It’s the first day of autumn, and the weather has turned suitably chilly. Saturday was shorts weather, and we walked to the ice cream stand after dinner and ate our cones outside. This morning it was cold enough that I could see my breath as I walked to the car to head to work. Hot chocolate, not ice cream, would have hit the spot.

It’s a new week, too, in addition to being a new season, but I’d rather think back to the weekend just past. I went to my first ever quilt guild meeting on Saturday. After we went to the quilt show at the end of July, Erica and I decided to visit a guild meeting and see about joining up ourselves. It’s something I’d thought about doing for years, but never worked up the gumption to do on my own. I used the excuse that I already had plenty of inspiration and sources of information for quilting, but really I was mostly intimidated by the thought of having to interact with a lot of strangers, even if they were quilters. Having Erica to go with took care of that hesitation on my part, so we made plans to check out the next meeting, which was in September.

A few weeks after that, I was catching up with Caerula’s journal. When I came to this entry, I thought, “I’ve seen that quilt. It was at the show, wasn’t it?” It seemed like too much of a coincidence, but I e-mailed her anyway to see if it could be true, and it was. I’d seen her quilt at the guild show. It is indeed a small world after all.

That synch meant Erica and I didn’t end up wading into the guild waters on our own. We met Caerula and her mom in the lobby and went in as their guests, which was very cool. They were great about giving us the scoop about what goes on, much more than we’d been able to find out just coming in off the street, I’m sure. Both Caerula and her mom were friendly and fun to be with, and I hope we get to hang out with them more in the future.

The guest lecturer was a hoot, and it was also fun to see all the different projects the members brought up for show and tell. Sure, some of them were things I would not make myself, but it’s always interesting to see what other people are doing. We definitely plan to go back and will probably join for next year. I think I can work six meetings a year into my schedule.

The guild meeting got me fired up about getting back to my own quilting projects. Not enough that I actually finished either of my current ones, but at least I made some progress, and that’s more than I can say for the few weeks before that. I have high hopes for being able to do a lot of sewing this next weekend, because I won’t have six tons of laundry to get through and don’t have any social engagements scheduled, but I also have JournalCon swag to consider. I bought some supplies for swag on Saturday, despite the fact I haven’t worked out exactly what I’m making yet, or how. I’m a little afraid I may have to give people swag kits instead of finished products. That could be fun, right?

It’s now time to finish lunch and get back into a working frame of mind. Thoughts of quilts and swag will have to wait until I leave the office. Too bad I don’t have a chauffeur; then I could sew on the drive home. Too bad I don’t work closer to home; then I could sew for an extra two hours a day. Too bad I’m not independently wealthy; then I could sew all day. Bah. Time to get back to reality. Programming first, sewing later.