I had to run Finn to the vet for a routine vaccine today and sort through 2 weeks of mail but the rest of the afternoon was spent organizing the yarn closet. After sorting and combining like yarns in project type bins … hats, blankets, scarves… I ended up with 15 bins. I probably could have decreased that by one bin but I didn’t feel like going through the miscellaneous bin skein by skein. For now it will go to Big Canoe and I’ll discover what’s in there later.

I also sorted through more of the backup photos. I drafted this log cabin variation in Electric Quilt in the first couple years I was quilting and made it twice. One was donated and one was given to my Mother-in-law.

I also ran across some old photos of Chesty. I won’t share them all but I think he was waiting for us to turn on the fire!

You guys think my website is just for you all but it’s great for me too. I often remake quilts and why figure out things twice … or three or four times?! I’m getting ready to start a second Log Cabin Heart quilt so I went to the website and looked over my notes. I’m very lucky that Mom cut and appliquéd two sets of hearts for me so I’m all ready to make some blocks.

Here’s one of my early quilts made in the first year I was quilting. Almost from the beginning I wanted to adapt or draft my own quilts and thanks to the Electric Quilt software I was able to do that. Here’s my EQ drawing of a Rainbow Log Cabin Quilt.

And here is the quilt I made. Quilted on my domestic machine too. Not too bad for someone who had been sewing less than a year!

I’d almost forgotten where this quilt went… it was given to my Mother-in-law to gift to her sister Trudy. One thing that I LOVE is that through the years I can always tell WHERE we were living from the photos of the quilts. The fence out front at our Pembroke Pines Townhouse was perfect for photographing quilts.

I was floundering a little this morning wondering where I should start … after going back and forth for a while, I decided to take a deep breath and just start anywhere! I chose to start in my guest room closet and it’s done! Keith has a bunch of things now waiting for him to donate and what’s left is ready to be loaded on the truck except for a couple partially filled bins that I’ll add to from other rooms.

I came across a couple of bins that were packed up in Minneapolis in 2014 … and never unpacked. They went first to Big Canoe and then came here in 2018 when we sold the condo. You’d think everything in those bins could be discarded but nope. There were some important things in them that I’ll keep, some things will get donated, and some things got tossed. Kind of like how it will go in the rest of the house.

Second up was another closet – this one in my sewing room and that one is almost finished too. I’ve just got two small bins to go through and it’s done (but there are 4 other closets in that room!). I was very happy to find my old computer back up CDs in this closet. During our move from Minnesota the photo album of the quilts made during my first 5 years was lost. I just had to take a look at one of the CDs and I found some great family photos I hadn’t seen in a while AND quilts from my first year of quilting 2000 – 2001.

We were living in a townhouse in Pembroke Pines FL in 2000 when I caught the quilting bug. I started sewing at our dining room table … you can see I put some bins in the corner and have stuff everywhere. This was back when I had to actually clean up and put things away at the end of every sewing day! Don’t I look young? Hard to believe that was just 21 years ago.

It didn’t take long for me to take over part of the small family room where Keith had his office and where my computer desk was … you can see I was running out of space on the bookcase. I had also upgraded the Singer sewing machine I’d bought at Walmart to the Elna that I still sew on.

So, I just got another bookcase!

The move from Pembroke Pines FL to Marietta GA was the easiest one from a quilting standpoint. That was my entire stash on those two bookshelves and I hadn’t bought the longarm yet.

I’ll be working on a few Log Cabin Heart blocks this week here and there but since there won’t be much current quilting content, I’ll continue to share some of my older pre-blog quilts from the back up CDs. I just have to make sure that I don’t let myself get TOO distracted looking at old photos.

The next two and a half months will be busy and stressful and I don’t expect to have a lot of time for quilting so it will probably be kind of boring around here. A month or so ago Keith started talking about “testing” the real estate market in Tampa by putting the townhouse up for sale by owner … that led to a lot more discussion and this week we made some decisions.

We are going to go ahead and put the house up for sale in a couple weeks but we don’t have to sell…..

We are not downsizing but because we bought the Big Canoe house furnished, we’ll end up keeping some furniture from both houses. We’re going to move the furniture we plan to keep and my longarm and stash to Big Canoe sometime late June – I won’t have a definite date until I meet with the movers.

So, if we don’t get an offer we like on the Tampa house, it will remain our primary residence and we’ll continue to go back and forth spending time in both places. The Tampa house will just be a little more sparsely furnished which isn’t a bad thing! I will still have a sewing room set up but the longarm and stash will get settled in at Big Canoe and I’ll just do piecing in FL. Kind of the reverse of what I’ve been doing the last year since we bought the Big Canoe house.

If we do get an offer we like and sell the Tampa house, the excess furniture will be donated and we will become full time residents at Big Canoe..

I’m a big fan of having a plan so this all works for me. I’ll go through the decluttering, discarding, donating, organizing, packing, and moving process regardless of whether we sell the house or not. After all, we knew that eventually we’d go through the moving process again at some point and as Keith has said, might as well do it before we get old!

I’ve coordinated many moves for us in the last 32 years (this will be move #14) so I’ve got the process down pat but the biggest stressor for me will be trying to sell the house while we’re still living in it and while I’m packing. We could wait to put it on the market but spring and summer are prime moving seasons so we want to take advantage of people looking to buy… wish me luck!

We head back to Tampa tomorrow and I did get out for a 4.3 mile hike today in between a few house chores. It’s gotten so green here just in the last week – spring has arrived! I also managed a little quiet knitting time listening to an audio book.

I feel pretty happy with my week’s work! Starting last Sunday through this Sunday, I accomplished quite a bit. I even got in 2 hikes and out on the lake in my kayak! Full disclosure, the Shell stitch blanket was about 1/3 complete and the log cabin blocks were made but getting 6 tops plus a doll quilt assembled and finishing up the blanket makes me happy.

We have two days before we head home and I’ll be closing down the sewing room, running errands, doing laundry, packing, starting a new blanket, and maybe even getting one last hike in. I won’t be sewing.

I’ve had this 4 Patch Stars quilt on my website since 2013 and haven’t made it yet. It’s designed as an 8 inch finished block and I think I just didn’t want to work with the 2 inch finished HSTs.

So this morning I played around with the design. I could use either a 3 inch finished HST for a 12 inch block or I have a GO die for a 2.5 inch finished HST which would make a 10 inch block. I might eventually make it in blue AND make a scrappy multicolored version too. I’ve got a busy couple months coming up so I don’t expect to start one anytime soon but hopefully this year!