It has been over a month since I've sewn. Okay, to be honest, I've sewn a tiny, little bit in that time. I hand stitched half of the back of a binding on a mini quilt. And I sewed eight 2 1/2" seams, the beginning of a charity quilt block. But I haven't done any real sewing. This is not for lack of options.

There have been lots of reasons. I finished up my June projects early in the month. Then I went to Ireland for two weeks. Ireland was delightful. It was also a pretty active trip with over 1100 miles of driving (on the wrong side of the street!). I came home pretty exhausted.

Since I didn't drop my sewing machine for service while I was gone, I did that the Monday after we returned home. I was in recovery mode from travel and didn't have much energy anyway. Plus I have a backup machine. (Which I apparently really didn't want to use, because I never set it up in the week I was without my machine.)

I'm also in recovery mode from a major remodel and there is a lengthy to do list of things for us to do around the house. So we're slowly chipping away at that: move in the bookshelves, purchase a coffee table, unpack these boxes. What I want to be doing is sewing. But that hasn't happened. I just haven't had the energy. Everywhere I look, there's something that needs attention. That is exhausting.

Every time I've walked into my studio in the last two weeks I've tidied instead of sewing. This is so unlike me. Part of recovering from the remodel involved installing a wall of cabinets for storage in the studio and sorting through everything that resides in that room. Only a small pile of stuff remains untouched. I guess I really want to get it all squared away before I sew.

Paired with my lack of sewjo, the past two weeks I've found myself mindlessly scrolling on Instagram and Facebook all too often. It's so easy to do and is a complete time suck. Enough of that! (I do love seeing what people are creating, and interacting with friends online... but mindless scrolling is different.)

Lastly, I've been waiting for some fabric to arrive for my next deadline. Yesterday I opened my box of lovely Island Batik fabric and other goodies. I recorded my unboxing video and will share it once it is edited. Having a new pile of beautiful fabric to play with may just help the sewjo. So will the looming project deadlines. ;-)

P.S. Newsletter readers... I owe you one. It's coming later this week. (If you don't already get my newsletters, you can subscribe here to keep up to date with me and to receive color and design inspiration.)

This photo is a picture of Johnstown Castle in County Wexford, Ireland. The photo above was taken outside Dingle. We stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of the beautiful view.

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