New month, new start

September! There's something about September that makes me think of new starts. The beginning of the school year, of course, and the change in weather. It's been a little cooler at night the last few days, though it's still in the 90s during the day. And the sun has moved so the light "looks" like fall.

Since it's kind of a mini-New Year, I've decided to renew my efforts on a couple of things that have fallen aside during the heat of the summer – my effort to organize/clean up/clear out my house and to get in better shape through healthier eating and exercise.

I've also taken advantage of the back-to-school sales and bought new notebooks, paper, pens and pencils for my office and have been going around the house throwing out dried out pens. Who needs the aggravation of hunting for working pens when you need them?

One thing we seldom think of is office supplies in the sewing room or studio. Yesterday I dug out the decorative tape dispenser (shaped like a sewing machine) and put it out where I can get to it. I have a pair of scissors just for paper, some Sharpie pens in different colors, and a hand-held pencil sharpener. I just need to bring in some new pens (maybe the fun colored ones?), pencils and note paper, then set up a little area to keep all of them.

I'm still deciding on the quilting pattern to use for my bow tie quilt, so worked on some other projects last night. I did the applique for my palm tree – stitched the trunk using a handcrank and fused the leaves, then did the main decorative stitching. The palm leaves still need a little work but they are coming along. I can only work on intense projects for a while, so I moved on to the pillowcases I'm making for our guild boutique and got two more in progress. I would have finished them, but I misjudged while cutting and got the tip of my finger with the tip of the scissors. Ouch! When I start making painful mistakes, it's time for a break.

Thanks to Loreen Leedy for the instructions on her blog to put your own background on a blog. I followed her very good instructions yesterday to put the images from one of my works into the background of my blog. It's really nice to be able to make it personal, even when using a basic template.

More later.