Goals

I don’t know about you, but without goals in my life, I’d be rudderless. As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? That’s not only true for our lives in general, but for all the mileposts and events along the way. Now, I’m not going to get into life goals or religion or anything like that, but I am going to mention some of the “interim” goals I’ve set for myself over the last year or two. Are you a goal person? A list person? A fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants person?  

But before that (and in case you’re only here for the sewing and quilting pictures, LOL), I’m going to share what I worked on in the studio this week.

First up, I basted two quilts and actually got one quilted, bound and labeled. It’s a small donation quilt for Quilts for Kids. The top was made from a kit in our last workshop (September), and I haven’t shown this before now.

The pattern, which I’ve seen in an old magazine, on the Missouri Star site and the Fat Quarter site - all named something different - starts with a charm square. To that you sew two random 2.5” scraps along one side and two longer ones across the top. The strips are kept in the same orientation for all blocks, and yields a block that is 9” (8.5” finished). The blocks are then turned around to different positions for the quilt top assembly.

So, this whipped up very quickly, and measures 38.5x46.5”. It’s the first quilt finish of my Fourth Quarter Finishing Frenzy, a personal sewing challenge.

Next I tackled the Christmas Stars quilt. My goal for the week was to sew 4 (of the 8 total) sections together. And I met my goal! Come to think of it, once I get the 8 sections together, there is still a row of single 8” stars (already made) to add to the very bottom edge to lengthen it, so I guess there are 9 sections. But anyway, here is a picture of the four finished sections hanging out and getting to know each other on the design board.

Yes, that right-most section is supposed to be 4” shorter; the section that will go beneath it will make up the difference. One thing you can’t tell unless you look closely (so, of course, you’re going to click on the picture and look closely, aren’t you? I knew it.....) is that although the Kona red background is the same throughout, it did come from two different bolts (read: same color, different dye lot). I’m thinking that even the Quilt Police won’t notice it once it’s quilted. 

And here is the same picture marked up to show the sections. “A” is on the left, “B" is top center, “C" is bottom center and “D" is on the right. My numbering lettering system is to help me retain my sanity. 

Please excuse all the weird lines and text as I learn to work with Markup on my iMac - not as intuitive as on my iPad. 

So, next week my goal is to finish the top; Sections E-H. I’ll get a picture at that time if I can. The above sections, roughly half of the quilt, take up the entire design board, so unless my friend Ruby is back from India and Nepal in time to be a quilt holder (she’s the only one except my neighbor Jason who is tall enough!), we may have to wait until it’s back from the quilter. More on that next week.

Before moving on to show you my string blocks sewn for the week, I want to share this tool with you and see if any of you use it or are familiar with it. It’s called a height compensator, and comes with Bernina machines. Do you have or use something similar? It’s three little plastic wedges held together by a screw that swivels, and you place it behind the needle (see picture) to help your machine get over “humps” in the seamline. You can use one, two or all three plastic pieces for varying thicknesses. With all the star points made of HST’s in this quilt, you can imagine that no matter which way you press the seams in a given block or row, sooner or later you will have to sew over 4 or more layers of fabric. Enter the height compensator.

Without it, the thread breaks or the machine stalls out or the fabric gets pushed into the feed dogs... In other words, this little tool is worth its weight in gold. You just sew up to the edge of the bump, stop, raise the foot and insert the height compensator behind the needle (it lifts the entire foot), and then resume sewing. Works slick as a whistle! You’re welcome!

Ok, here are 75 more string blocks from this week. The 75 from last week are the large pile at the top (back), and the other 5 piles are 15-block batches, as usual. I’ve sewn a few more than these, but since I group them in batches of 15, I just carry the leftovers into the next week. :-) You may remember that my goal for this fourth quarter is to sew 400 string blocks. 

Other goals accomplished this week: I ordered fabric for a quilt I’m planning for a friend who gave me an unbelievably generous gift a few weeks ago. It’s a story for another time. I’m hoping my fabric picks align with some of her favorite colors, because the name of the collection matches her first name. We shall see. Even if I have to select other colors, I already had a layer cake of this line and needed yardage for borders and backings, so I can always use that for another quilt. 

Bruce and I took a huge load of Stuff to the thrift store (in the rain, but hey - there were no lines to unload!). We got the arborist scheduled for our annual yard/tree pruning. And several pieces of furniture we need to unload have been claimed and taken. The Downsizing continues!!

Now, that’s all of the usual stuff; the rest relates to my weight loss and Weight Watchers, so if you’re uninterested in that, you are excused with thanks for visiting!! xo

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It was 1975 (when I was 21 years old) that I joined Weight Watchers with my mom. I had all of 12 whole pounds to lose - and I did, gaining Lifetime Membership pretty easily. I kept it off, mostly. There were the natural ups and downs weight-wise of having three children, LOL. But I lost my lifetime status sometime in the ’90’s from eating too much and not exercising enough; working too hard in an office, feeding teenagers and making sure I got my share of the goodies. The idea of Not Being Invincible or Not Living Forever finally dawned on me around the turn of the century, in my mid-forties. A new prescription or health glitch here and a few pounds there and there..... you know how it goes. All that to say, my mid-life crisis was realizing I had to take care of my health. But diet and exercise/activity were on again, off again priorities.

Fast Forward to last year. After a bout of sciatica, I decided to finally get serious with my weight. I hated the idea of tracking what I ate, but it’s so easy now that there’s a phone app to handle it and lots of “free” - zero-point foods with low abuse potential like turkey, chicken, vegetables, fruits, all seafood, and beans.  I only have to track things like breads, dairy and fats that aren’t on the free list. What really changed my outlook about tracking was when our workshop leader Kris asked if we had a family budget to track our finances - money in and expenses out. Well, duh, of course! And then she asked us if our health was at least that important?? Bam! I was sold on tracking.

I’ve now recaptured my Lifetime Membership (free unlimited attendance). And the attendance at weekly workshops is necessary for me personally. It’s like a friend reunion, weight and health coaching workshop and a psychotherapy session with humor - all in one! I love all my WW friends. I still have about a pound to go to reach my original weight loss goal, but the app converted me to Lifetime status at 2 pounds over (because I recaptured it). Anyway, I want to lose another 11.5 pounds to get to a total of -75. That is my goal for this coming winter.  I hope you’ll be here to share in my periodic updates! Thanks for all your sweet support!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.