Organizing -- day 5

When packing for a teaching job, I leave myself a note next to the door as a reminder to pack last-minute items

Sometimes I still forget them. I wonder why:

Organizing -- Day 4

My paperwork geekiness is proudly on display today as I share my love for my tickler file. Swoon!

Do you know what a tickler file is?  It is a series of folders for every day of the month and every month of the year. I empty each day's folder and find little messages I've left myself that need attention on each day. 

My tickler file:

With thread color cards filed behind it, naturally. 

On Wednesday I went to the post office and mailed some boxes. I received tracking slips for each package. I wanted to be sure to confirm that the boxes arrived, but how should I do this to 

1. Remember to do it and 

2. Not lose those papers?

I filed it in my tickler file!

I stapled the receipt and tracking slips to a piece of paper (back of an old quilt class handout, most likely) and filed it in my "10" folder for October 10. 

This morning when I went into my office, I emptied today's folder and found my receipts:

I can now check online to see if my little boxes of love arrived safely at their destinations. 

How does this organization help me quilt?  It took one minute to file this receipt, less than a minute to pull it, and will take 2-3 minutes to confirm delivery. Five minutes out of my life. Things could have gone far differently: lose receipt, forget to track package, wake up in a panic when I remember the boxes some day next week, look for receipt in purse, look for receipt in other purse, look for receipt in mail pile, look for receipt in car, look for receipt on desk, look for receipt on hubby's desk...  You can see that the under five minutes invested turned into an hour of blissful quilting rather than an hour of stress and panic. 

Paperwork is all about getting it done quickly so I get to spend more time quilting!

Spreading the Love

Cleaning out my house is a slow process.  I'm picking one item at a time and sharing it.

Yesterday, I got to share some fabric with a young quilter.  I remember when I started quilting and went into shock at the price of fabric and other quilting supplies.  

Now, I am blessed to have fabric.  A lot of fabric.  Too much fabric!  It was my pleasure to pull some together and sponsor a young quilter with a quilt kit:

The red and pink fabrics were all leftover from other projects, the white fabric was cut from one of my bolts of neutral fabrics, the pattern is one of my designs, and the thread was an extra spool I had sitting around.  

I hope my dear young quilter friend enjoys her quilt kit!

Do you know a young quilter you could help along on his/her quilting journey?  Do you have any extra supplies that could benefit them?

Organizing -- Day 3

I hope I haven't turned anyone off with my "organizing geek" tendencies.  Today's tip is less "geeky" and more "FABRIC!!!"

Last year, a friend of mine moved and didn't have room for her cutting table any longer.  It now lives in my studio.  I am so grateful to her!

I was thrilled at the thought of a huge, flat, clear surface to cut my fabric and organize my current sewing project.  For those of you who are already laughing, yep, the surface quickly became covered with remnants of old projects and I constantly had to shuffle bits around to find a clear space to cut.

That could not stand!

When I finish a project, instead of chucking the leftover bits into a pile on the corner of the cutting table, I try to dispose of them properly.  I cut them into useable chunks and store them for future projects:

If you check the photo carefully, you can see that during my extensive travel times I've let the corners of my cutting table stack up a bit.  Time to get cutting!

I cut:

• 2 1/2" strips
• 1 1/2" strips
• fat 1/8ths
• fat 1/4s
• 5-inch squares
• 10 1/2-inch squares
• selvedges
• orphan blocks
• scrappy bits for crumb piecing

The next time I need to pull fabric for a project, I can shop in my own stash first!

If you want more information on organizing your leftover bits, check out Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User's System.  She is the boss of scrap organization!

Happy Anniversary!

One year ago today, I contracted E. coli while on a teaching trip within the United States.  It was a big occasion, and one that seems worth remembering.

Fun tidbits:

• I said "and we're going to take a break now" a lot while teaching that week
• Taking three flights to get home with food poisoning isn't fun
• It only took 24 hours of antibiotics to regain my will to live
• The antiobiotics only cost me $0.67 after insurance
• Not eating dairy for 8 months was painful
• There is dairy in chocolate cake!  

I will always carry around minor organ damage as a souvenir of the great time I had with E. coli.  Fortunately it's something that a few pills a day can remedy.

