Give Me Dollars, I Hate Change.

Pretty soon I will have to update my blog appearance. A few years ago, when I started my blog, this polka dotted background was one of the templates to choose from. I don't even think it is available anymore. It is so hard for me to go through any kind of change in my surroundings. I don't know what kind of mental disorder that is associated with, (maybe that is the OCD in me) but I can't do 'new'. In my house everything has a place (not that everything is in it...) and I am comfortable with the familiarity of it. I would be one of those ladies with avocado shag carpeting in her living room for 50 years simply because it is still clean, in good shape, and looks damn sexy. God I hate change. I stress about towels that have faded in the bathroom because ''I liked those. They were perfect for my color scheme...now I have to come up with a replacement''. This is how I feel about changing my blog.

But the funny thing is...I almost always like the new towels, or the new carpet (orange-rust...JK!) It is just getting out of that comfortable place that I have created for myself. Now to relate this all to the quilting world:

You cannot have any fun quilting if you don't, on occasion, throw that yellow in...or lime green, or (gasp) orange-rust. Just do it. You will end up loving it even better.

Watch for my new and improved blog coming in the near future to computers near you.

p.s. picture was stolen from someone, who stole it from someone else. It is not of my home (thank God)

Getting a break!

I took a break from my projects (to start a new one?) I bought this pattern a few years ago to use with my silk Japanese kimono fabric. The picture you see above is using regular quilting cotton because I didn't want to practice on my silks. I have come a long way with perfecting my paper piecing skills in just a few short months. (Thank you Carol Doak!) If you are ever in the middle of a project and you are in the phase of tearing your hair out or if your brain cells are falling out of your ears....it is time to cheat. I always have a list of things that I want to try, whether that is a technique, a sample of a block, or a new stitch on my machine. Whenever I get crazy, I just take a break from that project with one of these things. It is usually just a short, quick thing; something to take my mind off of the other one for just a few hours or a day. (Maybe I should list these in a little black book...that would be funny.) I find that it is much easier to tackle that stupid project that seems to laugh at me from time to time.

When You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail

Yesterday, I removed EQ5 and EQ6 upgrade from my computer....Because my EQ7 was delivered! finally. I am so excited to plug all of my quilt files into this baby and plan away. I can't wait to use and play with some of the new features.

I just don't know how I would get along without it now that I have it in my life. I wasted so much time before EQ came along just planning borders, figuring yardage, making templates, making mistakes. I am pretty darn good with math, but now I can free up valuable brain space for important things like facebook and blogging.

I know that I should read the tips and lessons, and I promise to do that. But first I want to just jump in and look around for a few hours. I will report back to you all soon on what I think of the all new quilt program. Have a great day quilting, everyone.

NO!

I feel so much less stress these days due to the fact that I know how to use the word "no'' now. For the last 2 years or so, I have really nailed it down. Learning how to say it is not easy at first, but you are not doing anyone any favors (especially yourself) by letting others take advantage of you; whether they know that they are doing it or not. Don't get me wrong...it is completely fine to say 'yes'. Just make sure that you are saying yes to things that you really want to do. In the past, I have been exposed to all kinds of people that ask for assistance of one form or another. Some of them are your normal, run of the mill, kind of folk that are just looking for a quick answer or advice. Maybe they want me to show them how to sew a button on...you know, the normal ones. But, a few years ago, I have been asked to do all kinds of things in the most humorous ways...

''I will LET you make me a quilt." This one absolutely kills me. It is hard to keep a straight face sometimes. ''Really!? Me? How did I get so lucky to earn the honor of making you a quilt?''

My favorite one of all really has to be this one: "I have about 20 quilt tops that my grandmother made that I would like for you to hand quilt. How much would you charge for that?'' ''Um, how about you just pay off the national debt instead?'' I am quite sure that there is someone out there that would love to do this for you, I just simply am not that person.

