The Great Debate

Ok so I'm not a gardener, but I do love fresh tomatoes, so this year I decided to stick
a few plants in the ground along with some cucumber plants. I rationalized this with myself as 'how hard can it possibly be'.

As luck would have it, for once in a very long time, we have had insane amounts of rain, instead of brown dried up grass like we should have this time of year, we actually have to keep cutting it! Lucky for the tomato and cucumber plants because its not like I would have thought to water them.

In any case the great debate has been ongoing for 4 days now about one lil tomato on one gigantic plant, that IS red...yup it is, and yup it is ready to eat! However, the person on the other side of the debate keeps saying, no it is NOT ready, leave it there.

Well, my anticipation got the better of me and I picked it on Saturday.



And we ate it...and its true (and I hate being wrong), it really wasnt ready...but it looks ready dont you think?! =)

Chinese Coins/Striped Fabrics

I had so much fun testing Becky's write up on making these funky chinese coin blocks, I didnt have any coins tho so used a neat striped fabric I've been dying to use for a long time.



I will only have enough of that stripe to do a 3 block across, 5 block down, did a few more blocks on Sunday. Seemed every time I sat down to sew this weekend, something interrupted me .. dang.

Walking and Wii Fit Progress

not quilt related but maybe there are other people considering the Wii fit
program and I thought it might be useful to share some thoughts on it.

I've been doing the Wii Fit thingy for 6 weeks now, but truth is not everyday...*gasp*, are you surprised? lol

Still, it is doing something because I am seeing results. I started out at 114.9 pounds and after 6 weeks (no change in diet) I'm at 113.4. I'm actually not trying to lose any weight, just trying to get toned, so the inches mean more to me. And surprised myself when I measured, it actually is working. I have lost 1" off bust, 1" off waist and 1.5" off hips. Considering I average 3x a week, I thought that was pretty good really. I am noticing a lot more definition in my legs, mind you I'm walking everyday too which probably has a lot to do with it, but my upper body strength is a definite improvement, and for sure my weakest area.

My Wii fit 'age' has decreased significantly, the first Wii fit age was like umm are you kidding me?! lol but I personally think that has a lot to do with getting used to the board itself, so I'm using the 2nd week as a more realistic marker. Which would put me a lot of years decreased since I've been doing this thing. Go me! =)

Started out with 2.5km walks daily, 1/2 of that uphill, and increased it to 3km this week. Its a ton easier than when I first started out, there is one giant looming hill that used to make me gasp for air, but now seems quite easy to get up there and walking with a faster step too. What used to take me 35-40 mins is now around 25 mins.

Its nice to see improvement, now if only I could sleep at night....

Permission to let go

A few months ago I joined a yahoo group called Stashbusters. True to the lists I belong to, I'm not much of a contributor but I read while having my morning coffee.

I've learned quite a lot from Stashbusters about my purchasing habits, quilting habits and hoarding....yikes, in every other area of my life I am a very simple person, truth be known I don't even own a sofa...and yet....I not only have drawers full of fabric, apparently I can't even throw out scraps.

I've been thinking a lot about this, in the past few weeks I've sold a few items of sewitsforsale list. It was a lil painful. Packaging up some patterns that I bought because I loved the quilt I saw finished hanging in the quilt shop, but realizing that ok I have probably 4 or 5 McKenna Ryan pattern sets...and I've made lets see umm 0 of them! Well one is in progress, and I did finish a small one that I gave to my Mum, but essentially they have sat there for years.

Yes its a loss to sell this stuff, but its also freeing and its better to recover something? I've started looking at things a lil differently if I'm tempted to purchase them, if its a don't need item that is, I look at the price tag then figure out how many hours/days/weeks/months of work it costs me to buy it. Its quite a sobering thought actually, and more than a lil scary.

For the rest of this year I want to finish up the UFO's I have, but allow myself to give away, throw away those that I know in my heart I will never finish. They are weighing me down with guilt and "I shoulds".

Kathy made a list on her blog that I think is great, I may do that as well, altho I'm a little scared to actually see it in print! Kathy is very brave.

I am going to try to organize my time better too, I think that will help, setting some goals and time frames.

Busy but bad at updating blog

Finished this heartstrings top to send to Alycia for her Quilts of Valor project, windy day to take a pic but camera or the operator, not sure which lol, takes blue cast type photos inside. I bet there is a setting to eliminate that problem, if only I could a) find the manual b) have the patience to read one =)

anyway, here is the quilt and a shot of the back and label.





I've been working on this little girls quilt from Fons and Porters most recent mag, using up some fabrics from my stash, so the fabrics and colours are a little different, but I think all in all once quilted it will be pretty. I will give this one to the Women's Shelter when its complete. I was going full steam ahead on it but the pinwheel blocks for some reason have been giving me a hard time so have been putting off finishing the remaining 5...however, I've left it in the middle of my cutting table, determined NOT to put it aside, because well we all know what happens if we do that =)



This next quilt I will be loading on the longarm today or tomorrow, my dearest friend Judie tested this pattern and designs for our friend who passed away very suddenly this year. Judie did a beautiful job with the embroidery, piecing and colour choices.
The pattern and embroidery designs were going to be a BOM that Vicki was going to offer. I feel very privileged and quite emotional that Judie has given this to me to quilt. She said she does not want the quilt, I am not sure what I will do with it when done. The selfish side of me wants to keep it forever, I miss her so very very much, but the other side of me wonders if I should send it to her husband, either for himself to keep or perhaps give it to one of their children.
I will ponder these things as I work on it as well as celebrate all that she has meant to me and to countless others.

Distractions and a Finish

This week I quilted this pretty heartstrings quilt top and digitized a heartstrings label, stitched out 2 of them for the 2 tops.
These quilts work up quite heavy, I had intended to mail them to Alycia for her QOV
contributions, but I may donate one locally to the battered womens shelter and mail one to Alycia, but will ask Mary about that.







I quilted in a beadboard border and did a freehand overall hearts and loops, with a feather medallion center.



I uploaded the embroidery file of this lil label to the heartstrings group site.

I've managed to join another yahoo group, Stashbusters....very nice group of friendly people, still working on busting my own stash. Seems every project I start, I am missing at least one colour that I just must have! ugh...use some, add some....its just not going to get thinned out this way!

Yesterday I broke yet another promise to myself...upon getting my Wii, for fitness purposes only, which is great btw, I really am enjoying Wii fit and its definitely helping to keep me moving...still, given my terrible addiction to video games, I promised I'd never use the Wii for playing games. But, but, but Mario Galaxy...ok so I've collected 5 stars already lol BUT, I'm NOT turning it on today...today is quilt day, and on that note, I'm off to load and baste the quilt top.

In other news, its still hot, humid, muggy, all around stay in the basement sewing room day. And coffee, I need more of that =)

Done

well the quilting isnt perfect, still getting used to the new machine, far be it for me to not just jump right in lol but I think it turned out not too bad. Binding is stitched on, partly hand stitched until night came when blah do u think I can see to thread a needle?! /sigh. Will finish stitching it today, have a heartstrings label on it and pop it in the post tomorrow for Project Linus. I'm so grateful to Mary for starting the heartstrings list, what a wonderful feeling it is to be able to share our love of quilting. While I was making this I imagined a lil child snuggled into it. Makes me smile all over.

I freehanded the whole quilt, main area is just a meander since there are so many seams, some wavy lines thru the hearts and center blocks to define them and 4 freehand feather hearts in each of the whitespace corner areas. A freehand feather border completes the quilt.