I’ve learned something very important about myself in the past few weeks. Well, especially in the past three days. My laptop has been constantly blue-screening because of some corrupt update. I *think* it’s fixed but fingers crossed on that one. In that time, though, I had no computer in the studio and no access to any of the files on that system. Yes, I do have a computer at my desk upstairs but I find that I forget it’s there most of the time. It also means I can’t just stop and look something up on the web (and then get distracted for hours upon hours). I get a heck of a lot more done without that.

I also can’t watch TV and effectively do anything by machine. #1, the longarm does not face the tv (on purpose) and #2, I stop to watch things because I either get engrossed or I can’t hear over the machine. But the Jazz music station, otoh… I forgot how much I love jazz! It’s really very motivating, too.

So, by leaving the computer off and the jazz on, I’ve managed to get a lot done. But there’s one more thing. I can’t be creative while still socializing. How weird is that?! I don’t know if it’s because I use the same part of my brain or what. It reminds me of how some artists and writers have to seclude themselves to get work done. I don’t do it on purpose but I realized the other day that I had the same problem last year while working on Scarlet and this summer while working on Charm City and Bling.

I dislike it but I feel obligated to embrace my tendency. It does produce pretty darn good results. The problem is that I then abandon the message boards, this blog, my friends, Facebook, everything. If my customers didn’t call me, I’d probably forget them, too. And THAT is a bad bad bad bad thing. I loose track of days and time. What to do, what to do?

So that you didn’t read all that for nothing, here’s a glimpse of what I’ve been working on:

Done so far on VC:
- traced off pattern, made alterations, graded up in size
- bought final fabrics
- bought muslin fabric, cut out muslin
- sewed muslin with final techniques, including all handwork and putting zipper in by hand
- drafted arches for trapunto, tested trapunto in sample
- sampled using 1/3 thick wool batting, tested with china silk backing and real dup on top
- washed out trapunto test and tested different hand-embroidery techniques and flosses
- actually managed to stop and take a picture