My New Gig -- Not Teaching!?!

It's the first morning of my "retirement" from teaching quilt making -- called for a late breakfast (10 a.m.) of my favorite tea (yes, I use my coffee press for tea) and oatmeal with apples, walnuts, and maple syrup!

There's a stack of quilts on a chair in the living room that need putting away but they'll still be there later today . . . . and tomorrow! 

Not going to miss the packing and unpacking of traveling to teach!!

One of my birding friends asked the other evening "what are you going to do now?"

Does this look like the habitat of a person who is going to have trouble keeping busy?

I'll forgive him because he's one of those guys who is bored with retirement.

I'm starting out by clearing out my teaching files and workshop paraphernalia.

This is my light/dark kaleidoscope teaching sample.

I engineered the "step-by-step" samples into two more blocks . . .

. . . to make a sweet little quilt top for my charity project. 

The leaf color in this red print from the era of bluish greens can be a challenge and so I was delighted to find enough of a similar blue/green in my stash to add an accent border as I worked to make the top large enough to be a child size quilt.  All those clumps of fabric laying around the outside edge are possible "final borders".

Quickest way for me to make a decision is lay them all out and leave the room.

When I come back, the best candidate usually reveals itself quickly.

Auditioning this way leads to intuitive decisions which are less taxing on my brain.

Saving mental energy!! 

And here's the finished top!

It's moved into the stack of charity quilt tops along with some of that blue/green for the binding.

It should be finished in time for our annual Christmas donation to a local transition program for young women with children.

I'm back at work hand quilting this beauty -- in the past seven days, I've finished one and a half of the large motifs and started the border quilting (keeping it simple).  

The cutting table is a busy spot as I prep for several projects -- looks like there are at least 3 different projects in this picture!?!  One for a charity quilt, one a long term scrappy quilt that has been on my "to-do" list for some time (and is suppose to whittle down the quantity of reproduction prints in my stash -- we'll see????).  There is also a new y-seam project in the offing -- not quite ready to share but if you are a fan of Set-In Piecing Simplified, you are going to love this one!!

I'm also plotting a sew-along in November that will feature a simple quilt you can make without leaving your stash.  The purpose of the sew-along will be to #shareaquilt.

It will also be a perfect pattern to introduce a friend to quilt making -- hoping to suck in my DIL!!

More to come!!

I am currently dealing with a bit of knitting fever!  

Having successfully completed a cardigan for my oldest daughter this summer, I'm hot to knit more than socks!!  

The flood of new Indie hand-dyes is hard to resist but I will try to stay calmer about the "starting" of knit projects than my quilting starts -- one at a time and all the way to the finish!

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My life isn't really changing as much as it does for many retirees -- I've been easing into it for 10 years and while I did think I've last a bit longer as a teacher, I'm excited about this new path.

I'll remain active in my local quilting community through my charity stitching group and continue to share ideas and skills via this blog.

My "retirement" gift to myself is a new camera (well, I literally wore out the last one)

and I'm hoping to do a bit more nature photography with it.

This portrait of a Lincoln's sparrow that popped up on the rail for a minute yesterday delights me!

So here's to hardly any deadlines and less responsibility!!

Have a lovely weekend!

Mary