Did You Notice I Was Missing?

So Saturday night, I was working in the Sweat Shop when I felt this tug on my big toes, and the next thing I knew, the floor under the sewing table opened up and I was sucked down a giant tube slide into the land of the quilter's elves. Remember when you'd go to the drive-thru at the bank and they had those vacuum tubes? Same thing! It was rather frightening at first, especially since the elves didn't speak English and I couldn't understand what they wanted. Well, and I didn't even know they were quilter's elves at first! But they soon had me relaxing in a hot tub, sipping on champagne, watching videos of George Clooney and Johnny Depp, and nibbling finger foods and chocolate. And did I tell you about the mani/pedi? Most excellent!

As midnight approached, I told them I had to go back to post something on my blog, but they said no, I had to stay with them until they were done with me. Of course, I put up a little bit of a struggle, because I knew some of you would miss me and worry, but they insisted.

When they finally returned me home at 3:30 a.m., guess what I found? The elfish cleaning crew had been hard at work in the Sweat Shop, finishing up the cleaning for me! Yay elves!

Now you'd think that I'd have all Sunday to play, right? Well, in all the time I've been working on the Sweat Shop the last couple weeks, I've let the rest of the house go, so a good part of the day Sunday was spent in cleaning up the house and putting up the Valentine's/spring quilts. Finally, FINALLY, Sunday night I was free to sit down in the Sweat Shop and survey my domain. But what should I work on first?

I decided to work on a little project that involves some embroidery and some wool and some other things, but I can't tell you what it is just yet. I've made up little kits for my stitchery friends because we'll be getting together on Saturday and I don't want to ruin the surprise. I CAN show you my first two embroidered snowflakes though. At least I THINK I can--they probably don't show up very well because it's white embroidery thread on a cream fabric background. Here, take a look:

I wanted to give you a quick little look at the new and improved Sweat Shop now that the elves have cleaned--before I make a mess. In many ways, the room still looks the same, but it's crazy the number of containers--baskets, buckets, totes, etc.--I was able to eliminate because I could finally get all the fabric onto the shelves.

One of the hardest things I found was figuring out how to store precuts, and they really ended up being all over the room, but in an organized way. For instance, I have two places I'm keeping charm packs. You can probably see a bit of a little suitcase open on the desk--that's full of charm packs. Layer cakes were a challenge, but I finally removed the cardboard backing and rolled them up and put them all in a wire basket--

This surface also has many fewer things cluttering it up. That wicker suitcase basket now contains all sorts of little "kits" and projects--most of them are little wool stitchery things I've collected over the years and not gotten to. Most of them had been stuffed here and there--too hard to find even if I'd wanted to work on something!

And see that blue topped glass jar up on the shelf? That jar contains slips of paper with the names of 12 unfinished projects--many are simply blocks collected from swaps or BOMs that weren't finished. All are Thimbleberries. I've decided to draw a slip of paper out each month and try my hardest to complete the project sometime during the month--most should be fairly quick.

I also took everything off the bulletin board that's behind my chair and replaced only the things that I really needed/wanted there, like the month's projects. If you look closely, you'll see a strip of paper pinned to the board; it tells me that the first project I drew was Thimbleberries birthday blocks. You'll see what that is as the month goes by, I think. And then there's this month's Schnibbles pattern. Important stuff.

I know many of you have either been cleaning out your spaces or encouraged to start. If I see them again, I'll send the quilter's elves to visit you and help out, okay? Until you've experienced it, you just can't imagine what a blast it is to party with the elves on Saturday night until the wee hours.