PROGRESS!!!!!!!

Yes I'm that excited.  I finished my test pattern and sent off the results.  I tried a new to me method of doing the binding on it and I have to say that I think it turned out quite well.  You'll see it after it has appeared in the magazine.  This method isn't new but I have, up to this point, always sewn my binding by hand (both the front and back).  It's only been within the last year that I have even started to mitre my corners!  Guess I must be learning stuff huh?  THIS time, however, I sewed the front on by machine and then stitched the back of the binding down by hand.  I had found a tutorial on it that made sense to me.  I am still having problems in joining the two end pieces together but I will figure it out eventually.  In the meantime my seam ripper isn't far from me.

That triumph lit that spark in me again and I looked at how far behind I am on the BOMs that I wanted to do.  Sigh.  I did realize that in Angie's Bug Off! BOM why I haven't finished the caterpillar.    I didn't like it.  Oh it's cute and I sort of liked how I had it laid out and stuff but not enough to continue to work on it.  Hello Mr. Seam Ripper.  I unpicked what I had fused on and then had a brainy idea.  I found some fabric that I wanted to use because in MY mind, Mr. Caterpillar was actually an inch worm.  I know...I know...inch worms don't have antennae.  Still I had to use this fabric!  So I think Mr. Caterpillar is either auditioning Halloween costumes or, because of the notoriety he is getting from being featured in Bug Off!, he is going undercover. 

I will work on him this weekend and even put in his antennae.

Another BOM block that I will be working on is the Tea Party BOM.  I might be redoing the tea cup, I'm not sure yet, but I did find material that I like for the teapot which is March's block.  I chose this fabric because it is similar to the pattern on one of the teapots that I have from my grandmother.

This is the BOM that I did that cake/cake stand for.  That might be redone because I found a fabric that has hummingbirds on it and my sense of humor says my cake might end up being a hummingbird cake.  LOL.   Plus I'm not happy with the background fabric so might have to change that out.  I am thinking I will both white on white and offwhite/beige on offwhite/beige for the background blocks.  Give it a little different look and dimension.

The other thing that I did different this weekend was that I printed the teapot up on Heat n Bond....pre-cut sheets.  I use Heat n Bond but haven't used the pre-cut sheets before.  The directions say to take out the copy paper and put one sheet of the Heat n Bond in the printer.  My printed didn't like that.  The Heat n Bond was too thin and the rollers wouldn't grab it so I put the regular copy paper back in behind the one sheet of Heat n Bond and it worked quite well.

I won't use the pre-cut sheets often because most designers spread out the individual pieces you need and it would have too much waste.  I wouldn't normally use it for this either since the opposite problem exists.  There wasn't ANY space between the pieces.  That's ok.  Even though some people think that I wasted paper and fabric, I can trace over the paper that is fused on the fabric for another project.  Did that make sense?  I'm sure you know what I meant to say anyway.  :)

I'm going to stop here so I can rest my wrist.  Yesterday, my wrist popped when I was stretching.  It's ok but tender and I want to take it easy on it today.  It is wrapped up for more support. 

So everybody have a great weekend and I'll check in tomorrow.

A Busy Sunday

This is going to be a short post but I wanted to show my small mini wall hanging that I finished. 

It's only 12" but I wanted something for March to put on the door to my office or to hang up by my desk.  I was going to make a table runner with three of the shamrocks but wanted to finish it.  Tomorrow I will take it to the office with me and hang it up.  Maybe next  year I might go ahead and make that table runner.  Don't hold your breath.  I can squirrel soooo many times in a year.  LOL.

I had made a list of things I wanted to work on and I think I have been somewhat successful on working on it.  Here's the list with my notations next to each item on my progress.

downloading and printing up patterns for the BOMs that I am in - I am caught up (until tomorrow when another pattern comes out).

trying to catch up on a block or two from February's BOMs (grins) - I am working on them but am making progress.

working on a test pattern for The Quilt Pattern Magazine which is due in a couple of weeks - I am stitching on it while at the computer.

cooking for the rest of the week - I put some meat in the crockpot last night, took it out this morning and put potatoes and carrots in the juices.  Took them out when they were done and then put in rice which finished cooking 30 minutes later.  Gotta love Crock Pot cooking.

