November Is Almost Done

It is hard to believe that November is almost done. What have I actually accomplished in the quilting area? I took 9 Dear Daughter blocks to India with me. I completed 4 and did all the stitching I could on the rest. I did take along some extra bits of fabric for broderie perse but did not get those done. So in the end, I did not get my November OMG met but that is okay.

Here you can see the progress. 
The next blocks will be released on Friday. I am aiming to get them all complete by the end of the year. At least that is what I am telling myself.

I am still in jet lag recovery. Some say it takes one day for each time zone to recover. India is 10 1/2 time zones away. So that gives me another 3 days. I actually slept well each night when I got home and was awake during the day. The grand kids all showed up and we had big family Christmas dinner with my husband's family. Someone shared a stomach bug and we are all moaning and groaning here as we get over that. Sigh. This is day 3 for me.

I have 900 photos from India and plan to write up a few blog posts soon. I have not felt like thinking for the past week.  

As for the NaNoWriMo, I got 25 pages written about my adventures in India. Not one page each day. But it is still 25 more pages than I had a month ago. 

I opened my Word program the other night and was reviewing all the documents in there. I have been using this desktop computer for nearly 4 years now so not a lot. I spotted a paper I had written 7 years ago on Dissociative Identity Disorder and wondered what it was doing here. So I read it. And by golly, I can hardly wait too get back into working on my Surviving Menopause book.

Blessings,

Chris 

NaNoWriMo 2018

I am off to India for 2 weeks for a ministry trip so I have prepped several blocks to take along with me. I have threaded lots of needles. Last trip I did not have enough threaded and ran out. My extra thread and scissors were in my checked bag. We will have a 15 hour train ride after we arrive with lots of time to nap, read, and of course stitch. My OMG -one-monthly-goal for November will be to get these 9 blocks completed. 

Also, there is this annual writing challenge called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You sign up and commit to writing 50 thousand words (about 1600 words every day) without stopping to edit and proof. Just write your next novel quickly. There will be time the rest of the year to get it ready for publishing if that is what you want to do. You have accountability partners and a whole bunch of guidelines. I have been talking about, thinking about, blogging about and planning about writing two more non-fiction books about my unique life experiences for several years and it is time to get off my good intentions and get busy writing. 

Tonight, on a facebook group I belong to, the discussion circled around doing the challenge and becoming "buddies" to keep each other accountable. I will be writing long hand in a notebook because I can do that on planes and trains and in my air conditioned room in the guest house. I am aiming for a minimum of one page each day for 30 days. I really like to edit as I write to correct all the typos, but will be using a pen and a paper note book. I can think better with a pen in hand. I will be off the grid for most of the trip so will check in at the end of the month.

Blessings,
Chris

October 2018 OMG Completion

Why do I so often set tough or impossible goals? It might have been easier to just say I will make one block. My October OMG  was to post about 15 unfinished quilts that I had not ever posted about before. I thought I had written up most of the 15 posts back in June but, alas, I had far more work to do than I had realized. I looked up 7 ufos and photographed them. A couple were still awol but eventually found. 

At the beginning of the month, my Sweet Farmer went away for 5 days to a big cattle show in Madison Wisconsin. Kind of nice to see one of the cows he sold a couple of years ago. She placed well in her age class.
The little girls were at their mom's and I was home alone most of the day so I took the whole day and got the posts completed and even scheduled them to post throughout the month. Now if I can only put this kind of effort into writing my book or doing school work. 

I finally figured out how to schedule a post. 

• write up the post 
• save it
• find schedule option on right under post setting
• click it open
• choose set date and time
• pick a date  (Oct 24)
• looks like we can pick a time also
• click done
• click save 
• not done yet
• now click publish 
• if you go back and edit the post you have to click save and publish again
• now it is sitting in posts scheduled 

My intent for this was not to actually start working on any of them, but to chronicle part of my life journey through some of my quilt starts and why they did not get done. Fact is, I am way ahead of the game for next year's ufo challenges.  Gretchen tells me to pick the one closest to completion to work on. Good advice. But I will be leaving for India in 12 days. My plan will be to take along a few blocks for hand applique. 

Blessings,
Chris

UFOs #26 Midget Blocks 2012

Since I was all finished school, I thought I had lots of time to play. I discovered the Midget Blocks at sentimental stitches in 2012. I was still trying to figure out the on-line free block of the week and month process. I bought the first 50 patterns then started saving the free weekly ones and any that had already been available prior to that. I also bought the  midget applique blocks .  Then I found the extra 4 1/2 inch blocks over at dearjane.com/bom. So I have them all. A lot of them. Maybe 250 or so. Somewhere along the way, I printed off ALL the patterns and put them into a binder. Then I started printing the foundation patterns onto foundation paper. I was on a roll with my preparations. 

