Come Stitch With Me

To me, having enough means I have what I need and can find it easily. There’s a sense of satisfaction I get after a decluttering/reorganization session. Keeping inventory at the “enough” level requires routine curating and ongoing maintenance. Unfortunately, it’s not a once & done thing.

One year ago, I pared our cooking utensils, pots, pans, cookie sheets, baking dishes and Corning Ware down to only what we actually use on a regular basis. It’s made meal prep/baking much more pleasurable and efficient for me. With our BBQ event on Sunday, my concern was that we wouldn’t have enough platters or large pans. I was right, but we made it work with what we had. No need to invest in another platter or large baking pan. Extra-large, super heavy duty disposable foil trays are on my “watch” list. When they go on sale, I’ll buy a set and store them in the pantry for when we need them. I already do the same with foil pans for lasagna and brownies that we take to events/gift to others.

This summer’s major purge involves my sewing studio. Everything that I wanted to keep from school has been incorporated into my stash and craft closets. Now, it’s time to “refine” things and free up one hall closet. Three mechanical machines I have in inventory (people still think I am the home for wayward sewing machines) will be donated to a teen sewing academy located in the inner city. Once I outfit my two sewing stations and my travel machine with the necessary notions and accessories, I am getting rid of the excess. It’s time to be ruthless. If I haven’t touched it in a year, it’s time to find said item a new home. Ideally, I’ll have room to store everything in my sewing studio and not need the hall closet. It’s doable, but will require serious purging of the existing stash and sewing room closet. It will also require reconfiguring how I use the existing furniture/storage areas. Wish me luck!

The end result is that I wind up with enough inventory on hand to whip up most any desired quilting project and be able to easily locate needed supplies.

QAL #1: Farmhouse Star QAL with Lori Holt begins on Memorial Day. I have the shapes and circle templates. Apparently I also need a pattern, which is on backorder. Isn’t there usually a free sew along guide that goes with each pack of the Sew Simple Shapes? Looks like participants must now pay $12.00 for a pattern on top of the $$ spent on plastic templates. That’s just crazy. I’d rather have a book of projects than have to collect individual patterns.

QAL #2: Great Granny Squared hosted by Fat Quarter Shop begins 6/6 and lasts through the end of August. Guess this will be the one I do since I already have the book and fabrics in my stash. It’s two blocks per week, which is totally doable.

While I’m glad to still have an online option to keep me feeling connected to other quilty peeps, I miss sewing with friends. Stitch N Quilt’s closing left me without a “quilty home”. It feels strange to be out of school and not able to stop in to see Miss Pat.

The other LQS have pretty much put most classes in vacation mode until Labor Day. They host open sew days in the shops 1-2x per month. Guess I will be making the rounds to see if I can find a new quilty home. Quilt guilds are starting to come back to meeting in-person, as well. I’ll have fun visiting area guilds to see which one clicks.

After twenty-one and a half years, today was my last day as a school librarian, I attended the EOY breakfast celebration, did my retirement walk, turned in my badge, keys and laptop, said my good-byes and walked out the schoolhouse doors one last time. Retirement officially began at 12:36 p.m.!

Know what I’m most excited about? Not having to be somewhere by 7:10 a.m.! Right now, it feels like it always does when we get out for summer break. After a 3 year hiatus, we’re hosting our annual Memorial Day weekend cookout for a large group of friends. My energies will be spent prepping for Sunday’s festivities. On Monday, I’ll crash and begin my annual summer decompression ritual.