Top 5 Posts of 2016

Monica from  lakeviewstitching posted an interesting topic. So I took the time to check out my 5 top posts of 2016. You can find the linky party here at meadow mist designs.

1. http://holycowchris.blos-and-planes.html  

2. http://holycowchris.blogspot.ca/2016/01/new-little-boy-grand-baby.html  

3.  http://holycowchris.blogspot.ca/2016/10/india-october-2016.html 

 4.  http://holycowchris.blogspot.ca/2016/05/omg-june-quilting-goals.html  

5.   http://holycowchris.blogspot.ca/2016/08/ongoing-saga-of-gorf.html  

This pretty much wraps it up for 2016. 

See you in 2017.

Blessings,

Chris

2016 in Review

I did write a goals list for 2016. I tried to be realistic. That did not work. So maybe its time to get crazy. Maybe not.

My goals for 2016 and how I did.

     1. Publish my book. We got stuck in the second revision round for several months and it is now about to enter the publication queue so any day now.

     2. Complete at least 1 of my big applique quilts, quilt it and bind it. I choose Ben Biggs. I got 5 blocks completed. That's about all.

     3. Quilt my Dear Jane Quilt and bind it with narrow binding on all those scallops. Nada but I am now considering doing big stitch by hand with perle cotton.

     4. Lose the 22 lb I did not last year with  my goal of losing 40. Nope. but did maintain the loss from last year.

     5. Have fun more often. Oh Yess!!

     6. Spend more time with the grand kids. One more grand kid added to the pile so lots more time with them and the boys have moved closer so we see them more often now.

     7. Laugh more. Definitely. But cried some too.

     8. Sing louder. I turn the music up louder so no one can hear me.

     9. Buy less new fabric. I did buy less but still bought some.

   10. Do the 40-bags-in-40-days challenge for Lent. Managed to get to day 20. 

   11. Design a layout for each of the three $10 quilts and complete them. Nope but still thinking about it.

   12. Complete coursework for doctorate. Then the dissertation, but I will need some goals for 2017. I did not file any courses and started 2 more in August. 

 So it appears that I did not attain all of my goals but I did more than I might have without any goals and plans.

I started three quilts and completed three.

1.  The 1857 album sampler on impulse in Jan. I had a lot of fun but got bored with the double pinks and lime greens and will call it finished at 35 or 36 blocks not the whole 64. I substituted several blocks and will add my own date and a name.  

2.  GORF 2 a lime green and purple completed and gifted in May

3.  Started the Simple Simon in October. 

 Completed the Blue Roses that I started 2009.

Finally completed the original GORF in September.

 

Ministry trip to India in October.

 New grand baby boy David. He is beginning to take a few steps this week.

That's enough for now.
Blessings, 
Chris

Simple Simon Progress

It looks like I will not meet my One Monthly Goal of completing this top this month. The little girls popped in yesterday for lunch with pizza in hand and begged to sleep over but no one had an overnight bag. Well! They all showed up later with over night bags and Chinese take out for supper. So that was the end of sewing for now. The two little ones were up early and helped Grampa in the barn and the older one slept in and had to be wakened for breakfast. Right now they are on a computer time out so two are in the kitchen painting and the youngest is in the quilt room gluing scraps of fabric to a piece of paper.

I got seven blocks sewn together yesterday and spent hours uploading photos.  I first learned how to chain piece and assemble blocks from Eleanor Burns and one of her Quilt in a Day books. That first log cabin quilt took me two years to make. In that time learned how to use a rotary cutter and ruler. Later I got a mat to put under them.
 

• First I laid out the 18 four patch units in order.

•  Flip row 2 back onto row 1

•  starting at the top, bring the first pair to the machine and sew together

• Chain piece all 6 units and sew off onto a scrap of fabric. I started using scraps for leaders and enders at least 15 years ago.

•  Lay the chained pieces back to make sure they are in the correct order.

