It's been a while...

Since I last posted here but I'm going to come clean and admit that I was in a bit of a funk.  It was a week ago today when tropical storm Arthur...remember him?...decided to pay us a visit.  Rather than bore you with all the sordid details, the long and short of it was that we were without power and water for F-O-U-R long days.  

If you ever hear me say I want to go camping, shoot me!

F-O-U-R days without water is 3 and 3/4 days too long, especially when you're on a well.  I don't know how many trips we made to the local spring just outside of town to fill 5 gallon jugs with water to freshen up with and to flush the toilets.  And I'm soooooo tired of sandwiches because we couldn't cook either!  

Having said that, neither we nor our property suffered any damage apart from some tree limbs and tons of leaves that fell.  We did lose the contents of our large freezer and fridge freezer which kinda hurt.  The sad part is that there are still tens of thousands of people in Atlantic Canada without power and my heart goes out to them.  Thank goodness it's not winter!

If you recall that just prior to Arthur blowing in, I finished my "man quilt" flimsy.  I don't know about you all but when I finish a large project, it can become very anticlimactic for me...kind of like coming to the end of a really good book where you want to finish it to find out how it ends but when it does, it can also leave you with an empty feeling wanting more.  And not only that, I had to write up the instructions for my second Primitive Quilts & Projects magazine project that are due by the end of the month and I hadn't even started that when the power went out.  I wrote them all out in longhand which did help to pass the time and I also redid the line drawings which are as close to perfect as possible because I had so much time to spend on them.

So my "man quilt" is off to Alice to be quilted and my Spring 2015 project is on it's way to West Virginia to Primitive Quilts & Projects. I can't tell you what a load that is off my mind.  Yay!

Another positive thing that came out of the Arthur debacle is that I designed another small quilt project.  I had so much time on my hands and the ideas just kept on coming so instead of asking myself what my next project would be, I now know what it is...especially since my studio is all clean, neat and tidy again!

Yesterday Mr. Painted Quilt, Ollie went to visit our friends who live on the south shore of Nova Scotia to pick up a cabinet that she was selling.  Guess what I did this morning?  

Yep...cleaned and reorganized my studio!

I usually do this after each project but Arthur and the no-power thing threw me off my usual routine.  

I've been wanting a cabinet or cupboard large enough to hold lots of fabric but not too large that it would overpower my sewing room.

It's perfect!

Her husband made it as a sewing cupboard but she really isn't a sewer so she wouldn't need it in the new house.  Can you see the thread holders on the door on the left?  Cool, huh?  I was able to neatly pile all the the fabric inside that I had out on shelves, exposed to the UV light rays.  I'm thrilled!

I moved the bookcase that was there over here...

which allowed me to keep BIG Bernie where she was...

and little Bernie too!

Here's the view to the left while sitting in the chair behind little Bernie...

and straight ahead.

After all the moving, sorting, vacuuming and dusting this morning, I'm too tired to start on anything new today but you know what I'll be doing tomorrow.  

I always feel so inspired when everything is clean, neat and tidy!

Nap time...ZZZZzzzzzzzz.

Happy stitching!