Years earlier I had started collecting 1930's reproduction fabrics in anticipation of making an old fashioned Double Wedding Ring Quilt. But, I found an original top in excellent condition so never actually started it but had hundreds of small fabrics. I even bought a bunch of solids. I thought I would use these for the Midget Blocks when I ever got around to making them.

I had completed my Master's degree and had not yet jumped into the doctorate so I spent a lot of time on the computer downloading patterns, printing them off and filing them away to make up some day. I was now retired and no longer milking cows but still drove tractor. A lot. Because I could. I did not start blogging until a whole year later.

This brings to an end the ufo's in my quilt cupboard that I have been writing about. All my other ufos have been chronicled here on my blog that I started in 2013. I have at least a dozen kits I bought and did not make. Yet. I also have piles of fabric I bought for specific quilts not yet started. I had intended to eventually make scrap quilts, but I do not really have scraps left over from quilts that are not finished. So I have not actually started this one but am ready. One of these days. 

What I do have now is a great recollection of memories through some difficult years in my life that will be very helpful for the second book that I am writing. It is about menopause and anger and depression. Spoiler alert! It ends well because I am still here to tell about it.

Blessings,
Chris

UFO # 25 Farmer's Wife 2012

I did not actually start this quilt. What I did do was buy the book. Then read it. After that, I considered making it. There were no applique blocks and I was okay with that. But the patterns were a nightmare of some 80 templates that had to be printed off the CD, sized correctly, then created out of something. 
However, I was in possession of EQ6 at the time so I found many of the patterns in the library and drafted out all the rest. The one smart thing I did was to print off all the patterns. Then my laptop crashed. Yup.

But, the laptop still had 2 weeks of warranty and they put in a new hard drive. It almost appeared that I had lost 5 years of research papers, 10 thousand photos and a lot of other stuff. Then I remembered that I had backed up everything the end of March so everything was on my fancy-dancy external hard drive. All I really lost were the 120 Farmer's Wife patterns. But I did print them all off so I was good. And the one research paper that was not backed up, well I had emailed a copy to my doctoral facilitator so I was able to retrieve a copy. Then didn't I misplace my external hard drive a couple of years later but eventually found it in a box of left over bits marked Dear Jane leftovers. That thing had my entire  Denine manuscript on it. Good thing  I had a floppy disc with it from ten years earlier that we got put into a jump drive. But I digress.  

That summer I started my doctorate in Christian counseling and finally changed internet servers so I could stream lectures and I took a team to India. I had no idea how much time is involved equipping 10 people to join me on one of my adventurous ministry trips. Also, that summer another nephew was getting married so I made them a 10 day quilt with 2 dislocated ribs and how in the world a massage therapist's business card ended up on my desk I have no idea, but she was amazing. Too bad she moved away.  

So, in case I forget what other things I am not working on, I am ready to start this one. I love being a farmer's wife.

Blessings,
Chris 

UFO # 24 GO Not So Fast 2012

May 2012 I graduated with a Masters in Theological Studies. It took me 4 years. I had taken a year off for health reasons. In May of that year, I flew out to New Brunswick to visit my daughter and this time  took my new toy - a GO Baby cutter and a couple of dies and some fabric named Bread and Butter. We were going to make a quilt quickly. Well, we got 16 twelve inch squares cut and sewn together. I brought them home in my carry on bag and put them in a box. We talked about the possibilities often. But that is all. 

It was much later that I found the Winterthur panels for my Morrell and thought they might just play nicely here. However, the panels are all rectangular not square. Until I put these all up on the big design wall, I had no idea how good they looked. Much different than in a box in the closet with a pile of other fabrics. Now to calculate how to make that middle section square.

Blessings,
Chris 

UFOs #23 Blue and White $10 Quilt 2009

My local quilt shop has been running a $10 Quilt Class for quite a few years. The rules are simple. 

• To join you pay $10
• If you miss a class you pay $10 
• If you are late you pay $10 
• If your block is not done you pay $10

I participated for five years. The best I ever did was pay $20 and the most was $30. We met once month for half an hour. There would be choice of a hard or easy block and often two different colourways to choose from. 

It wasn't that I did not get one of the blocks done. I missed a month and the block was not done so I never finished it. So often I would be sitting up late the night before to get it done. I did  not always get it pressed. On the final month, we were given our pattern and fabric packet, but there was no pressure to get it made since the next year's class began the following month. I did complete two. And why did I stop going to the class? I joined  just-takes-2 block of the month with Sentimental Stitches and Dear Jane. 

Blessings,
Chris