Retreats and Baby, Oh My!

The Summer Retreat is over and what a great group of women and fabulous projects that were started and completed.

Right after the retreat I threw a baby shower for my daughter-in-law.  It was a beautiful day and she looked gorgeous.  The bear she is holding in the above picture was my son's favorite stuffed animal and went everywhere with it.  She had the exact same bear as a child.  What are the odds of that?

In two weeks I will be starting a new adventure with teaching quilting classes at the local community college.  I am getting excited to be a part of the academia world again.

May all your days be blessed.

One Thing

In the last few months I have had many different things to get accomplished.  It has been overwhelming for me and frustrating.  I tend to get that way when I don't organize myself and prioritize.  Do you ever feel that way?  Today as I was once again flitting about from "thing" to "thing" and not really getting much done on any one of them. I finally called a halt to the insanity.

The second crippling thing in my life is the "self beating up process".  I start thinking about all the things I'm not doing and the worries of living and making a living and...and...to the point that it keeps me from the day to day stuff that is ordinary and daily routine.  So I pulled up my "boot straps" (I guess here it would be my sandal straps) and reminded myself I don't need to do everything at once.

I can only do one thing at a time.  So today my one thing is going to be to finish putting the beads on my moon for the retreat wall hanging and if I get to another item on the list I can rejoice and do my personal happy dance.  Making this decision has made my heart happy.

I'm happy too because this is the second thing on my list, so you know what that means - I finished the beading.🎊🎉🎈

The other "thing" I am going to start including in my daily routine is to write my "to do" list the night before so I can jump right in to my day with devotional and inspiration time.  My husband has been trying to get me to write my lists the night before for years.  I guess you can always start new habits at any point in life.

My current devotion book is "Your Life, God's Home by Nancie Carmichael
Inspiration is going to be "The Daily Book of Art: 365 readings that teach, inspire and entertain"

Innovative

This year I am going to work on quilting more of my own quilts.  A little scary for me.  I started with straight line quilting.  I do not have fancy rulers to help me but I found my Quilters Select ruler with its magical grip to work quite well.  I know that most free form quilters prefer rulers they can easily move around as they work but the grip helped me so much with keeping my lines straighter.  This one is done-not great but not bad for a larger quilt and first time attempt.

Do you have anything special you are going to be working on this year?

Going Green

This is the leftover pile of scraps from a paper pieced sampler I made.  As I looked at it I'm thinking there is a another quilt laying here and my conscience wouldn't let me throw it away.  I will admit I don't have the quilt(s) completed yet but they are well on their way.

I started randomly sewing the lopsided triangles together to create strips of new fabric.  I had enough to make 4 strips approximately 70 inches long.  I trimmed them down to 5 inches because that is what I could get out of the strips.  Those leftovers I did throw away.  I'm not totally crazy. :).  Now what to do with them.  

As you will see in the picture I auditioned them with a print and tiny black inner border and I liked that but I also liked the solid magentas one as well.  Either would make a lovely strip quilt or I could cut 5 inch squares for a fun four or nine patch quilt.  I decided to go with the strips.  I used 3 of the 4 strips for this quilt along with the magenta fabric with the print as a border.  I haven't finished yet but that is what I plan to do.

With the fourth strip I located this unused panel and decided I would cut my strip into smaller strips and use it as an inner border or accent for this panel.  I'm sure I will have some little strips left over.  What could I do with them?  

Please share your thoughts and possible ideas that you could do with a large pile of leftover scraps from a quilt.  I would love to know how you might use them.

Blessings!

It's All New!

It shouldn't but it always amazes me how fast time goes by.  Since September I have been to Virginia Beach and experienced the Art and Soul retreat, hosted my fall quilt retreat in Michigan, had family for Thanksgiving, finished unpacking and moving into our rental in CA and took a trip to Northern California for Christmas.  In Between those things planning for the upcoming spring retreats (3) has been underway and I've taught some classes.  It was a good finish to 2017.

The last few years I have been following the trend of choosing a word that will guide me through the year instead of creating resolutions.  My 2018 word is "Growth".  It is time for me to grow in new directions artistically, personally and spiritually.  I'm intrigued by how this year of growth will go.

My next post will be pictures and ideas for that large pile of scraps I shared on Instagram.(3cherriesontop)

May you and the ones you love be Blessed.

Dee

"Challenge your heart to sync with the heartbeat of heaven"