Google Reader/Batting Scraps Organized

I'm sure this is not news for most of you reading this, but I checked out Google Reader finally after reading about it again on someone else's blog.  Wow, what an easy, efficient way to keep up with blogs!  Who knew?  Probably all of you, that's who.  I had seen other bloggers commenting on it before, but just never got around to setting it up.  Now I can't believe I waited this long and how much time I probably wasted keeping up with blog reading "the old way" (i.e. via bookmarks or webrings where you didn't know if the blogs were updated or not).  I got most of the blogs I like to read added yesterday in between work stuff and it is so easy to just cruise through this morning.

On a quilty note, I finally got my batting scraps sorted and organized yesterday.  I recently started prewashing some of my batting so now I have scraps that are prewashed and scraps that aren't.  With all of those quilts I quilted in December, I also had a lot of unfiled trimmings.  I use pieced battings when I can so I do use the trimmings that I save.  Yesterday I got everything sorted by size and separated by prewashed and not, with the prewashed pieces labled with a sticky.  I also separated out the non Warm 'n Natural batting, which wasn't much, just some large scraps of wool from Dawn and some large scraps of unknown content that my longarmer gave to me thinking they were mine.  I will probably use those in pet quilts since I don't know what the fiber content is.  I meant to take a picture, but had it all put away before I remembered.  I was NOT taking it back out :-).  I also worked on a dishcloth while watching the ladies figure skating championship, but didn't get very far.

I am off to Dawn's in a few hours for a quilting day, so I'm hoping to have a much more interesting post later today or tomorrow.

2010 Goals/Time Management

I've had this post rolling around in my head for a couple of days now (lots of time to think while shredding, you know).  I posted my 2010 needlework goals on Sunday and they are quite ambitious.  In order to have any shot of completing them, I need a better game plan than I've had in the past.  So, I've been putting a lot of thought into what I feel are the barriers to my productivity and how to make the best use of my time.  Time management has been something I've been focusing on in general over the past couple of years in order to eliminate time spent on unnecessary or unimportant tasks in order to have more time to spend on things I enjoy. 

I've determined that my main time waster is mindless web surfing, which is completely in my control to change.  So, I'm going to make it my top priority to get that under control this year.  It's mainly a problem when I'm working and I'm not interested in what I'm working on.  Since I do all of my work on the computer, it's easy to just open a webpage and start surfing.  Of course that drags the work out longer, which cuts into my free time.  I am self-employed and only have myself to get the work done, so the longer it takes me to do it, the less fun time I have.  Again, largely in my control, so it's up to me to solve this problem.  Maybe posting it here for the world to see will help me.

The other things I've been thinking about are changes I can make to other barriers to my productivity.  One of my biggest barriers to my quilting is the fact that I don't have a dedicated studio so everything except the sewing machine has to be pulled out and put away after each session (i.e. the kitchen island is my cutting station, the floor or bed serves as the design wall when needed, and there is no good place to permanently set up a pressing station).  Because of my current set-up, it is not efficient for me to try and quilt for short periods of time.  In addition, I am a morning person and have no brain matter left after about 8 p.m. so trying to get complicated things done in the evening is a lost cause for me.  After 8 1/2 years of quilting, many more than that of cross-stitching, and even more than that of crocheting, I am now fully aware of what times of day I have the mental competancy to work on each of these hobbies and how much set-up time, or not, is necessary to do so.  I can crochet when I'm dead tired or have a migraine, but I need full wattage in order to stitch accurately and for most quilting tasks.

So, given the above, I have come up with the following plan to make the most effective use of my needlework time.

• I repurposed a large Rubbermaid container with a lid to use as a project box.  I can keep all of my current stitching and quilting projects in the box for easy access to pull one out when I have some time.  I already have my current crochet projects in a carry bag that I can grab whenever I need it.

• Any morning time I have available before work will be spent on my stitching projects.
• Any evening time I have available will be spent on crochet projects or blogging.  Much I'd love to start each day blogging and commenting on other people's blogs, that is most certainly something I can do when I'm tired at the end of the day and I shouldn't be spending my peak energy time on those tasks.
• Longer periods of available time will be dedicated to quilting.  Admitting that I will probably never be a quilter that can get quilting things done in the evenings after work, like so many of you do, was a big step for me.  I was very frustrated by this for quite some time until I realized that I just need to develop a system that works best for me.  If that means no quilting during the weekday evenings, but marathon sessions on the weekends, then that's how it will be.

Boy, just putting my thoughts on this down in writing is pretty motivating in and of itself.  I've always been the type that gets things done once they are written down, so let's hope that means that I will get a lot accomplished in 2010!

Fabric Inventory complete/stash pictures & ponderings

Well, the 2010 fabric inventory is complete.  While it is a bit of a chore, I always like revisiting my stash and finding things I forgot I had.  It also gets my creative juices going and helps solidify my current year goals.  And of course I never get tired of petting my batiks.

In the midst of the project, the mail arrived and look what was waiting for me.  Here's a sneak peek.  Can you guess what the box contains?

Ok, here's a closer look, along with the package inspector, Echo.  Are you surprised?  It's more batiks of course!  Yummy Timeless Treasure batiks off of Ebay.  They were a good deal and cost about exactly as much as the check my sister sent me for my dishcloth sales, so they were basically free too!  How could I pass them up?  They have been counted in the inventory and will be getting washed and stored today.  My inventory sheet tells me that I have almost 700 yards of batiks.  Do you think that's too much?  I don't.  I don't think I can ever have too many batiks.  My dream job would be as a fabric rep for Princess Mirah batiks, but alas, I will have to keep my day job for now, since we like to eat and have a roof over our heads, as do the furkids.

Here's some pictures of my batik stash, as well as the rest of my stash.  I do truly love my stash and wouldn't want to get rid of any of it.  I love that I very rarely have to shop for borders or even backings as I can shop my own "store" 24/7.  Same goes for thread.  I have a huge stash of that now too and I had something on hand for every quilt I just quilted and didn't have to wait for the quilt shop to open in order to continue on my projects.  That is huge for me.  When I am in the mood to work on something, particularly machine quilting, I need to jump on it while the mood is there and get it done as I'm not good at all with "having" to work on certain projects.  The rotation method would never work for me.  I like to work on what I want, when I want to do it, whether it be quilting, cross-stitch, or crocheting.

Oh, and here's a cute picture of the main members of the Quality Control Team, Mutt & Jeff, er, I mean Sassy and Echo.  Can you see how much smaller Sassy is?  She will be a year old in a month and Echo is a month younger than her.  She's a petite little thing.