A week full of “stuff”

I’m sitting in my studio, early morning, writing this while the world sleeps. The sun’s coming up and there’s a breeze. After a week of heat warnings and high temperatures, today dawned cool. I even used a blanket last night to sleep! What a great feeling to burrow in bed under the covers …

Thinking about my week … what did I do? I’m still cleaning and culling and bagging stuff to sell at the studio sale. If you’ve been reading, I announced that it was going to be on September 2nd. And that “there’s no going back now” that the date had been announced. Weeeellllll … Yup! I changed my mind. Because I can. It’s my prerogative, right?

In talking to different people, one of them my daughter, she suggested I looked at having the studio sale in a hall. A few advantages: better parking, public bathrooms, more room, and no worries about the weather’s whims. Mmmmhhhh …. what to do, what to do? It seemed like a good idea, so I started asking around. Some halls are horribly expensive so that’s out. When you are selling stuff for $1.00, $2.00, $5.00 and $10.00 for the most part, paying $1,500.00 dollars for a hall seems counterproductive. But I found a place – through one of my friends – that’s actually affordable. My first query as to dates came back as booked, so I’m looking into optional dates. And yes, I will keep you posted, but so that you know, I’m looking into late November now. What can I say? It’ll be when it’ll be … :)

Looking a bit further into the future gives me peace of mind. I can stop stressing as to what happens if the weather turns, how am I going to advertise so people actually come, and if I have it in my driveway, where am I going to put everything. This has been a major undertaking. And as I have been “brutal” in my cleaning, a lot of stuff is going: yesterday I pulled layer cakes, 4-5 packages of 5″ charm packs, and a few jelly rolls. Am I sad to see them (hopefully) go? No, not really. They’ve been sitting in my studio for a while. And if I haven’t touched them yet … well, maybe someone else will be thrilled to have them.

Aside from that, the week has been busy with “stuff”. My TV decided to malfunction 10 days ago and after spending time on the phone with various people, it was decided that it was probably the motherboard (yikes). So on Monday it went to the doctor’s to get diagnosed. I’m still waiting to hear from them.

Tuesday found me looking for something in the front bedroom which is in a chaotic state right now, with stuff on the floors – bagged and ready to go – so I find myself jumping over stuff. In looking for what I was looking for, I found a pile of monoprinted fabrics. That went into the “maybe to go” pile. Did I find what I was looking for? Nope. But I found a whole host of other stuff.

I also packed a quilt to be sent to Washington to the International Quilt & Fiber Arts Festival. I don’t enter shows often anymore, but they extended the submission date on this one and sent about 3-4 email asking to please, pretty please, enter a quilt. So I thought “Why not?”, and there you have it “Low Tide at Rocky Point” made it in. Off it went on Friday – fingers crossed it gets there safely (always a concern when shipping work).

I also worked on some collages – an activity reserved for the “end-of-the-day” once the have-to-dos are out of the way. I finally added the final touches to the rocky collage I had started a few weeks ago. I knew I needed to make some changes but the energy wasn’t there. Friday was the day. I posted a photo on Facebook and Instagram and then I changed my mind and added more papers to one of the bottom rocks, as it was bothering me. Here it is – finished:

I am working on a new collage now, a bit different this time – and I’ll show it soon. For now, I’m going to go get my week started: have a cup of coffee, maybe a hard boiled egg and then figure out what to do this day (oh! I have to go pick tomatoes and peppers from the few plants I have). After that … the day’s full of possibilities.

Thanks for reading my rumblings today. Have a good week and keep making wonderful stuff. Until I write again …

Ana