Slow Sunday Stitching

 

My hand stitching has been very slow. The hands are not cooperating so good these days. This is the Ella block I will be working on today. That orangey fabric seemed a tad bright and out of place on the wall with the others, but I am adding a bit more in those corner leaves. I will add more of this throughout the rest of the blocks somewhere. 

I found the rest of that piece of coral fabric between 2 Thiries fabrics for the 3030 Quilt. Not sure how it ended up there, except that I was prepping both at the same time and usually put things away quickly and carelessly. 

I found the missing petal yesterday when I swept the floor under my desk. 

Now to audition something dramatic or subtle for the center. I cannot just turn it under and reverse applique. I tried. 

I am linking with Kathy at slow-sunday-stitching.

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: httquiltingismorefunthanhousework  september-woofa design-wall-monday-

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Where is that Piece of Fabric?

 

I got this far on this Ella block on Sunday but could not find the last petal in that coral colour. I wasn't sure what name to give to it but one of the girls called it coral. 

I looked high. I looked low. I looked on the floor and under the tables. Then I went through every box of fabrics here that it might have been in. I even looked through all the see-through boxes on the shelf with all the small stuff in them. And I found a spool of coral or dusty rose cotton thread to match but not the petal nor the piece of fabric it came from. Now, if you recall, I am using a 10-inch square pack of Betsy McKutchian's Susannah Scraps and there was only a 10 inch square of that fabric. What to do? But I have matching thread once I decide to do it. 

There are only 8 days left in September before October will be here. That means I have to get my One Monthly Goal done or fail miserable (insert sad face). Well, not really. I could just roll it over to next month. But I had other ideas for next month. Sigh. 

In the meantime, I have been working away at a course called Blame it on the Brain. It is about learning disabilities in children. I see myself on every other page Well, not quite. Just in the ADHD chapter which was a long one. I have lots of work yet to do but got the open book test done and recorded now to do the next thing. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with : needleandthreadnetwork.  wednesday-wait-loss

Slow Stitching and Fast Prepping

I took today to spend in my quilt room. Actually, this is also my office but my focus was on quilting. Kat at Next Step Designs a Canadian quilt shop in Calgary, is revamping the 150 Canadian Women BOW and I have decided to join in. 

This was a year-long quilt-a-long back in 2017 to commemorate Canada's 150 Birthday. I started it about halfway through but did not get too far. It turns out that she was using more than just 2 colours. I had quickly cut out lots of bits using my GO cutter but ran out of steam. 

So, today I cut a lot more bits from several different Canada themed fabrics and started to layout a whole bunch of blocks. I prepped about 20 blocks to stitch up another day. 

I have been plugging away at this Ella applique block. It is a bit fiddly the way I am doing it. I started with back-basting then changed it twice before doing a variety of techniques that make it fiddly. The petals overlap and I was challenged to find thread the right colour then find it again when I tidied up and could not find it. Twice. 

And, I am having trouble threading a needle these days. Okay. The thread I am using for that coral colour is quilting thread. But it matches. Just does not thread so nicely into my #10 milliners's needles. Good thing I got some more Bohin needles. They are my favourite. I will finish this up tomorrow while watching schurch online. 

I know I am supposed to be writing, but writing up a blog post IS writing too. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: slow-sunday-stitching  desgn-wall-monday-  boms-away

Friday Night Sew-In on Sat Morning

 

I will be stitching along with some new friends today and tomorrow. They are like 16 hours ahead of us here in my part of Canada, but we all stitch at the same time where we live and touch base through our blogs afterward. Tomorrow I will be face to face with some of my friends here on Facebook as we quilt or make masks or mend jeans, for that is what some of us have been doing. 

So I have not been playing any computer games this week, It is not killing me. Actually, it has been okay and I have so much more time. Imagine that? I have been writing. Yup. One whole page so far. 430 more words than the last time I wrote. 

Our daughter and her family moved in this week and they are organizing themselves and the stuff they brought here with them. They rented a storage unit in town for the bulk of their household furniture and stuff. They are now snuggled in the trailer and the September temperatures are right on schedule as they dip down to 4-5C at night and a glorious 20 something during the day. We have bright sunny skies right now. A touch of frost the other morning will start the trees changing colour. I can hardly wait. We are called Maplehurst Farm for a reason. We are surrounded by majestic maples and towering pine trees. 

I started a new mentoring group last week. We met outside behind this old farmhouse. One girl said she did not see the trailer or the bus sitting in the yard because she was so mesmerized by the beauty we have surrounding us here. I am so used to driving in and out that I usually criticize something. Silly me. I know we live in an amazingly beautiful setting here with the trees and fields and cows. We will continue meeting outside and sitting 6 feet apart as we discuss lots of things. There are 8 girls and me so we are within the approved limit of humans in one place. Girls. lol. Most of us have grandkids. We will be meeting every other week. Next week we will focus on journaling and the 7 stages of grief since I am writing about the grief stage of my journey.

