May 2021 OMG Goal

My OMG goal for May was going to be to stitch for at least 15 minutes a day for the month of May. I thought that with any luck, I could have the rest of the Ella applique blocks done. But the reality is, if I intend to complete my doctorate by the end of the month, then I have to change my quilting goals mindset. 

Instead, I will set the bar really low this month. The OMG goal will be to complete just one 50th Anniversary quilt aka Ella block.  Just one. Anyone. Will I stitch at least 15 minutes a day? I hope so. But I found that too much pressure this past month. So, one block it will be. I already have June goals dancing around in my head.  

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: slow-sunday-stitching.  tishnwonderland. quiltingismorefunthanhousework.

link-party-patchwork-quilts-  design-wall-monday katiemaequilts/boms-away-  myquiltinfatuation.

 wendysquiltsandmore.  alyciaquilts.  ninamariesayre.  midweek-makers-

April 2021 OMG Completion

My OMG goal for April was simple. Stitch almost every day for at least 15 minutes. Very specific, if a bit vague. And I have been stitching at least 15 minutes some days and 3-4 hours most Saturdays when I meet with friends and sisters online. These are the 50th Anniversary Quilt aka Ella blocks I completed this month. Most of them were started already but now they are finished. The final 5 block patterns will be released next month. I wonder what BOM Gay might come up with for her next QAL. She has two on the go right now that are all pieced blocks. I chose to not join those. 

In the meantime, I have been madly working on completing courses for my doctorate. I submitted Blame it on the Brain early in the month. It was a course on learning disabilities in children. I learned far more about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) than I could ever have imagined. I had decided years ago that I had that and it explained why I do things the way I do and don't do things the way I do. Now I am working on completing Christian Counseling I & II. This is mostly a review of counseling and psychology courses I did years ago. Reviews are good. Only 2 more to go. My goal is to have all coursework completed and submitted by June 1st. I can do this, but I have had to drop other activities like blogging, sewing, and housework.  And I realized that I had not replied to the many comments last post. Thank you all who made comments and encouraged me in my endeavors. 

I have had no less than 39 lectures to listen to and outline for the last three courses. Only 30 more to go. All the Action Exercises in one textbook. Two multiple-choice tests and 3 book reports and 4 more summaries. 

We are back in lock-down and the girls are again doing online schooling. Their schedules have been changed to a week here and a week at Mom's. This means that we oversee and hover for a mere 6 hours each day for a whole week then have no children here for a whole week. They probably will not return to in-person school until Sept. 

And in view of the tighter lock-down regulations, we have decided to postpone our 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration in Aug until next year. It was my Sweetie's suggestion. We had our first Moderna jab last week with the second scheduled for late July. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: tishnwonderland.  alyciaquilts.  wendysquiltsandmore.

quiltingpatch.  slow-sunday stitching  quiltingismorefunthanhousework. katiemaequilts. 

smallquiltsanddollquilts.  lovelaughquilt. wednesday-wait-loss-

myquiltinfatuation. ninamariesayre.

April 201 OMG Goal

My OMG goal for April will be to stitch for at least 15 minutes almost every day. I have quite a few Ella blocks already prepped with back basting for needle-turn hand applique. This method goes on in layers as some of the pieces sit on top of others. There will be a few broderie perse blocks. I like doing them once I decide what fabrics to cut out. I prep lots of blocks at a time when I have time to sit with it for a few hours like on Sat mornings when I meet online with a few sisters and quilting friends. 

I am putting most of my other projects on hold for a couple of months as I endeavor to complete the rest of my academic courses. And if I can stay off Facebook and stop reading blogs and playing games, I have a good chance to do just that. But that is not the way I do things usually. 

We are back in lockdown this week, so I won't be able to go to the pool again for a while. It felt good to get some exercise but it did take time and energy. Taxes are getting done on Wed.  

blessings,

Chris

linking with: slow-sunday-stitching_  kate-life-in-pieces. 

oh-scrap-  quiltingpatch. design allmonday 

lovelaughquilt. needleandthreadnetwork. 

wednesday-wait-loss  midweek-makers  myquiltinfatuation.  

ninamariesayre. boms-away-  tishnwonderland

elmstreetquilts.

March 2021 OMG Completion

 . 

I am calling it done for my March OMG. My goal was to work on The Curves for the QAL 2021. I do not have the flimsy yet but I did make up a lot of blocks. 

I put them up on the big design wall in a few different versions and asked my Sat morning group for ideas. So now, I plan to put it aside for a while and consider all the ideas. 

Another goal idea was to sew on some of the sashing strips to Ella blocks so I could put them up on the wall easier. And I did that. Most of the blocks around the outside are just prepped and some of them have some of the hand applique done. I work on these for my 15 minutes to Stitch each day. I think I missed one day this month. I had thought to start working on some of the machine pieced blocks but will leave them until June. I should have lots more time then since I am working madly trying to complete the last courses for my doctorate. So back to the books.

