Unplanned Day

Hi All,

Did you miss me yesterday?  I had every intention of posting.  I also planned to bind Bounce and Hubble.  Somewhere along the way my day took a different plan.

How are your Christmas preparations coming?  I'm hearing from a lot of stressed people out there.  I'm not so bad.  My cards aren't done yet and I've yet to begin wrapping, but I'm feeling okay.  I wouldn't say that I have piles of extra time, though, so what I did yesterday was impulsive.

It all sort of began on Monday.  I started working on Hubble.  The pattern I selected for the pantograph quilting on it left some open areas along one side, so I was planning to do some free-motion quilting in an approximation of the pattern to fill in.  I didn't have the right color of thread, though, so I made a trip to JoAnn fabrics.  I got the thread (and a bunch of other stuff, too, but I ended up saving more than I spent--love that!) and while I was wandering around checking things out, I came across their selection of burlap.  Have you seen it lately?  They have some gorgeous burlap.  There is a red with a subtle glitter/sheen, the natural with lovely green designs, etc.  As I was goggling it, I remembered that in Hawaii, I had bought a burlap coffee bag.  Many boutiques there were selling nice purses/tote bags made with coffee bags, and I wanted to try something like it.  In JoAnn I was wondering if some of their gorgeous burlap would coordinate with my coffee bag. 

I came home and got working on Hubble, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking of the coffee bag.  I was wondering where it was...

I got the "fill in" quilting done and the binding sewn on.  I was excited that the line of fabrics (Good Morning by Me and My Sister) had a stripe.  I prefer to bind with a stripe or plaid if at all possible.  This one turned out great!

I kept thinking that it looked really familiar.  It was too pink to be like a candy cane, and that wasn't it.  The pink looked familiar.  Then I remembered.  It looks like a piece of this:



I haven't had it in years, but I remember it!

Anyway, I started hand sewing the binding down Monday night.  Yesterday I was to finish it and "fill in quilt" Bounce and bind it.  But I still couldn't get the coffee bag out of my head.  Where was it?  For the third time in about 10 days I was having trouble finding things in my quilt room.  I can not stand that!  So, I decided enough was enough and I launched into a reorganization.  And it was major!  The kind you think you need to schedule a day or two to complete, but it really just took most of the morning--up until 1 pm. 

When I set the room up, I delegated half the island storage to scrapbooking, and the other half to quilting.  I haven't touched the scrapbooking and have no huge desire at the moment.  So, I located an empty, large rubbermaid bin and proceeded to empty the scrapbooking drawers into it.  I did leave any tools I sometimes use--I just loaded up embellishements, etc.  I also had empty albums and page refills piled up on the closet shelf.  All of that stuff was taking up prime space that is easy to get to.  Now it resides in bins at the way back of the closet.  Since I needed to get to the way back of the closet to put it there,  I had to pull out most of the stuff I had dumped back there.  So I went through it all and purged some things.  Then I put it all back.  One of the things in the closet is a fairly large bin of fabric--my batik collection.  I decided to go through it and fold the large pieces and put them out on my shelves.  Have you seen me make many batik quilts?  Nope!  I spent the hour and half that I was folding it wondering just why the heck I had bought so much and what was I going to do with it?!!

I finished the batiks, and then I rearranged my quilting things into the new, available space, and tidied up.  Whew, I was done!  Hopefully I will be able to locate things now!

The coffee bag?  I didn't  find it.  In the quilt room.  I remembered that I had seen it in one of the closets in a guest room.  I found it in about 45 seconds once I remembered.

Have a great day!  I'm going to finish those quilts.  I hope!

JoAnne