•  flipping them top side up

•  Flip the last row back onto the middle row

•  Straighten and clip.

•  Chain piece then lay out to make sure all are in the correct order. Each block has different colours in random order. Except the top right and bottom left corners.

•  Next step is to join each row to the next one by flipping them right sides together

•  and clipping then sewing

•  then the next 2 rows

•  until all the rows are connected then press

•  and one more block is pinned to the wall

Twenty-one done and fifteen to go. I made a mistake with my calculations and need to prepare enough four patch units for four more blocks. Tomorrow. Maybe. The little boys will be arriving for a couple of days.

Blessings,
Gramma Kiss

Daily BLog Post Day 13

As it turns out, I do not like posting every day after all. I once thought I could fill the pages daily with bits of my life. But I took it on as a daily challenge to get into a regular habit. I have gotten quite lazy and do whatever takes my fancy and do not complete many things.

We had a quiet Christmas weekend since we celebrated with our children and grand children 2 weeks ago. My sweet Farmer has come down with a seasonal head cold and I might be doing the same. I have been working really hard on the Simple Simon blocks from Linda Collin's workshop in Shipshewana last month. My OMG this month is to get it to flimsy stage. I just might make it. However, I miscounted and still have to prepare enough four patch units for four more blocks.

I had some internet issues over the weekend and today it has warmed up to a balmy 11C and raining. But we did have our white Christmas. Spending so many hours at the sewing machine has caused a lot of pain in both my hands and now typing is not helping. Yesterday I hand appliqued a few more leaves on one of the BTCT blocks.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of my progress. I have little girls coming over each day for the rest of the week and little boys will be here Thurs for a couple of days.

Blessings,
Chris

Day 9

One challenge I am working on is the omg-one-monthly-goal.
My December quilting goal is to complete the Simple Simon quilt top. I have not touched it for a whole two weeks. That will be my task today. To touch it. There are ten days until the end of the month. That means I should try to get at least three blocks assembled each day. Since most of the smaller units are already done, that should work. This is what four blocks together look like so far. Only 32 more to go.

I often bite off more than I can chew. I thought it would be fun to join in on the 2016-31-day-blog-writing-challenge/ and it is. However, I have to discipline myself to sit here every day and write something worth reading, I can write something every day, but is it worth reading? I love to read, I spend way too much time reading blogs and facebook. I should spend more time reading my textbooks and my Bible.

But the challenge states that we will build habits. I need to build habits. Some of the ones I have now are not working for me. For example, I go to bed way too late. To my defense, I get a second wind and my brain is alive and active after 9 pm. But often it is reading or playing computer games. And I cannot stop a game that I have not competed. Sometimes I just put my computer to sleep so I can come back to it the next day.
Then I get up way to late in the morning.  This being retried has its moments. But I do get to spend time with my grandchildren. Like having the three and a half year old here all day yesterday and babysitting all the girls last night. So that must be why I did not get anything else done. And I forgot my project bag.

Blessings,
Chris

31 Day Blogging Challenge Day 2

It 's Day 2 of the 31 day blogging challenge and I might already have writer's block. Seriously. Last night  I had a hundred ideas floating through my brain and this morning, after sleeping in until a normal 8.30, I have no idea what to write. But that has never stopped me before. I have a couple of keys sticking in my laptop. Makes it a challenge to log in with a password that has an "a" and no semi colons or colons are to be use for now. Mary of Quilting through rose colored tri focals   used an expression called at 6's and 7's. Her post got me thinking.

I posted this picture of my quilt room/office last winter. Some readers are interested in how you organize your stuff, but I will share what I am doing with some of my stuff. 

Here are some of the things I am working on this week. I had to check some cow information on line for my Farmer who does very little on the computer, except to check for  emails and facebook postings when I am away. This is the five year old net book I take with me when I travel so I can keep in touch and do some work. I had to get a new battery when I was in India.  Last night I was backing up five years of files so I could transfer India pictures to my lap top where I am trying to put together a power point presentation I will be doing in January at our son-in-law's church.

