night, I was reading on our deck. It started to spit a bit of rain, so I decided to move ...

 I went on a little shopping trip yesterday. I got to walk amongst bolts of fabric, look at kits, spools of thread, look at samples. It was quite a heady experience. I will NOT mention the name of the store - I don't want them getting into trouble. But I was in the store by myself. I did a little retail shopping, which I'll share with you either today or tomorrow - it depends on how much time I have this morning. 

Initially, I went to do curbside pickup, which went a bit further than the curb. I'm OK ...

 Do you know what today is? That would be April 30, which to most of you means the end of the month. To me, it was the date I figured our team of four would finish our cross Canada walk. Well, guess what? We finished a week ago! I just didn't have time to share it with you. 

How did I come up with April 30 as a goal? After the first month, I predicted that we would collectively finish the 8,000 KM by the end of April if we kept up our pace. 

While we technically did ...

 Oh dear - I did not get the pictures taken for the item that I'm selling. But I see other people are posting quilt-related items on Kijiji, which seems to be the place to sell these days. Frames, machines, and more stuff are finding new homes, and that's awesome. 

OK - so I must take pictures of the stack of fabric dyeing supplies. I've got a scale, plastic, and glass containers (not margarine containers, but the real thing) with measurements on them and pour spouts. And a whole lot more stuff. It's housed in four boxes that have ...

OH -- thanks to Heidi - I just downloaded a new app (well, new to me) to my phone. It's called LibraryThing and allows you to catalog your books. I know there are other apps, and I do keep lists of books that I've read in another database, but I didn't want to type in authors, etc. This allows me to scan the bar code and go from there. I'm going to try it! 

At the same time, it would be great if I could sort some of those books into categories! It would make it a whole ...

If you are anything like me, your sewing room could use a little spring cleaning. I spent many hours in this room over the long Wisconsin winter and the clutter is a little out of hand. I will be gone much of April and won’t have a lot of time to sew which makes it the perfect time to tidy up a bit. Today is spring cleaning part 1.

My sewing room is a decent size, but I have way too much stuff in here. This is my ironing center. My big board sits on top of two cube ...

 Stay CALM! You know you have a presentation all prepped and ready to go. You know that because you did the presentation last week. However, ONE hour before giving the same presentation, you can't find it. You have a meticulous filing system, and yet - where is it? As a matter of fact, where's the ENTIRE folder with all SIX presentations. 

After a wee bit of searching and coming up with Plan B while you do this, you discover the ENTIRE folder got moved into another folder. Thank goodness for keeping a cool head! All is well; the presentation ...

I had a super day yesterday, and well, I had to be outside since the weather was so amazing! I have to confess that after my walk, the gazebo was calling my name, and it'll be just for a minute while I have my snack. Alas, that didn't happen. I fell asleep, lulled by the wind in the trees and the wind chimes. But I was in my T-shirt and loving every minute of it! I didn't nap long, but it was glorious!

The girls were happy - they could come and go as they please for most ...

Last Monday I wrote about the positive aspect of donating boxes of quilting supplies, primarily the relief I felt by getting rid of lots of stuff that I no longer had an interest in finishing. The negative part of that is that I was left with a mess. In going through these bins I also found things that I am excited to work on again. However, having all of this out was overwhelming. I needed to create calm in the chaos.

All of this is scraps, UFOs, kits to be disassembled, orphan blocks and it needs to be organized and ...

Last week my priorities suddenly shifted. The quilt that is on the frame just needs a little more quilting and another one is ready to load. My plan was to get these two quilted and machine sew the bindings. None of that happened.

A friend texted and said a group of women is collecting quilting supplies to distribute to quilting groups that do charity sewing. She said they will take almost anything; fabric, UFOs, tops, whatever.  They had room for five boxes if I had items to contribute. My text back was, “This sounds like a dream come true.”

Initially ...

OK -- so I have NEVER said so many bad words while reading a book - EVER! The Innocent Man by John Grisham is just - well - it blows my mind at the comedy of errors that occurred for the characters in the book. Corruption, the desire for elected personnel to please their voting public, taking advantage of people with mental illness, poverty, and many other factors. It just boggles my mind that any of this was allowed to happen. 

I consider myself a believer in justice for all and hope that common sense and justice would prevail should I ever find myself ...

Don't panic - my technology seems to be behaving itself lately. There are NO issues with the internet, and the computers are working fine. The Zoom Share screen worked fine, although I didn't stay in that mode for long. Yikes - they can literally see EVERYTHING on my screen. So I need to play around with that and minimize everything that doesn't need to be open. That's a positive! 

Nope - it's something different on the technology side. I have some DVDs that I haven't watched, and as part of my clean-up, I'd like to get ...

Life is one big learning curve. It never fails that each and every day, I learn something. It could be a small tidbit, it could be monumental, but there's always something. And sometimes, you don't even know what you don't know! 

So I've been on Zoom for a while - gosh - I think it's close to one year! That's incredible. This time last year, I had no idea what Zoom even was. I've been able to share my screen for PowerPoint presentations, and all is good. However, there are times when I want to ...

 So everyone was right! When I said I had two more crazy weeks, they just laughed! The worst of this week is over, and now it's time to tackle the next big assignment. Lots of writing. It's not bad at all - just makes me laugh when I think how optimistic I am and my friends bring me back into check. 

Even though I'm busy, it doesn't mean that I'm working all day long! And I've found a new way to read magazines. Well, it's not new as I've been doing it for ...

I'm in big trouble. The weather has turned warm, and I want to be outside all day! I did a bit of yard cleanup yesterday - no jacket! I sat in the gazebo for a bit, and after my walk, I sat in the yard eating my snack. Oh yes -- bring on spring! It's going to be even warmer today! I know - that we could still get snow - I know that. 

The view from the gazebo

FIRST -- I stand corrected!!! Yesterday I made a mistake. The interviewees did NOT get paid. That was very clear, but for some reason, I misinterpreted the information. I apologize for that. Thanks to a couple of readers who pointed that out. I've corrected my post from yesterday. What is disturbing is that while these people didn't get paid, the network paid $7 - 9 million for the rights to produce that interview, so someone profited. If you want to live a private life, then you should keep it private. You can't have your cake and eat it too ...

It's one thing for me to send you off on an assignment every day for decluttering our houses, but quite another if I'm not following along. Part of that is time constraints as I go through this current series of presentations. After this coming week, the number per week will drop by two, and that'll make a HUGE difference. I'll also have most of them tweaked to my satisfaction with videos and samples made so the prep time will drop. Phew! That'll be nice to have a wee bit more relaxed pace. 

Well, I got ...

So yesterday, I said I might have to move to a smaller house. Elle pointed out that I might like to walk around my existing home (with less stuff) and enjoy it. And you know what? She's right! It's such a joy to walk around with ease in the same space where I had to hop over things to get from A to B. I know - not safe, and how ridiculous. Or something would fall off a shelf if I passed too near. 

I have to confess that I even opened the door to that storage room several ...

 For those that know me, I'm a bit of a control freak. Apparently, I NEED to be in charge. I need to see what happens with my stuff and how it gets used. I'm thrilled to report that I've eased up a WHOLE lot. I think that's one of the reasons that we find it hard to let go of things. God forbid that someone else may choose to use my stuff in a totally different way or they may assemble a quilt in a different way than I would. 

I'm so happy to report ...