Call to Action.

Sometimes I wonder what it is that finally urges us to DO something about things that have been niggling at us for ages. We put up with them for so long, then ...WHAM...we can't stand it any longer & we have to do something about it! The straw that breaks the camel's back.

My sewing room has been driving me nuts-I can't stand it when it gets too messy.

I know I have plenty of friends who can only be creative when they have a mess around them- not me. Its not like I want my room to be pristine all the time, in fact I find this counter-productive, in that, I don't want to mess up my nice clean room again, so I don't sew.....go figure.I just like it to be tidy enough so I can cut things out & have most of my things away-not in piles all over the place.

Saturday I played around with double folded mitred corners to make a 'window' in a chalk board place mat I was making for our Grandson who is coming to visit next week. Took me most of the day measuring & playing around to do what I wanted-I realised after I cut it & folded it I needed to allow 12" instead of 8" to get the size window I needed- lesson learnt & then I had to do my window a different way so as not to waste the space fabric I had bought for him in the US as I didn't have more....where there is a will there is a way. No mistakes in this house just a new way to make something!

This morning I was going to start on DIL's quilt- the aim being I'll make everyone in the family a quilt for Christmas....at this rate maybe 2 will get them,if they are lucky, (only because I have the top already made for one of them!)

And that's when it started. The towel I throw over the chair I have up here in the sewing room, slid to the floor, as it usually does-it slides off & I pick it up & throw it back on,constantly. I decided that I'd just recover the chair-just like that, I'd picked up the towel once too often. It has been doing that for the past 2 years....it never really bugged me that much, but this morning that was it- time to do something about it. I pulled out some fabric that was sitting in a pile on the floor & chop, chop, stitch, stitch...2.5 hours later I was the proud owner of a very swishy looking chair- covered beautifully- couldn't believe how well this all went together....why didn't I do this sooner?

That was then I decided that the room could do with a bit of a tidy up, thorough vacuum & all the surfaces wiped down & ALL the piles of fabric from my recent trip be put away....I'm not sure what happened along the way but the curtains came down- I decided that the roman blind wasn't going back up again ....now that I look at the new curtain (yep, I just sewed a new one- back into that stash again!)-I'm sitting here in my very tidy sewing room & looking at the new window treatment & thinking 'why the hell didn't I do this 2 years ago when the curtain started to bug me then?'- even washing the sheer curtain has made a difference!

My room is looking all light & airy & its so tidy- everything is away-including my old sewing machine that has been sitting here on the desk since I bought the CV (anyone want a loved 2140 with more hoops & gadgets than you'll ever need- I have one for sale at a very cheap price!) Incredibly tidy. Oh, I love it!!!

Now what prompted all this action?-I never set out to make chair covers, pull curtains down & wash them- re-arrange the sewing room & make new curtains & put everything away.....I wish I could bottle this urge to action- I would make a fortune selling it to mothers of teenagers who never want to do anything......imagine putting it in the MOTH's morning coffee & getting all the odd jobs done around the place.....in a sewing slump?- just 2 lumps in the coffee & off you go! No more waiting for the final straw.

My neighbour rang this afternoon to let us know she'd been burgled last night-they got her wallet with her cash & cards-they have already tried to use the cards....but what was more upsetting was they came in while she was asleep & she never heard a thing, even after breaking a glass door to gain entry- she's feeling somewhat violated . This will be a reminder to us to be more vigilant with where we leave things when we go to bed.

MOTH can very lax in leaving the doors open when he is out doing the gardening in the backyard-I'm always asking him to lock the doors...maybe this might prompt him to lock the door! Our suburb is not immune as he thinks it is, to being burgled.

I finished a pair of socks this week- oh, have they been dragging on, I never thought I'd get them finished- these were the gainsey toe up pair that I started in Billings....but I can now tick them off as finished! Have started the second sock to match the purple one, also started in Billings-this one shouldn't take so long as I like the pattern better-its more interesting. Not sure what I'll start when I finish this one- more socks maybe, I have much more yarn!

All in all a productive week-I can feel good about everything I managed to get done-even managed to get 5 patients onto the new computer system at work- we won't even go there with those changes!

Happy Crafting
Oz- Tralien