All Caught up on the Blackwork SAL

     Can you believe that I was 3 weeks behind on my Blackwork PPSAL?  Well two weeks behind and then this week so a total of 3 weeks.  Not any more though.  I am now all caught up on it.

     That felt good to get caught up on.  Now I have to do the binding on the cat on the wall and it will be done.  Hopefully I can get the binding done by the end of the month so I can keep up on my one small finish each month.

     I will have another finish by the end of the week since I only have to do the binding on it.  After I do that, I need to get back to working on Shalom's gambeson (quilted coat) repairs since he will need it next week.  I won't finish all the repair by then but I will have the major ones done and then after the SCA event he can return it to me to work on more.  I will be hand sewing down the binding around the armholes, neckline, the front and bottom.  This is one of the projects which expand the more I look at it.  LOL.  It is precious to him since the great friend who made it for him died two weeks after finishing it.  Anyway, it is time for me to try and get to bed.  I hop everybody has a great night and better tomorrow.

Remember:  

How I work on things...

I asked me to write something about what it is like, for me at least, managing or having so many blocks of the months/weeks/new projects etc. I told her I would, but I do want to say that this is what *I* do and if it helps you all the better but there is no guarantee that it will work for you. That is also fine.

Where to start? Somehow, I want to say “Once upon a time” so that is where I will start and hope you won’t get bored reading this. Once upon a time I remembered growing up with Mom would take a piece of checkered fabric and bring it along when our family went on vacation in Wisconsin. Since Dad died when I was in fifth grade, this was a good two or three years before that, Mom was always looking for ways to keep young girls busy. She would have quiet time which meant that Pat (my sister) and I had to sit down and be quiet for 30 full minutes. I think it was her "gather her sanity" time. To help with that, she would take checkered fabric and teach us how to do some stitches. She would take a pen and draw out a straight line on the fabric for us to practice the running stitch. As we got older, she would mark out X’s on the fabric and we could learn how to do a cross stitch. That led me to get into crewel embroidery. That lasted until 1972 (yes, I remember THAT year) but then for some reason I let it drop, and it wasn’t until after Grandma died and Mom and I were going through her stuff that I found her embroidered quilt squares.

Quilts? I remember Grandma having blankets (later to find out that some of those blankets were quilts) but I had never seen her do anything like quilting. Talking to Mom about it, a whole new world opened to me. Once again, I had a craft that I wanted to try. The only problem was where to start. I had planned on giving the quilt to mom after it was finished so I took Grandma’s quilt squares with us, Mom and I went to a quilt store. Wow! Talk about not knowing what we were walking into. Luckily the owner of the store was there, and she took us in tow and by the time we left, Mom had picked out fabric for filler blocks, backing, and what would later be turned into sashing. Did I do it right? Of course not. I was determined to do this by hand. What did I know? I just went with the flow and after being invited to join a guild, and not liking it because they were rude, I decided to just go with the flow. After I had put the blocks together, they didn’t look good so I (cough) appliqued sashing and then added a border all around. Little did I know that would come in handy.

Since I really didn’t know what I was doing, I stopped quilting. Nothing like getting discouraged. Then one of the ladies at work (which turned into 3 ladies over time) helped me learn how to cut and piece a little bit. Still no sewing machine so it was all hand done. My stitches were bad (still are).

When my brother died, he left me just enough money with the condition that I get quilting supplies. Soon I had an Accuquilt Go and dies, my first sewing machine, and other necessary things. I took them home and then after playing with the GO! I wasted a lot of fabric and thread trying to sew something.

Something had to be done and then I found Missouri Star Quilt Company and Jordan Fabrics. I still hadn’t considered going onto YouTube yet but it wasn’t long before I started to realize that even if I didn’t have a lot, I could still watch for free how to do some things. I’m not sure when I ran across Deb’s videos but I like how she stumbled through those early vids (sorry Deb) but I learned some things from her and have been following her since.

