Oh, yeah

I just counted the projects written in the ledger, and there are really thirteen - I was just slingin' mud when I pulled fourteen outta thin air, but it wasn't a bad guess. And this number does not include all of the smaller ongoing items, like the crazy quilting projects and smaller wall quilts.

Thirteen's plenty, but my brain is still spinning, and there are liable to be a few more added soon enough.

What does your quilting list look like?

The ledger

Armed and ready.

The pump is primed.

Locked and loaded (shouldn't that be 'loaded and locked?').

However you say it, I am rarin' to go! The cats have been fed (and may be content for a little bit); I've cleaned and oiled the machine once more; wound the new color on a bobbin and threaded the works, and; I've got my glass of chocolate milk nearby.

Let's quilt!

Bud has an early shift at his store today, and plans to play after work, so that just leaves Karl and me to worry over - and let's face it, that boy is about as low maint as they come.

I began a book (a ledger, if you will) to keep myself on track and on task with the quilting projects, because let's face it - quilters and fabriholics need reigning in from time to time in order to keep it real.

Oh, I know. Boo, hiss, no fun.

Well, being unemployed has cast a rather harsh reality light on the business of buying fabric "because it's pretty and I'll be able to use it in that quilt, you know the one, someday." Or, "if I don't get it now, it might not be here when I'm ready for it." Or, "it's on sale...I have to."

Yeah, yeah. After the other four (or fourteen) projects already in the works are finished, you'll get right to it. Ri-i-i-i-ght.

I hear ya. I've been there.

I'm still there, and that's why I am trying to keep it real with a ledger. Keeping track of everything on the written page keeps me honest with myself, and I have the added beauty of keeping all of my notes and little sketches about my little beauties in one place! Not pinned to a wall, scribbled on the back of an envelope, or in a folder in a desk drawer (or, worse yet, on the desk somewhere covered with mounds of other stuff). Nope, it's easily transported to any place around the house or to the car, etc. I keep it with me when I change locations and/or tasks, that way if I have an idea - poof! - I can write it down and then relax.

My list is long, too long in fact, but it was longer and with the help of the ledger I have been whittling away at it.

I gave myself permission to start (and work on) this current project out of turn, but it was for a very good reason. Now that it's almost done, I am ramping up to get back to work on the items listed in my ledger. Toughest decision there will be to figure out which project to work on first, but that's something I have been giving some thought to these past couple of weeks.

Do I work on those quilts closest to completion, or the pieces that have been longest in the pipeline (in various stages of quiltedness), no matter where they are in the process of becoming a quilt?

Maybe I should start a section in my little notebook for "decisions." Ha!

Well, however you do it, here's to your list of tasks and quilting promises. Let me know where you're at and what you're working on.

Has it been that long - really?

How did you spend Friday the 13th?

Three weeks since I last posted in here, wow! Well, time does fly.

A lot has happened since my last post: Christmas, the new year celebration, another lapsed deadline, the first Friday the 13th of 2012, and I cleaned up and put away all of the unused squares from my project! That was quite exciting.

I have been diligently top stitching the latest quilt, and every time I stop to look at it and admire how well it is turning out and to strategize about the next direction and how not to work my way into a corner, I realize just how. much. more. there. is. to. do! The idea to hyper-accentuate some of the motifs (by re-quilting lines 3, 4, 5 times) was just what was necessary to make sections 'pop', but it also added a good deal of time to the overall bulk of the project that I feel as though I am never going to finish.

The elation of finishing a section and then realizing 'oh my gosh, I have another two-thirds to get through' is sort of a bubble-bursting extreme to say the least.

At any rate, I do feel a little bit of pressure off my shoulders, and I am enjoying the process a little more than I have been, just regret having missed another opportunity to, well...win.

When I think of the fact that I have been working on this quilt since September (with the month of October 'off' due to a Scripty job), I just become crestfallen. I know I shouldn't, but I do. Perhaps if I hire a maid to manage all of the housework which has fallen by the wayside, and find a boyfriend and take a trip to Greece, I might be able to elevate my mood.

Hmmm.....