Now that’s what I call productive! Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I had 4 days off this past weekend.
The first thing I did was to get (re)organized:

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Dry Erase board. It is so functional and flexible. I like writing down my projects as well as all the underlying steps therein, so I can cross each one off as I finish and feel like I’m accomplishing something, even if the whole project isn’t finished. But as you can see, I was running out of room on my whiteboard!

Since the steps for each project don’t change all that much as each project progresses, I decided that paper checklists would give the same organizational satisfaction, offer the expandibility needed to cover all my projects, and free up the whiteboard for other uses. So I printed out each project’s checklist on a sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ paper and tacked them to the wall, in order (L to R) of % completion + priority. (Note that this photo only shows about half the projects…there are about as many more off the right side of the frame…)
Once I got better prioritized, it was easy to focus on exactly what needed to be done on each project. This was convenient, because in lieu of a formal birthday party this year, I decided I’d rather spend the afternoon just making stuff with my friends and family, so I invited everyone over for a “making stuff day.” I worked on projects that didn’t need too much concentration and wouldn’t suffer from too much distraction from a crowd of folks–like ripping out the misaligned seams in the flow chart quilt and piecing the backing for the blue and green leaf-themed quilt I’ve been working on. Unfortunately, I got busy with the making stuff and hanging out with friends, so I didn’t take too many photos. (I think all I have is one of Robin with some yarn down her shirt and a napkin in her pants, and I think I’ll spare her the embarrassment…) I had a really good time, though, and it seemed to just hit the right spot for how I wanted to celebrate my birthday.
My sweetie, who was out visiting for my birthday party, was also tolerant enough to accompany me to the Road to California annual quilt show. I have to confess, I was a little disappointed. Everyone talks about this show like it’s the biggest, baddest, best thing since sliced fabric strips, but to me it seemed not only smaller than the Long Beach show I went to last year, but also less diverse. Where I found many, many innovative and interesting quilts at the Long beach show, I didn’t see much at Road to California that really grabbed me. Sure, all the pieces were flawlessly executed, and many were nice. But not many grabbed my attention with that “wow” factor, and I didn’t see much to influence me in my less traditional path. There were a few exceptions, this being number one:
“Burgoyne and His Spin Doctor…” by Helen Remick. Road to California quilt show, January 2010.
This piece was (one of about 3) in the ’science’ themed section. Mostly what I love about it, besides the colors and the contrast of curved and rounded applique circles juxtaposed with and overlayed on the straight, square-pieced border section, is that those cut-out spaces between the two sections are actually that–cut out. The black you see is actually the backdrop curtains against which the quilts hang. Very nice effect indeed! I know i want to incorporate that idea into something one of these days.
This next one also caught my eye, for the use of the black + yellow as well as the small scale and hand-shaped pieces. It’s a little cutesy, but I think the small size makes it more manageable, and I love the hands which were clearly made by tracing. They could be reaching for the star, as the title describes, or, as my sweetie pointed out, they also look very much like hands maneuvering quilt fabric through a machine when quilting. I don’t think the two ideas are mutually exclusive–aren’t we all reaching for a sort of accomplishment or perfection “star” when we create something?
“Reaching for a Star” by Bobbi Finley and Carol G. Jones, Road to California quilt show, January 2010.
In addition to wandering the quilt show and watching napping through some football, we also went out to dinner with my parents for my birthday. My mom got the making stuff bug and made me a Very Hungry Caterpillar-inspired cake:

Plus, she also made me this awesome Very Hungry Caterpillar stuffed toy! I’m very happy and excited about this, not just because it’s way cool and came out great, but because my mom made it just for me!

Seeing the quilt show of course inspired me to get cracking on my projects. Here’s the final pieced top for the Film Noir quilt:


And here’s me working on finishing up the top for the electromagnetic spectrum, in my wonderful and snuggly new robe that my sweetie made me for my birthday. I feel so honored to be surrounded by so many creative and talented craftspeople. It also shows the artist in her true environment: pajamas. That’s right, this is pretty representational of how I spend my mornings before going to work, right down to the uniform.


And lo and behold, here’s what the studio looks like when I actually make progress on projects and organize them neatly into piles. That’s how I know progress was really made! (Click through to the Flickr page to see notes).
