Winter Activities

What a varied (and fun) week this has been! It seems that there is a new adventure or challenge awaiting around every corner. Having grown up in Southern California and never learning any snow/winter sports after moving here to Utah 40 years ago, it is usually much easier to keep myself occupied in nicer weather. There’s always quilting and sewing of course, but there is so much more to do outdoors in nicer weather.

This year, however, we are devoting our winter weekdays primarily to the impending spring move. We want to downsize to a condo and hopefully cut our house square footage in half. We also want to eliminate the yard work, although we prefer a main-level condo so that we can have a patio, courtyard or little patch of ground that we can care for. We want to keep that all-important (to us) connection to the earth. Nope, no upper level high rise condos for us! We’ve narrowed down our geographical area here within the Salt Lake Valley, and have started “neighborhood” and “condo complex” hunting. The area has to have the right “feel”. We’ve eliminated high traffic areas, neighborhoods with dilapidated-looking exteriors (even though some of those condos looked very nice on Zillow on the inside). The condo can’t be too small, too large, we don’t want a stacking washer/dryer set-up, plus all the other things - HOA fees not too high (older complexes have understandably higher fees), and have the right number of bedrooms, bathrooms and a kitchen that has a window or is open to the living area. We’ve found a great real estate agent, after meeting a few that didn’t feel right. 

Gratuitous photo of Alfie & Darla (doing what they do best)

So, we are shooting for listing our home in early February. Bruce has been working on his workshop/laboratory for months, and has made great progress. We are tackling the basement storage together, and I’m doing my studio, the kitchen, and basically the rest of the house. We take a load to the thrift store every week, and offer up potential treasures to Kim and Ruby when they visit every Sunday for our Church of Bernina sewing day! Ruby liked a lot of my old Christmas decorations and Kim favors the books, Pyrex and other useful things. This week they’re getting to pick through old quilt books and patterns, old clocks, and some specialty fabrics (wool and chenille) that I no longer want. 

Between looking at condos, house decluttering, visiting family and friends (December game night and Christmas Party for our Weight Watchers ladies card group), I have been cleaning house and SEWING!! Christmas shopping is all done - it was all gift cards and cash this year, with the exception of the big Christmas Stars quilt and stocking stuffers. 

What sewing did I do this week? I finished the Chaser Block quilt! I totally love it and will probably save it so that we can gift it personally (as opposed to donating to charity).

Chaser Finished at 48x56” and was quilted with a simple meander in gray Aurifil thread. 

I worked on some Zipper blocks - more on those next week.  No progress or work on anything else. So I’m going to take this space and time to tell you about a longer-term (as in over the next 2-3 months) project I’ve started. But first, more talking...... I want to tell a little of the back story.

When I began losing weight seriously last year, I decided to set myself 5-pound goals and non-food rewards. In the early stages, when clothes were just becoming looser and not yet warranting replacement to a smaller size, I chose things like earrings, shoes and the like. I must’ve mentioned once in a WW (Weight Watcher) meeting of my plan, and a fellow member named Ann had simultaneously brought some cute motivational ‘punch cards’ for us to use to tick off the progress. (I may have been the only one who actually used them, but use them I did). 

Fast forward to this summer, when I was 60-ish pounds down. Ann stopped me on the way out of the meeting and said she had something for me. She pulled out a square box and gave it to me. Inside was gray velvet box about the size of a compact disc, only thicker. I opened it to see a beautiful gold necklace with a pendant containing four diamonds in a beautiful setting. She said she had gone a little crazy and bought herself too many things lately, including this necklace from B--- Jewelers (very exclusive), and she wanted me to have it. I said I couldn’t accept such a gift, but she talked to me quietly, saying that I had been an inspiration to her and others, and that it would mean a lot to her to be able to give it to me. I cried, thanked her, and she was gone. Flabbergasted, I took it home and cried for a week before I could put it on. (You know, feelings of being undeserving, yadda yadda). I wore it hidden it under the blouse I wore to the next week’s WW meeting, and Ann wasn’t in attendance. But I showed it to our leader Kris who herself was flabbergasted. She said to me “You know who Ann is, don’t you?”. I didn’t. Kris said that Ann’s late father was XX, a bigwig (as big as they get) in the LDS (Mormon) church. And Ann has a daughter and granddaughters, but chose to pass that necklace to me. Cue another bout of tears...

So, all that to say that I am making Ann a thank-you quilt. Seems a small thing by comparison, I realize, but I know that she takes interest in the quilts that some of us bring to share before our WW meetings with other quilters in the group. What fabric line am I using? My coveted Anne of Green Gables, of course. Here are the first two blocks that I’ve made.

The pattern is Quatrefoil from Missouri Star Quilt Company. I have fussy cut the Anne pieces for the block centers. The corner four-patches will make a lovely chaining effect between blocks, and there will be two borders - a stop border and a wider floral outer border. I hope to give it to her around Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure yet if I will quilt it myself or have it professionally done, but I’m leaning toward the latter. Anyway, I wanted to share that story with you as I get going on this very meaningful quilt. 

Today we have Bruce’s daughter Stacy and her kids coming over. They live about 45 minutes away and the weather has been off-and-on-snowy, so we decided to hedge our bets and have our Christmas gathering way early. We’re taking them out to lunch, giving them all their Christmas gifts, and letting the kids clean out and choose anything they want to keep from our soon-to-be-defunct toy cabinet. (Ha! A method to my madness.....)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and week, and that you’ve got that Christmas shopping beast tamed! 

Linking to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.