To-Do Tuesday

 Last week's list:

1. Be productive for 7 whole days in a row with no children. I ended up resting and watched  The Crown on Netflix because the remote was not lost or being used or being fought over. 
2. Two more lessons on Healing Power. nope
3. Find a new internet provider. yup will be installed tomorrow
4. Continue clearing inbox. a work in progress
5. Hand applique because I love doing it again. yes
6. Write one page for SMOWJ. nope
7. Write another page. nada
8. Make jam. the day is not over yet
9. Make corn relish. done
10. Stop reading blogs for at least 3 days. the problem with not reading blogs every day is I missed the Friday Night with Friends last week. 

This week's list:

1. Complete this 3030 block for my OMG goal for August. 
2. Turkey dinner on Sat. I will have help.
3. Complete one Ella Block. Any block. 
4. Write up a blog post for OMG. 
5. Get my teeth cleaned.
6. Two more lessons for the small group I lead at church. It is the first in-person group since lockdown in March. We are live streaming from one room of in-person people to another room where the on-line people are zooming in. It is interesting. We have an amazing techie just graduated from college with all the qualifications to set up a mini tv studio. 
7. Participate in a virtual writing retreat Fri. I can only join in for one day since Sat we are having a family Christmas dinner and farewell party for my sister who is going home next week. 
8. Write up a blog post about her finished quilt. 

That's enough for this week. I don't think I will do this every week, but it has been interesting. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: to-do-tuesday  needleandthreadnetwork.  wednesday-wait-loss-  midweek-makers-  needle-and-thread-thursday-

Really Slow Stitching

 Linking with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching. and Cynthia at quiltingismorefunthanhousework.

To Do Tuesday

I hadn't posted a to-do list for a long time until last week. This is how I did:

1. Listen to the rest of the 8 lectures for my current course and do the test. done
2. Hand applique while listening. done
3. Change the throat plate on the Bernina so we can do some zig-zag stitching. done
4. Bring the step stool in from the trampoline so I can put Serendipity on the design wall. done
5. Take the step stool back out to the trampoline. oops
6. Clear out my inbox. A work in progress since I have about 1500 unopened emails
7. Pre-wash more background fabric for the 3030 Quilt center. done
8. Draw the design onto the BACK of the 27-inch center medallion for back basting. drew it on the front instead since I have decided to do this by machine applique and fusible
9. Begin to prep a few of the applique shapes.  turns out I have to trace the shapes backwards in order to get the design on the top frontwards. I can do this
10. Make jam. 
11. Make relish. my son made some green tomato relish but still want to make corn relish
12. Finish this Ella block. done  
    

This week's list:

1. Be productive for 7 whole days in a row with no children. 
2. Two more lessons on Healing Power.
3. Find a new internet provider.
4. Continue clearing inbox.
5. Hand applique because I love doing it again. 
6. Write one page for SMOWJ. 
7. Write another page. 
8. Make jam.
9. Make corn relish.
10. Stop reading blogs for at least 3 days. 

The girls are learning to whistle. I heard Jingle Bells tweeting out in the kitchen as the 8-year old was drying supper dishes the other night. The 7-year-old has finally figured out how to get that first tweet out and that is all we hear from her right now. All. The. Time. I love it! 

Blessings,

Chris

Stitching With Friends

I finally completed this block! Yay me! I listened to eleven hours of lectures this past week and stitched on many of these arrowhead shapes. Glad this one is done. Not doing it again any time soon. Gay has released a few more doozies for us to make. I can hardly wait. 

This is another of the Ella blocks I am hand appliqueing. This one was a piece of cake with only 4 points to turn compared to 108 in the previous block.

These are more blocks I am working on this week. Some back-basting. Some layering. Some unpicking. Some redoing.

Chooky did it again. She hosted a zoom meeting to stitch with friends around the world. I love it. There were 4 of us Canadians this time.  A few Americans. A few Australians. And a Kiwi or 2. 

The new blogger continues to challenge me. I got the comment in my inbox thing fixed. But how do I remove a photo once I upload it? It cannot be that hard to figure out since blogger is telling us they are improving their service. I can do this. 

Blessings, 

Chris

linking with: slow-sunday-stitching.  design-wall monday-   katiemaequilts.  put-your-foot-down-

To-Do Tuesday

I posted a few times on To-Do Tuesday but often forgot or was too busy to take the time. Other times, I only posted a couple of times a month. And yet, I write up to-do lists all the time. Do I follow them? Sometimes. It is more of a brain dump with all the things I think I should be doing rather than what I actually intend to do. So here we go:

1. Listen to the rest of the 8 lectures for my current course and do the test.
2. Hand applique while listening.
3. Change the throat plate on the Bernina so we can do some zig-zag stitching. 
4. Bring the step stool in from the trampoline so I can put Serendipity on the design wall.
5. Take the step stool back out to the trampoline. 
6. Clear out my inbox. 
7. Pre-wash more background fabric for the 3030 Quilt center.
8. Draw the design onto the BACK of the 27-inch center medallion for back basting.
9. Begin to prep a few of the applique shapes. 
10. Make jam. 
11. Make relish.
12. Finish this Ella block. 

That should be enough to remember for one week. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: to-do Tuesday  needleandthreadnetwork.

