Getting back to normal...

First, let me say thanks a million for all the wonderful vacation wishes and the lovely comments about the new wall hanging. I love Cheri's designs and they are so easy to make. The week flew by in what seemed like 2 days! We did absolutely nothing on the list of things we wanted to accomplish and although some really needed to be done...it's perfectly fine. Hubby got some much needed computer work done and I spent my whole week with him. So I'd say it was a good week. Most of the honey-do's got postponed due to hubby popping out his SI joint in his left hip. Don't know what that is? Neither did we, until we looked it up on the computer. Gotta love the internet. SO lifting, bending, and stairs were out...and still are for the rest of the week. He's doing fine now and after this week will be healed enough not to have to worry about popping it out as easily.

On the sewing front, I took a few stitches to finish off the crow for my Christmas Sampler. I started to pull fabrics for the next block and just got stuck in the decisions. I really need to move on this project since I want it up on the wall by December 1st. That got me thinking about how to pull myself out of the quilting slump that seems to be never ending and get to work.

To that end, I let some inspiration from a few blog friends do the trick. For months...or frankly as long as I can remember..I've watched several people get ready for retreats by pre-cutting all the fabrics and packaging them so they are all set to hit the machine running. Dawn has done this numerous times and gets loads done. So does Darlene! Since I seem to be having the worst trouble getting the decisions made about what fabrics to use, and getting all the cutting done, I thought...huh maybe doing that will work for me. So last night I started getting things cut.

I have all the pieces ready and packaged for one small doll quilt and the fabric picked out for a few others. I'll cut those out today.

Then I started copying the templates out for the holiday tree quilt. It's a very simple stack and whack sort of design using 10 FQ's in red, green, and cream. All I need are two more freezer paper copies and I'm ready to stack and well... start whacking. Then all I have to do is store them carefully until I can start sewing them back together.

I can't say this will help the slump, but it can't hurt. At least it's moving in the right direction and getting things accomplished. But first, I'm off to find some lovely combinations for my swap blocks and get cutting those so I can start sewing! Getting those out to my swap buddies is the first priority!