Changes

My BBF, who I normally exchange emails with almost everyday, sent me a message that said "If you can't find time to write back, at least update the blog"! I'm afraid I have been pretty lax about keeping in touch electronically with the outside world.

I've been totally consumed for the last few weeks playing dominoes with my husband. Not the normal game, we are playing the grown up version of Construction Dominoes. I'm sure that you all have played this popular game where one project effects another, and another, and another... Our current game board is my quilt shop. We will be making a "big" announcement very soon and we have decided to do some "sprucing up". In preparation we plan to shift some merchandise to make more effective use of our space.

Over the years, as our business has grown, we have stretched and squeezed our building to suit our needs, but the interior walls have remained in place. For this spin on the merchandise roulette wheel, I decided that a section of wall had to go. It would open our main selling space to a nice size room that currently served as my office/wholesale/storage/ junk room. It would improve our traffic flow into the classroom space and give us room for more fabric shelves. That is the good news.

The bad news is that I would have to clean out that room to make it happen. Not an easy task. We have hundreds of copies of the patterns that we produce in that room. It also contains - or contained- a large color printer and all the paper and ink supplies, my work table, shipping supplies, seasonal merchandise, design files, as well as every other item that nobody knew what to do with. If it didn't have a home, it was tossed into that room. You know what a hard time quilters have throwing even the teeny tiny scraps away.

My idea was to spend the next several weeks (or longer) moving and rearranging as I sorted through "stuff" that cluttered the room, which I have to admit was long overdue for a good cleaning. My HUSBAND'S idea was to take the wall down this past weekend while I was away on retreat. We had an obvious conflict in timing. He won.

Ours is a mixed marriage. He is neat and organized, I'm not. If he is having a really bad day, nothing makes him happier than being able to clean something out and throw something away. I on the other hand am a quilter. I don't throw anything away if I plan to use it at some point in this lifetime. I might NEED it for a project. That scrap of fabric might be THE piece I need to complete an award winning project someday. Thirty + years of explaining this concept to him has made him a bit more understanding, but he still gives me "that look" when I try to justify my piles of pieces that are threatening to take over our lives. After all, who in their right mind would toss out 41 perfectly cut triangles or 28 half square triangle blocks that were left from a project that is not yet quilted?

My husband thinks I need an intervention. Although I think he should mind his own business, I have to admit that he might, possibly, but I am not saying he is, ... right.

If I am completely honest with myself, I have to admit that I am never going to do anything with those corners I clipped off of the 200 flying geese units that I made for the quilt I finished 8 years ago. But they are so nicely pressed, and squared up, and stacked in neat little piles. There must be enough to make....... a small table runner? I could add borders! I don't really want or need a 200 piece table runner that matches a quilt that I have given away, which explains why the neatly stacked triangles are still in the drawer. They sit right next to the neatly paired triangles that were left from a project that I can't even remember making. Those are on top of the T-shirt squares that I cut from my son's grade school shirts. My son is 28.

Ok, ok, I have to go shopping today, I guess I will add a box of extra large garbage bags to the list!