Backyard Visitors

As I sit here at my office desk, occasionally some bird or critter catches my eye flitting past my window. This day I was taken aback by a red-capped head and beady eye gliding by my frame of vision. The eye's owner and 2 other 'birds-of-a-feather' walked right past my office, went around the corner of the house and then came back. I got this picture of them just before they startled at my movement in the window and took off.

Sandhill cranes aren't rare around here by any means, but usually stick around ponds, canals and waterways. It was quite a surprise to have them visit our backyard. It was as fascinating as the time the mating pair of hawks hung around for a few days.

Overkill

I spent a good part of this past weekend up in my sewing room. I sorted, cut, folded, filed and trashed. I brought down a stack of boxes full of folded fat quarters for the garage sale. By Sunday morning, I had come to the end of all the fabric sorting and had started organzing and packing up the keepers. What a great sense of accomplishment! I could even see the top of my cutting table for the first time in six months.

Newly motivated, I decided to tackle the stacks of plastic storage bins under the cutting table. As way of explanation, my cutting table fits into an alcove in the corner of my sewing room and is bracketed to the wall on three sides, with space for storage underneath. Normally, I keep unfinished projects, batting, and scraps in bins under there.

About six months ago, we re-carpeted my sewing room and the upstairs landing. While the re-carpeting was going on, the entire contents of my sewing room were shoved into the boys' bedroom, mostly on Petie's side of the room. Once the carpeting was finished, Petie could not wait to get my stuff out of his room and happily began pushing boxes and bins out of his room and back into mine. He even pushed bins back under the cutting table. What a sweet boy!

Now that's the background on this story. With my fresh zeal and readiness to tackle the bins under the cutting table, I started pulling them out. Then I see it. Oh no, it can't be. How could? When? What the....? Behind the large bins in front, there lay in wait more fabric. Not just a little more, but yards and yards and yards of fabric. And most of it purple! How could I have this much fabric, out of sight and forgotten, and not realize it was missing! We're not talking about a box of fat quarters here, we're talking two stacks 2 feet tall of flat-folded cotton fabric, no piece larger than 2 yards. And all this fabric needs to be sorted, cut, folded and packed.

I'm discouraged. (Big sigh.)

Keep Digging

I've decided to commit to a date to have my sewing room cleaned out and all my extra fabric ready for sale. However, I haven't told anyone of the date or published the date, so I've given myself some room to weasel out of it up until now. For the first time in print (drumroll, please) - Friday, October 17th.

I worked most of the weekend last night cutting, folding, stacking and sorting and managed to clear off all of one shelf. It's so discouraging. The only consolation is having the portable DVD player with me so I can watch movies while I work. And yes, I do get things done while I'm watching.

This weekend I saw the last 4 episodes of Season 1 of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer; Pretty Persuasion (a very, very dark and pessimistic movie which I didn't care for although I could tell it was well made, well-acted, blah, blah, blah); and Murderous Intent (originally released as Like Minds, which is a much better title). At least Buffy is optimistic, if a little silly. The other two movies were depressing. Hmmm, no wonder I'm in a pessimistic mood. Neither of the two movies will go into my "worth watching again" collection.

Sometimes I forget that I have kept back at least a 1/4 yards of each fabric for myself and I want to just put all the boxes back on the shelves and keep them. All the folded fabrics look so pretty lined up neatly in their boxes, folded to the exact same size and sorted by color. I love sorting by color. It soothes me.

Charm Squares

What's even better than new fabric? New fabric for FREE! Well, kinda sorta.

This morning was our monthly guild meeting (Rocket Quilters, Cocoa, Florida) and each month we swap 6" charm squares. This month's theme was Asian/Oriental fabrics. I had a yard of dark teal and gold Japanese-style print by Alexander Henry. The name on the selvage is "KOTOBUKI" which means Congratulations! The manufacture date on the fabric is 1997, so it's been sitting on my shelf for 10 years or more - time to get that baby circulated.

So, I cut 3/4 yard of my Kotobuki fabric into 6" squares and took them in to trade. I came home with all new (to me) 6" squares in a variety of colors and patterns and styles. So much fun! I also traded out 6 fat quarters from my "to sell" selection and brought home 'new' fat quarters. So much for getting rid of fabric.

I haven't posted any e-bay auctions for awhile. I want to get all the rest of the fabric cut up first, and then grouped by color. It will make it a lot easier to put together fat quarter bunces. Right now it's all piled willy-nilly in odds-and-ends boxes in the loft outside my sewing room.