 Next to that is my journal, daytimer, Bible and pen. I try to do a bit of journaling often but it seems that I write more to-do lists than reflecting on my Bible reading. Beside that is the project box I took on our weekend away. I stitched for about twenty minutes total.  

 Behind me is one of my craft tables. The Bernina is in for servicing so I put the Featherweight in 

and have everything ready to do one more Bright Jane block. This was all sitting on another table 

since I got home from Shipshewana three weeks ago. The intent is to make one block. 

I will not be using that yellow thread on that fabric.

 Beside that is the other craft table with the Brother. I am working on a Simple Simon reproduction quilt from the retreat. I have quite a few very expensive mugs that I was unwilling to throw out when they got cracked or lost a handle so I use them to hold pens, pencils, pencil crayons, markers, etc.

If I do not see things, they do not exist.

 On the table in front of the design wall, I have the first blocks up. Lots of four patch units made and sewn to back ground squares waiting to be sewn into the next blocks. There is also some of the clutter I dumped out after the retreat. I put away most everything when I have the Quilting at the Farm girls come over but that will be mid January sometime. I usually put something different up on the wall then.

 Beside that, I have some project boxes for my grand daughters. They each have their own pair of razor sharp Dear Jane scissors that are too small for my large fingers but perfect for theirs. The two younger ones are still cutting thread and scraps but the older one is using the real machine. I had to eat a lot of cookies over the years to get those empty containers. They are about eight inches square. Again, I have to see things or they do not exist. I later discovered that those cookies are what had been poisoning  my body.

 One of my quilting friends loves to do laundry so she took home three fat quarter bundles of Moda French General fabrics to pre-wash 120 fat quarters for me. What a Blessing! I will be using some of these for a new GORF quilt this winter. The fabric has to be pre-washed before the heat-n-bond lite is ironed on.

 I want it to stay on forever.

 These fabrics have been pre-washed in preparation for Stonefields. I bought the entire pattern when I was in Australia last year and have been waiting for a good time to start. They are available over at Sentimental Stitches.   There is a facebook group and the first month patterns are going out this month.

 At the retreat, I got a tutorial on big stitch quilting without a hoop. It took me a couple of weeks, but I tracked down some creamy coloured Valdani pearl cotton 12 and some size 24 chenille needles. I plan to do a small sample piece of my Dear Jane fabrics with the wool batting I bought last summer to see if my hands can handle this. If they do, I was thinking that I could quilt one block a day (so not to overdo it) and have it done in 225 days. No wait - there are 56 border triangles, so 281 days. Maybe.

In the meantime, I have these to keep my busy. I had each course in its own box, but wanted the boxes for other projects. 

 My self paced online doctoral course with no deadlines is sitting on the desk in front of the desk top computer waiting for me to stay home for a few days. I have filed three out of twelve courses and these five are each half done. They are not hard. I just need to spend more time there than here.

Blessings,
Chris

the-2016-31-day-blog-writing-challenge

Here is something I came across today. It sounds interesting.  A challenge. I like a challenge. The challenge is to post once a day for 31 days. I thought I could start Jan 1, but that is in 2017 and this challenge is 2016. It is Dec 14. We are almost half way through the month of December. I could post twice a day to catch up. Or, I could post once a day and carry it over through January. I don't have enough to do so I think I will stick with once a day. I have been away again; took my Sweet Farmer away from the Farm for 4 days and we went to Chester County Pennsylvania to visit a farmer friend. She took us to Longwood Gardens . Oh My Goodness!!! I was in tropical plant heaven!! And it was all decked out for Christmas and the lights -  how does one describe lights decorating a 40 foot high oak tree or whatever kind of deciduous tree it was?

It was a pretty cold out since winter has arrived.
Blessings,
Chris