Gone So Long

It seems like I've been gone for years, though in reality it's only been a few months since a real post.  I actually wasn't gone I was just away from quilting while I took a full-time job to earn social security credits.  I'm a night owl and those 6 a.m. mornings did me in pretty quickly.  I came home too tired to do much other than hand quilt for a little while each evening.  I finished work a few weeks ago, my daughter came for a week's visit, and then I promptly got sick.  I'm feeling a little more energetic now and am ready to get back to quilting.

After two months of hand quilting on Sunday Morning (you can see more of it here) you'd think I'd have finished it by now but no, it's still in progress.  I finished all of the diagonal lines across the whole quilt and then realized that I definitely needed smaller squares inside the larger ones.  I'm bordering the larger 4" squares with 1" masking tape to make 2" squares inside the 4" squares.  I'm about half finished.

If I'd planned more carefully I could have used wider tape and would not have needed to do the smaller squares inside the larger ones.  I think this is the first time I've used masking tape to mark a quilt.  It's effective enough but it does shift a little and needs to be repositioned.

On a different topic....  The room where I have my fabrics and sewing machine is getting piled high with fabric despite the fact that I haven't done any sewing.  How does that happen?  Sometimes I get used to what I see and don't notice what a mess it may look like to objective eyes.  I do notice that it's hard to focus and feel creative when I have a mess around me with too little space to work.  (I have photographs but I don't want to show them.  It would be too embarrassing.)

I have so many scraps and I'm itching to start another quilt -- or two or three -- but I really need to finish some of the other ones I've started.  One needs a border or two.  One needs a few more blocks.  Another needs many more blocks.  Others....  Too many others (aside from the tops that need quilted).  Not to mention the strings and scraps that are calling my name.  When I have too many works in progress I either lose interest or lose momentum.

How about you?  Does a mess in your your sewing impede your creativity or ability to work?  Do you lose momentum or interest on a quilts? 

I'm linking this post to WOW at Esther's Blog and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.  Thanks for hosting, ladies.

--Nancy.
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