Sunday, January 16, 2022

My decluttering tasks today were minimal because I’d taken care of my kits yesterday. I remembered a few more UFOs that I needed to add to my list. Two of them are projects I’ll be working on with Stacia and Deloise over the next two days but I already know neither of them will be completed. I’ll be behind on the decluttering tasks next week because I don’t intend to even attempt them while we’re sewing.

I had some Guild work to attend to this morning as well as my own decluttering task – clearing off my desktop. Can you believe I spent half an hour at it and still didn’t get everything done? I managed to wrap two packages for the mail; I put a letter into one of them and was able to easily pull some notepaper from the drawer I sorted out yesterday. I have all the important things taken care of so I guess that’s all that counts.

I’ve been quilting most of the day. Both Stacia and Deloise had the same advice for my three “odd” blocks so I finished them and a couple more up before a late lunch. I’ve done a few more blocks this afternoon but I’m still only half-done. I’m going to put it away for now and do some set up for our stitching day tomorrow.

If I have time before supper I’ll walk up to the mailbox to post a letter.

Saturday, January 15, 2022

I have a lot of computer tasks that happen in the middle of the month so I started my day working on those. I had a sewing room declutter task as well as a general declutter task so they were next on my list.

I knew this week in the sewing room declutter wouldn’t be easy – we hadn’t dealt with any fabric yet. Today’s task was to go through our UFO’s and decide if we still wanted them. I decided my Wild Geese Wednesday project could go; the flying geese I had already made went into my Community Quilts bin for use somewhere. I’m not sure how it happened but I had two bins with bits and pieces of the same pattern – I combined those. One bin had some pieces for my scrappy quilts but I had moved those projects to some drawers so I put those bits and pieces together in one place. I should have set the timer because I know I spent way more than thirty minutes on the task.

Tomorrow we are dealing with kits so while I was sorting my UFOs I took note of anything that might be considered a kit – patterns and fabric picked but no sewing done yet. I’m not as organized as you might think after all this because the only piles I looked at were those on top of my table and the ones on top of my fabric cabinet. I made a list of all the UFOs and kits and I’ll see where I’m at with them in six months time.

My other declutter task was to clean out a drawer. The drawer I picked was fairly empty but by putting things away from that drawer I ended up cleaning out another drawer as well. I set the timer on this task but after thirty minutes I had papers all over so I had to continue. While I waited on the dishwasher after lunch I cleaned out a drawer in the kitchen as well.

It wasn’t until after lunch that I was able to get started on my quilting. I ran into an issue with a few of the blocks on the quilt so I had to take some photos and get some help from Stacia and Deloise. Still lots more blocks to do so no reason not to continue.

Back to it!

Friday, January 14, 2022

Today was a catch up day for my decluttering. I had a lot of things I could have picked to do but several of the tasks I hadn’t completed I have already added into my weekly schedule. The one task I didn’t finish yesterday was sorting the bags for the thrift shop – all done now.

I spent the rest of the morning researching yarns and patterns for a project Taylor has asked me to make. Her first choice of yarn was going to be very expensive so I found some alternate yarns that should still work for what she wants. She and her Mum will make a trip to Michael’s to see if anything less-expensive tickles her fancy.

This afternoon I got started on my quilting project for the month. I spent some time a few days ago figuring out a quilting pattern and I wasn’t very far along on the first block when I decided my plan wasn’t going to work – there was too much marking involved. So I started over with my standard star pattern and I’m happy with what I have done so far; six blocks out of thirty so it’s a start but I doubt I’ll get finished this weekend as I had hoped.

I’m going to stop for the day. I’ll do more crocheting tonight on another afghan but it can be easily set aside if I get something worked out for Taylor’s project.

Thursday, January 13, 2022

I stayed up until almost midnight last night watching the watering hole. As is our habit, just before I’m ready to quit for the night we take a quick look at the webcam. Last night there was all sorts of activity – the feral horses, the Gemsbok, some Springboks, a couple of ostrich and then some zebras wandered in. They don’t all get along that well even in the same species but they seem to work it out.

I did a lot of divesting, decluttering and tidying up today. When I looked at Facebook someone was wanting to match a couple of plates she had purchased at the thrift store. Although mine weren’t the ones that had been donated I had six plates that matched. They haven’t been picked up yet but that really felt like an “I’m ready to part with it” moment.

My decluttering task for today was notions. I don’t consider that I have a lot of sewing notions but I had a couple of drawers full of stuff that I used to use. Both drawers have been cleaned out and a lot of what was in it is ready for donation.

I did my big drop-off of donated items this morning – they took everything! I originally planned to take the bags I have upstairs in my hallway but with everything I added this morning I thought the bags needed to be sorted once more. Not that I’ll be keeping any of it but I like to have bags that are more or less full of the same type of item. They were appreciative of my method this morning when I made my drop.

I drove out to the recyclers just south of town and got rid of our paint cans. Another quilter was there doing her recycling so we had a bit of a chat. She isn’t sure we’ll get back together for February but she’s pretty sure we’ll be back in March. Of course neither one of us have any control over what the Guild executive decide.

I was to be tidying up my sewing room today and about all I did was sort through some scraps. I spent half an hour cutting and trimming and the another half hour putting the scraps away in the right bins. I like my method but it needs some stream lining; some of the small bins are overflowing and barely have room to add anything. I guess I could start a project using those scraps but at the moment I have enough projects on the go.

It was well into the afternoon before I managed to start any actual sewing. I’ll continue on my project until supper and then put it aside and tomorrow I’ll get back to my quilting project.