That Time of Year

 

Why can’t we just pick a time and stick with it all year? I don’t know why it matters to me since I have retired from my “regular” job and can sleep an extra hour if I want to. I don’t mind having the extra hour of daylight in the evening since it is Lent, and there are extra evening church activities for the next six weeks. 

I have been busy with some vintage quilts I am quilting. This one is my favorite. 

Sometimes the hand-pieced ones give me problems because they are wonky and won’t lay flat, but this one is perfectly flat. I’m guessing the fabrics are 1950-ish. 

Although, some look to me like they could be 1940’s.

I am definitely not an expert on fabric dating. LOL. 

I also decided I wanted to make a tote for someone, and pulled out this pattern.

I managed to get the patchwork pieced and today I will get out my twister template and get everything cut out.

I plan to use the black with white dots for the main part of the bag. I’m still thinking about how the handles will look. I can follow the pattern, or do handles with a different color binding. Not sure.

Productivity?

This pretty well describes how I feel. I am working and working on staying productive, but I’m just so unmotivated. It’s all a struggle. I have been going to the gym three days a week, hoping that will increase my energy level. It’s only been a week, so time will tell. 

I did manage to get a couple of quilts finished this week.

I couldn’t get the color to photograph correctly on this one. It’s all Kaffe fabrics. I think it shows up a little better in this closeup.

I also finished this jellyroll race quilt and put the binding on it.

The back is the same as the border. In fact, it didn’t have a border, and I used some of the backing fabric to add one. 

I also got three of the placemats quilted.

It’s not much, but I was happy to get something done. 

My grandson’s birthday was Tuesday, and here he is with the quilt I gave him.

The fabric has footballs, soccer balls, and baseballs. I thought he had probably outgrown the last one I made him (Mario Brothers). 

I need to clean house this weekend and do laundry. I ran out of laundry detergent, and I keep forgetting to buy more. Now that I wrote it down here, I will probably remember to get some. 

A Little More

I worked a little on the orphan blocks I want to turn into placemats. Here are four of them. 

I added borders to make them 12” x 18”. 

The forth one took a little more work because I kept making mistakes. 

I still need to quilt them. That’s where the decisions come in. I can put them on the longarm with one large piece of fabric for the back, or I can do straight line quilting on the sewing machine. Either way, I will have to do binding. I can also just layer each placement right sides together with the backing and batting, and sew the edges, leaving a small space to turn the placemat right side out, then add some quilting. The advantage to that method is that it doesn’t require binding, so that’s tempting. I need to make a decision and not let myself get stalled out. This will be an ongoing project, and I will need to make a lot more.

I worked a little more on the kit I found last week. This one:

It’s going slowly, but I have the first row done. 

I have a few more blocks made besides these. Maybe four or five. There are only 16 blocks in the whole quilt, so it won’t be too big. I just want to get it finished.

I have a quilt to get quilted today, but first I need to order a new quilt design for it. I have an idea what I want to do, and don’t have anything in my computer files that match what I want. Tomorrow, I’m taking my stepdad to Lake Jackson for a doctor appointment, so I need to get as much done today as I can.

What I’ve Been Working On

March is here—I’m not quite ready for that! I need to get out my UFO lists and try to see if I made any progress in February. I’m pretty sure I still have one or two January goals I still need to finish. 

A few customer quilts got done this week. 

I also did binding on the first one. I have another quilted that I got trimmed, and I’m in the process of binding it, and there’s another on the frame, so that’s four this week. 

There was a quilt guild meeting on Thursday, and I took some blocks from the “free” table.

We are making placemats this year for Meals on Wheels, and I have plans to turn these orphan blocks into placemats. I will post the progress on these soon.

Chicken Stir Fry

How about a recipe? I can’t give any credit for this one because I just made it up. I’ve been gaining weight, so I’m back on Weight Watchers. This recipe is probably 0 points; I counted it as 1 point because of the canola oil, but that’s probably overkill. 

I kept forgetting to thaw out some chicken, so I stopped at the store to get some, and found a package of chicken breast tenderloins that were marked down to $4.85 since the “use by” date was the next day. It was a little less than a pound.

1 pound chicken breast cut into bite-size pieces

1 head bok choy, chopped

1 package broccoli florets (I only had a half package, so that’s what I used)

1 small white onion, chopped

1 package mushrooms, sliced

1 T oil

Small piece of ginger, grated

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 t black pepper

1 t oyster sauce

2 T soy sauce

1 T corn starch

1/4 c water

Brown the chicken in hot oil. Add bok choy, onion, and broccoli. I put a lid on the skillet and let it steam until the veggies are tender. Add the mushrooms, and cook for about 1 minute. Add the ginger, garlic, pepper, oyster sauce and soy sauce. Mix everything well. Add the corn starch to the 1/4 cup of water and mix well. Add it to the skillet and stir until the mixture thickens.

