So Many Quilts…So Little Time

I came to a realization around the ending of 2009, namely, that I don't have enough time left to finish all the quilts I want to make.

I've been working up to closing my "business" - boy, saying it was the biggest mistake I'd ever made to open a business is the understatement of a lifetime. I have to get the ball rolling down it's last hill by the end of this month. And while I was doing all my thinking about how I'm going to close it, I realized that the quilts I currently have started will take me about six years to complete.

That was an eye-opener. I'm 52 years old. I figure I've got about 20 years of useful quilting time left to me, after which I'll simply be lucky to get anything done, quilting or otherwise.

I was supposed to make a quilt for my brother and his wife - two years ago, for their 40th birthdays. I finally bought some of the fabric and picked a design. Yay.

At long last, I've settled on a design for a quilt for my Daughter. In fact, when I get up from this computer, I'm going to start CUTTING! And I only got around to that because my Boyfriend had me over to his place for my entire four-day weekend - see, here at his place, I have no other obligations. That's why I can work on one project at a time when I'm here!

I don't want to make the mistake I fear my sweet Auntie made, and the one my darling Dad is making.

See, Auntie love to make miniatures. Not miniature chocolates, but miniature scenes. Dollhouses are one example of a miniature scene. But other miniatures include scenes inside a (cleaned-out) egg, half boxes with scenes in them. They're usually rooms, often with a theme, Christmas, for example.

I learned many helpful hints from Auntie about crafts. For example, you use the sticks they put in "Pogos" to lay a miniature hardwood floor. Popsicle sticks are too fat for their length, it doesn't give the same illusion as the thinner ones in Pogos.

But Auntie was in a terrible car accident, and it basically knocked the stuffing out of her. She "recovered" according to the doctors, but she never had the energy to really get back into her crafting again.

But that didn't stop her from collecting stuff for her crafts! (Yes, I fear Auntie had the Hoarding Gene.) When my cousin described the whole family attempting to clear out her home, apparently they discovered huge boxes full of cleaned eggs. I'm talking in the thousands! My cousin said to her mother, "What? You're never going to eat another egg?" when Auntie protested the throwing-out of all those eggs she had so carefully saved.

And my Dad, well this year he'll turn 80. And he still hasn't figured out that he's retired. He's still busy starting one (failing) business after another.

Well, that's not how I intend to go out. I've got a 20-year goal: finish every quilt I can.

So I'm no longer taking on other people's quilts - no time!

Gotta go!