I think I need to celebrate this anniversary.  I'm on the lookout for:

This cake was from Ike's on Summit at MSP Airport.  Amazing chocolate cake.  I'll probably try to find something a little closer to home today, though.

Free-Motion Quilting Challenge

My home quilt guild is holding a Free-Motion Quilting Challenge this year.  I thought it would be fun to pull out my old free-motion quilting tutorials and re-post them throughout the year.

Since Halloween is right around the corner, I chose my spiderweb pattern:



I wrote a full tutorial that can be found here.

Happy quilting!

Organizing -- day 2

Welcome back to my Organizing in October series!

I was away last week and out of my normal routine.  I kept thinking of things that I needed to do and calls that I needed to make.  I jotted them all down on a long list over the days I was away and dealt with them when I got back to my office this morning.  Note:  I didn't DO all of the to-dos, I simply managed all of them.

Today I want to talk about the telephone.  I have a love/hate relationship with the telephone.  I love to pick up the phone and chat with a friend when I get a chance, but I don't like it when the phone rings.  I also don't like to make phone calls; this is why I put them off.  I had several "call so-and-so" items on my to-do list, so I put them all on one list with phone numbers and any other necessary information.

In 30 minutes today, I plowed through my phone calls.  I made doctor appointments, a car appointment, a repair appointment, and a call to have my last hotel ship my jacket back to me (oops!).  If I had made each call separately throughout the day, I would have dilly-dallied and spent time on the computer checking FaceBook and it would have taken hours.

Sometimes, I take my phone call list in the car with me when I have a long drive.  I can't make serious phone calls that require attention, notes, and follow-up, but I can make a bunch of "let's catch up" phone calls as I'm driving to the next teaching gig.

After I was finished with my phone calls today, I spent some time quilting.  That is, after all, why I try to be as organized as possible -- to get the stuff I don't want to do done as quickly as possible so that I can have more time to do the stuff I want to do.  QUILTING!

House Diet

My house is on a diet.  I am trying to own fewer things.  I dream of being home and doing a major clean out, but alas, my teaching schedule doesn't allow for such concentrated effort.  Instead, I pick an item and move it along.  Many of the items that are moving along are quilts.

Here's another one:

I used to volunteer with a large group of teens and became close with several of the young girls.   Many of these young girls are married now and I've posted photos of their wedding quilts.  If "first comes love, and then comes marriage..." can you guess what has been happening a lot lately?

BABIES!

This is a quilt for a little girl that one of my little girls (grown up, now married) recently gave birth to.
Welcome to the world, small one!

To My Students

Dear Students at AQS Quilt Week in Des Moines,

I was so excited to see you and spend this week with you.  The thought of teaching quilting always makes me smile.  You are the reason that I wake up stupidly early and fight the armrest wars.

In over a decade, I have never cancelled a quilt class.  Ever.  Sadly,  that changed this morning.  I received a phone call.  That phone call.  The phone call that no daughter wants to receive.  The phone call that changed everything.

This morning, my father died suddenly when an abdominal aneurysm ruptured.  This came as a total and complete shock to all of us.

I miss my dad already:

I have spent all day traveling and am now at home with my family.

Many thanks to AQS for handling a tearful early-morning phone call with grace.

Many thanks to Handi Quilter.  They sponsored my classroom at the quilt show.  With one phone call, they sent their team to pack up my classroom for me.  "Don't worry about anything," were their words to me.

Many thanks to the Marriott.  They jumped into action, drove me to the convention center and then to the airport to catch the first flight out.

Many thanks to Delta.  I made one phone call and they handled all of the details.

Many thanks to the lovely and talented Angela Walters who offered to adopt my students as hers for the week.  You, my students, are in good hands.

This morning, I received countless hugs, squeezes, and tissues from quilters, both friends and strangers.  My phone has been buzzing with emails, texts and calls of support.  Quilters are amazing, and I love and appreciate you all.

Organized in October

Like many bloggers, I've decided to have a theme for my blog in October.  I will still have quilting posts and travel posts, but I really want to talk about ORGANIZING!

This isn't a "I've got it all figured out and here's how you should do it" thing; it's a "I've struggled with it and have made some progress and want to share that with you" thing.  