Post on my blog  -  https://bonnis-life.blogspot.com - Yep.  Obviously I'm working on that now.

read part of a book - Yep.  I'm reading book 4 in the Annie's Attic Mystery series - Broderie Curse.

listen to part of a book on Audible - Probably right before bed.

I think that is pretty good progress.  I need to get back to it though so I hope everybody has a great night.

Before I go, a friend (Thanks Helen) sent me a link which had pictures of fantastic sugar work.  Since you all are so sweet I thought to share a couple of pictures with you from time to time.  Here are two of them.  Sugar work supreme!

Happy Stitching...

Bonni

Fabric purchases

Here it is Sunday again  and I am now almost done with meal prep for the week and have time to write on the blog.  I had some coupons that were expiring so I had to use them, right?  That's my excuse and I am sticking to it!

Besides some food coupons, I had a coupon for Hobby Lobby.  Want to see what I bought?  Keep reading then.  If not well skip down a bit further.  With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I thought I could amp up my green stash a bit.  I am already using that bottom green to make a Shamrock wall hanging.

I can always use a white on white.  This will actually be the background for that Shamrock project.

I have this pattern in some  greens so it was nice to get it in a tan.

This was bought just to get some more puprles into my stash.  It's a little darker than what this picture makes it out to be.

This material is different. It has gold streaks in it plus it is a couple of shades of pink.  I think it almost looks like a marble top.

Of course I still had to get some needles for hand sewing.  I totally forgot about it at Hobby Lobby so I went to Walmart.  Wouldn't you know it?  I found a light yellow that I thought would make a nice bear in the colorful bear BOM.  March I heard was to be yellow.  Since I am using gold for the inside of the paws and mug of the bear I wasn't sure if it would do so well.  I think it will do ok though.

While I was there I saw these two sale/remnant items.  The one for 74 cents is a black and around 1/2 yard.  I can always use black.

Then I saw this teal for a $1.11.  I have very little teal in my stash and $1.11 for 3/4 of a yard...I just had to get it.

You see that blue stripe that the teal is sitting on?  That's my new ironing board cover.  It's been a long time since I got a new one and it took FOREVER!!!!! to put it on.  I found stiff girdles from the 70s easier to put on than that.  It does fit nice though so I shouldn't complain TOO much.  Come to think about it, it DID feel like I was putting on a girdle or tight jeans.  LOL  While I was at Walmart I found my fabric again!  This is the fabric that I am using for my colorful bears. 

Of course I had to snap a picture from the end of the bolt so I would know what I might need to order if I can't find it sometime.  Flush with such wonderful victories, I decided to make one more stop before heading home.  I went to Dollar Tree.  I can get into sooo much trouble (budget wise) there.  It is very tempting to get a lot of things just because they are $1.  HOWEVER, I did get something that was fun to use and it worked.  It is called Crackin Eggs.  You can see how it works on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwH3l05pViA

As you can see, I had to test it out and it worked as advertised!  It worked so well that I'm going to give 2 to a friend for Easter.  I know he will use it because a) I showed it to him and he watched the video and b) he uses the microwave to cook eggs.  Once I showed him how to cook the eggs in a cup in the microwave, he only does it that way now.  :)

I also decided to do a shamrock wall hanging which will be three vertical shamrocks and hope to hang it up on the door to my office.  This is a bad picture but it will give you an idea on what the block will look like.

You can get the pattern at:https://weallsew.com/shamrock-table-runner/

It shows how to do it with a 9 patch for the hearts but I liked this new fabric and wanted to use it. 

I found this recipe thanks to Deb at Our Time to Quilt.  Deb is in my Cyber Quilters yahoo group and it was great to see her and listen to her.  Check out her YouTube channel/page which she just started.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj0qUJKq0Td8l9kxri0T4mw

She is learning how to do a live feed which will be fun once the "bugs" get worked out. 

That' s about it.  Time to portion out the cooking that I did this weekend.  Hashbrown casserole and pork roast with potatoes, onions and carrots.  I still need to bake some biscuits so I can have turkey sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwiches this week.

I'm off to the kitchen!!! Hope you have a great day/night.

Blue Bear Finished

That's right.  I FINALLY finished working on my blue bear.  I am on break right now so this will be a short post. 