I ate mine with cauliflower rice, which is also 0 WW points.

Healthy and very filling!

Scraps

I’ve been working on cutting up some scraps. Some of my friends are not big fans of scrappy quilts, and they occasionally drop their scraps off at my shop. I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but this is a huge tote. 

I also found a bunch of these in the tote:

I called and asked her if she wanted them, and she said to throw them away. I didn’t. LOL. I have a 2.5” template that fit on the masks 

so I cut out a bunch of squares.

I added all these to my 2.5” squares box. It was definitely worth the effort—at least I think so. 

I’m trying to find something to work on that will inspire and energize me. I have been working on cutting up this project.

My goal is to get it all cut up, and then I can just sit down and sew. At least, that’s a plan. The cutting is going pretty slow, but I’m getting there. I also took out a Villa Rosa kit that won’t take long to cut in case I can’t get any traction on the first one.

The plan for today is to get a customer quilt done, plus two more trimmed, and if there’s time left, I’ll cut some more 5” and 10” squares from the scraps. Yesterday, I was at the hospital for several hours. I had an appointment for a Doppler MRI on my leg. It has been bothering me, and the doctor thinks it’s nothing serious, but wanted me to do the test to make sure. There was a long wait at the imaging center, but the test didn’t show anything of concern, so that’s good news. Now that I’ve been cleared, I can get back to walking and exercising. I think that will have a positive effect on my mood more than anything else. 

Port Lavaca Quilt Show

Here are some more pictures from the quilt show. This is not all inclusive, just the ones that inspired me. 

This quilt was the result of a workshop we did at the Victoria quilt guild. I still need to finish mine. ☹️

They had several done with the buzzsaw pattern. I’m guessing they must have done them in a workshop at their guild. Of course, I don’t really know.

This was a beautiful one done by William Reue in his new fabric line. He designs for Free Spirit fabrics, and is originally from Port Lavaca. I graduated with his brother Robert.

That’s all I have so I will stop here.

Weekend Happenings

I’m still not feeling like doing much. I try to keep up with laundry and housework the best I can, but I might be losing the battle. I did some reorganization at my shop—Betty is helping me with that—but it is going to take some time to get it all done. Right now, I feel like we are moving stuff from one pile to another. I have found some long-forgotten projects that need to be finished, but I can’t seem to find the energy to work on them. I found this kit that I thought I might start

It’s not too big, and it uses the civil war reproduction fabrics. I have all the pieces ironed and ready to cut. Maybe I can start this afternoon. 

Last night I worked some more on the scrappy improv blocks.

I think I only need about 12 more. I really just need to push through and get it done. But again, I can’t seem to find the motivation to do it. 

The Port Lavaca quilt guild had their show Friday and Saturday. I took my mom to Sugarland on Friday to get a cardiac ablation. We’re hoping it will prevent all the a-fib issues she has been having. Saturday morning I was able to go to the quilt show. I thought the attendance was generally disappointing, but hopefully they did better on Friday. I bought a kit to make a casserole carrier, and I would like to get that made soon. I can definitely use a casserole carrier for church functions. I took pictures of some of the quilts, but not all. I wasn’t finding much inspiration, but I think it’s because of my mood more than anything. They did have a display of some antique quilts that I appreciated. 

The one on the right in the last picture is from the 1870’s, so definitely worth seeing. The one beside it with the hexagons is actually made of yo yo’s, and I thought it was very interesting. I will post some more pictures tomorrow of the present-day quilts I liked.

A Little More

I’ve been getting a few things done, but probably not as much as I should be doing. I have been pretty much unmotivated to do much. I did manage to get four quilts done, and I took pictures of three of them. The first one is for Betty. This is the third one she has done with the cowboys.

I quilted this flannel panel and put the binding on it. It will be donated to Gabriel Project.

The next one is Halloween fabrics. I don’t know if she was late getting it done, or if she’s planning ahead.

I have so many more things I need to do. I would love to get out of this slump I’m in. The cold weather doesn’t help. I spent the whole evening sitting in the recliner watching tv with a blanket over me when I should have been doing other things. The dogs were just happy I was sitting still for so long. 

One was under the blanket.

Today is my daughter’s birthday, and we are going out to lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse. I haven’t been there and am looking forward to trying it out.