I guess how I look at it is this: There are too damn many people in the world that think that money can buy you anything (unfortunately, most of the time these people are right). Then there are others that just want everybody else to do their 'dirty' work. Sometimes these folks are one in the same. Michelangelo was famous for making sure that people paid him what he was worth as an artist. He believed that if artists always did jobs for little or nothing, that is all that art would be look at as...little or nothing. So, I do tell people what I charge. That usually gets rid of them; but at least they leave a little more enlightened, and realize that quilters should be praised for their abilities and never taken advantage of. And when someone gives you the vibe of ''I'm too important of a person to do unimportant things'' tell them that you are working very hard to finish quilts for the people that deserve your quilts the most...your family.

Quilt 'til ya Wilt

Don't you just LOVE it? I just got this one done yesterday for B and B quilting. The pattern is called 'Out on a Limb'. I think that I am going to use the same pattern using some of my vegetable fabric.

Considering that I have a 4 month old baby that I still breastfeed, and a 4 year old (that just became potty trained-YAY!), I manage to complete many projects. I know that there are a few of you out there that might be reading, saying ''Well, what the hell? When are you going to send my project back to me?'' I promise that they will be done this month. I am so sick of having all of these other projects taking up my valuable quilting space so I am on a crazy mission of completion right now.

I am also teaching a class pretty soon on project organization and meeting your quilting goals. So, I don't want to be to be hypocritically telling people how it's done. As long as I follow my little magic plan, I find myself getting all of these babies done. Many people ask me how I get so many things done. They say ''Didn't you just have a baby? How do you find the time? What does your medicine cabinet look like?'' One gal said that she quit quilting completely until her kids went off to college. Not quilt for 18 years?

There is a small list that I have of things that I will never give up until I am put into a box:

1) Quilting
2) Coffee
3) Chocolate
4) Loving my family

I was going to add alcohol, but let's face it; I can disgruntledly live without...if I really had to. But I really love, love, love Mexican Martinis.

NOT QUILT FOR 18 YEARS!? I can easily imagine a flock of pigs before that happens.

Seriously, I didn't think that my son would be potty-trained until puberty. I don't know why he went from sitting in his own poop for hours (and liking it), to going every single time on the toilet. I was a hair's breath away from crossing that thin and very fragile line between normal and psychotic. Just a phone call away from 'please, come to pick me up for a visit to the farm'. Just when I think that I don't know what the hell that I am doing as a mother, he goes and pulls a 'gotcha' on me. I am totally unprepared for what he has in store for me next...what will it be?
Cleaning his own room? Doing his own laundry? No. That can't be it. I asked him to bring me the broom today and he replied ''Sure. What does it look like?''

I am not a spanker, so I had to hold my breath and bite my tongue every time I caught him 'hiding behind the chair'; which comes in pretty handy anyway. I usually had to hold my breath for hours. By the time I 'came to', I was laying in the middle of the living room floor with popcorn kernels, cheerios, and pop tart debris smashed into my hair, one of my socks missing, sharpie make-up on my face, and Toy Story 3 stickers on the back of my shirt. (OK, the sharpie make-up was a total dramatization, but believe me, it would have been an improvement.)

Now he makes a point to tell everyone that he goes potty in the big potty chair. He not only tells our waitress, grocer, neighbor lady, postal worker, pharmacist (my pharmacist already knows), doctors, nurses, random teenagers, and whoever is on the phone if he manages to answer it before I can; he tells them that his mommy can't pee like him because she doesn't have a wiener.

So, this evening, I am enjoying a well-deserved glass of wine. The kids are in bed. We said our prayers to the toilet gods and thanked them for saving mommy's brain from being studied at a local college. I am going to my quilting room. I am going to quilt until I grow a wiener.

I NEED a Retreat

These are the blocks for month 4 of the Civil War Tribute quilt. I am making one for myself and I am helping on another one. So far, I have completed all of month 7 blocks (the 99 piece version), and months 1-4. I am just getting ready to start on month 5.

I am really getting caught up on the other projects looming over my head also. I have a serious goal to get at least 5 or 6 projects done this month...without having to start a crack cocaine habit. Maybe just a little chocolate. Maybe just a little more. Maybe a cup or two of coffee at 2am.

I am already sleep deprived, I might as well party like a quilter on retreat. OK, maybe not that crazy.