New Focus

I haven't posted on this blog for the summer and fall because I ran a large ballot drive this summer, and then in the fall I organized the state libertarian convention. So thinking about starting it up again, I decided to change the focus somewhat. Instead of being a diary about what I'm doing, I'm going to explain how I organize myself. Maybe that will help someone deal with the chaos of being an innately disorganized quilter. I consider myself organizationally challenged but able to cope so that I get things done. People think I'm organized, but it's a struggle.

Pictured here is a child-sized quilt that I named "Country House 1-Patch" because of the block center right that has the image of a little country house. In the winter of 2015, almost two years ago now, I started to empty my boxes of scraps. I ended up making lots of quilt tops including the one you see above. So this year I'm trying to finish one or two quilts for each month. I have a backlog, but I still want to finish them, so I've made myself a schedule and some deadlines. This one-patch and another are finished, but they needed labels. They have labels now and they're in storage for when I have grandchildren. Or for when one of my sisters had grandchildren. Someone better get some grandchildren, that's all I have to say.

My list from last night looked something like this:

Sew labels on new quilts

Finish second set of Hawaiian quilt blocks

Sandwich two skewed 1-patches

Iron and prepare granny squares quilt

Put away and count PQP quilts

Start a spreadsheet

I started the spreadsheet and finished the second set of Hawaiian quilt blocks, because that was the most important deadline. I have to quilt the thing at the longarm rental in less than three weeks, and the blocks take a long time to assemble. I sandwiched one of the skewed 1-patches. I had some distractions, so that was all, but it was a substantial amount of work.

I realized that I have not integrated into my consciousness the amount of work required to reach my quilt finishing goals. That's why I have written down the deadlines.

This morning I made four labels and have attached three. I put away and counted the PQP quilts. But I'm still behind my goals for yesterday.

So I'm going to revise yesterday's list.

Finish the labels.

Quilt the skewed 1-patch that I pinned

Sandwich the other skewed 1-patch

Look at the granny square quilt and break down the work so that I know what I'm dealing with.

Hi, I'm adding this edit - if anyone reads this, and I'm sure nobody does, and even if you do, you wouldn't read this far. But I'm sorry I didn't blog my progress. If you read the next post, you will see, I stuck to my deadlines and finished all of the quilts I wanted to finish in 2016. So the deadlines were very helpful. But I had very little time to do anything else.