Why don't you make something of yourself?

The sign of a beautiful relationship is the number of running jokes you have going between you-- the artist-in-residence and I have plenty. I secretly bought her some beautiful, expensive yarn that she had admired for Christmas; she has taken up knitting and is always making for someone else. I enclosed a sweet note that started out, "Why don't you make something for yourself for a change?"

Well, Christmas morning, she read it as "Why don't you make something OF yourself for a change!" So we have been laughing about that one for three weeks now.

On that note, I don't have a ton of photos of beautiful, complete items to show for myself this week, but that doesn't mean a lot hasn't happened! First of all, massive cleaning and organizing has been going on, precipitated by my new DIY planner I made and did a video for. (I'm going to get in the habit of putting links at the end of my blogs if you have additional time to waste after reading.)

It's been a struggle to fill in the planner as it always is-- I am trying to fill in at the end of the day what I did get done instead of what I hope to do each day.-- a psychological trick I'm hoping will help me feel productive.

   One day in the future, in a galaxy far, far away, I will take you on a tour of my gorgeous four room sewing office-- until then, you have to settle for this corner, and you will see the problem.

This is the AFTER photo, and I'm pleased to say since then, the entire floor on that wall is now exposed. I blame it on my creative, overly busy mind. My plan is to just tackle a little space each day-- yes, dibble dabbling in things is a problem for me, but I've tried to focus on things for longer, and my brain just doesn't work that way. So now I'm trying to just quickly move from one thing to the next, instead of allowing a half hour of segue time to pass between each activity. And I'm hoping all this overthinking about productivity is not going to be wasted time! LOL

Three weeks of morning sewing time has now been wasted, as I got sucked into that dang Puzzle app again on my iPad. I tried to get my arms around the uncompleted heart wreath-- I decided to shelve it and work on the uncompleted tree of life. This is going only slightly better so far. By the end of this week, I want morning sewing back in full swing.

On Winterville, I am working through my list of To-Dos... I'm seeing now, that to feel more productive,  instead of "Make six stars," I should have listed "Make a star. Make another star. Make another star. Make another star..." because I LOVE checking things off! I did decided to go with the full quilt-- as I said changing plans is hard for me, (unless it's deciding to stay home instead of going out.) Thank you all who wrote me advice. My takeaway is JUST USE THE QUILT, and I will.

This project is going to get a huge boost tomorrow-- I mentioned my friends and I are doing a UFO day once a month. Here are six houses cut out. To solve my contrast problem, I am making only black and white houses on the dark teal-- heck, I might even start liking this thing again! Also, Mr. SFO is out of town next week-- this means no meals, no bedtime, no pretense of making something of myself, and I'm really hoping to CRUSH Winterville by the end of the month. Do you think I can do it? Thinking of renaming it: Christmasville? Comment below.

In the happy mail department, the first month of "A Ribbon Runs Through It" shipped on time. The first month's assignment is to make four stars, in completely different color arrangements of 127 pieces. (yikes) The fabric is WAY out of my comfort zone-- it's reproduction-- this IS my grandmother's quilt! So I'm tempted to just scrap it and make a Halloween version instead. I'm sure I'd be able to sell the fabric at the end of the year. But that would be a very hard change to make, and I already starched Month One. So let's see what happens. This would be a very good project to keep my hours on, just in terms of making one star, for planning purposes. Will I be able to make four stars at a time? Probably not, since they are all different colors. Should I worry if I mixed up the colors? Probably not. Let's see what happens! Technically, I have until February 15th to finish the four stars.

I heard on a self-help radio show that you should write a letter to your NOW self, from your FUTURE self with advice. I'm not sure I understand that, and I don' t have time to do it anyway, so I'm just going to imagine myself reading this blog post a year from now, and the quilt is on my bed. :-)

I have another State done, that's two of five in our Seaboard series. So here's another thing I wanted done by the end of  January-- Carefree Highways Set 8-- thank God the month is 31 days. Even that's getting a little tight. It takes me two days to finish one of these, from state "research" to zipped up file, but I might be able to get it down to 1-1/2. And I do have my days when Mr. SFO is away. 

So the next un-finished project of the week is this February Birthmonth Mug Rug. You are creative, honest, and tranquil-- are you?

I did find a person on Etsy who sells fat quarters of Grunge-- I love Grunge, and I love it for this project, so I bought about twelve of the lightest ones to complete this project-- the ones I have in my stash are too dark-ish. I'm still not sure which ones I will use-- I have to have them in my hot little hands to know, and also coordinate with the birthstones and flowers, so I can't really tell you what they are.

So, was all this obsessing about time and productivity fun to read about? I doubt it, and it sure made me feel like I better get busy! So let's all get out there and make something of and for ourselves!

xox

Carol

DIY Planner Video on YouTube here

Catch up your Carefree Highways sets here

Start the Birth Month Mug Rug Series here