Thanks Shari for Sharing Your Rotational System With Me!

This post addresses organization, AGAIN! It's just one of those things for me - I love hearing about new ways to stay organized and on task in the studio.

So I was dealing with the challenge of having tooooo many quilts to work on and not having the focus to work on anything. Every time I went down to my studio, all my WIP were calling my name . . . "Denise, choose me!, No, you want to work on me! Over here, I'm over here!" As a result of all the cacophony, I wasn't working on anything at all.

My friend Shari told me about her system of rotation through 8 quilts a month. Some of her quilts were BOM, others were quilts she had started and wanted to finish. She decided to work on each quilt for 3 days and then put it away and work on the next one.

This automatically resonated with me because I love working on multiple quilts at once. My trouble is that I had too many. So I started with 5 quilts to work on, then added 3 more, took out 1 and added 2 others. So now I have 9 projects that I am cycling though.

I have been working on each one for anywhere from a few hours to a few days. I work until I have a sense of completion or burnout. Its been working great so far. I have working on all 9 quilts and after I reach completion on #9 I'll start all over again.

I am loving this! I haven't been this productive in a long time.  Here is my list:
        
        Asian Garden Path
        Fiesta Mexico
        Feathered Star
        CURIOUS
        Technicolor Galaxy
        Tula Pink 100 Modern Blocks
        Enchanted Forest
        Home Tweet Home
        Sedona Star













As I finish projects, I will rotate new ones in. I have lots of projects waiting in the wings!




Here's to productivity!
I'm curious, what helps you keep your productivity up?

Frustrated - Marking Quilts

I am almost done with my Holly Wreath lap quilt. I just need to quilt the outer border. I have done free motions quilting the the rest of the quilt and am fairly happy with the results given that its my first one - I do need practice.  But in trying to quilt the outer border I have run into trouble - marking so that I can see and follow the marks.
    I have 5 different marking pens or pencils and none of them are working. I can't see the lines very well on dark green and red/gold striped fabric. 
    A quick check on-line for advice about marking quilts yielded some explanations for my frustration - I should have marked the quilt top totally before I started quilting it and  starched the fabric. Some people have had success with different marking methods. The one that looks best to me almost seems to be the most involved - copy your quilting design on paper, stitch on the paper thereby perforating it, use pounce chalk to mark the quilt top and then quilt it. I may try this next time as I have no pounce materials at the moment.
Does anyone have any advice?
Curious about marking,
Denise