When I was 38.... It was a very suck year....

Well, it hasn't really been a suck year. I'm happily married, prosperous, and have far more and better friends than I really deserve. I have time and leisure for a rich variety of highly entertaining passtimes. My esophagus and brain chemistry, week spots in an otherwise perfectly functional bod, have been staying out of trouble. Granted, work has been -- as most readers either know or might have guessed -- something of a freakshow, but I've developed a sense of humor about that and am doing just fine, thank you.

But it has been a dreadful, dreadful year for quilting.

I put the studio in its summer config- uration last night, meaning more room for my hapless musical experiments and less room for quilting. It marks the official end of the quilting season for the summer, the season in which outdoor pursuits call, and when even if they didn't who wants 40 square feet of cotton and flannel bunched up on their lap? By tradition, the new quilting year will start with the first Oregon football game of the fall (September 1, at home v. Houston -- a potentially interesting game, which I at this early date would call for Oregon by 9 points).

So, with the year over, let's look back at the goals I set for myself on this blog last September, and see how reality stacked up.

• Goal One: Have two strong pieces ready to enter in the Guild Show in April. This didn't happen. Both pieces have advanced somewhat, but my only entry in the Guild show is Halfway Around the World II, which I finished and displayed (in Coos Bay) last year.


• Goal Two: Really improve my machine quilting a lot. This one actually kind of happened. My machine quilting is getting there. I still need more confidence with it, though.


• Goal Three: Apply those machine quilting skills. Didn't happen.


• Goal Four: Work on the Restoration Quilt. Haven't touched it.


• Goal Five: Make a few baby blankets as needed. I did make the Max quilt. That was the best highlight of the year.


• Goal Six: At least one charity quilt. Nope.


• Goal Seven: Finish The Four Seasons. Nope.

So, it was a real washout of a year for quilting. And the reason why is pretty embarassing.

I mentioned here at one point that the men of the quilt guild had been chosen as the "featured artist" of this year's show (which is, incidentally, next weekend). I was then tapped to coordinate the featured artist exhibit -- which should have been a slam dunk. I am a volunteer coordinator, for Christ's sake; how hard could it be to get eight men (one of whom was me) organized for purposes of a display of quilts.

Gentle readers, I could not do it. I'm not sure why not. Enthusiasm turned to perplexity, to concern, to anxiety, to occasional insomnia, to inability to concentrate at work, to resignation. It was weird. Fortunately, I don't think it did any permanent damage to my reputation or relationships in the quilt community. But, it kept me in a mood for four months where I didn't want to even think about quilts. Hence the suck year.

On a positive note, I already have my goals for next year drawn up. They are just this year's goals, with "2006-2007" scratched out and "2007-2008" scrawled in instead. With perhaps a note to myself to get the blog going again, too.