And just like that.............

I'm leaving tomorrow for a week. And it's always the same before I leave. How much can I get done before I go? Things that should have been done before, now become a priority when they could probably wait until I get back.

BTW - I love my new keyboard. Just saying!!!

Already been to the gym and did 30K on the spin bike. There is NOTHING better than doing a hard workout, sitting in the steam room just relaxing and then having a shower. I'm pumped and ready to tackle anything today. Since it was there, I stepped on the scale and I'm 5 pounds below my target weight (that's my personal target) and I'm thrilled. Crazy if you try to find what is an ideal weight on the internet. Doesn't matter - I'm where I want to be - I feel awesome and that's all I'm going to say.

The eating thing hasn't been that big of a deal. I love breakfast - my favorite meal of the day. Maybe because I'm super hungry. I do keep track of everything I put in my mouth though and that helps me to maintain where I am. While I'm not eating candy or chocolate, my sugar has been over for the last two days. Why?  I had TWO processed foods - one was a LITE hot chocolate and the other was soup. While neither has tons of sugar, together with my fruit, that tipped the scales. Just goes to show you how bad processed food is for you!! So I can have one or the other of those items, but not both in the same day.

Here's some stuff that I've been working on both at home and at Monday sewing.

I still had FOUR of these upholstery hoods to make for the last bunch of tuffet foam forms that I have left over. So all four are now made and they are stored right on the foam. I think there are 6 in total so I have six complete kits that are available if anyone wants one. I hope to make a couple more tuffets for myself, but not on the radar screen at this point.

Making the last of the tuffet upholstery hoods

I was getting low on the upholstery batting so I did have to make a couple of joins in the long piece. No one has more than two joins. 

The last three upholstery hoods

 And what did I have leftover???  You can't beat that for cutting it close. Those two pieces are all that was left from that huge roll of batting. I'm glad. And if anyone wants to do a tuffet class again? Well, I'll give some thought, but not too much. It was a lot of work to prep the kits.

All that remains

 I've been doing other stuff as well, but I'll try to post that tomorrow.

I got the last four blocks for the Night Sky quilt done!!!  This is a quilt designed by Jaybird Quilts.

Last four blocks are DONE

 I cut all the fabric that I had so I have way more blocks than I need to make one quilt. I need to lay them out on the design wall or at least count them to see what I can make with the blocks. Then each of the blocks needs a sashing sewn on, the width of the sashing depends on how big the quilt is going to be. So I have to wait for that to happen.

All the blocks are sewn together

 Then I dug out another project to work on. I had discovered this in a bag a while back. It was partially cut and one day, I cut the remainder of the pieces. Trust me - there are a LOT of little pieces. It's called Rural Squirrel by Sew Fresh Quilting. The one that I'm working on isn't exactly Rural Squirrel - I don't see the one I'm making on the website. There are four squirrel blocks in total here - two facing left and two facing right. It was easy as pie to make. There are still a few more blocks to make before I can sew it together and that's back in the Monday sewing bag for the next sewing day.

Squirrel blocks

 BUT here's the best news of the day!!!   The last six blocks of my 150 Canadian Women project are DONE!!!  They are DONE!  Who would have thought that was possible??  I sure didn't and way back in December when I started this, I think I had about 20 sewn. I set that weekly goal and stuck to it. I seem to be very good at setting goals and sticking to them. And in this case, I was focused. I never missed a weekly goal of 6 blocks.

The last six blocks of 150 Canadian Women

There was still a bit of time left before we had to leave. I didn't want to start more squirrel blocks, so I dug this small project from my bag. I only carry four projects and my embroidery. These are equilateral triangles made with three pieces of striped fabric. They've been cut forever (like most things around here). I've got four blocks made so far. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I'll find something.

Equilateral triangle blocks made with striped fabric

Now that my 150 Canadian Women blocks are done, I need to find something else to sew with a goal in mind. My plan with those red/white blocks is to sort through them and try to come up with three different quilts to add to my red/white quilt collection. Sewing them all together to make one big quilt doesn't interest me. I have too many big quilts now. But I can split the blocks up and find interesting settings and that's what I'm going for. Now to put my thinking cap on.

Anyway, for the next project, I've had this in mind. I dug it out and I'm going to go for it. I was a bit disappointed because I was certain that I had more blocks sewn. But alas, there are only 39 blocks sewn together. It's called The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt. It's one that we did as a $10 quilt at The Hobby Horse a couple of years ago. Oh shoot - just checked my list - 2012. That's the problem with lists - you can check stuff like that and it puts us to shame!!!

The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Book

 Here are my 39 blocks that are sewn. The good news is that there are only 111 blocks in the project. So that leaves 72 blocks to piece. If I do 6 a week, that's 12 weeks. It's very doable!!  They are also 6" blocks. If I sew all these blocks together, I get a huge quilt. I'll see how I feel when I'm done.

Blocks that are already pieced

However, there is even better news about this project. ALL the blocks are cut. They are in labeled plastic bags. Now that is super news!!!!  I'm so excited!!!  Is it Monday yet so I can get started?

The remaining blocks are cut

As I get ready to leave, I was going to quilt a small quilt and take it with me. Nope, that isn't going to happen. I was going to finish writing that pattern. I've got a good start on it, but NO - I got a couple of e-mails yesterday for magazine submissions and they are ones that I want to design quilts for. The deadlines are next week so guess what? I'll have my creative thinking cap on today and designing so I can get the submissions off. It's times like these that I wish I had a laptop. But - I can live. I'll get it done. My plane ride will make for excellent planning time and when I come back, I'll be all fired up and ready to go!!!!

I've got so much more to say, but I need to get on with the day. I'll be blogging while I'm away. There might even be two blogs on the same day so watch for that. And NO - I did not figure out the buffer in my iPad so that will drive me crazy. Perhaps today I can get it figured out.

Have a super day (stay warm!!!)

Ciao!!!