Challenge!

I remember how the word works. You shout it out and there it is, out in the open. You either rise to the challenge or you slink away. The challenge is to myself. To keep working on projects in my closet that I started or wanted to start. 

Today, I spent time with the minutia of it all. I snipped off threads from the first of the book-panel-to-quilt top, and cut and pinned the larger piece I have for its back for piecing tomorrow. 

Then brought out the 2nd of these, and cut the panel piece apart and started pinning the smaller squares. Oye Vay! I discovered that while the pattern says to cut the panels into 8.5" squares, they will need trimming. Evidently I had cut and pieced squares for the first round of sewing. While they were checked off on the pattern as being enough, I couldn't find them to save my soul. I had enough of two colors but was going to be short on another two. The project sat too long and those colors were gone. I ripped and found two other fabrics of the same intensity and color to work. If they turn up somewhere, now they will go in the box I keep for that Orphan Child quilt.

The third project I worked on was the Halloween panel quilt. That panel was measured and cut, along with two side panels, that are pinned and ready to piece tomorrow. All the pieces are at the machine and ready to stitch.

Its an un-glamourous part of quilting, to be sure. Hard to take pictures of the process. I wanted to give up more than a few times today. I really understand the concept of UFOs or un-finished objects. They get that way because they are so frustrating and not at all joyful. I look at that first one and see what I want to do now that is is done. Probably I am the only one to notice. I am doing the second one having learned my vision for them, yet, it is taking much more of my energy to put together. There were no notes-to-self, and missing pieces. So very frustrating. It took time to go through the fabric bins and find what would substitute and work.

My studio is torn apart with bins in the center of the room with fabric tossed here and there. And I have brought the work into the great room, so more of the house is filled with my projects. This is not how I wanted to work. My first step now is to get into the studio and clean it up and work in there.

My second step is to clear out the great room and take all the projects back where I want them to belong.