Chookshed Challenge

 This is Lucy. 

Lucy and I spent some time together in March. 

Lots of time.

Lucy is teaching me about perseverance. 

About sticking to the task. 

I do not like to be told what to do. 

Some days Lucy lay in a heap on the table.

Other days we played and played. 

It is time for Lucy to take a vacation. 

Well, I am taking a vacation.

 Lucy will not be accompanying me.

And why?

Because my Sweetie and I are going to a family wedding in England.

Lucy takes too much room now that she is growing. 

Sarah Morrell wants to play this month. 

Will she join me? 

The challenge # for April is 9. 

That is Sarah Morrell's number. 

But I do not have any hand work prepped. 

Sigh. 

My to-do list for this week includes:

1. Finish emptying out anything that will move out of the living room to get ready to shampoo the carpet tomorrow. 
2. Bag up and donate the gzillion toys that were removed on the weekend. 
3. Load them into the car to drop off this afternoon.
4. Bag up the broken and discarded toys ready for garbage Friday.
5. Deal with the quatrillion ants in the SonRoom. 
6. Visit the location for our women's group retreat for June today and see just how many beds are available. There are 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. I know that. And a heated swimming pool. And a fireplace. And a double curved staircase. 
7. Remember to drop off the toys.
8. Then write up a packing list for my ladies. I already have the meal signup sheets printed. 
9. Order British currency at the bank.
10. Get travel insurance. It is much more now that we are over 70. 
11. Find something to wear to the wedding. We were told we could not wear jeans. You can see the venue here 
12. Work on just 2 Morrell blocks. That should satisfy the requirements for the challenge. Progress it is called. This will be my April OMG goal. 

That should keep me busy for a few days. There is an eclipse coming on Monday and my Sweetie is going to babysit the boys this Friday and is planning to stay over until Monday. That leaves me home for the weekend on my own (insert giggles and extreme brain activity). Whatever mischief  activities could I pursue? My Mentoring Women's group is meeting here for potluck on Sat afternoon and we will be wrapping up a book study we have been doing this winter. 

Blessings,

Chris

To-Do Tuesday

 Last Week's List:

1. Blog post for To-Do Tuesday, OMG, RSC and Chookshed Challenge. DONE
2. Habit tracking - find the link and print off fresh sheets since my daughter's cat knocked over my water glass and soaked all my papers when I visited there last week. DONE.
3. Change the March  challenge to something else since I have that option. Wonder what number will be announced tomorrow night? IT'S LUCY TIME. 
4. Set my March OMG goal. DONE
5. Don't overdue the goal setting. I made no promises here. 

This week's To-Do Tuesday list:

1. Daily time with Lucy. In the SonRoom because it is sunny and nice in there. 
2. Begin to rake lawn since spring is determined that it is here even though we had snow the other day.  

Better get busy.

Blessings,

Chris

March 2024 Goal

 This is Lucy. 

Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses.

Lucy is relaxing laying in the sun

on the heated floor in the new SonRoom at the Farm. 

She is tired of relaxing and being in time out. 

So . . . 

 We are going to play together this month.

Yes. For the whole month. 

The Chookshed Challenge # is 4 and that is Lucy's number. 

A couple of cortizone shots in my hands last week

and I am ready to play also. 

Let's see how far we get. 

It is only 31 days

in a row. 

Can we play everyday?

 We shall see. 

Blessings,

Chris

Linking with: OMG march-one-monthly-goal.

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melvalovesscraps.

150 Canadian Women Update

I finally cleared off my tables, moved a few things, put a few things away, reorganized more things and dusted off one of the machines. Incredible amount of dust. And flies. Now dead flies. Interesting that they just come out of the woodwoork when the spring sun starts to shine.

 

My OMG, RSC, and Chookshed Challenge for February was to make progress on the 150 Canadian Women BOW from 2017 to commemorate Canada's 150th birthday. I had enough precut bits to sort out 17 blocks before I had to cut some more pieces. I preped about 24 then decided it was time to actually start sewing. And sewed I did. And I also unsewed. A lot. When I made more mistakes than correct seams, I decided it was time to call it done for this month. After all, what will I do next month? Deana will pull a number tomorrow night and then I can decide to do that project or, yet again, tweak my list and work on something else. 

Spring has arrived on our part of Canada. A bit too early for our liking. And the sun has been shining profusely. I think we had 3 major snow storms the entire winter. Yesterday was thunder showers and, you know, thunder. All that snow is gone. 

I am planning a Q@F Reunion Retreat for the end of May. We will be sewing for 3 whole days in the new SonRoom. 

After waiting for nearly a year to see a specialist, I finally got some cortizone shots in my hands to relieve the arthritic pain that has hindered my hand stitching. So, Lucy is back on the scene. 

My To-Do Tuesday list:

1. Blog post for To-Do Tuesday, OMG, RSC and Chookshed Challenge. 
2. Habit tracking - find the link and print off fresh sheets since my daughter's cat knocked over my water glass and soaked all my papers when I visited there last week. 
3. Change the March  challenge to something else since I have that option. Wonder what number will be announced tomorrow night?
4. Set my March OMG goal. 
5. Don't overdue the goal setting. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with all the above and Wednesday-wait-loss-369

midweek-makers-424  

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alyciaquilts.