Here is a picture of the antique quilt I found. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: myquiltinfatuation.  needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.

off-wall-friday.  wendysquiltsandmore.  finished-or-not-friday 

katiemaequilts.

15 Minutes to Stitch

This is where I am in mid-March with the 50th Anniversary aka Ella quilt blocks. A bit more than halfway. There are 22 complete and 13 in-process applique blocks. This leaves me exactly 15 more blocks to make. I try to work on a bit of hand applique every day for at least 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes a day really does make a difference to progress the project. But it takes planning and prep work to have something ready to pick up. I missed stitching one day. Well, actually, I did pick up a block and put in about 4 stitches then realized that I needed to stop and unstitch so put it down. So, really, that does not count for at least 15 minutes. 

There are 85 nine-inch blocks in the original Ella Maria Deacon Quilt from Sentimental Stitches. I am making 50 to commemorate our 50th wedding anniversary in August. It has not been too difficult to choose blocks to omit. There are quite a few repeat blocks and a few extremely challenging ones I do not want to be challenged with. 

 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with:  slow-sunday-stitching kate-life-in-pieces.  quiltingismorefunthanhousework.

design-wall-monday- boms-away friday-night-sew-in

monday-making  tishnwonderland.  needleandthreadnetwork. midweek-makers wednesday-wait-loss

myquiltinfatuation  off-wall-friday.  wendysquiltsandmore. alyciaquilts.blogspot.

Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop 2021

 Welcome to my stop on the Dust Off  Quilt Book Blog Hop. The first quilt book I ever bought was the Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting by Marguerite Ickis. It was first published in 1948 and my copy in 1959. As a voracious reader, I had to be reading something.  I devoured the book. As a young bride moving into this 1842 farmhouse nearly 50 years ago, I discovered a few tattered old quilts. They are long gone, but the memories remain. A Radiant Star, Triple Irish Chain, Double Nine Patch as well as an assortment of child quilts.  

In the book are patterns for many old favorite blocks. I had never heard of any of them. But I was young and willing to learn. I liked that there were themes of blocks. I especially liked the Rose of Sharon blocks. But they were all different sizes. I had no idea how to make them all the same size. There were Bible-themed blocks. I thought that would be a great place to begin so I started dreaming of making my first sampler quilt.

The patterns were wonderfully descriptive.

The instructions were clear with detailed instructions. 

 

I could hardly wait to get started. 

However, in 1974 when I bought this book, I was just beginning the nightmare journey with a profoundly handicapped child - the seizures, the fevers, another pregnancy, sleepless nights, depression -  You can read the whole story in my book 

Denine: One mother's journey with a profoundly handicapped child. 

 

Years later I found this pattern by Rosemary Makhan called Biblical Blocks. I loved it so much, I started a couple more. I will complete them someday. 

And this pattern also by Rosemary, who bought her copy of the book at the same time. 

Rose Sampler Supreme. 

The swag border and sashing were simplified.

I want to thank Bea at beaquilter for inviting me to be part of this blog hop. I already have a book picked out for next year.  

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: wendysquiltsandmore.

ninamariesayre. rebeccagracequilting

link-party-patchwork-quilts

March 2021 OMG Goal

Sometimes I agonize about what to choose for my OMG goal each month. Often I pick a goal and promptly work on something else. So, what if I were to suggest the choice of 2-3 different goals and complete one but not the others? Would that still count? Food for thought. 

One of the goals I have been thinking about is to remove some of the sashings already sewn onto the completed Ella blocks and redo them. I want to take a full quarter-inch seam allowance and show less brown, then sew sashing strips onto the rest of the completed blocks. I like to put them up on the big design all to look at and choose more colours, but that is a lot of work with so many pieces. 

Another goal could be to play a bit of catch-up on the pieced Ella blocks. There are far more applique blocks in the quilt. 

These are the 7 blocks I complete in Feb.

There are only 3 more months of blocks to be released and my goal is to have a flimsy by June. That is a lot of work. 

Then there is The QAL 2021 The Curves. To keep on track for that, I will have to sew all the blocks together but there will be a couple of hundred leaves yet to fuse, cut out, and applique on by machine. That will be a lot of work.  And, of course, I have to choose a final layout. It is a reproduction quilt but the little girls might talk me into adding a few modern dragonflies or butterflies. Wait a minute. Devan is learning to sew curves on the machine. I wonder? 

The RSC colour for March is green and I have all the green blocks complete for Bright Jane. I made exactly none of the yellow last month. 

So now that I have laid it all out like this, The Curves needs to be at the top of the OMG list to keep on track for that QAL. 

And in other news here at the Farm, My Sweetie's 92-year-old mother's toaster caught fire and she exited the house very quickly to get help. Five fire trucks, EMS, police, and road closure in rush hour traffic later, her kitchen was badly damaged. So one blessing is that she is no longer living alone in her house but staying with her youngest son here on the farm with family to look after her. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with: boms-away-  design-wall-monday rebeccagracequilting. fortheloveofgeese.

tishnwonderland.  myquiltinfatuation.  midweek-makers