Time To Sew

I was recently talking to a quilty friend who's home full time and she was in awe of the amount of piecing and quilting Su and I manage to do. She said, "How do women who work full-time get sooo much done! What's my problem??" It was so cute. :D

So I've been thinking about this off and on since she said that. I know that I get more done when I have a daily schedule than when I'm on vacation... for all sorts ofreasons. When I have a week off at the house I think I'm going to "get so much sewingdone", but I don't. 'Cause I putter in the yard, read magazines and look at catalogs that I don't have time for when my week is full with work, errands and household chores. When I'm working, I get up an hour before I need to leave, dress, make a simple breakfast, pack a lunch and afternoon snack, stretch for ten minutes, sew for ten minutes and have a ten minute devotion before I charge out the door. That way I feel like I've fed my mind, body and soul. It also keeps in interested in what I'm working on and helps me want to get back to it.

At work I often bring some small task to do for 20-30 minutes on my lunch hour. It might be sorting scraps to be cut - into light and dark, or standing at the staff kitchen counter rotary cutting squares or strips for a project, or doing some hand sewing. When I get home we have dinner early, I usually rest or meditate 20-30minutes to decompress from the day and then into the sewing room to work on two or three things at once. Currently I'm sewing 12" Snail's Trail blocks and sewing my leader and ender squares together for the strippy quilt. As I cut fabric for the Snail's Trail, I'm also cutting squares and strips for the scrap bins; what I call 'cutting clean-up.' After an hour or two of sewing room time, DH and I get together and take turns reading out-loud to one another or we watch a video and I hand applique', 'reverse engineer' a piece I'm working on, or hand quilt (in the winter).
It sounds like a lot doesn't it? But there's so much MORE I want to do! I have a three day weekend coming up and I hope to sew most of Saturday. Even so, I take 'body breaks' and go do little household chores every so often so I don't stiffen up.

I'm curious, would you be willing to share a page out of your day? Drop me an e-mail and tell me how you break away from the responsibilities of the day and get into the quilting mode. It's fun to hear how other people go about the creative endeavor.