Refocusing for 2023

 Hi friends!

I can't believe it's been two years since my last post.  After retiring at the end of January, I continue to be surprised that I'm not doing more sewing each day.  I thought maybe blogging would help build some new habits.

Our usual daily routine starts with Mike and Brady going to the nearby bus stop at 6:30 a.m.  When Mike gets home, we take Sherman for a walk and then I go running and Mike takes a bike ride.  After many long years on the couch working from home, I'm making exercise a priority.  Mike also found a new life outlook in January and has lost a lot of weight. I had thought that I'd be staying up late after retirement but we are both usually pretty tired and typically in bed by 11.  We are hoping to do a Grand Canyon hike in October so we try to build in 1-2 hikes per week.  It's going to get more difficult as the summer heat creeps in.

I thought I'd work on a combination of ancient UFOs and more recent sidelined projects but, so far, I'm doing some easy things like Bonnie Hunter's leader and ender challenge and I'm keeping up with monthly commitments such as the Friendship Group I'm in with the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild.  I try to attend a twice per month sewing get together at the local library and a once a month sew in at a local quilt shop.  Not wanting to be derailed with my home sewing, I've been taking things that don't require a machine.  I often do cutting or a fused mosaic project that my former guild taught.  On deck, I also have the hand-pieced apple core that I started at Erie Street and, even more properly aged, I'm chipping away at the embroidery on the Rolfe foundation pieced animal blocks that I started in a foundation piecing intro class at Erie Street (1996?).  I'm trying to follow Mary Huey's advice to try to fit in a few minutes of sewing and see where it takes me. I'd also like to start journaling my sewing progress as a way to keep motivated and celebrate progress.

I finished the machine quilting on 6 community service quilts, mostly made from flannels that seem to find their way to me from the charity stash (most folks here avoid flannels).  I'd like to try new binding techniques that a fellow PHXMQG member taught to the guild.  I've been dissatisfied with my binding for a while now--things lie flat until I bind them then they have a wave.  I need to slow down and refocus on the basics until my results are better.

Tomorrow is a library day and the quilt shop session in the evening so maybe I'll have some progress to show this weekend!