1. Can you keep your sewing area clean and organized after you retire? I try but my sewing room is also the "catch-all" room in my house so it is really hard to keep it organized. So much gets dumped in there - and all by me since I am a widow.
2. Can you put together Large blocks of time to quilt? When I have a project going I sew, sew, sew. I keep trying to set aside a set time but doesn't seem to work out.
3. Do you actually use up your stash and happily keep from spending retirement funds? I do both - enjoy many of the fabrics I have bought in the past but sometimes just need a special fabric.
4. Or, does your stash bore you and you keep right on shopping? I am trying to keep this to a minimum. Going through my stash periodically and really looking at the fabrics reminds me of how much I already have and what they are. I am trying to pick patterns that I know will work with the fabrics that I have.
5. Are the floor-to-ceiling stacks of magazines being utilized like you intended? I have cut back on magazines and only take Fons and Porter now. I have given most of the other magazines away to a local church quilt guild. I have done the same with most of my books. There are so many patterns available on line now that I want to make and I felt guilty because I had all these books that I was not using. I went through them and gave over half of them to my local library. They were thrilled because they said they were always getting requests for more quilting books and knew this was a need they could now fill.
6. Are you able to take the classes, or go to the Sit and Sews like you planned? No but then I hadn't planned to sooo...Also, there is only one close LQS to me, most are almost an hour away. The one that is close has one but I just do not feel comfortable there.
All that being said....I got really involved in volunteer work. One thing led to another to another to another and suddenly I am volunteering any where from 15 to 30 or more hours a week. Sometimes I feel like I am volunteering more than I used to work. When I do get home most of the time I really don't feel like sewing. I am starting to cut back on my volunteer hours. Plus, I will probably be moving sometime this coming summer and plan on having a room that is just for sewing and nothing else (I will be moving into a double wide trailer). I hope that will help inspire me to get back to more sewing and keeping my area organized and neat. I am starting to go through stuff now and pull out things I have duplicates of or don't want and finding new homes for them. As I clear out stuff, I am already feeling freer and getting more enthused to sew again. For me, having too much seems to weigh me down and I find I do less and less because I begin to feel overwhelmed.
I hope you continue to be excited about retiring and that you have all wishes come true!