A new direction in life and quilting

Today I make a bold move. Earlier this week I joined a club on Yahoo groups named WIProducers. While I still live at home and constantly fight for craft-room space with my mother, I'm grateful that she puts up with my mess. The group acts as a supportive environment for those who 'suffer' the urge to start everything and finish one or two things, and have many projects 'breeding' in their sewing rooms until they get to an unmanageable rate. I myself find that my room is a particulary good environment for English Paper Piecing projects to breed. In the weeks I had off during Christmas, the single hexagon quilt I had in progress somehow grew to 3 different PP variations, with fabric piles to match.

I have WIPs and UFOs all over the place. I can't even remember half of the kits I have, and what my current WIPs are. Mostly they are hidden out of sight, so they become forgotten. I plan on attending the craft show we have in Melbourne during February, and I know I'll buy more kits/supplies then, even though my boyfriend usually comes with me and before each purchase gives me the horrible "tell me why you really need this" talk. Most of the time I can convince him (which is probably a bad thing) but he has talked me out of several huge purchases which I really didn't need.

Last year when I was buying my new bed, he made me promise that I'd clean out my room as I was still living in boxes from when we moved house 5 years ago. It took me a week, but I got rid of so much stuff and had so much space and a brand new bed (it's the prettiest in the house- but I still got the 'how many pillows do you really need?" talk). The bed takes up most of the space in the room, but I'm trying to think of ways that I can move things around to maybe have a comfy chair that I can spend nights sewing in. I have one corner where the TV is, but I don't want to throw out the TV because then I won't have to buy a new one when I move out in a year or so after I've finished my teaching degree.

My last job had taught me to keep a long list of daily tasks (because on average I was performing around 30 tasks per day), and the WIProducers also suggest that a list of 'Finishes' is maintained to encourage motivation. The list primarily focuses on quilters, but my other love is cross stitch so I will also include that. I do have a few stitcheries lying around but they can be turned into quilts so they still count! Blogging, in my eyes, is the new-age version of journalling, so I will continue to maintain the blog as much as I can. Now that I'm back at uni I'm hoping to get more craft time and less stress time.

The current challenge at the WIProducers group is something referred to as 'Cinderella-ing' which I'm going to have to do today. The basic premise of this challenge is to have a clean creative environment in which to work. I'm also going to sort through and find as many WIPs and kits as I can so I can start making a list. My boyfriend remembers more projects that I'm working on that I do! I currently only have one UFO to my knowledge, a stained glass frog wall hanging that I've completely fallen out of love with. I acknowledge that as a quilter, some techniques will appeal to me more than others, and unfortunately, stained glass quilting is just one of those techniques that doesn't appeal.

I'm off now to create that WIP list!