Sound good?

I travel.  A LOT!  I have to:

• make hotel reservations
• make travel reservations
• keep contracts with each event
• prepare class supplies
• prepare handouts
• prepare class samples
• pack my work supplies weekly
• keep up with my office work for the one day a week I am home
• pack my portable office weekly so that I can take care of a few details from the road
• maintain my blog
• film tutorials for Pat Sloan's Globetrotting block of the month.  I am behind on this.  Please forgive me
• work on creatively fulfilling projects
• keep my commitments even though I live in airport and hotel rooms and never know what day it is or where I am.  When I say "I'll call you on..." I try to actually keep that commitment.  I don't always succeed, but I have a pretty good percentage.

That is a partial list of the work details I need to manage.  I also have family responsibilities, community obligations, and other pressures... just like everyone else does.

I have a sewing room that I visit occasionally.  I'm there often enough to make a mess, but not often enough to keep it magazine photo-shoot clean.  In the lase few months, on my rare days at home, I have made "clean/organize sewing room" a priority.  I have managed to find some lost items, get rid of some items, and create a system so that "Oh this is a great idea!  I'd really like to make (whatever) someday" ideas don't get lost.  I feel that my time spent sewing is now about the sewing rather than about the "where on earth did I put that fabric/pattern/thread?"  It's now more likely that "Oh, that would make a great quilt" ideas turn into actual quilts.  

If I were not organized, I would not be able to travel the way that I do.  I would lose papers, forget commitments, and be very ineffective at what I do.  I would not be able to finish the quilts that make my heart happy.  

So, my first organizing tip might sound like a weird one.  If it doesn't inspire you, I'll have another organization post soon, hopefully tomorrow.

The first thing I did to help me keep everything on track was to read this book:

Getting Things Done by David Allen.  

This book is everywhere.  I would be shocked if your library doesn't have a copy.  Used copies are pretty cheap on Amazon and hard-cover copies are priced fairly reasonably.  It is also available to download on Kindle.  If you are a book listener, it is available on CD as well as from Audible.

I only implement one of David Allen's ideas at a time.  I didn't tear everything out of my office and start over and take a full week to make the transition.  I started at it like a good diet:  one small change at a time, sustained over time.  It has made a huge difference for me.

I hope that you find it useful, too.

Sending Out Stuff

Earlier this year I posted about my embarrassment at a long-overdue quilt for my cousin.  I had a few extra block from that quilt and put them together for a tablerunner for Mom:

Mom has made it clear that she prefers runners that are "long and skinny, not square or round."  OK, Mom, I can work with that.

I finished the quilt in April, delivered it in May, and gave instructions that it not be opened until today.

Happy Autumn, Mom!

Hotel Tour of 2014 -- night 108

I drove home from Rochester and left for Quilt Week in Des Moines with only 34 hours at home to unpack, do laundry, get a flu shot, repack, and catch a flight.

When I have to wake up at 3am, it is sometimes easier to just stay awake.  I chose that last night.  I dozed a few minutes on my flights, but have basically been awake for 38 hours right now.

It's always fun being in a new city and trying to find your way to the quilt show.  This is my beacon:

Once I found the quilt show, I spent today setting up my classroom and preparing to have a fun week with my students.

I am checked into my hotel room, wondering what to have for dinner.  I looked on my night table and saw this:

DINNER!

My feet are up and I might sew a few stitches on this cute quilt:

Who do I think I am kidding?

Good night!  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hotel Tour of 2014 -- night 107

I am so sad to see my classes at Discount Sewing Center end.  I really enjoyed all of the students there!

After Jackie showed her sign yesterday, a student brought in one of her own:

I called in a carry-out order tonight and they put this in my bag:

Does anyone know what it is?  BECAUSE IT IS NOT CAKE!

After I recovered from the shock/horror, I got down to the serious business of hotel room sewing:

Another Halloween quilt top finished, and yet...

... there's still more Halloween fabric left!  What should I make next?  I'm running out of ideas/patterns.  Help!

Hotel Tour of 2014 -- night 106

What a fun day I had at Discount Sewing Center in Rochester, NY!

Jackie is a great shop owner with a great attitude:

Her sign says "It's all fun & games until the bobbin runs out!"