He does make me smile when I look at him.  :)

I hope to work on a new project this weekend.  I want to test out how well the pre gridded fusible interfacing.  I think that was what it was called.  I bought some but haven't used it yet.  There are two projects which caught my eye on it might be good to use it for.  One is a heart and the other is a cross.  I will try the heart one if I can find enough reds and pinks to make the heart look nice.  Of course I will be working on my other projects too.  Soooooo many projects and not enough time.  Drat work!  Have to work to afford the projects but want the projects to work on and not work.

Sigh....Soon (relatively soon that is).

LOL.

Everybody have a great day.  I have to get back to work now.

February Blue Bear

I made progress tonight on the February Blue Bear.  I am about 3/4ths the way done with stitching it down and then I have to do the eyes and then it will be done. 

I also have my Gnomes fused on but haven't had time yet to start to stitch them down.  I am usually behind on these but that's ok.  I'm not in a hurry to get them done.  I will do them when I can.

I also managed to fuse down the caterpillar in Bug Off! but don't have a progress pix of that yet.  That is because it is on the bulletin board at work and I am home typing.  LOL.  This is what it looked like. 

That is about all for my quilting right now.  I did sign up for another test project but you have to wait until September until you get to see what that looks like.  :) 

I did get some cooking down last week but forgot to post pictures so let me do it now.  I made my breakfast muffins and this time I put a lot more veggies in them.  This had 3 kinds of bell pepper, some spinach, lil smokies, egg - obviously, and spices.

They were yummmy.

I also decided to do a pizza using a tortilla.  Once again it was basic.  Lil Smokies, spinach, cheese.  Popped it into the toaster oven.

I also bought a large spaghetti squash and cooked it in the crockpot.  That was easy enough.  Just pierce the skin around 4-6 times and put it in the crockpot on low for around 5-6 hours.  When you can easily pierce the skin it is done.  I used a table knife to test the skin. 

Then just cut it in two, scoop out the  seeds and take your fork to make your spaghetti.  I had enough to have a couple of servings then as well as put some in the freezer for later.

That's about it.  I'll report on more when I get more things finished.  In the meantime, enjoy this little meme that I borrowed from a friends Facebook page.  :)

Red Colourful Bear BOM

This is just a short post to say that I did manage to finish up my January Colourful Bear.  It is the red bear. 

I have decided that I'm going to try and do just a black outline of whatever is suppose to be in the middle tummy area.  For February that would a rocketship and/or a star.   Besides them all being bears, it would be another thing that would tie them all together.

That is all for this trip.  I'm tired and planon going to bed early tonight since I'm not watching the Super Bowl.  Yesterday I got up at 3 a.m. and this morning I was up at 4 a.m.   I hope tomorrow that I can stay sleeping until the alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m.  That would indeed be nice.  :)

Good night everybody.

The Story behind a Smile...

Hi everybody.

I told myself that I would not do quilting stuff today since I have to get ready to spend the day getting ready for one of my other hobbies...gaming.  So, since I told myself that I would not be doing quilting, I'm obviously thinking about quilting.  I need to stop thinking about quilting, which means I have as much chance of that happening as stopping breathing....please Lord, don't take that as a challenge.  To keep it to a minimum, I decided to ummm...eat chocolate.

Now be patient with me.  There is a quilting thing related to the chocolate.  I was at Dollar Tree last night and picked up one of those hearts which have about 5 pieces of chocolate in it.  Why did I buy it?  Was it because I like chocolate?  Not especially but I did eat all the chocolate.  I bought it for the picture on the cover of the box.  I saw it and decided I needed to keep it to applique on something sometime.  See?  It was quilting related!    Here's the cute picture.   It is around 3 1/2" which might make a nice mug rug if I only do one circle.

Don't you just smile when you see that?

I also thought I would include in this post a couple more progress pictures. This first one is for the FatCatPattern Gnome For The Holidays BOM.  It's the layout and I still need to pick out a couple more material for the bodies of the Gnomes.  I'm not entirely happy with it yet but the month just started and I'm not on a timeline to get it done so there is time to figure it out a bit more.