You all know what the problem is with getting the craft bug. You start to gather things, start things, and get a lot of UFOs. When I was getting ready to retire, I knew that I wouldn’t have enough money to support my CURRENT craft and something had to be done. I went overboard on getting a lot of fabric and other sewing supplies in preparation for moving. After retiring I suddenly noticed how much I really HAD collected. Nothing was getting done and I still didn’t have a good grasp on how to make some of the blocks. I was determined that I had to work on getting organized.

Are you still reading this? WOW! Thanks!

The first thing I had to do was to get rid of a lot of fabric that I had no idea why I had bought it. I think I was just in a buying frenzy afraid that I wouldn’t have anything to work on when I had 24 hours to myself and without a car to drive anywhere and how to fill up the day. Some of the fabric was mailed to friends and some I…no judgment…was thrown out. I put a lot of the fabric in a box marked free on the edge of my lawn and eventually I got my fabric down. What to do with all the fabric that I had left? That is when I discovered BOM/BOWs and similar programs.

I was terrified of doing a quilt. Even wall hanging sizes gave me tremors. But thanks to Rhonda Woodsmall I learned to look at quilt blocks and patterns differently. You can find Rhonda's page on Facebook but here is an example of how she taught me to look at the blocks not as a whole, but in smaller segments. Here is an example of how she would break down a block.

So, remember you don’t have to look at the quilt all at once. Like that old joke about how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

That is how I also look at BOMs and BOWs. If you see a pattern you like but think you can’t do it? Break it down into bite size pieces. You might not think you can do the full quilt as shown but with BOMs/BOWs you don’t need to do it all at once. Instead of doing the whole quilt in one month…do one block in a month. You can break it down into various stages in that month. One week you can get the fabric. One week you can cut the fabric for that ONE block. Another week you can lay it out on a design board or even quilt that ONE block. By the end of the month, you will have one block done. At the end of the year, you would have 12 blocks done which is only one or two steps away from a completed quilt top. That also works for BOWs (blocks of the week). That is how I do my Blackwork. If I had to look at the whole thing at once I would never get it done.

Do you have a lot of UFOs? Tackle them in the same way. Take one out and look to see what you have to do on it yet. Do you have all the parts to it? Do you REALLY want to work on it or are you past that part in your quilting adventures? Give yourself permission to NOT want to work on something. Your tastes change over time so maybe it doesn’t appeal to you any longer. Can you use any part of it? I have taken some of my blocks from projects I no longer want to work on and turn them into smaller wall hangings or table runners. You can even turn some blocks into hot pads, or sew them together and even use it as batting? Think what else you can do with it and if nothing else…take a breath…and see if anybody else would like it.

Where do Mystery Quilts fall into this theme? For me I have come to the realization that it is hard for me to collect ALL segments of a mystery quilt one month at a time. So instead, I have decided that I will collect them and then if I get all the segments, I can see how it will look. If I don’t like it, then I haven’t spent the money on getting fabric only to decide at the end that I don’t like it.

So now I collect a lot of patterns and before I can start to work on a new project, I have to also work on a UFO. I might not finish that UFO right away but taking those small elephant bites means it will eventually get done…either as it was intended or repurposed into a smaller project that can be completed quicker.

So just remember:

1. Don’t give up.

2. It is ok not to complete the whole project.

3. It is ok to only finish part of a project and repurpose it.

4. It is ok to get rid of a project if you honestly don’t think you will EVER work on it (yes, I have done that and will probably do it again.

5. It is ok to set it aside and work on another craft for a bit. It is ok to put your project in time out. YOU're the boss, not your fabric/pattern/craft.

6. Your brain needs a break too and let your eyes rest from working on the same thing all the time. For me it is why I switch between cross stitch, Blackwork, Quilting, and candle wicking.



I know that not everybody can work like I do, but I just thought I’d give you an idea of what works for me. We never know what might work until we try it. There is more than one way to do a project, what works for you?

All caught up!

    Not much to report this time around but I did want to post an update on the Blackwork.  This is the 2024 Peppermint Purple Stitch a Long (SAL).  It will be another two weeks before I have another update.

It is February!

