Procrastination

I made this quilt top over the weekend. 

Fast and easy applique and a little bit of piecing... easy peasy... and now I am stalled on the quilting part.  I made the back last night, and have to cut some batting to fit, pin it and quilt it... not hard, but I am procrastinating... Maybe hoping it will go away?... or quilt itself?... I am surrounding myself with other tasks, other things to do in avoidance of the quilting... why? 


I did see this article in this morning's NYT.  It addresses exactly the issue:

Like any modern office worker, my inbox every so often becomes an unwieldy mess of unanswered emails, half-written messages that need to be sent and more “Sorry I’m so late getting back to you!” notes than I ever thought I’d write. It’s usually fine, we all manage, that’s life.

But every so often, I have that one email I need to write but that I just can’t force myself to take care of. You know the type: It’s something you have anxiety about even after leaving the office, and you know you’re making it worse the longer you put it off. Maybe it’s not even an email. Maybe it’s a memo you have to write, a phone call you have to make, a meeting you have to set up, or whatever else.

I’m taking a wild guess here, but you probably thought of one specific thing on your to-do list while reading that last paragraph, right?

Psychologists call this kind of avoidance self-sabotage: It’s when we put off or ignore a situation or task to our own detriment because doing it would force us to confront our fears or anxieties. This often manifests itself in extreme procrastination (not that I’ve ever had problems with that), and there are many reasons we fall into these patterns.

Self-sabotage is particularly dangerous to our goals because it’s self-reinforcing. By putting off tasks we don’t want to do, we experience temporary relief at the thought of not having to do them, so the cycle continues.

The problem is, there’s really no trick for breaking out of that cycle: One way or another, you’re going to have to confront the thing you’re avoiding. You can, however, ease into it by focusing on self-compassionand going easy on yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for putting it off for this long — that’s already happened and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just act now to set things right.

So today, just take care of it. For me that meant finally writing that email; the emotional burden it lifted was incredible. Start your week on the right foot by closing this article (after you finish reading it, of course) and getting started on that one thing. You’re going to feel so much better after you’ve dealt with it, I promise.

Once you’re done, tweet me the thing you accomplished at @timherrera or email it to me at tim@....

Have a great week!

—Tim

Not sure I'd actually email him (I don't tweet), but I am inspired to get to work on what is vexing me...  I'm not afraid of quilting, just need to get to it.  I'm usually hesitant about design of the quilting, but once i get started, it all comes pretty easily.  

Not Changing.... just NOPE.

So my last post, I insisted I wasn't changing this block:

Didn't want to do all that ripping and resewing... however... the more I thought about it, the more I just couldn't let it lie.  I did the ripping... and the resewing - and here is my new block:

OMG, cannot believe the change in it... I am SO glad I made the alteration to it (I won't call it a correction because technically, there was nothing wrong with it - it was all aesthetics).  I am content with it now.

I also finished a quilt... one of two anyway.  I made two of these "You Lucky Dog" quilts designed by Bonnie Sullivan.  I am almost done quilting the second one... the hanging sleeve, label and binding are ready to go on, just waiting for the last stitches of the quilting to be done.  It measures 44x48.  The original quilt called for a very dark green sashing.  I replaced that with the light rust color. 

Agonizing over little things

It is in my nature I think to agonize over little things that others might not even think about much if at all.  I made these blocks over the last couple of days and put them all together with some previously made blocks, which I didn't look at before I made the more recent ones.    Now that I see them all together I am regretting some of my choices.

The blocks on the left that make up the big red diamond around the 'Love Deeply' block are kinda scrappy, because I thought they'd go with the first one better that way.  I didn't look at the one I'd made 10 months ago (the right-most part of the diamond under the word 'Grow') to see that it is instead made up of one red-orange fabric.  I could have done the same to each other bend in the diamond (top, left and bottom) in a different red fabric, but instead I made them scrappy - each one made of the three fabrics combined... sigh.  I think it's all little distracting the way it is.

I am NOT changing it now, though - that would require too much ripping and re-sewing.  It's gonna have to be what it is.  The whole quilt will be very busy, so perhaps it won't be so noticable in the final product.  I can only hope.

One more block to make for this quilt, and then borders, and I'm done... I'll be happy to have this finished in time for the recipient's birthday!

Mystery Looms...

I've been working on another mystery quilt, this one by Meadow Mist quilts... it's called the Mosaic Mystery... The first sewing clue was released a week ago, and my blocks are done...

These are my 'house' blocks for step one... I have NO clue what comes next ... (that is of course the nature of mystery quilts, but sometimes you can take an educated guess)...

My fabrics chosen for the quilt are these, with all the pre-cutting done that we were given instructions for:

As usual, I am agonizing still over my fabric choices, but it's all cut, so I'm not changing them now !  :)   I hope it comes out pretty, and not square (I hate making square quilts)...

Working through Adversity

I despise, hate and revile summer colds.  They are the worst!  Not sure if it's because the weather is hot and uncomfortable, making a fever and chills seem even worse or if it's the actual physical nature of the summer cold itself.  Whatever it is, I've felt miserable since Thursday night. It's Monday now and I still feel awful.

Despite feeling sick, I've still managed to play a game of D&D, keep up with my two games (Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite - doing pretty much the minimum I can get away with each day to stay current in them), prepare samples for a class I was supposed to teach on Saturday (and had to cancel) and sew a pair of dust covers for my Berninas. 

The first and largest of the two dust covers is completed:

I sized it to my Bernina 740, but I actually made it for my new 770, which hasn't arrived at the dealer yet.  Since the new 770 is a Tula Pink edition, I made the cover out of Tula Pink fabric, and it's purple and has squirrels, which I think are the cutest things ever, so that's a plus too (only cats would have been better, but I didn't have any TP cat fabric in my stash).  I managed to use up a bunch of purple binding scraps as well..  Now to just get that 770 in my hot little hands... can't wait til it arrives.
 
I made a 2nd dustcover for my little Bernina (a 350) too, but that one is not bound yet...  Since it is the 350SE Best Friends edition (with paw prints), I made that dustcover from paw print fabric. 

I may do a little quilting today on my second You Lucky Dog quilt, but mostly I'm gonna lay low and work on recovering.  Hopefully by tomorrow, I'll be back to myself again, with some energy and initiative.  Stay well!