New Starts

This past week I've been trying to figure out what I want to work on this quarter.  My ultimate goal would be to use up and finish up things I've purchased and that are in progress already.  That being said, I am starting two new projects this month that are quilt alongs on Instagram.  Ha.

So, here's what I'm intending to work on this quarter.

1.  Square up all these half square triangles and make them into either a mini quilt or a pillow.  I'm leaning toward a pillow, provided I can find the right size form.  This is a bonus project where all the half square triangles are trimmings from a quilt I made.  Fabrics are by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda.
2.  Make a backing and quilt the polar bear quilt.  I'm hung up on the backing because I thought I could just use a width of fabric, but the top is wider than the matching backing yardage I bought.  So I need to either trim down the top or make a super-creatively pieced backing.

3.  Custom quilt this top from a class I took with Kimberly Einmo several years ago. I can't decide what I want to do in the white parts.  Also, keeping it folded in a bin for several years wasn't the best idea!  Need to press.
4.  Custom quilt this top from a class I took with Coleen Merte in November.  No idea how to quilt it.
5.  Make this quilt--Range by Modern Handcraft.  Everything is washed.  I just need to actually work on it.  I don't think it will take super long.
6.  Finish and quilt the Bonnie Hunter Frolic mystery quilt.  So far I'm right on track and I think I have backing fabric already.  It's not very exciting backing fabric, just being a white on white wide back, but it's one I purchased for something else and it didn't work out, so I think I can repurpose it for this one.
7.  Piece and quilt this hippo quilt.  This is one that I've had in my stash as most of a kit for way longer than I want to admit to.  I pulled a few more fabrics from my stash and got it cut this week and have started sewing it.  The piecing instructions are pretty old school, so there is a lot of triangle sewing and a lot of dog ear trimming to be done.  I sewed a bunch of triangles together yesterday and they seem okay so far. Probably a good thing I've been practicing a bunch with all the Frolic sewing!

8.  The Sunshowers quilt along by Megan A. Collins.  My kids helped me pick out the fabrics for this one.  I need a few more greens still.  I'm not a super fan of sewing curves, so this will be a good learning experience for me.  In the past, I've sewn curves and just used eight million pins along the way to hold everything nicely. This quilt along starts on Monday.  You can read about it and join in here.  I am a member of the Longarm League, and select members are offering 20% off on edge-to-edge quilting of any Sunshowers quilts received by June 30.
9.  Meadowland.  This is also a quilt along by Then Came June and it runs February 3 through March 16.  You can read the details and join in here. If you have some piecing experience, you should find this one to be a nice, easy piecing job.  I think confident beginners would have no issue with it either. Scroll through the #meadowlandqal or #meadowlandquilt hashtags on Instagram for loads and loads of quilt inspiration. This is another Longarm League collaboration, again with 20% off edge-to-edge quilting on tops received by July 31. I haven't purchased my fabrics yet.  This photo belongs to Then Came June.
These nine things will be my quarter 1 2020 Finish A Long projects.  It looks a bit agressive to me!  I'm not great at staying on-task with sewing, so we'll see how I do.

You may be wondering what happened to the antique star blocks.  I have given up on them.  Even after all the soaking for weeks, they still smell bad when the iron hits them.  Not nearly as bad as before, but enough that I don't want to be working with them for any length of time.  I think I will put them on eBay.  Perhaps someone who's not as sensitive as I am to smells will be able to give them new life.

In other news, I have gained back a bit of the weight I lost a few years ago and have been pretty disgusted with myself.  I got pretty lax in November and December about my exercise routine, so I have started back up on that and added in a few things.  Last week I did some lunges and then could barely walk for a few days.  LOL.  I did them yesterday and I am fine today, so that is good.  Sadly the scale has not moved in a good direction yet, so I decided that I'm going to need to go back to counting calories again to retrain myself on portion size.  I tend to eat when I am bored or stressed, even when I am not hungry, and I totally need to break that habit.

I thought I'd share a soup recipe that we had last night.  It is called Tuscan Sausage and White Bean Soup. We used 2% evaporated milk in it. I used 2 cups of Better than Bouillon chicken broth mix instead of canned. I made turkey sausage by using the recipe here--we just used half and saved half to make the soup again.  I calculated the calories for the ingredients I used and came up with five servings at 347 calories or four servings at 433 calories.  The soup was tasty and really creamy and even with cooking the sausage first, was completely done in under 30 minutes.  I think you could very easily double the recipe. Our only complaint was that we were hungry again two hours later. Have a salad or something with it.  :)

Linking with For the love of geese and My Quilt Infatuation.

2 comments

  1. You have some lovely projects to work on there.

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  2. I loved this post, even chuckled a few times and it wasn't over the weight issue. When I hurt my hip in 2017 and mostly not active I gained 20 lbs. Since I have lost 5 lbs or at least that is what I calling it because one week its 8 lbs lost, the next week its 3 lbs gained and so on. Lets say I am teetering in a 10 lb window and cannot seem to get past it. Good luck on your goals for the 1st quarter. I currently have 6 on the calendar to finish before Earth Day in April. We both better get busy. Thank you for linking up. Love all the bright colors you shared today.

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