   Another month has come and gone.  Of course that means another day/month closer to better weather.  i won't say no to that although we have had some nice temps the last couple of days.  The next two days are supposed to be somewhat nice temps but more rain.  Sigh.  Not much is happening right now,  Just thawing out and getting ready for the next cold wave,  The reason I wanted to get this post in is because...drum roll please...I have a finish!

   That is it for my report today.  I hope everybody has a great day.  Hugs to all.

Top is finished!

   I finished Dan's quilt top today.  I only have the top done but I just noticed I have a small patch to work on one side.  I will do that later.  Right now it is up on the wall and it was a pain for me to put up.  I might look in my stash for backing fabric tomorrow. 

    After I find it, I will be ironing fabric for Lily the dragon.  That should take up most of my day.  So far January is being productive!  I just couldn't wait to say I finished the top.  :)   

   I saw this picture the other day and thought it would be a cute octopus to stitch up.  It is a cross stitch pattern but I'm almost tempted to make it  into a wall hanging.  I'm not sure why I want to make it but I think it would be cute and a little different.

 

 That's it for this little update.  Every keep warm!

PS:  I couldn't resist adding these two pix.  LOL.

   Ok.  I'm rolling on out of here now.  

Mid Month Update - January 2025

    Can you believe it is the middle of January?  It is hard to believe and yet, unless the calendar lies to us, it is.  January has certainly had its ups and down.  First of all is the weather.  One week it is raining and the next it is snowing!  Somewhere in between those it is a nice day.  Today the high was a little over 50!  I liked that.  It is expected to rain and/or snow and/or freeze next week.  It might have one day of that over the weekend but who knows.

   I expect to have some kind of adverse weather on Friday.  Why?  Because Dan's sister died and he will be on the road with his daughter to attend the funeral.  That should be interesting.  It will be the first time some of the family has met his daughter.  That part is good, in a way, since it will give him something to do - like introduce her - to relatives she doesn't know.  He hasn't seen some of them since his father's funeral around 5-7 years ago.

  Then there is the craft projects. I have started on the 2025 Peppermint Purple stitch a long.  I am caught up and will work on this week's pattern soon.  There was a problem with me printing/  I suppose this is as good of a time as any to tell of my problems since my last post.  In actuality, in the last two days.  Sooooo here goes.

   I was  out of my sugar free cola so I made some coffee. I was on my third cup when it tipped over ONTO my keyboard.  Yeah, I'm sure you can guess ,my next statement.  That's right.  My keyboard quit working.  Shalom tried to find an extra one which he thought he had but he couldn't.  Day came today though and took me to Walmart so I got a keyboard and a few other things.  We got back to my place when we discovered that the keyboard wasn't in the vehicle.  Back into the vehicle and back to Walmart.  Luckily the keyboard was still in the cart that was in the cart corral and Dan quickly got out of the vehicle and grabbed it just as somebody was walking to put their cart away.   Whew!  So after being unable to type I had a lot of catching up to do.  I am mostly caught up now except I am a little behind on printing up some things.   I had to get some more printer ink.

   The ink was installed relatively quickly but then in the middle of printing, I lost my computer connection and it took around a half an hour to get it straightened out.  That started my 28 hours of on and off again computer connection.  Today it seems to have straightened out.  Hopefully with the upcoming weather, I won't have any more problems.  If no problems I hope to work on the blackwork, a cross stitch block,, and the four blocks for the wall hanging.  I might start out with cutting the fabric for Dan's zipper quilt first though.  I need to cut enough red fabric for 6 more zippers.  Then I will need to piece some of the black borders for it and decide if it will be wide enough or if I will have to add more borders.  

    Slowly I am getting my routine back to normal.  Oh...I forgot to mention that I ordered another keyboard off of Amazon so that I will have a spare when I need it again.  :)  

   That is it for my mid month report.  I hope everybody will stay safe, especially my friends who are experiencing bad weather.  Hugs.

Baby It's Cold Outside...

 and pretty cold inside too.  Everything is working fine  but when you have space heaters, it leaves a lot of the room chilled.  No busted pipes and no frozen pipes so I'm good.

