I’ve been out of sorts lately.  It’s the first week of the quarter and that is usually pretty busy for me.  But this isn’t just any quarter, this is 4th quarter.  So while the first week has been normal as always, we have to get everything up to speed quicker, faster, sooner because in a matter of weeks, everyone will be clamoring about end of year stuff.  All of our >70 YOs will need their Required Minimum Distributions and there will be some serious tax planning conversations and with every conversation, a series of reports and analysis need to be done.  THEN – whatever is decided will need to be implemented before year end.  If you have a financial advisor, please be conscious of their administrative staff.  If they send you something PLEASE do not wait until 12/31 to return the documents.  I would love to have 12/31 off and if I’ve got any pending client documents out that I’m waiting on, I can’t.  Every year someone always waits until the last minute and I’m sitting at my desk until 5pm trying to get all the documents in on time.  It’s a pain – It’s exciting and busy and two days are never alike.  I complain but I enjoy it.

And every year in the middle of 4th quarter is the holidays (are the holidays?)… Between my birthday in a couple of weeks, Halloween, Thanksgiving, my mother’s birthday, Christmas and my dad’s birthday – I just get so overwhelmed.  My quilt life suffers and unfortunately if I do not quilt I do not have much to blog about.  It’ll be the same stuff over and over again – I’m still hand quilting the hand quilt, I’m still applique-ing Raining Cats and Dogs, I’m still  – blah blah blah.  No finishes and that means no yardage out.  But I am happy to say that I will keep buying fabric because if I cannot quilt I can at least buy fabric!  🙂

Despite life and all the responsibilities one has, I will make every effort to at least post something regularly.  But if you notice a bit of lag… like this last week… please hang in there!

Anyway, this week I’m working on a secret project.  I can’t post pictures but I’m almost done with the top.  I’ve pretty much stopped working on anything else but that since I’ve got a rapidly approaching deadline on that one.  And I’m not as quick on the sewing machine as others are.  Oh well – once it is done and packaged off, I will definitely post pictures and talk at length about it.  I did get a drawstring bag completed.  This is from Bag Making Basics on Craftsy.com. I actually started it a few weeks ago and just didn’t get it done because the drawstring part of it was just beyond what I was capable of at that moment.  Then I had the mini Retreat with my Guild.  I wouldn’t even have finished it if it wasn’t for the fact that I JUST WANTED TO FINISH SOMETHING! So it’s done and it’s cute.  I’ll make a few more because I didn’t like the drawstring part of it and I may have an easier way to do it with one of the tools I have on hand. I’ll try it out and let you know if it works or not.  Then I’ll make the bucket bag and see how that goes.  I’m getting into bag making and I’m using these classes as a starting off point.  The next class has a little tote and a zipper pouch.  Both of these classes are FREE!  and that’s the best price ever.  I’ve got a couple of bag patterns I bought a few guild meetings ago that I want to try out but I’m not comfortable with bag making and zippers, etc. so I’m hoping that once I’ve taken these two classes and made a few I’ll feel better about jumping into the patterns I have.

1st Drawstring Bag

So I used 1/2 yard this week.  Nothing added so that’s GREAT!

Stash count: **I started counting 5/23/13…

Used this week: 1/2 yards
Used year to Date: 27.5 yards
Added this Weeks: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 148.75 yards
Net Added for 2013: 121.25 yards

see more stash reports at Patchwork Times.