The 150 Cdn Rerun QAL has opened up a facebook group and I joined yesterday just minutes after the notification popped up. They wanted a picture of my patterns and what I have sewn up so far to admit me. I like that. Only those actually making it will be part of the group. I found everything I need and even a little bit of time since I stopped playing games. I have all this laid out on the big table to see what I have and where I am going. Tomorrow I will pull out the GO cutter and crank through a whole bunch of fabrics so I can proceed. I realized that I need to be using several colours not just red and white. I might get one of the little girls to crank for me. 

Have I mentioned that  I stopped playing computer games? It's been 4 whole days. I belong to 2 accountability groups now and need to account for how I use my time and accomplish the goals I set each week. My goal this week is to write every day. And I have, just not on my book. 

Blessings,

Chris

150 Canadian Women Rerun and Goal Setting

Quilt-A-Long

Next step quilt designs will be doing another quilt-a-long with the 150 Canadian Women project. You must have your own patterns to take part. I got all the patterns when they were free a few years ago when we celebrated Canada's150th Birthday. Since I had collected most of the patterns before I started it, I saw many of the blocks and decided to do a blitz cut out of many of the pieces with my GO cutter. However, I forgot that many of the blocks called for several colours. I had spent so much time making the tiny Dear Jane blocks in only one colour on a background, I forgot that some quilters use more than one colour in the same block. So that can be a goal for me to pull out the bin of fabrics and cut a bunch more pieces. I like the leader/enders, but have to realize that I need to be using the same colour thread for both projects. I am using a cream colour for this but white for the 3030 Quilt. Hmm. Too many decisions to be making this late at night.

It is 10 pm on a school night and most of the grandchildren are already in bed but not the eldest who is now in grade eight and wants 11 hours of sleep tonight as well as improving her math skills. The little boys moved into the trailer last night with their mom and cats. Dad will be arriving tomorrow after the movers move all their household stuff into storage until they figure out the next step. 

In the meantime, it is time to decide on my 90 Day One Big Thing Goal for my writing group. And since I started a new mentoring group this week, I have decided to have the same goal for both groups. I am mentoring a group of Christian women and goal setting is our focus this week. I set goals all the time, but do I attain them? I have accountability and since I am the leader here, I probably should set a good example and meet my goals. In order to accomplish my goals for this fall, I really need to let go of some things to free up how I use my time. That was the object lesson using a jar to fill up with the things I am doing. So, I plan to give up computer games. Remember I spent at least 100 of those hours playing them last month? 

So 100 hours per month for 3 months frees up 300 hours. And I was thinking that if I write for 1 hour a day (I was really thinking one page a day) then I should easily have a first draft by the middle of December. That is my logic. But the reality is, I do things in fits and starts, feast or famine, all or nothing. I have done way too much nothing for way too long. Now is as good a time as any to change. I have just been waiting for the school year to begin and life going back to some normal routines. 

Now I am the one needing to improve my math. One hundred hours a month is more like 3 hours per day. That's like getting an almost full-time job.

Maybe I am the one who should go to bed. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: katiemaequilts. and boms-away-  needleandthreadnetwork.  friday-night-with-friends.

Blogging Anniversary

 My goodness!! How did this sneak up on me? I started blogging exactly 7 years ago today. I have published 525 blog posts. I have met countless quilters around the world. I have chronicled pretty much all the quilts I have ever started and those I have finished. I started a lot more than I finished. What a journey!

I am taking part, once again, on Friday Night With Friends. We each do our quilty thing at home and post about it then visit all the other quilters out there in blog land. I am continuing the hand applique on a few Ella blocks. My sister left for her home in Pakistan last night and I plan to reorganize my quilt room and tables and stuff to prepare for my daughter and her family moving in here next week. I have quilty ideas. We started a quilt together using my GO dies about 8 years ago. That has been sitting in a box for far too long. I think I will pull it out and put it up on the big design all and see where our inspiration will take us. 

Blessings,

Chris

September OMG Goal

I am starting a new mentoring group later this month and we will start off talking about goal setting. What do I know about setting goals? I set goals all the time. Do I follow through on them to completion? Sometimes. Not always. I could learn a few things. 

I usually set quilting goals for Patty's OMG. But quilting is not the only thing I do. Sometimes, but not often, I do housework or pay bills or clean out the car. Most bills are set to be paid automatically on our credit card or on-line banking and my Sweetie writes the checks for the rest. I just make sure there are lots of checks and envelopes and stamps.  One of my goals this past week was to buy more stamps. I bought envelopes last month. Probably should order more checks soon. I bought new pens this week. I ordered some notebooks on Amazon and then they offered me my favourite all-time pens at half price so I bought 4 packs of them. I tried to get more but that was the limit. I tried on another order but they were on to me. Okay. Where was I? Goals. Right. I usually set quilting goals every month. Sometimes they are reasonable and other times they are a fantasy. 

I have been limiting my quilting to the 3030 Quilt and Ella.  The Ella blocks for this month are a few more doozy applique ones.  Not sure that I will make all of them since I plan to only make 50 altogether and not all 85 like the original. 

My September OMG will be to complete a few Ella blocks. Not promising any more than that. Non-quilting goals will be to complete one more of my courses.

blessings,

Chris 

linking with: slow-sunday-stitching.  design-wall-monday- link-party-patchwork-quilts-  one-monthly-goal-september-link-up.

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