OMG and To-Do Tuesday for all of March

 I have been so taken up with working on the Shade's of Pemberley ufo for Dust Off a Book Blog Hop. It will be going on all week. You can find links here to see what other quilters have been inspired by old quilt books. I also have been slowly but diligently working on the Wedding Quilt. I made almost as many mistakes as I did correct seams. It was quite discouraging to keep unstitching. I don't know about a lot of other quilters, but I find that working at my machine for any length of time exhausting. I have dealt with low back pain most of my adult life and trying to do the finish-it-up-marathon was very painful. Hense, the hot tub. I was up and down to clip, cut, sew, press, line up, etc.

I thought I was getting quite a good workout, but not so. I have spent a small fortune over the years on physio, massage, chiro, osteo, and pain killers. The hot tub is the best treatment. Even in the snow. 

Now to change focus for this month. 

I am going away next week and again for most of the month of April. I plan to take along a few hand applique blocks for Ella aka the Anniversary Quilt.

I have not done any significant work on it for 2 years and it is time to finish it up. And why? Because we have set a date for the 50+2 Anniversary Celebration. It will be the weekend of July 1-4. That is a long weekend here in Canada and in America where some of our family live. We have booked a tent and a bouncy castle and a roaster for a pig roast. It is going to be spectacular. 

But I still have to finish the quilt. So, my goals this month will be to complete these 3 foundation pieced blocks that are already prepped and on the go. I also want to make significant progress on the applique blocks. That is it for my quilty goals. 

My 40 Bags are filling up. I have about 7 right now and time this week to fill a whole lot more. Mostly outgrown clothes and empty yogurt containers I use for freezing meals. I will be dropping off the clothes on Thurs. 

Linking with Carol at To-Do Tuesday and Patty at One Monthly Goal. Now to get busy.

Blessings,

Chris

40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge

 It is that time of the year again. Many people give up something for Lent and I was coerced invited into participating in giving up some of my stuff. I have done this challenge before. So, today, I made a crockpot of stew and a big (is there any other size) of soup and needed some freezer containers. 

The main container drawer was so full to overflowing with lunch containers and a gzillion lids with no matching containers. 

FYI, I wash all the dishes but others dry and put them away. 

I like to use see through containers so I can see what is in them. Seems logical to me. 

But there are always a lot of empty yogurt containers which make great freezer containers.

So, I sorted them out quickly by dumping them into empty boxes. There are more than a few Amazon boxes sitting around waiting to be recycled. 

This is the container side of the cupboard after I removed all the ones in the previous 2 pictures. 

The freezer was getting low on prepared meals so now there are more for another day. That, and out son generously gives meals away to people in need. We need to get him involved in the making like chopping all those vegetables. 

I purged the big drawer a few months ago (maybe a year ago) and put them into a very big container. How many water bottles does one family need? 

So, I missed posting for To-Do Tuesday yesterday. I got most of my list done last week. This week will be:

1. Fill a bag a day (sort of) to donate, recycle or throw out. 
2. Continue having fun with my 23 ufos. 
3. Get my Dust Off a Book (DOAB) project done.
4. Okay. Get my DOAB project out of the box.
5. Start working on completing it. 

That's enough for one week. 

     6. I'd better add catch up on responding to comments. 

We are in the midst of a mid winter snow storm. It is howling and blowing out there. I don't think there is too much snow, but it sure is noisy. 

Blessings,

Chris

40-Bags-in-40-Days

Today is the first day of Lent. My granddaughter phoned me to ask if I knew what yesterday was. She informed me that it was "Fat Tuesday" and they had pancakes served for breakfast at her school. She is in grade 2. She said that we are supposed to give up bread and sugar for Lent. Okay. I do not as a rule "give up" anything for lent. However, I did give up bread and sugar and a few other things for 30 days last month, lost 12 pounds and the swelling in my knees went away. So maybe I should take up her challenge to give up bread and sugar for Lent. Hmm.

Another challenge two of my facebook friends took up last year at this time was the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge to de-clutter and de-crapify their homes. This year I am in. Will I post about it every day? Now that is a challenge in itself. I could. I might.

Day 1:
I emptied the trash boxes under the tables in the quilt room. I did not want to overdo it the first day. I have printed off a plan and progress chart. I will make a plan. Will I stick to it? Check back here and see if I do.

In the meantime, after completing BTCT block #20 , I was encouraged greatly by some of my blogging friends and so have begun prepping 2 more blocks. Using the GO cutter, I found several sizes of circles and cut out 42 red and green for the cherries for Block #7. It is very similar to Block #20.

