Slow Sunday Stitching – 5 September 2021

Happy Labor Day and can anyone tell me where August has gone? I guess it went by just as fast like the other 7 months of 2021. I am concerned that our September will be the old August – HOT HUMID AND MUGGY! I would be happy to see 65 in the mornings with lower humidity rather than 78-80 and 90-95% humidity, but then I am dreaming again. I have increased my daily exercise to 10 minutes walking outside and 30 minutes on the bike. Personally I think I am nuts, but the exercise keeps me healthy, wealthy and wise! LOL

I have finished the Mini-Dresden plates and they are waiting for me to add the buttons. I had a couple of burn out days from working on them everyday for 2 weeks and did not accomplish a lot with the buttons. A quick preview of how the blocks will look with the buttons and a picture of 105 – 5″ blocks waiting for buttons!

I have 16 Large 9″ Dresden Plates to sew to the background fabrics and have 4 finished. I will be working on them in the evening!

After finishing the Dresden Mini’s I knew I was at the point where I had to have a SERIOUS talk with myself about making final decisions on my remaining 2 UFOs. I have been vacillating too long on decisions on what to do with them and it was time to stop that! We have had 2 wonderful weeks of peace and quiet and this has allowed me to make the best decisions on A Bountiful Life and Stonefields. They are now on the road to completion.

A Bountiful Life will only be 9 blocks and I have already selected the border and will be cutting the fabric, marking it for stems and leaves, along a few flowers thrown in! I think she will finish at close to 60″ x 60″. I am pleased with the decision to proceed to completion.

Now Stonefields is another issue. I have 70 blocks completed, but have now weeded out 5 blocks that I did not like (you can see the small stack on the left hand side of the cutting table). I selected the 35 remaining blocks that I will need to make to complete the quilt. I am going to make a total of 100 blocks (original calls for 121!).

Yesterday I started the process of setting the blocks on the design wall. Jaydee reminded me how to do that when you are working with a quilt like this. Thank you Jaydee – you always guide me to where I need to go with a quilt when I need a Mentor.

I do have one issue and am hoping to clear it up. I had the brilliant idea to use the same background fabric for this quilt but one is a little lighter than the other. I now will have to make sure that I make the remaining block with the lighter fabric in order to be able to alternate light/dark setting. Otherwise, I am in trouble. My nice clean and neat room has now turned into chaos! But not for long. I will get organized and things will smooth out.

Today will be to prepare the border for A Bountiful Life and work on Stonefields. I am taking the day off from exercise – feels good and will give me more time to work on my UFOs. I can see more hand work in my future.

The long arm is calling for me to finish Raggity Ann and Andy, but quilting tops will wait until I have finished all the prepping work on the ABL and Stonefields before continue on quilting tops that have hung around a long time.

For the first time in my life, I am taking each day as it comes – no deadlines – no stress! I am realizing that setting a lot of “self imposed” deadlines on finishing my UFOs only causes me more stress and I have had enough stress for awhile. I will enjoy the process as I go along and when I finish something, I will feel productive. We shall see how long this mind set lasts! LOL

Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend and enjoy Sunday and Monday (holiday) slow stitching!

Hugs,

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away;  Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Slow Sunday Stitching  Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party; Design Wall Monday, Scrap Happy Days, Quilting Patch Linky Party To-Do-Tuesdays;PHD in 2021;