Time...to celebrate

Celebrations...an oppotunity to give honor to someone or to commemorate an event. Christmas is by it's very name, commemorates Christ's birthday - Christ and a mass to celebrate His birthday. Many celebrations have been "tagged" to this time of the year and been grouped into the season. You can talk about Santa, winter wonderlands, gatherings of family and friends, snow and dreaming by the fire. Whatever you choose to do this season to celebrate whatever you want to commemorate - the fact still remains that the real reason for this party is for Jesus.

Personally I would suggest to all those that do not believe in Jesus and have chosen this time of year for all kinds of other warm and fuzzy celebrations, to just find other names for their way to party. That is not Christmas...Christ Mass (celebration). Why would one even say "lets get together for Christmas - if you don't believe in Christ in the first place? Would they also invite us to "Bob's Birthday Celebration" and then do nothing to commemorate Bob's birthday? I do not think so.

So, I am going to wish you a Merry Christmas - meaning a merry celebration of Christ's birthday. I am going to wish that something or someone brings you closer to the Christ of Christmas - to a saving knowledge of His love!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

...making every moment count ~ Wendy

no time like the present

How do I start back at my new blog after being gone for two months? I feel very removed from it and without words. Me? I am never without words...so my friends and husband would say.

I consider myself a "recovering perfectionist" and I can analyze something till the cows come home. I can fall into a procrastinating trap of more thinking and planning than doing. Apparently that is because we (RP's as I call them) expect the end result to be perfect and if we allow ourselves one minute to consider that it might not be, we will use that thinking and planning to keep us from finishing and never having to face that we did not do it perfect. Oh, the web we weave in our own minds.

It is tough to get back to something when I have been away from it for a long time. It seems like the more I think about how that could happen and what I can do to prevent it the next time or the logistic's of how I will pick it back up again and keep it going, are all my own brain's stall tactics. There are things like a book that I started, got distracted and never finished, a project I had started like my old quilt tops from a year ago that have never been quilted, or most recent picking up my blog. They all hang around to remind me that at times, I do not finish things.

When I started quilting with an old friend, her mother, who was a master quilter, told me "Wendy, if you are going to be a perfectionist about quilting, don't start or you will drive yourself crazy". I told myself that I wouldn't do that but looking back on all my work that is not completed I can see that at times it is exactly what I have done. I think that when I begin a project, I have already given myself permission to not finish it. Somehow that seems like a healthy way to look at things. However, I might abuse that good mental health at times. This thinking then allows me to procrastinate just enough to not get it done. All so I can avoid my ultimate disappointment... it isn't perfect.

All those started and not completed projects can create a lot of guilt & disappointment. It seems like many people I know (except my DH - dear husband) have some project they started and never finished. Yes, there are some things that were a bad idea in the first place or as we get into it further, we find that out. Then a choice needs to be made to let go of them. Completing them might be a further waste of precious time. If that is true the guilt has to go with it. There is always the option to give it away or tear it apart. Either way stop it and go on. However, if it is a good project and should be finished, well....no time like the present.

This happened to me during this last two months. I had two season specific projects. One was a Halloween wall hanging and the other a fall table runner for Thanksgiving. Because of being down with a bad cold and then the flu, the Pumpkins in the Yard wasn't going to be completed until after Halloween. I liked the project and decided that it would be finished this year, not next. That might put off the Thanksgiving Pheasants which in turn might not be on the table for Thanksgiving dinner. But I had made a resolution to get them done before going on to quilt my Christmas quilt that has been pinned together and ready for machine quilting...since last year.

I am a work in progress in my quilting and every quilt is a learning opportunity. I am not perfect...only God is. There is real value in completing a good project and there is no time like the present to just get it done. So I did. Here is the "Pumpkins in the Yard" wall hanging.

...make every moment count ~ Wendy

time moves....

