Welcome to the deep freeze in South Texas. I am enjoying this winter and so glad to be retired!!!! So far the month is going fairly well (as soon as I quit coughing) and the only unforeseen requirement that came up was a phone call from my house cleaner who quit for a full-time job! Yesterday Clay and I took care of this week’s work. Think I am going to continue to find a replacement! Wish I were 55 again!!!
My goal has been for the last two months was to have all of Aunt Bea’s Parlor blocks traced and ready to work on this month! Well, I have met that goal yesterday only to have to start over because AGAIN because I did not listen to that stupid Little Quilt Fairy in my head who was telling me that I had selected (again) the wrong background fabric for this quilt. So after finishing the tracing all 20 blocks yesterday I looked at them and had a sinking feeling that I should have listed to the Little Quilt Fairy!  In order to prove her correct and me wrong, I took a piece of the background fabric, put the needle and thread test to it and knew immediately that I, AGAIN, have screwed up!
This is why I am NOT starting anything of importance until 1 February 2018! This is when my quilting New Year will begin. I attribute the last 7 months as a learning curve for anyone over the age of 70! Do not have hand surgery EVER if you are a quilter over that age, and DO NOT get the H3N2 Flu! You will become one extremely frustrated quilter!!!
Now to the fix. As I tracing each pattern, I realized that the blocks at 5″ were not going to be fun to embroidery and this project may die on the vine. So I spent the time to call Canon to seek advice on how to enlarge pattern through the software. (I was advised that the one I purchased last year is a cheap model – no wonder I miss my Canon 480 and 490 printers). The young man was very helpful and I learned a lot from him in a short time! Great support.
This afternoon I have scanned in all the blocks, resized them, printed out paper copies, and copies onto my pre-cut freezer paper. YEA! Ready to go, but wait which background fabric will I use (I asked myself) I had already purchased 7 yards of the “wrong” background fabric (it will be used in other projects) specifically for this project and I do not have a lot of plain ‘white’ background fabric – plenty of muslin – but I did not want to use that! So it was between ordering white Bella Solid, Kona Cotton White, or Kona Premium Cotton White. At this point in life I did not feel like taking the time to shop for the best price for the fabric so I called the Fat Quarter Shop and ordered a bolt of it! In the future, if I need a good plain white for background for my embroidery projects I have plenty of Beige, White, and Snow of Kona Cotton fabric! Heck, I am becoming a regular fabric store! LOL.
Tomorrow I will take the time to work on my 2018 projects and UFO’s from 2017 and try to become more organized (if my body will cooperate).  I hope my brain will be up to all that hard work! I have joined a few QALs –  Squared Away BOM, a new one Stars Over Baltimore , to assist me in attaining some of my goals for 2018 I am using One Monthly Goal and 6 & 6 in 2018, and the APQ 2018 UFO Challenge! Good luck to me huh?
I am still going to try to meet January goals of ‘looking’ at Mountmellick (do not trust myself to start this one yet), finishing the 42 Mini Dresden’s, complete tracing for Aunt Bea’s Parlor, and Regatta. I have a neat idea going for the Regatta, but the way things are going it may not turn out but worth the time to play with it, after all I have 2 full weeks – 14 days to finish SOMETHING!
Have a wonderful evening and enjoy stitching!
Chopin - A Passionate Quilter From Texas 