Because I am self-employed, I rarely work a regular 9-5 week. Last weekend I worked a show all weekend long. I have a class coming up on Saturday and a residency tonight, both outside of “work hours”. It’s easy to basically be working 12 hour days for days in a row and not notice it.

It’s been kind of a crazy week. It’s been raining and my hubby has been sick with a hacking cough and the dogs have been squirrely so I feel like I am a little discombobulated. So yesterday I settled in to work on a project I have, with a deadline fast approaching, and I just couldn’t get motivated. I checked Facebook and ordered supplies and dawdled around and finally just made myself get to work late in the afternoon. But my enthusiasm (and my brain) weren’t really in it.

So then I cut out about 8 pieces for this important project completely, totally, un-fixably wrong. I printed one specially to be cut out a certain way and then blithely cut it in half (wrong). I tore one with the grain only to find that it didn’t tear with the grain but left me with two edges about 2 inches different from one another. I measured something else incorrectly. Welcome to Amateur Hour! Sheesh. When I finally figured it out, there was no other solution but to give up and order the fabric again.

So I left it in a pile on the table and went off to a meeting last night. This morning, I pulled it out and remeasured to make sure it was really as bad as I thought it was and I started over with a rush order of new fabric. I have time to fix it. It’s not an emergency. And there is enough mis-cut fabric for me to make myself a couple of tank dresses if I am clever about cutting it out. It’s all going to work out in the end, but it’s not exactly the way I had it planned.

I posted a comment on Facebook a while back about feeling like I had a day where I was operating at about 50% power and my good friend Marjorie replied with a comment something like “Well, you usually are operating at 150%, so you probably just need some down time.” Smart woman. And she is totally right. I should have listened to my own listlessness yesterday, made a latte and sat on the porch with a good book.

I have a personal rule about never operating a sewing machine after 10pm no matter how “awake” I am feeling. It always ends in too many hours with the seam ripper. I think I need a new rule about listening to my brain when it says “Today is not a work day.” Powering through that feeling didn’t work out so well for me. So this afternoon, before I have to go be an “artist in residence” for a few hours this evening, I am going to make a pot of tea and let my brain reset. I’ll get my work day in; I’m just doing it in pieces.

Speaking of pieces, the paper pieced block shown above I made in about 2005. It’s from a site called Paper Panache and was part of her Mystery Blocks sew along. She gives you the paper pieced pattern and colors but no clues as to the subject of the block. I am not really a quilter, but I think these are great fun for using up scraps and this alarm clock was a favorite one that I created. Her design work is beautiful and they always go together so nicely.