"Time is too slow for those who wait, swift for those who fear, long for those who grieve,short for those who rejoice but for those who love, time is an eternity" from Henry VanDyke a short story writer and poet.

We've all waited for something spectacular and time moved like a turtle, spent moments that seemed like hours in fear, thought that our time grieving would never end and our time for celebrating ended way too soon. Hopefully we all know the eternity of love - loving someone and being loved. If not from the human kind, at least from the God of the Universe - the example of love.

Tomorrow I return to northern Michigan from our retirement home in North Carolina. I will spend a few days celebrating with my friend of 40 years and give her the "Still Waters" quilt I made for her. I named it for the water colors and batiks with sailboats and flowing streams of colors and for the Bible verse, Psalm 23:2-3 "and He leads my beside the still waters and restores my soul"

We met 40 years ago the first of this month and since I think maintaining a friendship for that long is rare, I suggested that we try to commemorate that in some way. So, I will fly into Traverse City and then we will drive up to Lake Superior and spend a quiet 3 days in the most northern tip of Michigan...talking. Coffee and conversation is the order of the day.

Relationships do take time, especially long distance ones. I believe with all the important use of our time, the planning, organizing and executing - people are more important than things. The time we spend in our relationships will indeed last forever. We are forever touched by our relationships and they live on thru people to other people and generations. Even my quilts will someday wear out but love and touching other people will not.

I did not get a quilt piece done before leaving for this trip, that I very much wanted to complete. I am going to try to sell this piece and it's for Halloween. I will return around the 5th and will take it to my friend that has a shop and hopefully there will still be enough days left that someone will stop in and it will catch their eye for their home. I know that these fall weekends will fly by and the customers are out and about checking out the fall color and cooler weather. Hopefully I won't be too late. But, sometimes we have to make choices with our precious time moments and relaxing and refreshing the mind and spirit are the most precious gems of all. For what are we worth if we are carved out of haste and fret and worry and regret.

I believe in using time wisely and efficiently and being organized and completing things - but I refuse to feel guilty about slowing down at times too. That makes me so much more worthwhile to accomplish the other things.

So if you didn't get something done today, or this week and you are "beating yourself up" about it. Take a good hard look at why - if it meant you needed some refresh time or time to invest in a relationship, I hope you will consider that use of your time worth more than gold. Remember that He leads us beside the still waters to calm us and give us a sense of peace. Take time to enjoy the "still waters".

I also wanted to begin sharing with you some blocks from Women of The Bible Quilt project - some 400 women around the country work on this every year by internet. Carolyn in Goshen, Indiana wrote the Bible Study and each week we get a new lady's story from the Bible along with a study relating to that story. Also, we do a new block each week for each lady's story to have 52 in the completed quilt. I am on my second year in trying to complete the quilt for my kitchen. I have included a couple blocks and the web site for the whole study.

http://www.patternsoffaith.com/QuiltGallery.php

I'll share about my "time" with my friend Kathy when I return next week. Have a good one and relax!

...making every moment count - maybe for eternity by restoring my soul ~ Wendy

"always the right time to do the right thing"

That quote is by Dr Martin Luther King - and he was so right. We get so busy and we have our agenda's all in line and then something comes along - an opportunity - to make a difference in someone's life. We went to Erie for 2 wks - just got back, and my dh (dear husband) and his 2 brother in law's (I helped a little) build an attached garage, laundry and 2nd bath, onto his mother's house. His father passed away in Feb and he left there saying, my mom cannot go another winter parking her car in the barn that is acrosso the drive and yard. She is 86. He wanted to build an attached garage to her 150 + yr old house.

I did not plan to go but she emailed and was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of construction and the cooking for everyone, etc. and asked me to come. I had my plans of being alone for 2 weeks and quilting my brains out. But, that was not the plan for me and I decided to go to Erie and try to do some quilting while I was there. I had to plan for small snippets of time that I could "inch" my way along, but I was able to complete my quilt for my friend I am celebrating 40 yrs of good friendship with next wk in Traverse City, MI and Houghton/Hancock, MI. I also completed a fall table runner I had started last yr and mostly completed a Halloween wall hanging - "Pumpkins in the Yard".

