14 Feet and Counting...

So remember those lovely sets of 3 strips of fabric from my last entry?  How did I not notice that I had cut one of those strips 1/4" short (the whole strip, the whole width of the fabric)?  When I did the math, I realize this meant ripping out 14 feet of stitching.

Now by the time I passed the 10' mark, I realized that I might need new glasses to see what I was doing, because things got a little blurry.  Fortunately, I had some material still in my stash and I was able to cut new strips and eventually, I once again had 4 sets of strips.  I think that's a good day's work!

Tomorrow, we cut those strips to pieces!!!

The end of Procrastination

Are you like me?  Do you mind yourself seeing so much to be done in your environment that you are paralyzed to do anything?  Why do anything since there is so much that baby steps won't even get noticed?

I'm slowly re-discovering what any parent knows.  One moment the baby doesn't move and the next minute they vanish the second you turn around!  Who ever said baby steps don't amount to much, never spent any quality time with a toddler.

The same is now how I'm addressing my life.  I can't control everything and I don't have time or energy to do everything that I can control.  I have allowed my to-do lists to be a weight on my shoulders that I can not bear.  So, like the baby taking early steps, I'm setting myself the goal to do something for a minimum of 30 minutes a day.  It doesn't have to be 30 continuous minutes either.  Just 30 minute to work on something that has a tangible result.

Yesterday was 30 minutes that turned into an hour of working on my Border Creek Quilt.  I sewed my three border strips together (the width of the fabric - and four sets of these) and was about to start cutting into 1-1/2" portions when I realized I had cut the red strip too narrow.  Some days I don't know if I can actually use a ruler properly.  At least I caught it before I took the next step.

The day before I worked on a very old UFO from a Sampler of Stars quilt.  While it is not much of a change since the last time I touched either project, it is progress none the less.

Today, I rededicated myself to documenting this journey with this blog.  Small steps, but they add up.

UFO Strategy

Despite the lack of blog posts, I have in fact, been busy trying to get into a rhythm of life balance that includes time quilting.  I find there is so much in the day that I should be doing, that carving out time to work on quilting is a chore.  Once I get myself to my little space, I completely relax and enjoy my time quilting and wonder why it was such an effort to get going!

A best friend of mine, and one of the key sources of inspiration I have, passed along a gem for me to consider.  Work on UFO's for 15 minutes one day, 30 minutes the next day, 45 minutes the day after, then back to 15 minutes and repeat.  Even if I broke this down into 10 minute increments, after one week I would have invested over 2 hours on UFO's.  Over the course of the month, that starts to add up!

I decided to start the year by investing in three containers and putting two of my UFO's in 2 of them and leaving the 3rd one empty until I'm suddenly inspired to work on something new!  My thought is that I need to focus on UFO's, not get overwhelmed by the UFO's, and allow myself to get involved in a new project during the year without getting set to star in an episode of Hoarders.  This way, if I get bored of one UFO, I can switch to the second and back again.  It keeps my UFO's organized, and allows me to only have 2 projects clearly visible, with the possibility of adding a third and no more until something is done.

First up are the Border Creek mystery quilt from last year and the Block of the Month Star quilt.

Now that I'm inspired, hopefully both the quilting and blog posts will keep coming.