I decided to leave my hotel-room-turned-sewing-cave for the evening and have dinner with my good friend John Kubiniec, quilt designer extraordinaire:

He bought me cake.  He loves me!  I'm kind of sweet on him, too.

Even if I don't get any sewing done today, it was a truly great day!

Hotel Tour of 2014 -- night 105

Hello, Rochester NY!

I had a long, Long, LONG drive up here today.  I felt powerless for most of the ride.  You see, my cell phone was at 60% when I got into the car.  I plugged the phone into the car to charge while I was driving, but that's when things went south:

• After trying three different cords, I realized that the USB port in my car was dodgy.  
• I pulled out my spare battery for my phone.  Sadly, I used it earlier this week and never re-charged it.  I KNOW BETTER THAN THAT!  
• I pulled out my laptop and tried to charge my phone from my laptop battery, but it didn't work.  When I stopped for lunch and tried to find a solution, I realized that in addition to the USB port in my car being shady, the cord I chose to use to charge from my laptop batter was iffy at best.  I pulled out another (working!) cord and depleted my laptop battery during the remainder of my drive.

Do you know how shaky I was without a fully charged cell phone during a 7-hour drive?  I normally listen to books from my phone, or talk on the phone, or (voice-activated) text from my phone while driving.  It was the longest. drive. EVER!

Now that I am in my hotel room, my spare battery is charged up, my laptop battery is charged up, and my phone battery is at 100%.  I HAVE LEARNED MY LESSON!

Tomorrow I will be teaching at Discount Sewing Center, but tonight I'm tucked away in my hotel room.  I tried to make it as much like home as possible:

Notice the shoe next to the foot pedal?  I told you I made myself at home!

It looks like Halloween fabric threw up all over the coffee table in my hotel room:

I had a huge collection of Halloween fabrics and I'm trying to use it all up.  I've made several quilts from this stash in recent weeks and now I'm working on another.  What shall I do with the fabric that is left?  I'm running out of ideas!

My desk is doing double duty as a cutting station:

Yes, I keep repeating

"I will not cut my charging cord."

"I will NOT cut my charging cord."
"I WILL not cut my charging cord."
"I WILL NOT CUT MY CHARGING CORD!"

Free-Motion Quilting Challenge

My home quilt guild is holding a Free-Motion Quilting  challenge this year.  At our first meeting last week, they demonstrated a fern design.  I thought that it might be time to pull out my old fern design tutorial from way back in 2011:



I wrote out the accompanying tutorial here.

Happy Quilting!

Weekend Fun

Last weekend I was at the Grand (re)Opening of the Quilt Basket in Pawling, NY.  It is my local quilt shop.  I have shopped there for 21 (?) years and am thrilled to continue shopping there for years to come!

I was greeted at the door with a photo op:

The shop owner's nephew is quite the artist!

I also had a chance to visit one of my babies:

The quilt pattern is Squared Away.  I will share more exciting news about this pattern line in the near future.

What did you do last weekend?

Mail Call!

Guess who is going to Quilt Market?

ME!

Will I see you there?

Sending Out Stuff

If you read my blog, you might know that I LOVE MY JOB!  I love Handi Quilter, I love teaching quilting, I love quilters... I just love everything about it!

My job involves a lot of travel, and I try to use my travels as an opportunity to reconnect with family and friends in different parts of the world.

I have recently reconnected with some cousins.  We didn't grow up together -- my cousins are 15-20 years older than I am -- but we are becoming very close as adults.  I recently sent out a quilt to one of my cousins:

I think the pattern was from Open a Can of Worms?  I made the blocks YEARS ago, and finally pieced it together.

Speaking of piecing, I pieced the back, too, with leftover bits:

I shipped this quilt out a week or so ago, but delayed posting in case she saw this post before the mail arrived.

Dear cousin, I hope you love your quilt!

House Diet

My house is on a diet. I try to take stuff out of the house with me every time I leave. 

Saturday's haul:

I had two bags to drop off at my local quilt shop. Two small items to bring to my good friend John Kubiniec. A thermos for a friend's daughter's lunch. 

She wasn't home so I left it on her porch. 

The Hello Kitty rug and Hello Kitty purse stayed with me.