About to Bubble

I have a couple of ideas for small quilts that incorporate circles. The first I think I'll play with is circles as bubbles. I've pulled some sheers I think may give the look of bubbles.

I would have started on this last week, except I hadn't come across my circle template. I was pretty sure that the boxes left to crack open just held fabric or books or magazines, but since I keep this template in a flat bag with my compass and protractor, I convinced myself I must have slipped it in with the books.

I can be pretty dense at times. I suddenly realized last week why I was having so much trouble getting to work in the studio, and it wasn't just the missing circle template. The condition of that room had begun to make me feel claustrophobic and backed into a corner whenever I went in there. I'd stalled out on the unpacking and rearranging, I'd equally stalled out on moving forward on my two traditional quilt tops. And I couldn't get moving much on these new ideas for art quilts. It just wasn't an inviting place to work with so much of the set-up unresolved and boxes in the way. So once the fabric washing and ironing was over and I realized what was happening in my head, I spent several days organizing what was already lying around, and then tackled the boxes stacked around the room - major progress! Today I got my good sewing machine in place and tweaked the set-up on that side of the room, then got the second table up on risers, giving me a 60" wide surface for layering the triangle quilt top. I cut some squares from old mouse pads to slip into the indentation on the top of the risers - I'd discovered that the table legs slid around in there making the tables unstable. The soft grip of the mouse pad solved that problem and justified my hanging on to those mouse pads for so long - they nearly went into the Goodwill bag this last move.

And where did I find the circle template? Not in any of those boxes or piles I attended to. No, I'd packed it away in one of my sewing machine table drawers - obviously because I wanted it easily accessible, not buried in some box. I only came across it because I was looking for something else I thought was in that drawer. I continue to excel at outsmarting myself...but at least now, I can get to work on those bubbles.