A New Year

I'm not very good with goals.  Well, I'm good at making them.  I'm not so great on the completion part of it.  One year I posted the goals on my bathroom mirror, so I saw them every morning.  I did better that year, but I still didn't accomplish most of them.  This year I'm just going to tick off a couple of things that are on My Bucket List.  There are some things I've always wanted to learn and/or do.  I didn't include my traveling bucket list, because I don't foresee much opportunity to travel this year, and I wanted this to be as realistic as possible. 

One of the things I wanted to do this year is to read more classics.  I saw this Back to Classics Challenge, and I thought this was something that I could reasonably do this year.  I've just preliminarily put a possibility for some of the categories, but I haven't decided on most of them yet. 

1.    A 19th Century Classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

2.  A 20th Century Classic - any book published between 1900 and 1967. Just like last year, all books MUST have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify. The only exception is books written at least 50 years ago, but published later, such as posthumous publications.

Dubliners by James Joyce

3.  A classic by a woman author. 

Georgette Heyer

4.  A classic in translation.  Any book originally written published in a language other than your native language. Feel free to read the book in your language or the original language. (You can also read books in translation for any of the other categories).

Something in Spanish

5.  A classic published before 1800. Plays and epic poems are acceptable in this category.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

6.  A romance classic. I'm pretty flexible here about the definition of romance. It can have a happy ending or a sad ending, as long as there is a strong romantic element to the plot.

Georgette Heyer

7.  A Gothic or horror classic. For a good definition of what makes a book Gothic, and an excellent list of possible reads, please see this list on Goodreads. 

 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

8.  A classic with a number in the title. Examples include A Tale of Two Cities, Three Men in a Boat, The Nine Tailors, Henry V, Fahrenheit 451, etc.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

9.  A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal in the title.  It can be an actual animal or a metaphor, or just the name in the title. Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, The Metamorphosis, White Fang, etc.

10. A classic set in a place you'd like to visit. It can be real or imaginary: The Wizard of Oz, Down and Out in Paris and London, Death on the Nile, etc.

11. An award-winning classic. It could be the Newbery award, the Prix Goncourt, the Pulitzer Prize, the James Tait Award, etc. Any award, just mention in your blog post what award your choice received.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

12. A Russian Classic. 2017 will be the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, so read a classic by any Russian author.

The other thing I need to do is organize myself, so I'm joining my fellow do.Good Stitches Peace Circle member in her Sewing Organization Challenge.  First up- cleaning off your sewing table...  Here's my official BEFORE picture.  It seemed a bit unfair that you can't tell how messy it is because it's completely covered by the Christmas quilt that I haven't been working on for the last 3 weeks.

 I was feeling guilty that I hadn't worked on the quilt, and now that Christmas is over I don't really feel like working on it anymore either.  To ease my guilty conscience I quilted some blocks on this portion of the quilt and then I packed it back away.

 Here's the table without the quilt.  It revealed the 2 stuffed animals I've been promising to fix for my children for...um...let's just say quite a while.  Maybe I'll do that this evening since they saw them again and got upset about it.  Oopsy.  Nobody every said getting organized is an easy process.

What it looks like without the quilt on top

 

Coping Mechanisms

Sometimes the stars align and the kids play beautifully together, and sometimes the kids are fighting on their way down the path from school before they even reach the car.  When that happens you just know it's going to be a long evening.  This is when I intervene with craft therapy.  They craft and I avoid therapy.  This gives me at least 30 minutes of peace, and that's priceless.

 BB painted a sun burnt Santa and then ran off to tear apart something, but here's my proof he can create instead of just destroy once in a while:

A Little Progress

After a 5 year hiatus,  I decided to pull out my Christmas quilt and work on it.  I was thinking that I didn't have any required quilting projects for a bit since Stitches takes a break during December.  I thought I could at least piece together my leftover Christmas fabric to form a back.  It didn't take very long, and before I knew it I was laying everything out in the front room and pinning it together!  I kind of like that the Christmas tree is peaking out in the corner of the picture.  It makes the quilt even more festive.

I'm still planning out the quilting, so I haven't started that part yet.  This week is crazy, so I won't be doing much quilting, but I like the thought that I've actually made some progress.  At this rate I may actually get it done before another 5 years pass! 

Square in a Square

Today is my quilt club and I've finished up my row.  Technically speaking, this one is 4 blocks that she wanted us to leave apart.  She's going to arrange all of the blocks at the end.  The only stipulation she had was that the blocks needed to by 8 inches out of her fabric.  I chose a Square in a Square block.  It's not the most creative name for a block, but it fits.  I love the colors in her fabric, so I enjoyed working with these.

Another Finish

I forgot how much I love rainbow quilts.  This is a bit more in the pastel category since it's for a baby girl.  She's set to arrive next week, so I've got to hurry up and get it in the mail.  I seem to always manage to wait right up until they're due. 

 I did a large stippling for the quilting.  It's been so long since I've stippled anything, so I was a bit rusty, but I enjoyed it.

The backing comes from my stash from a previous project.  It was the wrinkliest piece of fabric I had ever seen.  It obviously did not fare very well when stuffed into a box during our move.  I made a noble attempt at ironing it, but it was nigh unto impossible to get some of the creases out.  It led to some puckering in the back when I quilted it.  I like to think of it as texture. 

5 Little Hens in a Row

My quilting club met this week, and gratefully, I finished my row with a day to spare.  I had Rebecca's Americana and Civil War fabric.  The only stipulations were that the row needed to be 42" long, and no block larger than 8".  I found this adorable tutorial for a hen, and decided that's what I wanted to do.  They are surprisingly easy to piece together. 

 I pretty much love my row.  I almost wanted to keep it!

You can see Rebecca's row of flags that I'm adding on to.  I think her quilt top is going to be adorable!

Scrappy Quilt Top

I was looking for a cute quilt top that I could piece together quickly for a baby who's coming in the next 2 weeks.  I saw this quilt top and knew I could do it quickly.  There wasn't a tutorial, but I decided to just make everything 2.5" in width, and it was very simple, but nice. And of course, I love that it came completely out of my scrap bin.

All in a Row

I finished my row of Dragonflies with one day to spare.  Phew!  Tomorrow night I'll pass on my fabric to another woman in the quilt group and she'll add another row of whatever block she wants.

This is going to be fun.