What Gets You In The Sewing Groove?

While I'm participating in berrybarndesigns 4x7challenge this month, I'm sewing or actually in my sewing room more than usual.

See, my sewing room is devoted to sewing, but it's in a very cold room upstairs where there is heat, but I keep it as low as possible.  We need to make sure the pipes don't freeze, but the insulation is so insufficient, turning up the heat is like putting a heater on the lawn in just saying have at it.

So, I have my special sewing vest that I wear which keeps me surprisingly warm, and if I time it right, I get the afternoon sun, so I have the illusion of being warm.

Since the wiring in that part of the house is questionable, I don't dare use an iron in my sewing room or anywhere upstairs.  This means that any ironing requires running up and down the stairs, project in hand.  It's fabulous when I put a quilt together and by the time I've ironed a row of squares and get back upstairs, I can't remember which direction the squares are meant to go.

You might think I'd have a system in place to remember if the top square is the first square on the left or the last square on the right, but I don't seem to be able to make that system stick.

As you've read many times, I make sewing as difficult as possible for myself!

But, through all of this whining, I do manage to get a lot done thanks to the help of modern technology.  It used to be my CD player.   I'd put on a few different CDs and just sew away, singing my brains out.

Then there was the invention of the portable DVD player that I got for free when I signed up for Directv but it turned out that I don't love to watch movies enough to take advantage of that.

And then, the ipad came into my world.  It's the TV I've never had in my sewing room.  It's my little sidekick that plays shows I can't find the time to watch when they come on in real time.

And now, it's The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that does it for me.  I never stay up late enough to watch, and until recently, I'd have quite a few episodes backed up that I hadn't seen, so I could just binge watch them and sew to my heart's content.  Now I'm a little more caught up, so I have to resort to other options:

Downton Abby from the Sunday before.  Wow is this season entertaining or what??

The Celebrity Apprentice which has totally passed its prime but if I'm sewing, I'll watch.

Nashville which has been on hiatus but I think has returned.  That show is better than people think and needs to stay on.

And if I'm really in a bind, I'll try to find something on Netflix.  Now that Friends is available on Netflix, I have to seriously refrain from even opening the website because I'd sit and watch and never turn it off.  That is my absolute favorite show of all time.

Except for the first 3 seasons.  I didn't love those days.  But the last few seasons were my favorite.

Occasionally, as with last week, I'll have a book on tape and that takes precedence over all other entertainment.  Unless it's a project where I have to read directions and be precise.  Then I can't listen to a book on tape because I miss crucial details.

It's amazing how fast I get to work when I have some kind of audio or visual entertainment.  And how much I don't notice the mayhem on my sewing room floor.  Or the cold (or hot in the summer but that's another whine for another day).

What keeps you focused?  What do you do for entertainment when you sew?  And do you have the luxury of everything you need in one room, or do you have to traipse through the house like me, with projects in pieces all over the place?

Linking here:
http://www.withablast.net/2015/02/freedom-fridays-67.html