1 1/8th inch circles

And because I do like a challenge, or a dare, I cut out the nearly 200 grapes to appear in 2 other blocks.

1 inch, 1 1/8th inch and 7/8th inch circles

I will be flying out to New Brunswick in another 3 weeks so I am ahead of the game in prepping a couple of blocks to take along. I usually prep them as I am packing my bags the day I leave.

It's-snowing-again blessings,
Chris 

40 Bags in 40 Days Progress

(The word ladders shows up so I can share this)

Three years ago our daughter flew home for 5 days at her father's request to orchestrate clearing out 2 bedrooms of accumulated crap. My husband told me I needed to have a plan. My daughter said, don't tell me what needs doing. Tell me what it will look like when I am finished. My response with a sigh was that each room would have only a bed, a chair and a dresser. We were close. Each room has a bed, a chair and 2 dressers.

Our daughter is an amazing person with great organizational skills. She recruited the help of 2 close friends who just happen to be professional cleaners and as a love gift to us, they spent 3 mornings totally clearing out and  hauling outside the most incredible amount of stuff. Nothing left with out my approval. They set up selves for my quilting hoard in one of the now cleared out bedrooms - the white room since it is not painted - in a very large walk in closet with 4 sliding panels that are each 4 feet wide and 7 feet  high. It is full. I was busy working on a research paper for school at the time so was down here on the computer out of their way until they called me to sit and make decisions on what quilt fabric was to go and what was to stay and I had to answer immediately as they held it up in front of me. Within 10 minutes they had 8 big boxes of the cheap stuff I was never going to use. I let my quilt group sort through that and the rest was donated. I had most of  my UFOs in project boxes already so now these are neatly labeled and sit on shelves awaiting my attention - not going to happen anytime soon. I have since purchased new mattresses for some of the beds so guests can sleep in comfort. It was time.

I had wanted to put in new windows for years but there was way too much stuff blocking access from the inside to allow workers to get in and do the replacing. One year ago we finally did replace all 22 windows in the house. Now we can open any window in the house whenever we want and the upstairs windows can now be washed from the inside. No more ladders to remove and replace storm windows.

My 40 Bags in 40 Days is up to day 12. I started the day after Lent was over since this is not a Lenten project. And since this is my challenge, I am not bound by rules that I have to do exactly 1 bag each consecutive day. Among other stuff, so far I have cleared out a big bag of old socks from the laundry room, worn out cassette tapes from a kitchen drawer that is now filled with place mats and hot pads, expired stuff from several kitchen cupboards when I was looking for sunblock and a glue stick from my quilt room. The glue stick got a wave of response on my facebook wall but, I spent an hour putting away a lot of gadgets and tidying up so I could begin completion on my Dear Jane quilt and I decided to stop using UHU glue since it does not wash out so nicely after all. I have switched to Elmers. I decided not to post before and after pictures, partly because I am too embarrassed with all the clutter and junk, but mostly because that would take precious time away from quilting. And as I was putting away a large depression glass dish in the china cabinet, I opened the lower doors and drawers to see what was inside and glory be I found the original manuscript for Denine's story and am now persuing publishing options. Interesting what you can find when you respond to a dare like 8 one hundred dollar bills. End of story.
( But wait! It was supposed to be Quilt Ladders. Oh well. Too late now.)

Blessings,
Chris

40 Bags in 40 Days

I have 2 friends on facebook who took the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge for Lent.  Here is the link .
I have been following their progress and thinking of a hundred reasons why I can't do the same. One friend is a full time high school teacher. The other is a full time mom of 2 preschoolers. I am retired. How difficult should it be for me to find time each day to de-clutter and de-crapify one area in my house? Other than I have a bad hip and standing on my feet for 2 minutes in a row is a challenge.

We  live in a very big house. It is an 1840's farm house and has many rooms, including 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 back kitchen, 1living room, 1 quilt room and 1 laundry room. It also had 2 hallways and 3 sets of stairs. One stairway leads to the basement. I shutter to think about these 2 rooms. There is 1000 square feet of dirt floor and when it rains, well, lets just say we do not need a sump pump. If we put in track lights we could have a hydroponic garden down there. One stairway leads to the 1880's addition which has 2 guest rooms and a bathroom, ever ready for guests and a place to display quilts. The third stairway leads to the main upstairs.

So, this challenge is not about cleaning but about de-cluttering and getting rid of stuff that has accumulated over the years. Ouch! I have been in the house for nearly 43 years and the house has been in the family for over 100 years.

Day 1 will be Monday April 7, 2014.  game-plan
Oh, wait. The accountant is coming to do the farm taxes that day.

Blessings,
Chris