Sometimes we have our time planned out and it can be unsettling to let them go and "do the right thing" but I believe that going to Erie for 2 wks rather than 2 wks alone quilting while my husband went....well, it was the right thing - and it was the perfect time to do the right thing. I shopped, cooked, did some construction, took pics all thru each day and then had to go to a cafe' to send the pics to awaiting family as she only has "dial-up" service for her computer. Oh yes, that's another thing to do without while there - high speed internet. It takes longer to download the blog than to write it. And I have a Facebook page and that had to go unused for 2 wks too.

Someday she will be gone and I can never again get the time back that we had helping the guys out and keeping them fed. It was a great time with my mother in law too - afternoons talking and planning. My agenda seemed important and well deserved, but someone else needed me more.

I believe in good planning and keeping to the plan - but this time, it was right to let my plan go and take on a new plan - to be flexible and still try to get a bit of what I wanted to do, done. And that I did. So, you can see in the pics, the large lap quilt in my friend's requested "sea" colors and the fall tablerunner. I am still working on the pumpkins for the wall hanging - next time.

Keep to the plan when you can but sometimes, people are more important than things.

not enough time

I lived way up on Lake Michigan in Petoskey for a number of years and my favorite book store McLean & Eakin

http://www.mcleanandeakin.com/

is in that town. I bought my all time favorite mug there that said "too many books...too little time". That is how I always felt and I snatched it up when I saw it. I am sure there were lots of others that felt the same way and it was popular. I feel quite sure many feel the same way about other things they love to do and quilting would be right there with my passion to read. So, "too many quilts, too little time". And, if you are reading this you can put your own passions in that same little quip "too many ____, too little time".

Well, what we really need is more time huh?? And, since we search the world over for other things we want to have more of, like the grocery store, the book store, the kitchen store and ultimately the online store etc., which store can we run to for more "time"? As yet, I have not found one. If you do, please share it with me.

Of course we think in terms of 24 hr days. If I could "find" more time, would it be more than 24 hr days? Or would I like more days in the month or more months in the year? I guess that determines what kinds of goals or deadlines we have. But possibly most of us are looking at the short term for relief and that would be a longer day so that tomorrow I can wake up without any feelings of "here we go again" or maybe just with a feeling of guilt and panic.

I started this blog to try to meld together two issues. One my passion for quilting, for constructing with beautiful fabrics and the other for working on managing my finite 24 hr days. Since I can't beg, borrow, steal or even purchase more time, I am stuck with managing better the time I have been given and "find" the time for the necessities and the passions (which might overlap if you are lucky) and get up tomorrow morning without any guilt or panic and with relief that I chose well yesterday and "found" time for what was needed, both the necessary and the fun.

If we "don't have enough time" then I believe we have not identified our priorities. I once had a Pastor that said "you can tell a man's (or woman's) priorities by they day-timer and their checkbook". Now of course he was challenging how much time we spend with God and how much of our blessings given to us by God, we are honoring God by giving back to Him. But, I think I can use that same principle for the other parts of my life. There are barometers for how I spend my time and energy of the day I have been given and as I discover them, I will see where my real priorities are. Then....oh yes, what then?

Well, that is where the real work begins. What ARE my priorities in this life - what is really important to me, what are my goals and aspirations? What is the real order of importance to the activities I engage in?? I don't really need to do more, do faster, do less, slow the pace etc. First I need to prioritize my life. If I don't like where the current activity choices are taking me (and even if you haven't listed your goals and aspirations and priorities...you are choosing every minute) I can choose differently and that is freedom. There is freedom in managing my time. It is not a straight jacket to inhibit me. Dr. Phil McGraw once said "insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results".

