It must be spring--more musings and navel gazings

Suddenly, opportunity appears to be coming out of the wood work.  My fall schedule is rapidly filling up with group and individual gallery shows opportunities. With my husband's help, I've been going through the items I have on hand to see what could be used, or re-purposed easily, to augment the body of new work I have.  After all, the purpose of these events is to sell my work, something that hasn't been happening a lot lately.

This leads to the question of whether to spend money on additional supplies to facilitate this production frenzy, or to spend extra time attempting to produce using only the supplies on hand.  My goal has always been the process  more than the product, but now I'm trying to figure out how to increase production, but enjoy the process at the same time.  Added into the mix is that health issues within the immediate family will be given absolute priority-period.

Somehow, I had never considered that I might be as pressured and busy during my retirement, as I was while working and raising a family.  I think I visualized myself as a pampered grandmother, enjoying family, and quietly "tending to my knitting", or quilting, as the case my be.  More realistically, I now understand that  I would never have been happy with that.

Chaos

A few years ago, with two total knee replacement surgeries within a few months of each other,  we had to move the serious working components of my basement studio, up into a spare room, as I was having great difficulty with stairs.  My mobility has improved, and family circumstances have changed, and we now need that extra bedroom.  My husband and I prepared everything for the move back downstairs, but neither of us is capable of any heavy lifting, so today my son and grandson came over to help.

The first job was to remove this empty machine cabinet from the basement to the garage.  This was my first cabinet, and worked well with the three Kenmore machines that all  died when I used them so much that the internal cams wore out.   They were all flat deck machines and I taught myself to free motion quilt on them.  How I miss those old flat decks.  Now we need special tables with a lower area or plastic shelves, that we add to the machine to make a flat deck.  I've held onto it for forty years, but now it's time to let it go.

This bookcase was a problem. It had been about 10 inches away from the wall on its right hand side, (that's where I stored a bolt of batting) but we needed the extra room, so, after emptying it, my husband and I tried to shove it into the corner.  Didn't work well until we realized that it had been screwed to the wall behind it.  Five minutes with a screw driver, and the thing moved easily.  Go figure.

Here is the empty area we were moving into, ( with the old cabinet still in place).  Yes, it may be along narrow room, but it's all mine.  It even has a bathroom, and the bar attached is an ideal place to coordinate my painting, and store the paint.

So the bed was moved upstairs, and here's my guys, with Grandpa supervising.

And my Janome at the top of the stairs ready to go.  That was as far as I was able to carry it, and I probably shouldn't have gone that far.

Everything was in place by about 4:00 this afternoon, and ready to go.  I even got a few minutes sewing done before it was time to come up to start supper.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network.