Listing Priorities

Today is What’s Leah Working on Wednesday so let’s take a trip into the sewing room to see what’s going on.

As you can tell, my studio is a wreck right now. A combination of too little time and way too many projects has combined to form a big mess over my sewing tables.

If you think this isn’t that bad, you should know that this photo was taken after cleaning the table off for 2 hours. The fabric up front in the photo is actually folded! I’m still uncovering yardage, tools, and the odd pair of scissors out from under all this stuff.

I think I’m just a naturally messy person. I was never very good about putting my toys away and it looks like my son James is the same.

I have to laugh when I walk into his room and find his floor looking exactly like my studio tables. You can’t teach what you can’t do yourself, so that is one battle I’m not even going to try to win.

But my giant messes are usually indicative of my general state. If the room is a wreak, generally I’ve been having a pretty good time, such a good time I haven’t wanted to stop and clean.

And things really are great right now!

I started thinking about it the other day how often I will talk and write about being busy, stressed, or dealing with some personal issue from my past.

It’s easy to ignore the bigger picture: that I am, on a daily basis, extremely happy and feel overwhelmingly lucky to be building something so awesome.

I jump out of bed in the morning hours before Josh and James not because I have to get work done, but because I can’t wait to get back to work!

I love this business, I love quilting, and I absolutely positively love sharing it all with you!

Of course, sometimes I bite off more than I can chew and it doesn’t feel good to have a million ideas and goals in my head and only so many hours in the day to work on them.

That just feels overwhelming – all the options, all the possibilities, swirling around my head clamoring for attention.

It’s especially difficult when it’s a choice between two important things for the business. I’m trying to build the business big enough to support my family in a very short amount of time and the feeling of time running out is a constant presence in the back of my mind.

So when this happens, rather than running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I instead go out to lunch.

Yes, getting out of the house definitely helps and there is an excellent Indian place in town perfect for eating, talking, and planning out a priority list.

So what is on my plate right now? Here’s the ever growing list:

• Launch the new Beginner DVD – both physical and download version.
• Launch a download version of the Basics DVD.
• Design the DVD covers, disc art, etc.
• Design the beginner book cover.
• WRITE the beginner book.
• Quilt and film the extra quilt square photos that will be needed to finish the book.
• Add new items to the quilt shop.
• Design and quilt new designs.
• Bind Shadow Self and get it photographed.
• Make some Christmas projects (ornaments, etc)
• Design and quilt some beginner quilts.
• Clean the quilt studio.

While you may not have a list like this, you might have a list of quilts and quilt projects swirling around your head. It really helps to pull them all out and get them on paper so you can see what is the most important to finish right this second.

It was only after making my list, for example, that I realized that of all the things I feel like I SHOULD be doing, the one thing I HAVE to do is finish Shadow Self and get it photographed for a deadline at the end of July.

So that is what I’m busy with today! Had I not made the list, I’d probably be running off on another tangent and it feels really good to have a solid focus.

Once the quilt is bound, I’ll return to my list and figure out what is the next most important thing to finish.

So that’s it for my Working Wednesday! I’m off to download a new book to listen to as I hand bind this quilt. My goal is to finish by this evening so I better get going with it!

Let’s go quilt (or hand bind),

Leah Day