So, if I am feeling like there is not enough time, I can put a few things down that are priorities to me, number them in order of importance and begin to choose to give them that level of priority. Step number to change might be doing something different or nothing needs to change, in which case I don't need to continue writing this blog. I will forever be challenged to use my time more wisely, more to the level of the priorities I have given my activities. Back to my reason for this blog, to encourage myself and you my readers, to "find" more time for the priorities we have chosen.

This quilt was made using a "time management" process that I will share next time. It is a Split Rail design - simple and fun and now it's my Granddaughter Dylan's quilt.

Now it's time for something else

Wendy...making every minute count

the rest of the story

I am getting used to this techy stuff - so here are the rest of the pics of the "do over" as my kids used to call it, when you wanted to get a chance to re-do something but actually no one really wants to do a quilt over - or any other project for that matter. You know that idea " measure twice, cut once" - it's something like that I guess.

...saves 9

Wow, the information you can get on the Internet huh?! I looked for the origination of "a stitch in time saves 9". Only on the Internet can you find so many ways to say the same thing. The proverb does actually use stitching for the example and the idea of closing up a hole so it doesn't get any larger -all to remind us that do something right the first time so it doesn't take more time later, do it right away before it gets more difficult etc. And the "9" doesn't really have any direct meaning but was used to give it rhythm so it could be remembered more easily.

Well, I had the enriching experience to learn this proverb first hand this last week, maybe 2 weeks. I had made this quilt, seen in earlier post, for my son when he graduated from high school 9 yrs ago. He apparently has loved it because when I was in Manhatten last year and used it, I found it lovingly worn in many places. The holes and tears were just evidence that it has warmed and cuddled many a moment all these years. He has taken it from home to college both in Chicago and Holland, MI and then a semester in Australia, then to San Diego, to Manhatten and Williamsburg and then back to Encinitas, CA. That is where I finally retrieved it and brought it to NC to be refurbished.

During this process, I learned how much I did not know about quilting when I made that quilt, which was my first one. I spent almost 2 wks repairing this quilt, more than "9" anyway I look at it.

First, I this is a queen size quilt - he is nearly 6' 4" and needed all that space to cover his toes and fingers. I used a Double Irish Chain - wow what a lot of seams for a quilt that would be used, and washed in laundromats around the world. Also, black fades more than most colors. Then I tied it rather than hand or machine quilting it. That is fine for some projects but for a guy that is going to actually use it, it allows for too much tugging a pulling and sliding side to side. Then I did not put a binding on it. I did the "pillow case" style of putting the layers together. That allowed for too much wear on the edges - a binding may have worn out too, but then I would have only been replacing the binding. Lastly, I used cotton on the top and flannel on the back and I doubt I pre-washed either. The flannel seems to have shrunk some and became slightly smaller so it too "pulled" the edges around to the back allowing for even more wear.

So, after a couple days of assessment I just had to begin. I have never restored a quilt either so maybe later in my lifetime I will be writing this again and telling of how I could have saved time in the way I restored it too.

First I re-tied the whole quilt. I considered quilting the layers this time but decided it should be refurbished as it had been done. Also, the fabric was quite stretched in places and it would have been very difficult to have even gotten a seam without puckers. Oh yes, you read earlier about me trying to find the floss. Many of the 2" square seams had pulled out so they had to be hand repaired with sort of an applique stitch. Then I pinned the whole quilt just inside the borders. One inner border fabric seemed to not hold up well and had shredded in places at the seam. So, I ran a new seam all the way around that inner border, making it slightly smaller but got into better fabric. Then I hand basted in outer borders and cut away the worn edge all the way around. There were 4 holes in the inner border and rather than try to replace any of the borders, I chose to hand sew thread across the holes and give strength to the hold before appliqued small round "patches" over the holes. I used original fabric which wasn't too noticeable even tho it did show how the color had faded. I put a new French binding all the way around. My husband made me a new label for it in the computer and I attached it too. I wanted to add the refurbishing of it to the label, so I opted for an all new one.