The other block in the planning stage is the 2018 Tea Party February block.  The January one was a cake.  The February one is a cup.  I might do it with two cups.  I saw a picture of that and it was cute.  Perhaps have the second one with the handle on the other side.  I might even already know the fabric I want to use for a second cup.

That's all the stalling I can do right now.  Time to get ready and prepare for an evening of gaming with my friends.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

February's Crafting Schedule

I can't believe it is February already!  I, of course, didn't finish everything I wanted to in January but that's ok.  I did finish some things and now I can start others.  Most notably will be another month of block of the weeks or block of the months. 

Speaking of Block of the Months (BOM), here is my Red Bear for the Colourful BOM.  I have to finish stitching him down but at least he is on the fabric and just hanging out.  I might hand stitch the outline of the butterfly on his tummy instead of doing the fusible. 

I am using buttons for his eyes.  It's going on the wall so it won't be around small children's mouths, etc.  That was the January one.  February's color is Blue.  In the tummy area is suppose to either be a rocket ship with a couple of stars or just a star.  I'm going to just do a star.  I will probably use buttons again for the eyes but we'll see how it goes when I get that far.

Lunch today was productive.  

I had brought in some Heat N Bond so I started to do the fusible shapes.  I have the Blue Bear on there as well as the tea cup for 2018 Tea Party.  I didn't have enough room to do all of the block from Fat Cat Patterns Gnome BOM but I made a lot of progress.  I have to get more Heat N Bond from home and then do the 7 trees and the 3 gnome bodies.

Of course I have a couple of redwork blocks to work on as well as the Queens Garden center block.  I am turning the Center block into a small wall hanging.  Not sure if I'll do the rest of the quilt but we'll see.  I will collect the pattern for a "just in case" scenario.  

I actually copied the pattern wrong and didn't check it before laying out my pieces on Heat N Bond.  I will have to redo them.  This WAS what I was going to do (not stitched, just laid out).

I think that I can still do the corner flowers as planned.  I am in the middle of stitching down the crowns and green ring.  I don't have, however, enough purple fabric for that inner flower.  That's what I messed up on.  I will take a break from it and work on stitching the green ring.  After that I will stitch the corner flowers and THEN go back and work on the inner flowers.

With all of this going on, you'd think I would stop collecting BOMs or BOWs or ANY pattern for that matter.  Yeah, I hear you laughing already.  You are correct.  I am thinking of adding to the growing stack.  Blame it on The Quilt Pattern Magazine (TQPM)  The February issue came out and there were some BOMs that I liked.  One goal this year is to work on getting some baby quilts done to keep on hand so I don't have to rush to get one done by the time the baby is 4 years old.  I have some blocks in my UFO stacks that will work for a couple.  One is dinosaurs another is butterflies.  The Colourful Bears can be a third and then I saw this in TQPM and it too might get collected to do.

Of course Angie's Bits 'n Pieces Bug Off BOM would be another one.  Now I just have to stop surfing the web and finding these patterns and get to making them!  Wish me luck!  

:)

Happy Stitching everybody!  Remember how short February is and how soon March will be here.

Which material combo to use...

 How are you doing?  I've been working on some things but haven't finished anything new to show you yet.  I find myself in a quandry.  I'm not sure what fabric I want to use for the Queen's Garden Center Block.  It should finish at 16 x 16 and I am going to make the center block into a small wall hanging by itself. 

Perhaps you will help me?  Let me know what you think.  Tell me if you like any of the color combinations for the flower.  There are four flowers and they will be alike.  I tried to give you an idea of what it will look like. 

Picture A - Total different color than I anticipated.  I was going to go with the reds (see picture D).

Picture B - Don't like this combination

Picture C - This would be totally different.  I would fussy cut from it.  I might have to change the plan red under it also but I could do that.

Picture D - Should have been Picture A but they got out of order.  This was the original.  I think that the two reds are too much alike and blend in too much.

Ok.  What does everybody think?   I haven't done the center flower yet because I want it to go well with the outer flowers.  

While I was contemplating this, I baked up some pumpkin pie (crustless) and a cinnamon bake.  The pumpkin pie (or pumpkin pudding) doesn't look good in a picture so I didn't take one.  This is what my cinnamon bake looked like.

