Having fun

 When all the dust settled after the purge, I was left with a large bin of scraps, mainly left over from when I was working my way through Maria Schell's book.  Many of these were narrow strips pieced together in short strips of 5-6 narrow strips, about 4-6 inches across.  There were also a few, but not many larges pieced fabric.  So these were all cut into strips, as well, and then everything pieced in long narrow strips, trimmed to about 4" wide.  Finally these were joined side by side, and quilted.  Then, I cut them according to sizes described in a video workshop I bought from designmatterstv.com and finally put together to make two zippered bags.

I'm quite pleased with them.  There is still a basket full of similar scraps that will likely be used in the same way.

My brain is "foggy"

 all during my 100 Day Purge I was aiming at May 16 as being the last day.  OMG!  The last day won't be for another month, and I've purged just about anything I can. I was quite angry at myself, until I realized, that it's my purge, my plan, and I can do anything I want with it.  So I have declared that it's over.  Done!  Finished!

The green quilt was finished yesterday.  This was emotional for me.  I worked on it, by hand, almost every evening during the long Covid lockdowns. Two years. Now the quilt is ended, and many of the restrictions have ended.  I still have some UFO's left in the pile, but those are mainly pre-cut pieces ready to be put into charity quilts. Some of my colour choices are depleted, so today I bought 10 fat quarters in light cheerful prints.  I think these will greatly help fill out designs for the charity quilts, but only just enough pieces will be cut.  This is a little more time consuming than just cutting until the fabric is gone, but I have nothing but time.

A friend and I have talked lately about artists who are the "latest hot thing", but eventually fade as the next "latest hot thing" comes along.  This is maybe where I am.  My images and designs were popular once and sold well, but now I appear to have reached a stage of life where I no longer have to try to meet anybody's expectations-even my own.  I can do whatever I want and not have to apologize to anyone. This means that I can maybe take a deeper look at the ideas and designs that have been coming to the surface lately.  To that end, today I did some shopping.  Just a little-some beads, some charms, and the fat quarters I mentioned above.  And now, I can relax and get back to work--no more asking "Why on earth did I buy this?"

UFO pile

 Yes, now I'm tackling the UFO pile.  I've started the process of putting the binding on the green and pink EPP quilt.  This is almost a Queen size and has cut off corners, so there are eight corners to deal with.  As well, the darn thing is so big that getting it through my machine is difficult.  But the binding has been stitched to the back of the piece, and is now at the stage of turning the binding to the front and clipping it down.  There are threads to trim, and extra rows of stitching to un-pick, so it's a slow process, but I hope to have it finished this weekend.

Everything else is on hold, but my brain is working on planning a new piece, using the heavy sheets of water colour paper that were used for echo printing a couple of years ago.  There is a vague image circulating around my brain, that I need to pin down.  I plan to get into a sketch book, somehow, so that it doesn't get lost while the green and pink quilt gets finished.

Still at it.

 While my progress has slowed down, I'm still trying to get something done every day.  For the last three days, I've been still recovering from the sale, and not really capable of working on anything too important or complicated.  ( Old age is not pretty!) So I helped, to a small degree, while my husband "purged" a large storage area under our stairs. This certainly took more than one day, especially if one considers the trip to the thrift store.  Two very full green garbage bags, and one almost full, along with some boxes, full of more breakable things.  There were also two full garbage bags sent to the landfill.  There was also a decision to be made about the "things" that didn't sell on Saturday.  Not that anything has been finally decided, but I object to my work being sent to a landfill, and do not want to let happen  Especially as there were multiple items that I knew would not sell, and had not taken.

So, my purging has reached a very difficult emotional stage.  Things that I know must go, but I'm fighting to keep.  I guess they'll go at some time in the future, so why not now?  Ouch!