After 9 years of quilting, I know now to make the quilt differently in order to last a much longer time. However, I am actually quite please that it lasted as long as it did considering my lack of knowledge at the time and how much he has used the quilt.

I was a labor of love when I made it, a labor of love to restore it and a wonderful opportunity to learn first hand that I really will save time (or 9 ) later, doing it right the first time. Phew!!

Adam's & Entry quilts

Be Prepared

Today I drove past our local fire department and they always have a sign out in the yard with some "tidbit" of encouragement. Today it read "Be prepared, plan ahead, so it won't happen to you". Now I am not sure what they meant by "it" but I knew too well why it struck me today. I was returning from looking all over town for Pearl (Perel) Cotton Embroidery Floss.

I live in a rural area on a large lake. However there is a good city town about 12 miles from us. There is a new scrap booking shop that is quite large and well stocked. They sell DMC Floss in every color, but not Pearl. Then there is an older established fabric store that teaches quilt classes and really has quite a lot of fabrics and supplies - actually a large storefront on main street. No floss there at all. Then there is a newer quilt shop and they were closed this week for vacation. The last resort is also an older established craft shop and they too carried 2 very large racks of DMC floss but no Pearl. Now the Walmart (a super Walmart I might mention) recently quit carrying fabric at all and also took out most of the craft section which also included all the DMC floss.

Now why would a person drive around town some 30 miles to get a couple dollar skein of floss? Well, I am repairing my son's quilt. This was the first quilt I had ever made and it was for his graduation from high school 9 years ago. The piecing was a new experience but to machine quilt a queen size would have been daunting and I didn't have a long arm quilter in my area. So I decided to "tie" it to get it finished. Well after 4 yrs of college and the other 5 in Manhattan and San Diego, it is a well worn quilt. A quilter can't ask for much more that to know their hard work is being put to good use. But 9 yrs of laundromat washings and travels (I think he even took it to Australia for his study abroad semester) - well, the ties needed to be redone along with a lot of other worn seams. I considered that it now needed to be quilted but the fabrics were so worn and he now has a down comforter, so I decided to re-tie it. I got to the last row and ran out of the Pearl Cotton Black that I had used. I am now aware that the closest place to get it will be Winston Salem and that is 35 miles from here - 70 up and back. So "it" happened to me - I was not prepared before I started. We were just in Winston Salem a few days ago to take our boat up there for repair and if I had looked into this project before, I could have gotten it then. Or, if when I bought the black I had, I had bought more than 1 or 2 skeins. A very frustrated way to learn to "be prepared and plan ahead" so IT won't happen to me. I wasted a whole morning but I learned a lesson too - because I can't run into a JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby or Michael's I need to plan ahead when I am working on a project. That floss will have to wait until we pick up the boat later in the week. For now I will quilt the wall hanging I had wanted to get finish by this weekend. It will go on a high dormer window wall in our entry. Is that making "lemons out of lemon aid"? I hope so. I have included a picture of the Irish Chain and the new little wall hanging.

Wendy...trying to make every moment count

new beginnings

Isn't it wonderful to start something new? It does come with it's apprehension but for the most part the anticipation and challenge of diving into a new project is exhilarating. We have high hopes for how it will all turn out. Well, this is a new beginning for me - this blog. I have been wanting to get one started for some time. I have all the normal excitement about this new adventure. However I don't want to forget the process. So much is to be learned along the way. We get so excited about the finished product, like a new quilt, that we begin without much consideration for the journey. Then sometimes the journey gets all messy, we find ourselves frustrated and maybe we never even finish Oh, that "f" word !! Well, I'll give consideration to finishes later, right now I am exited about starting. I am not sure where this will take me but I hope I can enjoy it and maybe help someone else along my journey.

...making every moment count ~ Wendy