My Husband is on His Way Again

As I write this blog post, my husband is on his way to a country in Central Asia. He’ll be there for a about a week and a half, teaching. If you are a praying person, please pray for safety - of the flight and of all the other things that could happen. He reflected about the flight at lunch today mentioning that they will have to fly right over where Iran could be shooting missiles at Israel. Anyway…

Thanks.

When he goes on these trips, I like to set some “mini goals”. Maybe I could even call them “micro goals” if that is better. Sometimes they are related to the house, quilting or other things. If I felt even better, I’d make some big goals about working outside in the yard, but I don’t, so I won’t. There is no need to exacerbate the situation. Just going outside for a little while and I can tell I’m affected.

Anyway,

I’ve had this one “thing” I’ve wanted to do since last year and I’ve not done it and I’ve decided that now is the time.

So, my one not-so-micro-goal is to get as many of these boxes cut up into squares as I can. They have been sitting in my living room since last fall. Yes they have.

So I’ve decided as I’ve started to feel better and as I’ve been getting a few of my other projects caught up, that I want to have these boxes cut up into the 5.5”, 4.5” and 3.5” squares or 2.5” strips (or smaller if need be) which will make them more usable. I didn’t do this project during January and February as I worked very hard on finishing up quilts. So, while I plan on getting back to those, this is being pushed up to the highest priority list.

There are quite a few here (9 total - 7 are shown and two are on the table where I’ve started working) and just so you can see what is inside, I opened one up for you.

 

All of the boxes are full of pieces like these. They are beautiful fabrics and none of them are very big. If I would just go ahead and get them cut up, then they become much more usable for me. They also take up a lot less space as I can get good, usable pieces out of them and toss the scraps - either to the fire, over to Ewa or to another teacher for use with children.

So, my goal is at least one hour a day of focused cutting. Two would be better, but one would see me be able to make big progress on these boxes. Many of these are piles of fabric that are identically cut - as they are off cuts from some sort of manufacturer — I am pretty sure it was for scrubs. That’s why the boxes have the word “scrubs” on the front.

I don’t want to try to do too much for a couple of reasons. 1. If I try to do too much, I may get careless and that is when bad things can happen. also 2. it is pretty boring work and I find I do not work as hard after one hour of very intense work when the work is boring. I also do have some sewing things I want to do.

My other mini goals are (relating to quilting) -

  1. Quilt two quilts that I sandwiched before I went to the states for quilting on the domestic. Also bind and wash them.

  2. Make up the petals for a daisy type quilt from Lori Holt fabrics following one of her videos. I want to make it like this: I brought back some of her fabrics from Florida so that I could make a few of her quilts - and this is one that I thought would be good for me to make simply because I’ve done so little applique. I stopped today on my way home from the airport and picked up some non fusible interfacing to use for the shapes.

Mustgoes from my 2” series.

Even if I don’t actually make the flowers, while my husband is gone, I’d like to make enough petals for a quilt so that I could make up some flowers. These are actually so simple - but as I’ve said, I’ve done very little applique.

The biggest applique thing I’ve ever made is here on this quilt shown on the right. I did all of that freehand and just sewed it on with a blanket stitch on the machine. I had to do something to spice up my whole quilt of using very light fabrics in the background.

If you happen to want to make something with Lori Holt fabrics, be sure to keep on my sis’s mailing list as she does have some of her fabrics.

You can also click here for all of her fabrics we have in the store right now.

I did bring some back with me and also have shipped some to myself (I mostly took little scraps or cut offs that weren’t very usable or sellable) so as I get boxes, I should get some more of her fabrics. I am sure I have enough to make these petals, however.

I’ve not taken the time to figure out all the rest of my goals - so I will let those suffice it for this blog post. I have gotten my heart set on cutting up these boxes of scraps now, so now hopefully I can make good progress on that goal. If I could have 4 of those boxes done by the time he came back, I think I would be quite pleased!

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky Petersen7 Comments