Project Progress and Goals

In the Craft Space {basically the whole house}:

I just discovered The Joyful Quilter's Tablescraps Challenge through Pinker n Punkin and I think the themed challenge is a fun idea to do in cahoots with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so I'm going to give it a go.

RSC - The only yellow that I worked with in March was this embroidered piece to add to my current fascination - fabric junk journaling.

My Sewing Room BOM - Finished just in the nick of time

A Quilting Life BOM - Oops. Didn't get to it. Will do two in April.

UFO - I did find a block I made quite some time ago that I decided I'd like to hang in my sewing room while leaving room for the BOM wallhanging that will be hung at the end of this year. I'm planning to handquilt this one which shouldn't take too long since it's only about 20"x20".

Fabric Junk Journal - After watching some Youtube videos, I'm off and running with my junk journal and having fun with it. In fact, I'm so into it that I set up a small craft table in front of my favorite living room chair and have been spending my afternoons there while watching the somewhat sappy, but fairly good Heartland TV show. My dear huggy is very patient with my project messes. 💖

Here's what I've accomplished so far on my "word of the year - Peace" journal:

The outer cover:

The cover's inside:

One spread made of a hand-dyed scarf by one of my daughters and dragonfly stamped on some thicker fabric, kinda canvas-like:

The back of that spread made of placemats from the Philippines where I grew up:

Another spread made from another daughter's hand-dyed scarf and my as-yet-unattached yellow embroidery:

The backside is more scarf and a placemat with a napkin insert that will be fun to use for some as yet undiscovered treasure:

My sewing machine is still skipping stitches though I've tried changing to newer thread, so I'll have to do some spelunking {cave-diving} into its innards. Meanwhile, my hand-stitching is slowly improving through all this practice.

Cross-stitching - Since I've gotten March and April done with my monthly cross-stitches, I'm going back and doing January and February now. They are simple and fairly quick, though very cute, projects that are nicely portable in these project bags from Michaels.

So, my goals for this week {late though I am at posting them} are basically to make progress on all of them, especially on the journal. I might not get to the hand-quilting since I'm obsessed with the journal and I have a little bit of a life outside the crafting zone. 😄 But since we're still having snow and ice, I'm not overly eager to get out of the house.

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On the Homestead:

The quail flock is growing well and the young hens have started laying, for which I'm very grateful. I'll be starting the incubator this morning to provide some replacements for older laying hens as well as to provide us some meat. I learned that there is a good possibility that I can sell chicks to our local Family Farm and Home later in the spring, so I'm excited about that possible income stream. I'm regularly selling eggs now, too; almost enough to pay for feed which means almost free food for us.

The rabbits are growing well. I retired one of the mamas, Doenut, but couldn't bear to put her in the stewpot, so I gave her to a family who wanted her as a pet. She'll be well cared for into her old age. Next month I'll do the first breeding of her replacement, Doerita. Meanwhile, Doedoe is due to deliver this weekend. Winston II is beginning to go gray around the ears and I dread the day when he'll have to be retired. He may have to become a pet because he's just so friendly and funny. I know I'm not supposed to become attached to the breeders even, but sometimes you just can't help it. 😏

The garden remains indoors or too snowy:

Well, I'm off to do the dirty but necessary work of providing one's own food - clean-up and filling the freezer.

Hope your week has been full of the joys of life and continues to be so. And may Spring come soon to these northern lands!!!

Back with Project Eye Candy

 Yup, once again I was just not motivated to blog or was also too busy with caring for Mom and other stuff. But I've not been idle with my handwork, so here comes the show:

January's and February's BOM with A Quilting Life

Hand-quilting the mug wall-hanging

Cross-stitching another month block

I went to an herbal tea tasting class and got re-inspired to make my own blends primarily from my own gardens so I made a notebook to keep track and be able to replicate what I'd done.

I didn't want to name my blends something bland like "Herbal Blend #1" and my husband gave me the idea of naming them after birds since I enjoy the birds at our feeder so much. Here's the list of birds I've sighted there: {the birds are not as blurry even when they fly quickly as my photo is 😆}

Lemon Balm

I've also been working on the animal section of our little homestead, incubating and hatching out more quail chicks, building a new grow-out cage, giving away a rabbit doe who has outlived her usefulness but I can't bear to dispatch because I've had her so long. So she gets to be a pet for awhile for a young girl who's good at caring for animals.

The quails are becoming numerous and mature enough that I can start regularly selling some eggs. Yippee! Being a small operation, I won't get rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I hope to cover feed costs for both the rabbits and quails and that will mean free quality food for us. 😊

He states my philosophy of caring for my little bit of God's Creation well in his beautiful book.

So Much Coffee Cup Fun!

 

I was going to just make one coffee mug per month as my RSC block, but I got carried away. 😄 I finished all the blocks for a wall hanging and hope to sew them all together this afternoon and then handquilt it. This one I intend to keep for myself to hang above my coffee/tea buffet.

Since one of my big goals this year is to make lots of charity quilts and thus use a lot of my stash, I wanted to do coffee mugs for at least one of them. But, I don't want to spend a lot of time with small pieces and these blocks only end up at 9.5" square. So, it was off to the graph paper {I'm very math-challenged and very hands-on visual} to design a larger block.

I came up with 15.5" blocks that look like this:

So I'm off and running on that project as well as continuing to finish off at least two Scrappy Spools per sewing session. And I've been able to sew nearly every day recently. Happiness!!

