Multi-tasking and me...
Someone once asked me how I could work on so many projects, simultaneously. The short answer is, "I can't." The long answer is, "I can't, not without lots of notes to myself." Here is a very bad picture of how I do some of the multi-tasking that I do. I had to chop half of it off and then change the color of it so that somebody won't be able to see what I am up to. As I work on one quilt, when I start to tire of it and it seems to be more of a chore than just fun, I know it is time to put that particular project away for a little while. Now I know that there are a whole lot of people out there who have a greater attention span than I do and they find some sort of sick satisfaction from finishing a project they just started only a month or so ago, but that's not me. I have found that when the time comes to walk away from a quilt- to start something new, that it is crucial to leave myself plenty of written reminders of what I am doing, where I am going and how I plan on getting there. I never get why post-it notes say that a person is a nerd. It just tells me the person is way too busy to assign important brain cells to menial tasks that a paper and pen can manage quite well. So, I compartmentalize the quilt pieces of one quilt into zippper bags with a little note as to what they are. Then all the zipper bags go into a larger zipper bag, with general instructions of what I have done and what I need to do to finish the quilt. This may sound dry, but I try to leave myself inspirational notes that will make me laugh later, and encourage me to finish this project. OK, that may sound nerdy, and it is. This one says something like, "I have all the units made in order to make all 130 blocks for this quilt. What was I thinking?? But hey! I'm halfway there!" On the wall over my work counter, I keep a post-it note of quilt projects I am working on, so when I go into the quilting room- with my cup of tea, I spend a few minutes looking over the list, deciding what I shall work on that day- or I start something new. I keep a list of finished tops on one side- for days when I feel like quilting. Most days I do some of both. I can't begin to say how lovely it is to have a space dedicated just for sewing. I don't have to pack everything up anymore so that we can sit down for supper. Much nicer this way. As I finish quilts tops they move to the quilting side of the counter. I used to re-arrange all the notes to fill in the gap left by the finished quilt, but I find these spaces indicate a project accomplished, and that's a lot of fun to see.