49 Years

What do you do when your phone lines are out? What do you do when your internet is out? How did we ever live without being connected to the world? They are connecting great-grandma to the internet so had to dig a trench down the lane, across her lawn, and into her house. However, my underground phone line got cut and it took 3 days to get a service guy here to tell us we have to wait for another 24 to 48 hours to get a crew out to dig a new trench to bury a new phone line from the road to my house which is about 1/4 mile long. Now about the internet, it does not have lines but had been out since yesterday. After 3 weeks away, the girls are home but cannot watch their shows. It should have been quiet, but the girls decided to play really noisy, boisterous, loud games in the living room. That until the tears came and they got sent to bed. 

I have been listening to lectures online, doing some hand applique, and working my way through a test. This should be easy, after all, this is the seventh course I am doing this way. But, they forgot to send me the first 2 lectures so it was a bit confusing. Got that all sorted out until no internet. Also, I have been visiting with quilters here and there online. I love doing this! I can wear my pj's and don't have to pack my stuff or drive anywhere. I just stay here in my quilt room and carry on. 

Two friends connected on Facebook and one of my other sisters came over so the three of us got to hang out and talk quilts.  And speaking of quilts, Emily has a completed quilt. She got it back from the longarm quilter the other day and has it on her bed. I joined the FNWF (Friday Night With Friends) here all day Friday. I have been plodding along with this Ella-maria-deacon-quilt block for a while now. There are 32 of those arrowhead pieces. With the back basting of every other one and turning no less than 3 points on each one as I needle-turn hand applique, it is taking me at least 15-20 minutes per piece. Only 14 more to go. Just for fun, we put up the fabric I have for the setting triangles and the sashing strips to see what this is going to look like. I like it. 

The little girls, who got out of bed this early Sunday morning and went out to the barn to feed baby calves and kittens, are in and have discovered that the internet is back on and my Sweetie is in from morning chores so it must be breakfast time. We celebrated 49 years of marriage to each other this week and are planning a party for next year. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: slow-sunday-stitching. party-patchwork-quilts-  

quiltingismorefunthanhousework. design-wall-monday.  wednesday-wait-loss-  midweek-makers-  off-wall-friday.

Quilt Retreat at Home

So what's been happening here at the farm? This is the week I would have gone to Shipshewana for a quilt retreat, but, alas, we are not allowed to leave the country, so, I decided to do my own retreat. I cleared off 2 tables and moved the desktop computer to the other side of the room so I could participate in some online quilt-a-longs. This way, I have so much more table space for working and playing at the same time. I met with some of my friends on Facebook to stitch and chat over the past 3 days.

I joined Chookyblue for an international stitching party. Our host calculated all the timezones and sent us a link to join the party. She opened the zoom meeting at 6 AM Saturday her time in Australia and my time was 4 PM Friday. I joined the party for about 3 hours (after a quick nap) Friday night then after a delightful sleep, rejoined at 6 in the morning for a couple of hours. This was a lot of fun chatting with quilters in other countries.

And what did I work on? This is last week's block from Sentimental Stitches 3030 Quilt. I had to think about the 1/8th inch stems. I ended up cutting a bias strip 3/8th wide and appliqueing it in place. A bit wobbly, but have you ever seem a perfectly straight flower stem? Neither have I. There will be a large applique center medallion but I will not get the pattern until next week. I am really enjoying the novelty of these Thirties prints. 

Last week the little boy grandchildren came over and we slept in the trailer in the front yard. I had to have something to work on out there. I took out a lamp and sweater and sat under the a/c fan for 4  nights. I promised them I would not leave them out there alone. I think the temperatures were hovering around 30C outside. I have those 8 arrowheads to stitch down and them I can back-baste on the final 8. I think I will make them aqua. This block has taken umpteen hours to this point. Looking forward to seeing it completed. 

This is another Ella applique block. I prepped several back in April when I allowed myself to start a new quilt. The first in 2 years. Those dark petals are a purple and I am using a 10-inch layer cake from Betsey Chutian's Susanna Scraps collection. There is lots of variety but not lots of fabric. I am certainly enjoying hand stitching with yet another Moda fabric. I am back basting every other melon. 

I switched the function on the mouse so I now right-click with my middle finger instead of left-clicking with the forefinger. It has been a bit to get used to doing it backward but my right forefinger is so sore and I found this option. 

I started working on a new course for my doctorate. It has lectures online and I was hand appliqueing a 3030 block and turned on a lecture.  I had printed off 11 pages of a test that is required for every course. But 30 minutes into the lecture, I still had not found the answer to any questions so popped in lesson 2 and the same thing, until I heard a word that was written up on about page 9 of the test and realized that for this course the test questions are not listed in order so now I have to spread out the pages and hunt for the answers. I can do this now that I know. 

I did not meet my One Monthly Goal for July. My OMG Goal for August will be to complete the above 3 applique blocks and maybe one or two more 3030 Blocks. Not too challenging a quilting goal as I plan to get some serious writing done this month, specifically this week as I have 6 whole days in a row with no children to interrupt me, or hug me, or ask for booboo kisses or ice cream or popcorn. It may be quiet, but I might even miss the darlings. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: Quilting Patchwork Applique  quilting is more fun than housework   sunday slow stitching

Wendyès Quilts  needleandthreadnetwork.  wednesday-wait-loss-183  midweek-makers-  

myquiltinfatuation.  wendysquiltsandmore.