Motivational Monday - progress report

There is NOTHING like a sewing day with friends to get you motivated!  Yesterday, there were five of us. Remember we had to cancel the sewing day last weekend and I offered up TWO alternate days instead of one, so the numbers got split up and a few took advantage and are coming to both Sunday sewing days. They are very clever!!! 

I was in slow motion mode, but I was determined to get that flannel quilt done. And it's done!  I didn't take a picture of the top with the borders on, but you can see that it has TWO borders. It's funny how we sometimes don't think too far in advance when planning something. OK - I'm not so good at planning as I prefer doing! I had a piece of flannel that I was going to use for the inner border and the binding. Since this quilt is made from flannel, I like to use a little bit wider binding - 2 3/4" instead of 2 1/2". Well, if I would have figured out how many strips I was going to need for the binding and that inner border, I would have cut the inner border a wee bit smaller - 2 1/4" instead of 2 1/2". So the binding had to be cut at 2 1/2".  DUH!!!!   Not to worry - that piece of fabric is GONE!!!

Binding, backing and the top are ready for quilting

Oh - here's the top without the borders.

Flannel scrap quilt without borders

This is one of my UFOs from 2017. So that's good that this is finally done. I'm not worried about the quilting. It will make a good cuddle quilt for someone so when the need arises, it won't take long to quilt it up. BUT there is in fact way more fabric in that bucket so technically I'm not done this project yet.

The leftovers!

I've started to cut another scrappy quilt from these pieces and I'm thinking there might even be enough for a third quilt. The UFO project was to FINISH off this basket of fabric and I intend to! No wonder my UFOs take so long!!!

It took longer than normal to make the borders because the outer border had to be pieced as well. And the quilt is longer than two widths of fabric so a third strip of backing had to be added to the two pieces of yardage. Oh yes - nothing is easy!

Speaking of long projects - look what else I was working on as my ender and leader project. I finished the fourth block of the pixelated apple and I decided to go ahead and assemble them. Keep in mind ALL the seams on the back of this quilt are twirled. I should have taken a picture.

Four blocks together in the pixelated apple quilt

 And why stop there? I laid out the fifth block and the little four patches are almost together. Then it gets easier from there. Well - faster, not easier!

Fifth block in the pixelated apple quilt

 I counted the number of blocks - there are 16 full blocks (10 little squares by 10 little squares) and there are 4 half blocks - (5 little squares by 10 little squares). I'm just going to keep working on this and it's another attempt at using those busy prints for the background. I'm LOVING the effect, but that's because there is such HUGE contrast between the red and white and there is ONE central image.

Then I went for something that was almost cut out and super simple!!!  I got the top done as well as the binding and the backing.

Backing and binding for another quilt

I'm not going to show you the top, although you did get a preview a couple of days ago. Now, where is that picture?

Some of the blocks for the new quilt

I won't show you the top today because something occurred to me when I got it done and it's a perfect situation to talk about in a separate blog post because I laid out another quilt on the design wall this morning and - well, we have a problem that's a good lesson for all of us!!!!


Yesterday I tracked my food intake on my app. Well - the first day is always the hardest as you input your foods. Once you have the basic stuff you eat, it's a lot faster. So - I did great at lunch. I was super focused in the afternoon so no snacking - in the morning or the afternoon until about 4 PM. So far so good. A yummy dinner of chili - that was easy. I went for a long walk (4,000 steps) with the girls after everyone left. It was too nice a day to stay inside. Since my FitBit is linked to MyFitnessPal (the food diary), I got a bonus of 500 calories that I could eat!!!  I texted Ronda to ask what I should eat. Her response?  NOTHING!!!!   God - she's wicked!  So I didn't! A calorie deficit on the first day. I think that's a good thing!  That's how you lose weight!!!!

I have to say that tracking your food (like tracking our projects) makes us 100% accountable. Oh gosh - this is great. Now I have to think before putting anything in my mouth because I have to write it down and having the app makes it easy because you can scan items and then it calculates all the calories, the fat, the carbs, and protein. This is PERFECT for me.   I like all that kind of stuff, but I'm NOT married to the thing. I look at it, then shut it down.

Now I'm off to Monday sewing where I have a bag of totally different projects to work on. I'm thinking I'm NOT sitting beside Lynn because I seem to spend a lot of time ripping when I sit beside her. I didn't rip at all yesterday!!!  And some of these projects for Monday sewing are a bit more complicated. I'm getting my own table!!!

On that note, I'm off to make my smoothie and get the day started. Well, not really since I've already been up for hours!!

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!