150 Canadian Women Revisited

The 150 Canadian Women was a weekly QAL from Kat Tucker to commemorate Canada's 150th birthday back in 2017. Three six inch block patterns were release weekly for a free downlaod. Each block has a story of a woman that made a significant impact on Canada as we know it in the 21st century. Stories  of women from over 300 years. Northcott released a collection of fabrics in red and white and black and even some tourquoise which I did not purchase. It just seemed wrong. Instead, I pulled a different collection from 2010 with our National Anthem and maple leaves. Surprizingly, I had most of the fabrics, patterns and already made blocks in a project bin just begging to be remembered.

And then I found one more labled box on the bookshelf with other neatly labled project stuff. I even had a couple of blocks with partly sewn units and the fabric needed to complete them. I must have had a lot of time to do all that sorting and organizing. Wonder why I stopped? The last time I worked on it was 3 years ago. Oh yes. Covid lockdown with all my family living here at the same time. Competing for table space with jigsaw puzzles.

So, I took time to sort through all the patterns only to discover that I had them all in order. The completed block patterns had been separated out. I had cut lots and lots of pieces with my GO Baby cutter to sort of speed things up. And today, since I had cleared off tables and and iron boards and machines, I sorted out the precuts into size piles. I have 4 backgrounds and 4 colours. There are more fabrics in the bin, but I am starting here. 

This is my project for February for OMG, RSC and the Chookshed Challenge. I wonder how many blocks I can make without having to cut any more pieces?  

blessings,

Chris

Chookshed Challenge February 2024

Deana picked #2 for the February Challenge. I made a list of 10 quilting projects to work on this year for the Chookshed Challenge. Last month I started in on some Crazy Patch Embroidery. That will continue throughout the year. This month's RSC colour is red so I thought I would again tweak my list and work on the 150 Canadian Women since all those blocks are red.

I have about 28 complete with a lot of pieces quick cut with my GO Baby cutter. I will pull out the project bin from the back of the bottom shelf of endless ufo and fabric boxes in the corner of my bedroom. No. I will not post a picture of that.  

I have been slowly, very slowly, stitching Lucy blocks together. My poor arthritic hands are not liking that so I thought maybe doing some machine work would be a good idea. 

This will be my OMG goal for Feb also. 

Blessings,

Chris

 

Crazy Patch Embroidery

 Recently I saw some crazy patch embroidery some one was doing and thought it might be nice to revisit that craft. I learned how to embroider when I was about 14 in 4-H. My first quilt was embroidered squares. 

I found this book on my shelf that I bought about 4 years ago. Turns out that the author was a newbie and created her own base seams for her Stunning Stitches. The book has 480 embroidered seam designs. Now I see on Amazon that she has another 350 in a new book. 

I do not intend to pretend that I will make all those, but I plan to make at least 24 seams. Goodness knows, I have enough floss, silk ribbon, beads and other bits and pieces that can be used. 

I learned a bit about silk ribbon embroidery a lot of years ago. I was so excited, I bought ALL the tiny kits (15) that were on a ridiculous close out sale years ago back in the '90s. I had forgotten about them until I was rummaging through boxes looking for some elusive thing that I am always misplacing.

In 2010 I signed up for a Baltimore class. I collected a lot of supplies. Our instructor used to own a quilt shop in Alabama and when her husband took a job in Toronto, she had no time for a sale so just loaded everything up and brought it with her. She gave away a lot of door prizes at her classes. 

I  had just started teaching the Dear Jane class at the Farm and thought I might move on to teaching dimensional applique. So, I bought lots of fancy ribbon with wires in them. Will I even remember how to do any of that? 

Did I mention that I was working on a master's degree at the time? I was. I did finish that. 

And I bought books. I was going to do this one day. 

Kits were started and neatly (hardly) shoved into bags and later project boxes.

All of this survived the great purge of 2021. 

I took a silk ribbon class around 1996. At least that is the date on the receipt in the bag.

I have taught a lot of girls to start stitching. I led girls clubs and 4-H 20-30 years ago. The stitches were worked onto a scrap of cloth and we created a little picture. 

I am teaching the little girls to do various kinds of stitching.

I took a workshop in crazy patch back in 2010, but had too much going on to focus on the creativity that it required.  

We were told to trace the pattern onto the back of a piece of muslin or other scrap cloth. Then we did a sew and flip method of foundation piecing. The new book has us securing the block into a stretcher frame. So I did. Yesterday.

My OMG goal was to sort through, organize and make a plan. Since I have this block already started, my plan for now is to add a few more rows of stitching. And while I do this, I will ponder what I could do next. Stay tuned. Because, if I start a new block, I will have to rummage through boxes and boxes of fabrics choosing the right ones. And the yard of muslin I bought in Shipshewana has gone awol. 

Blessings,

Chris