Self Isolation feels so weird

So weird but necessary…I still feel like we’re stuck in a Sci-fi movie. I’ve done a pretty good job of staying away from all the negative news and I’m feeling a little better but I haven’t gotten as much done as I thought I would.

Early last week I started piecing the monochromatic Plus top. I decided to break it up into 9-patch sections so they’d be easier to sew together, this is where I stopped that night.

It was 2 days later when I finally finished the top

Then a few days later I pulled out my batting scraps and made some ‘franken-batting’ for this quilt. I don’t usually do this many scraps but once I got started I just kept adding. I sure hope all those seams won’t be noticeable in the finished quilt

Once I had that finished I glue basted it all together – and this is where it still sits. I can’t decide how I want to quilt it…I’ve looked at charm quilts online for inspiration but nothing is speaking to me 😦

I got my shipment of sew-on velcro and finished the Safelight case set I started 2 weeks ago, now I’ll start making a few more sets.

I had such high hopes of spending all my ‘isolation’ time in my sewing room and that’s just not happening.

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No weight loss this week but I’m staying steady so I’ll take that as a win!

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Have a great rest of your weekend 🙂

Keeping my mind occupied

I’ve been trying to keep myself and my mind occupied so I don’t obsess over every bit of news that gets announced. It feels like they’re doing updates every two minutes and it can be so overwhelming if I let myself consume it all…so…I’ve not been watching very much TV and I’ve been trying to stay off social media as much as I can.

I want to spend all my time in my sewing room but for some reason I have this ‘fear of running out’ mentality – UGH! There is no way I’ll run out of fabric in the next couple of months but my mind just keeps saying ‘but what if I do?’ and that seems to be spoiling all the joy. I’m going to fight off that feeling and get in there today!!!

I did get a few things accomplished before this ‘fear’ mentality set in. I finished quilting the Plus quilt

And here’s the back side

I even got it all bound. I chose a dark blue batik I had left over from another quilt a few years ago

Then I took a little break to work on a smaller project for a charity called Safelight Project 2020. Carole posted about this a few weeks ago and I printed off the pdf pattern for the sunglass case, cosmetics bag and tissue holder. I initially used a self-adhesive velcro and tried to sew through it but my needle got so gummed up I had to remove it. I pulled off that velcro and I’ve ordered some ‘sew on’ velcro from Amazon.

While that project waited I pulled out some orphan strip sets and sewed them in columns but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them until Debbie @sparethreads suggested I add background fabric between the strips and use it as backing – brilliant!!

I pulled some white from my yardage bin and cut the pieces. I’m not sure I like the quality of this white fabric (it’s a little to ‘gauzy’ for my liking) so I’ve left it hanging on the design wall until I make up my mind. Once I figure it out I’ll piece the monochromatic plus top and this will be the backing for it.

And that’s where my sewing ended… it was National Quilting Day yesterday and I didn’t go in my sewing room at all! Ugh, so sad!! 😦 But the weather was gorgeous here yesterday and I spent a lot of time outside. I’m hoping all that vitamin D will give my mood a boost! 🙂

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No weight loss this week, but no gain either :-p We’ve been eating at home almost every meal and before all this social-distancing stuff I believed cooking our meals would help me drop weight…now that I’m doing it all I see that was just false hope – HA! I really need to watch what & how much I put in my mouth!!

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That’s all for now…enjoy the rest of your weekend ❤

Unsettling times

It’s a very strange time right now…it feels like science fiction movie I can’t get out of, but I’m trying to stay calm and not let anxiety rule my thoughts. The best medicine for me is to stay in my sewing room as much as possible.

I decided to use one of the Connecting Threads fabrics that came in a few weeks ago and the remaining blocks from the Chandelier quilt to make the back. It kinda gives it an ‘antique-y’ feel.

I no sooner got that done and I found a pattern I wanted to try with all those 5″ squares I cut so down that came and up went this Scrappy Plus pattern

And here is it all pieced! The pieces sat on my design wall for a few days until I decided to throw caution to the wind and sew it together.

Last night I made a backing out of yardage scraps but I didn’t stop to take any pictures! I glue basted it and now it’s under the needle waiting for me to quilt on it today

I’ve also put another Plus quilt up on my design wall and this one will be pieced next…don’t adjust your monitor it’s supposed to be monochromatic!

I still have more than half of that stack of 5″ squares left so I’ll need to figure out what’s next!!

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I’m going to mention this again…this horrible situation has taken a back seat to all the COVID19 stuff but I don’t want to forget about these people who still need so much. If you’d like to help out you can get more details here. I haven’t taken my quilts to the Post Office yet…but I better get a move on before THAT gets closed down too 😦

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I haven’t lost any weight this week but that doesn’t surprise me, I’m a stress eater…however I’m happy to say I haven’t gained any weight either so I guess I’ll mark that as a win!!

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That’s about all for now…stay safe and have a great rest of your weekend.

On and off

I spent a little time in my sewing room last week but it was scattered. I have my scraps sorted into bins by color and I got started by pulling the ones that were over-flowing and I just kept going. I started cutting 5″ squares last time I posted and I kept that up…by the time I had gone through all my bins I had this stack almost 8″ high!

Now that I’ve done all that cutting I need to decide on a few ‘charm’ patterns to make! Lucky enough, Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict is running a series on her blog this month with those kinds of patterns!