Because I've got so many projects at once and I'm a little on the scatter-brained side, I made myself a dry-erase productivity plan {aka get-your-focus-back-board} with monthly plans broken down into daily snippets. {Good grief, the photos aren't coming out too well today. Sigh.}

So, this week's goals are:

Embroidery

* Keep stitching on Elefantz BOM from January

* Trace Elefantz pattern for February

Crochet

* Hat that actually keeps my ears warm when cleaning animal pens

* Maybe start edging around flannel receiving blankets that are now hemmed {for pregnancy care center}

Quilting/Sewing

* Continue trying to finish off 2-4 Scrappy Spools/day

* Probably make more 15.5" coffee mugs cuz I can't resist

* Keep cutting scraps for use in various projects {Scrap Wrangling}

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I have just finished an amazingly helpful and encouraging book by Brant Hansen.

It and another of his books {Life is Hard, God is Good, Let's Dance} are so engaging, well-written, funny, and inspiring to just let God handle the "bad guys" and we'll focus on loving and caring. The chapters are short so you can dip in as you have time, or read them all because they draw you in so much.

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I leave you with these cute pictures of newly hatched quail chicks and the hope that your week is a joyfilled one.

Coffee and Tea, Please! Tutorial and Things I Wanna Do

 Being a rather spontaneous person, I decided to participate in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year as one way to meet my goal of using up a lot of my fabric stash {a Swedish not-quite-death cleaning challenge}. Since I do love my tea especially, but also my very milky coffee, I decided to go with mugs for the blocks.

Searching the ever-reliable internet for mug patterns {and having to weed out a lot of mug rug patterns}, I came upon a Youtube video by "Conquering Mount Scrapmore" on making a coffee-themed quilt. Well, after watching and taking notes several times and being rather confused {my fault, not hers, probably}, and doing some tweaking because I preferred a less tall and skinny cup, here's what I came up with in January's color - pink.

And, being a person who thinks by writing, I wrote down what I did and the correct sizes into which I'd cut stuff {so I don't have to rethink it all next month}and thought I'd share it all with you all in case someone else wants to make these 9.5" blocks.

Note: press seams open for all except framing strips to reduce bulk.

Here's the cutting list:

Mug fabric

    For body - {1} 4.5"x 6.5"

        handle - {1} 1.5"x 4.5"

                       {2} 1.5" squares

Background fabric

     {4} 1.5" squares

     {3} 1.5"x 2.5"

    {2} 2"x 6.5"

    {2} 2"x 9.5"

Handle Construction

Lay one 1.5" background square RST on each end of the 1.5" handle piece, as shown and sew diagonally creating the slanting of the handle. Trim seam to 1/4" and flip open, pressing seams open.

Sew mug colored 1.5" squares to top and bottom of a background 1.5"x 2.5" piece. Press.

Sew the two pieces along the sides and add background 1.5"x 2.5" pieces to top and bottom. Press. {Extra picture for clarity in different fabric from my experiment block.}

Mug Construction

On bottom two corners of mug body piece, lay two 1.5" squares RST and sew diagonally to created a rounded bottom {like most of us have 😁}.

Trim to 1/4" seams, press open.

Sew handle unit to right side {or left just to be different} of mug body and press.

Framing

Sew background fabric 2"x 6.5" strips to top and bottom. Press seams to outside.

Sew background fabric 2"x 9.5" strips to sides. Press seams to outside.

I really like these 9.5" blocks and am enjoying working a little on them every time I go down to the basement to add wood to the fire {or rebuild it if I've let it go out 😑}. I hope to make myself a wall hanging to go over my coffee and tea buffet bar as well as at least one twin-sized quilt top for donating. Maybe a teen or adult would enjoy this theme. I'm not sure if I'll put sashing between the blocks or not. I'll have to do an old-fashioned mock-up on graph paper to see what sizes would be possible.

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So now on to other updates and goals for this week.

Last week's goals:

In the sewing room

* Continue cutting scraps as I refill the woodstove by the sewing room & hopefully other times Yes

* White block framing borders on diamond quilt for grandbaby Postponed

In the embroidery/cross-stitch basket

* Do the lines on Everyday Embroidery Drawn and lots of embroidered outlining done

* Finish frame for PinkernPunkin SAL Ran out of the right color floss, but have some now

* Hopefully do first block/stamp on SAL Nope

* Trace Jennifer's BOM onto fabric for embroidering & continue cutting needed fabrics Did Jan. tracing

In the crochet basket

* Keep working on baby sweater for Pregnancy Care Center Nope

On the homestead

* Attach a quail feeder to new grow-out cage Nope

* Get the brooder ready for new chicks Nope

This week's goals:

In the sewing room

*Continue making mug blocks as desired

* Finish last block of Scrappy Spools and begin constructing spool parts

In the embroidery/cross-stitch basket

* Continue Everyday Embroidery lines before they get messed up

* Finish frame and heading for PinkernPunkin cross-stitch

* Decide what fabric to use for applique on Elefantz embroidery

On the homestead

* Really, truly get that brooder ready or hatching day will be stressful

* Attach feeder and poop trays to quail grow-out cage

I'm not even going to pretend to set a goal for the crocheting since I have too many handwork projects going right now.

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I just finished a very encouraging book entitle Life is Hard, God is Good, Let's Dance by Brant Hansen. It was really engaging and inspiring not just to enjoy life despite difficulties, but to look for ways to serve and love others. Highly recommend! I'm going to read his book Unoffendable next.

Have a lovely week of enjoying God's blessings!