Come Stitch With Me

Today, I took Sadie to visit Miss Pat to wish her Happy New Year and buy some fabric that I needed for upcoming projects. Sadie got her allotment of cookies and lots of pets from customers in the shop. As one of the employees was ringing up my purchase, she asked, “Are you planning to teach again?”. I paused for a minute and responded that I probably would teach again, but right now I was enjoying sewing for me.

That’s the truth.

The monthly table runner club is strictly for me. I’ve already pulled fabrics for the next two projects.

I have to add the finishing touches to A Quilter’s Cottage, which I am going to submit for entry into the Georgia Celebrates Quilts Show in June. Then, I have the two neighbor girls who want to make blocks for the show’s children’s exhibit.

I committed to making a charity quilt in January/February with an online group affiliated with Quilts for Kids.

The other truth is I do miss teaching classes.

I have ideas for projects, but samples need to be made and I’m really not in the mood to do that right now. COVID is running rampant (again). I scheduled classes for spring, summer and fall of 2021. Only about 1/3 of the classes were actually held. I’ll just wait it out this time. It could mean I don’t teach any classes until summer or fall. I’m good with that. There are projects on my biz calendar for 1st Qtr 2022 – technical editing, t-shirt quilts and reopening the Etsy shop. These are all things that involve minimal F2F contact. Then, there’s the day job. Who knows what will happen spring semester? Hopefully, not too much drama as I wind things down.

Hmmm…fall and holiday project classes are starting to sound like a possibility.

Happy New Year!

One thing about quilting – there’s always more than one way to accomplish something. How many different ways can you make HSTs? This is particularly vexing to newbie quilters who are like, “Wait, what?” when a teacher deviates from the published pattern. For me, it’s usually because the instructions are not well-written. Sometimes it’s because a certain tool, fabric or component isn’t available and I had to figure out another way to make it work. What matters is that you completed the block – not how you got there.

This holds true in other areas of life, as well. One of the perks of being married to a road warrior is the amount of travel rewards that can accumulate over time. The bad thing about COVID is that we’ve not really been able to use some of the awards. I didn’t want a companion pass and a travel credit to go unused, so I booked the airline tickets for my parents and me to travel in June, 2022.

We wanted to fly into one particular location, but weren’t able to use the companion pass that weekend for some reason. The ticket agent couldn’t figure out the reason behind the block either. Her suggestion was to fly into the nearest airport, which was only an hour away. The downside would be a limited flight schedule. Fortunately, we were able to make it work and saved about $300 on airfare to boot.

With our travel plans slightly altered, we were able to carve out time for me to spend a morning at a local sewing & quilting event. It just so happens that attending a show put on by this particular group is on my quilt travel bucket list for 2022. No need to take an additional trip! Woo-hoo!

Sometimes the alternate route is the one you should have taken all along. Interesting how life works that way, huh?

Words cannot begin to describe how excited I am about the coming changes.

One of the IG folks I follow posted a meme that went something like, “If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.”

Well, I guess the dream is big enough because it’s enough to scare the pants off me – sometimes. The keep it safe side of me implores me to do the right thing and hang out at the day job for two more years. The logical side of me reassures me that we’ve worked, planned and saved for this moment – all your bases are covered, go enjoy yourself! My gut tells me to turn off the news, silence Dr. Fauci’s latest edict about masks on planes forever, drink my water and get busy living.

Gut and logic win out big time on this one. Meg over at the Daily Pep podcast would be so proud that I finally silenced my “internal dreamshitter.”

Time to schedule a beach retreat as a gift to myself once school’s finally over.
Time to book the plane tickets to take my parents on a long overdue getaway.
Time to firm up big summer/fall travel plans with the other half. Mackinac Island is for sure, Rocky Mountaineer will depend on if mask mandate is still in force next fall.

Then, there’s the excitement about being able to work my biz as much as I want. More on that to come.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!