I also got my Chandelier quilt top pieced…I sewed the diagonal rows together a few each night and now it’s done!

I’m still trying to decide what I want to use for the back – I grabbed some fabrics on clearance from Connecting Threads a couple of weeks ago, one of these just might do the trick

I have 6 blocks leftover from the front that I’m going to work into the back as well, my plan is to get that done today [fingers crossed!]

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I officially changed my WW plan to Online only last week and I’m actually relieved. I think the stress of attending a workshop I didn’t really like was making me eat more! Haha!! And now that Officials are recommending we we stay away from large crowds (Coronavirus!) it makes even more sense.

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I’m sure you’ve heard about the horrible tornado that hit middle Tennessee last week. If you’d like to help out you can get more details here

I’ve got 4 lap quilts I’ve finished over the last couple of months just waiting for a home so I’ll be sending them off next week.

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And hopefully you remembered to change your clocks last night/this morning:

That’s all for now…have a great rest of your weekend!!

Skipping…

I just realized I missed posting here last week 😮 How the heck did that happen! I also lost my #dosomethingquitlyeveryday mojo last week…maybe they’re connected, LOL

Let’s see what I have to catch up on… Two weeks ago I caught the ‘start-itis’ bug and pulled out my solids stash & scrap bin. I purchased a die from Accuquilt a few months back and figured it was time to try it out. It cuts 2.5″ strips so I went through that bin cutting as many different colors as I could find

Then I followed the instructions for the ‘Jelly Roll Race’ quilt and started sewing…I had over 1900″ in total length!

It took two days to finish the top… woah, that’s a lot of color!! It measures 60×61 at the moment.

This is where I started to lose a little steam… I noticed my ‘scrap pillowcase’ was starting to get pretty full so I sewed up the end and now it’s ready to be donated to my local shelter.

Start-itis hit again and I pulled out more fabric and started playing. I decided to cut 5″ squares from the remaining pieces fabric from my Squared Up quilt and looked for a pattern I hadn’t made before…enter the Chandelier quilt

And this is as far as I’ve gotten…I lost my mojo after putting this up on the design wall. It just needs to be pieced into a top but I avoided my sewing room for three straight days 😦

To break the cycle, I finally forced myself to just go do SOMETHING in my sewing room. I still wasn’t up for sewing this top together, instead I pulled out my scrap bins and started cutting 5″ squares. This made sense to me because I’m on a mission to use up all my scraps and Sarah of Fabric Addict Quilts is posting ideas for using charm squares for her Hands2Help charity challenge this year… WIN/WIN! I got this lovely stack accomplished last night.

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I haven’t lost any weight over the last two weeks and I’ve decided I’m changing my WW membership to Online only. I’m just not going to the meetings and paying for it certainly isn’t motivating me. I have been tracking my food with the app so I’m just going to try that for a while.

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That’s all for now…have a great rest of your weekend!

Squared Up

I’ve been going into my sewing room for at least an hour almost every night this week. It’s amazing how much I’m getting accomplished just by committing to ‘do something quilty everyday’!

I had the urge to start a new project so I scrolled through Pinterest and found a simple square in square pattern I had saved a long time ago and decided now was the time. I had just received a fat quarter bundle with 12 fabrics which worked out perfectly for this pattern.

I worked on completing the top and got it glue basted over the next two nights.

And then I had a “squirrel” moment! I kept seeing posts on IG of people completing a paper-pieced block and I just had to give it a go!

These are the individual letters, I’ve since sewn them together but didn’t take a picture…now I don’t know what I’m going to do with it! LOL

I quilted and trimmed the Squared Up quilt last night and put the binding on this morning.

I love using this FMQ Daisy motif when I have square blocks! The quilt is getting a quick wash and then it will go in the ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with it’ pile! I seriously need to find a charity that wants all my quilty finishes!!

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I went to my WW weigh in yesterday and as I expected I was up a pound. I’m going to try a different day for my next WW meeting, I’m not really enthused by the Saturday group…it’s very crowded and I’m just not connecting with the leader. I’m going to go Friday morning and see what happens… if I don’t like that one either I’ll probably make the decision to just change my membership to online only.

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That’s all for now…have a great rest of your weekend!

More finishes

I continued doing something quilty everyday this past week…except for one day! I just ran out of steam Wed night and didn’t even go in my sewing room… and I’m ok with that!

Here’s what I got done last week: I quilted my Meadowland quilt. It took three evenings to get all the loopy swirls completed and on the fourth evening I got it trimmed and put on the binding.

My fur baby helped with this photo!!

I found the perfect fabric in my stash for binding, Purple mini bracelets for the win!

The color is more true in this close up. I now have three finished quilts with no home 😮 I’m going to put them up for sale and see what happens 🙂

Yesterday I finished this golf cart seat cover for a friend. I’ve made a few for her last year, she likes to give them as gifts to her golfing buddies. The golfer print is cotton and the light green is flannel. The last time I made one the elastic handles were too long so I shortened them up…hopefully not too short. I don’t have a pattern for this so I’m just winging it!

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I skipped WW again yesterday. I think I’m going to switch my membership to Online only before next month’s billing. No sense paying for the whole package when I’m clearly not using it!

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Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on their SuperBowl win! It was a great game to watch and I suspected they would come back in the fourth quarter 😉

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That’s all for now! Have a great rest of your weekend!!