It has a thin drizzle of frosting on it too.  You can barely see that down in the lower right hand side. 

Ohhhh.  Before I leave, did I tell you my WOW moment?  I was thinking on how much I want to lose before I retire.  I'm not retiring right away but I choose 2 years as a guideline.  So I did some number crunching.  I know... I know.  ME?  Crunch numbers?  Yeah, it surprised me too.  So I figure I need to lose around 72 pounds to get to my "goal" weight.  Split that in 2 means 36 pounds in one year.  That still sounded like a lot (and it is) so I split it again and discovered that 36 pounds a year comes to 3 pounds a MONTH!  That's it.  Only 3 pounds a month!  I can do that.  The real trick is not to get too cocky and do a yo yo dieting during the month.  You know what I mean.  Lose the 3 pounds and then not be careful what I eat and gain it back and then lose it again, etc.  I think I can be strong enough not to do that.  Wish me luck.  LOL.

I hope everybody has a good night and remember that I need your opinions on the colors.  If you don't like any of them for the flower let me know that too.

Last day of long weekend

Hello everybody.  I hope you have had a great weekend.  Today is my last day in my long weekend.  As much as I love my work, and I do, I will miss being at home and being productive with crafting.  I only have a couple of pictures to show but I did manage to get the Christmas Bells block done, but before I could do the butterfly block, I decided to take a break and do the January block in Bug Off.

I decided that I was too clumsy to cut out the antennae so I embroidered them.  I enjoy doing the hand embroidery so I also decided to add some spots to the ladybug. Thank goodness that I learned how to make French Knots a long time ago.  I have to say that I like how they turned out. 

I will be taking the butterflies to work and work on them during lunch hours.  I will be doing all of them in the brown/black.  I have done that before on butterflies and like how it looks.  I will also be doing hand embroidery for the antennae.  :)

That's it for now.  Everybody have a safe and good weekend.  Funny how I didn't hear anybody complain about it being Monday today.  LOL.

 - Bonni 

Intuitive Eating

I forgot to write yesterday about intuitive eating.  I had some friends ask what that was and, as if by magic, an article about it appeared in my mailbox.  Of course it explains it better than I can.  From:

https://helloglow.co/lose-weight-without-counting-calories/

“Get in touch with your hunger and satiety signals

Meticulously measuring, weighing and counting at each meal and snack sounds like a real pain! Not to mention, it fosters a disconnected, fearful and obsessive relationship with food–one that focuses on restriction and deprivation, sucking the joy right out of eating! It’s also not sustainable in the long-term. Rather than calorie counting, I support the concept of intuitive eating.

Intuitive listening and eating is one of the most important tools for attaining and maintaining a healthy weight. For many women, being on diets their whole lives has severed their mind-body connection, so it may take some time to re-learn how to recognize when you’re hungry and full.

Start each meal by rating your hunger on a scale of 0 to 10. Zero is full and 10 is ravenous. Remove all distractions, such as your phone, computer, and TV, and take a few deep breaths with the meal in front of you. Eat slowly, chewing each bite thoroughly, and noticing the tastes, textures and aromas of the food. When you’re halfway through the meal, rate your hunger again on a scale of 0 to 10. Aim to stop eating at 80% full.

Once you’ve gotten reacquainted with your body’s satiety signals, you’ll end up consuming the exact number of calories your body needs.

Pay attention to meal timing

We hear a lot about what we should be eating but minimal attention is given to when. Eating according to your body’s natural rhythms is crucial for weight loss. Your digestive fire is at its peak between 10am and 2pm so eating a big, healthy lunch during that time is most efficient for digestion and assimilation of nutrients.

Our bodies love routine so aim to eat at roughly the same times every day, i.e., breakfast at 8am, lunch at 1pm and dinner at 6pm. As the digestive fire is weak in the evening, try to stop eating by 7pm ideally, or 8pm at the latest. Fasting for at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast helps burn fat. Fasting promotes the secretion of Human Growth Hormone, optimizes muscle building and normalizes insulin sensitivity.”

Did that help you any?  I know that I have to usually stop eating and drinking around 7 p.m.  Of course *I* thought it was to cut down on the bathroom trips in the middle of the night or early morning.  Who knew?!  LOL

Have a great day!