Replacing resentment with joy

Our guild has a nice opportunity to be acknowledged by the community we serve. All we have to do is track our volunteer hours and report it. Not so hard, actually.

Which brings me to a specific volunteer project I'm working on right now. It takes a LOT of time, and I'm struggling with resentment.
Funny thing is, I don't really know what I resent about it. Here are some of my brainstorm ideas, none of which are completely true:

• that I was asked to organize it, when I knew already I'd be participating at a heavy level due to my web responsiblities
• that I don't know how to say no without feeling bad
• that I'm not enjoying the work. Volunteer work ought to be fun
• that to keep this project on track, I'm giving up some things I want to be doing for myself
• that I don't see where I could and should delegate tasks to others

OK, enough analysis. What will it take for me to find the work joyful again? 

• Let go of the things I cannot do.
• I need to tell myself what I tell the people who want to participate, but cannot. I say, "This is a totally voluntary activity. If you do nothing, it's ok. Do what you want and what you can. Don't worry about the rest."

What do I want?

• I want to sew the blocks and make the two patterns I promised, because I want to have them.
• I want the recipient to be absolutely delighted with the result.
• I want to see all the wonderful pieces coming together, and build something for everyone in the future.
• I want to have time to work on my other projects as well.

What can I do?

• I can mentally let go of the long task list, and make sure I reserve time for me and for my other projects every day.
• I can start to figure out how to delegate.
• I can remind myself of what I want from this project every time I start to work down the list of tasks.
• I can make more decisions like I made last night, when I decided I would provide the data to the responsible board member, but let go, and not do more than that.
• I can start finding tasks for those volunteers to work on, and letting those tasks go.
• Make a list - lists help me feel more in control. 

Do I feel more joyful now? Well, not exactly, but at least I see a path to what I want.

What does tonight's list look like?

1. Leave work on time
2. Bath and relaxing
3. Cook
4. Work on a volunteer block pattern
5. Eat dinner and watch Glee on Super RTL
6. Take the rest of the evening OFF

Round Robin quilt

While I may be familiar with quilts and how they were traditionally made, I'm relatively new at quilt guilds and how group quilting projects function.
It was with trepidation that I signed up for the latest Round Robin project at the Black Forest Guild. I really hate the idea of screwing up someone else's quilt.
At least I chose to do Round Robin in the beginners group, and my group looks like it will be fun. There are, however, just three of us, so if any of you BFQ members reading this wants to join us, there's still time. You should go ahead and follow the rules in the instructions. Contact me if you want to join our group, so I can tell the RR program manager.
The block I've chosen for my center is Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll block, including the string corners.
What do you think? Kinda neat, huh? I think there are colors and variety enough to let my group partners do pretty much as they like. Do I need to add my own border around the edge before I send it off?
Know any good links to RR quilts? I'd like to get a sense of things I can do to my partners' quilts that will really make them pop.

A whole stinkin' week without sewing

And that's very annoying, but it had to be done. First I had evening meetings and teleconferences all week, mostly to do with work, and then last weekend I worked pretty much the whole weekend on the requirements for our guild's website upgrade, which is needed and rather urgent.
So that's what I've been doing, and it's just not much fun to take pictures of my research into web hosting providers.
The best part of the last 10 days or so was the mini-retreat we did at the firehouse. It was so much fun to get together with more than a dozen other guild members and just sew, sew, sew. I at least made progress on my Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll. Right now I'm tending toward a size that is about 3 by 4 or 3 by 5 blocks. We'll see.

An embarrassment of riches

At our quilt guild meeting last night, I did something I'd never done before - I won the BOM! We have 2 BOMs at each meeting, and I'd never even won one before. But last night I won both the Beginners and the Advanced block sets. I was overwhelmed and thrilled.

Now the reality has set in - what shall I do with these beauties? One set is a flower, and there are 6 or 7 of those 10 inch blocks. The other set is a scrappy green block, and there are about a dozen of them. I'm thinking that I will split the scrappy green ones, and use them as a border around the flowers. I may add a flower block or two, depending on layout. What do you think?
But it needs something more, so I'm thinking about adding some flying geese to the mix, maybe as sashing, or as another border. I am so looking forward to seeing what this becomes - it will be my first scrappy quilt.