I’ve been away from blogland lately.  Life took a turn a few months ago and I’m barely getting back to a kind of normal.  I’m fine physically, my family is fine.  In the overall scheme of things, I’m very grateful to where we are in life and all the abundance and opportunities we have.  The last couple of weeks I’ve been meaning to get back on and say hello.  I didn’t want to just jump on without acknowledging my disappearance but I also didn’t know how much to say.  I tend to overshare and I struggle with that fine line between what’s too personal and what’s okay.

We’ve experienced so many life changes that I mentally couldn’t do any more than take one day at a time.  And blogging and quilting were beyond me.  Over the last couple of months, we moved.  My daughter started freshman year at her high school and I enrolled my son into the 4th school in 4 years and my stepson moved in.  And randomly, my MIL would come and go as well.  In the middle of all that my big work project was completed.  A lot of changes, a lot of personalities, and things are just now slowly coming together.

In terms of quilting, as soon as we knew we were moving, I started packing my quilting stuff first.  I started with the the non-essentials – the fabric, the projects that have been waiting for me for years, the supplies I didn’t need for current projects, etc.  But then I packed up everything and I packed up my knitting stuff.  Everything was in boxes but for a few hand projects.  I didn’t touch any of them.  I went to work, I came home, I packed, I cleaned and that was my schedule.  If I wasn’t packing I was zoning out in front of the TV.  I usually don’t do that because I’m not a big TV person but I guess that was what I needed at that time.

The new house is nicer than the old house.  There’s a pool, I like the layout of the rooms better.  It’s closer to my office (7 minutes).  It’s closer to the girl’s school (5 minutes).  And the boy can walk to his new school if he had to.  So all in all, the move was a good thing.  The things that are not great affects my quilty habit.  The house is just a bit smaller than the old house and I can’t figure out where to put my cutting table.  Actually I need a new cutting table because I was using a 6″ folding table at the old house and that table will not fit in my new office/sewing room.  The lighting is horrible and I have to do something about it.  But the biggest issue I have is my mid arm Bailey and his frame.  I quilted 1 quilt on it and was just finishing up Tell It To the Stars when we started the moving process.  Tell It To The Stars is sitting in a bag waiting for Bailey to be set up so I can quilt it.  In the old house, Bailey was in the garage.  We didn’t use the garage other than storage and Bailey because we had a long driveway to the back of the house that could fit 10 cars if we wanted to.  We don’t have that in the new house.  In fact, right now the garage just has boxes in it along with Bailey and my grandma’s old Juki and our bikes, etc.  Our cars are in front of the house and we now have limited parking space.  We’ve got most of the boxes in the house and in the backyard unpacked.  I plan on getting the remaining 4-5 done this week.  Then I’ll start working on the garage.

I do have my sewing machines unpacked and I am working on the back for Scrapitude.  I haven’t put up my design wall yet so that has been difficult.  In the meantime, I’m working on my old hand project “Raining Cats and Dogs”.  I’m on the last block so once this is done, I can put the top together.  I have been thinking about quilting as a I go so that I can do the quilting on my Bernina in chunks.  I do not want to quilt this on Bailey because I don’t have the experience on Bailey that I want to quilt this on it.  But I may just finish the top and then quilt the whole thing on the Bernina.  I’ve still got time to figure this out, I’m just glad to be getting something done.

In my life, when things get rough or difficult, I can honestly say that it is usually for a good reason.  God looks out for me and my family and even if I can’t see why something is happening, I know that it’s happening for a good reason and it will all turn out eventually.  So the move brought us all down, me, my husband, the kids, none of us wanted to move.  But we’re in a better house with better landlords and I shaved off 200 miles a week from my commute, not to mention the time spent in the car.

I’m having problems uploading pictures from my phone.  It probably has to do with an update or something.  When I get that resolved I’ll start posting pictures again.

Happy Saturday!

Happy quilting!

~Melanie