In celebration, well that is what I am saying this time, I felt the need to sew.  I was getting frustrated with a new project so I dug out my sewing machine and stared at it for a couple of days.  Then, today, I actually accomplished two things.  First of all I sewed and the secondly I finished off an UFO.  Yeah, you read that right.  I finished something. 

I love the colors on this.  It isn't the best sewing job but it is a finish and it gets me back into quilting.  I will use it on my table that my compute sits on for now.  It should fit nicely.  

That's about it.  I just had to jump on and say Happy New Year, again, and to say that I FINISHED SOMETHING!!!!!

PS:  Don't forget...

End of the Year Reflection

    Wow!  Another year is coming to a close and it is a time for reflection.  It has been a year.  It has primarily been good but it certainly had its ups and downs...sometimes at the same time.

  One of the mixed news was the fact I was told I was diabetic.  It was mixed news since, well, nobody wants to hear that.  the good news is that they discovered it in time and my treatments seem to be working.  This was discovered when I went to the doctors for that wound on my foot.  That is also good news since it brought up other things.  I do not go to the wound doctor any longer.  I do have neuropathy on that side but it is something that I will just learn to deal with.  Overall my health is getting under control and that is what is important.  Thank goodness for friends who overrode my objections and fears of going to doctors.  I don't think they read this blog so I can say that.  I was going to ask for a ride to the doctors but they beat me to it by 24 hours.  Overall their support, as well as my other close friends (you know who you are) got me through it.

   My eyesight is doing ok but I can tell my vision isn't as good as it was a year ago.  The eye doctor, when I last saw him, said I didn't need to see him again unless I started to have problems that the cheap magnifier glasses couldn't help with.  The operations that I had were working.  I am still wearing the Dollar Tree magnifiers and they are helping enough for now.   

  I had a lot of friends and extended family tell me their health wasn't the best.  So 2024 was a year with a lot of people having to deal with different issues.  It is my prayer that everybody does better in 2025 and I hope they know that I am here to listen to them.  It doesn't matter that I really can't do anything about your situations, but know that I am a phone call, FB messenger, or email away if you need somebody to just listen to you for whatever reason.

  On the cooking front, I have tried some new recipes and mostly they have been good.  Dan continue to be my guinea pig and I was totally happy with his non verbal critique of our Christmas dinner.  It only took him 4 days to eat everything, leftovers and his Christmas present of New Years goodies, so that I a success I think.  That reminds me I have to ask him if he likes goat cheese.  For part of his birthday and/or Christmas present I was thinking of stuffed dates wrapped in bacon.  If I don't use goat cheese I think I could use some of the whipped cream cheese blends.

  On the crafting front, I am pleased to say that I did finish a couple of projects.  I am close to finishing a couple more.  I did finish stitching all the blocks for the dragon wall hanging.  I have attached a pix of the blocks.  Now I need to think about the rows that will go between the dragons.  That material will be hard to determine since it will be the rows that I will put the words on.  Plenty of time to figure that out.

   Goldie, the gold/yellow dragon at the bottom might end up being put on the back as sort of a label.  If not that she might end up on the island of Misfits.  We'll see.  By the way, that is not the final order of the dragons.  I want to switch up a couple so that their eyes are looking in the right direction.  

   I worked on the Candlewicking and made good progress.  My hands hurt after I stitch on that so it is set aside for a little bit.  I do have a couple of new projects that I might do.  I know that I will be doing more blackwork so I need to figure that in.  I want to finish two or three UFOs in 2025.  That might just be the tops but it might also be totally completed.  We shall see.

   I would also like to finish up a Kumihimo project.  I need to get jewelry pliers but I wonder if needle nose would work.  I need them to do the closures.  I also would like to learn how to do the flat braids.  One step at a time.

   That's the quick recap.  How about you?  Are you planning on anything for 2025?  Did you finish what you wanted to in 2024 or at least did you feel good about working on things?  I figure life is too short to stress over if you finished a project or not.  Do what you can and when you can...that's it.  Take joy in the fact that you CAN still do crafts vs. you HAE to do crafts.  The main thing is...

