Know thyself...

I'm following up on my "big chunks of time" theory. This is the year of becoming a better person-- for me, a big part of that is increasing productivity. We need more charity quilts!, more gifts!, better dinners!, a cleaner house! Mr. SFO was away all week, so I was able to schedule my time without eating or sleeping and this is how it went. Five days, five projects, five big chunks of time.

MONDAY--January tablerunner of the month-- DONE!

Ok, well it was actually finished on Feb 1st, but I'm putting it in the WIN column. I did discover it's hard for me to spend more than TWO hours at a time on ONE thing...

I had a little head start with one block finished and I do love a checker, but after fours hours I was frequently asking myself, "Are we having fun yet?" I powered through.

Lesson: I stitched this while testing embroidery-- a technique that really works for me-- but seriously, aren't we supposed to be enjoying this? Nonetheless, it is finished-- is that all that counts? No answers, just more questions.

2) Tuesday-- Cottage of the Month Quilt-- ASSEMBLED

I'm seeing quite a couple of these now finished on the group page-- so I'd be lying if I didn't admit the irony that mine is not! This is Joanelle from Idaho's finish...

Loving her gold borders! When talking about productivity-- I'd like to spend a week with this person-- she's amazing.

And this is my friend, Rosemary from down under:

One of the best parts of this business is making friends around the world-- Rosemary and I frequently exchange weather reports! She cleverly used her mug rug size to make the quilt. I'm also pleased to see these women using their "Design Floors" to good advantage! You are my people! xox

and now for mine...

Another check mark for Tuesday. All assembled! No borders, but I really want to embroidery at least "2020" on one of them and maybe even my name-- that was a year the history books won't neglect! Let's see what happens-- I want it completely done by the summer.

3. ALASKA

Moving on to Wednesday-- early in January, I wrote on my calendar every third day I would have a set of four blocks finished on this-- it was completely unrealistic. I didn't base that on any actual experience!

They are all eight pointed stars more or less, and it's been difficult. As with anything, I am getting better at it. I mistakenly pressed my seam allowances the wrong way, but it helped me understand how to get all of the points matching in the middle.

 Feeling like a rock star on that one!

I did complete two sets of four more blocks done-- but stopped when enough seemed enough. So that makes 28 blocks out of 49 done-- I'm going to keep pushing myself on this. I'd love to finish four quilts this year-- so I have till the end of March for this one-- it's do-able.

4. Thursday-- Longarm Day--"Olive"

One of my "things" that has totally lost steam so far this year-- my longarm practice! I loaded this quilt before Thanksgiving-- it is from my Frivols tin collections-- and you know what happens over the holidays... I planned to give it some time and love this day!

There's only one row and three borders to finish. BUT... all that productivity finally caught up with me-- when I got up on Thursday-- I WAS TIRED.

This answers the question-- if you could sew all day-- would you ever get tired of it? And I guess the answer is-- physically, yes! My heart was still in the game-- I just couldn't.

Go easy on me-- because I have my day job all week-- San Francisco Stitch Co.-- and I lied-- I did eat and sleep.

5. Friday--The Burrito

This is my pet name for my vintage 2017 Flower of the Month quilt, because it sits rolled up in a corner for months on end. This is a beautiful textile..

and over the past two years, I have gradually added those to-die-for embroidery machined sashings-- THERE. ARE. ONLY. SEVEN. LEFT. TO. DO. as you can see by the puffy sashing areas at the top. A chunk of time would certainly do it!

There's no nice way to say it-- I HATE doing them. In fact, I once tested myself by saying to myself, "I'll either work on THAT, or clean the bathroom" and the Wet Swiffer and Scrubbin' Bubbles were out quicker than anyone has ever witnessed.

So this didn't happen either.

On the plus side-- I do have a gorgeous rose border digitized and tested-- I'll be releasing it this spring-- and I do believe 2021 is the year for this finish.

My take aways this week-- know thyself-- to me, a big chunk of time spent on any one thing can only be about two hours. Limiting the number of projects is a real help, however. And finally- there's always next week!

xox

Carol