Going round in circles

Do you ever feel like you are going in circles? Well, that is what I have been doing the last few weeks. The best part about this, is that it is something that will stay done ... which is more than I can say for the cleaning and dish-washing and laundry and food preparation!

Since I borrowed a neighbor's floor to put the sandwich together and ran short of time, I ended up pinning most of this rather than thread basting. Since I didn't want to end up with a mess on the back side, I tied a little blue ribbon to a pin in the middle block of the quilt and I have been slowly quilting around that block, using my big hoop and rotating the quilt as I go.

So far, it has been a working plan.

At this point I am working on the third row from the border and the back has no weird puckers.

The quilting is all in-the-ditch so not particularly exciting. The only real decisions I have to make is when I come to a place where the seam got flipped the wrong way.

Sometimes I can fix it by sweeping with my needle and getting that seam back where it belongs, but sometimes I have to just give in and quilt it as it lies.

I often wonder how other quilters manage to get all their seams going the right way. I spend so much time ironing but no matter, there are always places where those seams take on a life of their own.
Any ideas?

With the beginning of the new year, I selected a new focus word.... Encourage ... or could be encouragement.  At times I need to work on myself to move out of my comfort zone and step boldly in another direction. Then again, I need to change my approach toward the things that are driving me nuts right in my own home. Certainly, complaining about something for 49 years has not worked. I just might have bitten off more than I can chew, but the year is still in its first week so I am trying to get a bit more creative and less discouraged.

The most interesting thing, after I selected this word, was the very first of the year, before going off for serving the homeless meal, I opened my e-mail to find a note from a Scouter I had worked with back in 1987, thanking me for "inspiration, guidance,and example" that had made a difference in his life . I am still choking up at his kind words and example of what I have to look for in others.

I feel reassured that if I can get rid of the nagging negative aspects of every-day life, the better parts are there waiting to come out ... but doggone...it's going to take a lot more than five days to meet with success.
(Or, as my mother used to say, "Rome in a day, was not built)!