   Enjoy life for as long as you can and never give up.  Never let the nay-sayers the opportunity to say they told you so.  Instead, prove them wrong and have the grace to just smile knowing that they had it wrong and THAT will bug them.  If you don't react, you aren't playing into their hands and you are taking away their power.  I know how great you are.  

Recovery day!

     Ahh, another Christmas under the belt.  That belt certainly needed expanding after eating.  How come every year I try to cut back on how much I make and I still make too much.  So what did I make?  The final meal ended up:

   Pork roast cooked over a bed of onions

   Parsnips

   Mashed potatoes and gravy

   Green beans with bacon bits in it

   Pumpkin Pie parfaits

     Dan took home ALL the leftovers from the table (a little bit of everything) so it was a good thing that I hadn't put out all of the pork.  LOL.  I think it was my best so far.  He also took home his Christmas present which was:

    Homemade egg nog mix

   Homemade hot cocoa mix

   Miniature marshmallows

   Various candy bars (of his favorite kinds)

  His favorite dip (chili dip)

   Chips

   That should last him until New Years.  That is what I thought.  I found out that he had already broken into the Oreos and they are gone.  He did eat some of his left over pork and mashed potatoes the other night also so I know it was not ALL eaten in one night.

   Today I finished doing all the dishes and laundry so that was enough work for me.  LOL.  that meant I brought out all the projects that I want to work on at the beginning of 2025.  I am trying to figure out how many new projects (or project how many I will collect) and which projects I totally NEED to finish.  So that meant today I cleaned up the sewing room/bedroom and and pulled the projects on my ironing board to keep in sight.  That is when I discovered my hexies.  By the time I separated them out I have two different stacks.  One stack is for regular hexies and the other is for Quilt As You Go hexies.  There is one project that I have that is technically not a hexie but rectangle but I am so used to saying hexies.  It would be more accurate if I say English Paper Piecing (EPP).  So I am working on the rectangles.  I did separate all the pieces and I wasn't happy with the how the rectangles felt.  So instead I disassembled what I had done, which was only around 5 EPP pieces) and am trying something else.  Tomorrow/today I will sew some of the new methods EPP pieces and see if I like that better.  Basically I am putting fusils on the top and bottom of the piece.  It feel better.  I'll know more after I attach some of those rectangles together.  

   Another project that I will be working on is the last dragon.  That will be a copper dragon.  I couldn't find my original dragon pix I had found so I had to pick out a different one. That is ok.  This one should be cute.  

   That's about it for this update.  I will write later in the week to report on how the EPP worked out.  I need to figure out how wide I want to make this project.  It will take forever to do but that is ok.  It is all about the learning process isn't it?

   Have a great day my friends.

Merry Christmas

    I thought I'd send out this post now since I will be busy until after Christmas.  I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you have a wonderful New Year.  Are you traveling for the holidays?  Are you staying in?  Are you stitching anything.

     I am cooking for Dan and I and tonight I just finished bagging up his Christmas present of goodies.  Some of the goodies I have to wait until tomorrow to make.  He will be here on Tuesday.  After that I will do dishes and pull out things to work on.  I will do a post after I figure out what to work on.

     In the meantime, I hope everybody stays safe and has a wonderful Christmas.   

What to work on Next

    I finished the owl and it will be sent off to my friend Susan as soon as I get my stamps.  I had forgotten to get some for the season so I put in an order for some to be delivered.  THEN I will get this sent off to her.  

   I also received a nice pair of slippers for an early Christmas present.  They are so warm!  I love them.  The cats also got an early Christmas present in the form of a big bag of cat food shipped to them.  LOL

   I also received a book for Christmas.  My friend Connie knows how I like Jacques Pepin.  The book is a memoir with a few recipes included.  It is called The Apprentice - My life in the Kitchen.  So far it is interesting and I found a couple of recopies that I will make.  It brought back memories of his cooking show and his Facebook posts.

   Now it is time to get started on some more redwork blocks.  I'm not sure which one to start on first so please take a minute and vote on which one I should do first.   Just leave a comment on what you think I should do first.  :)

  So what do you think.  A-B-C- or D.  Obviously some designs will take longer than others but let me know what you think.