Retirement, seriously????

 I've been semi-retired for the past 3 years I believe.  My husband retired about 6 months before me, and like so many retired people we're still trying to get it right, and get use to being together for so long.  That's OK, it's a big change of life, and like everyone else, you fumble through changes.  

I have my quilting and my painting, and he has his walking, but he has no creative challenges.  He's reading a lot now (he never read in bed before but now he looks forward to it), and many of the books are on things of our travel.  That's the way I get him hooked to doing things when we travel.  He read about MASH and so we hiked to their site where they did so much filming for 6 years.

We've been on a number of trips, and once to London for 3 weeks.  We're exploring, walking, seeing new things, and it's been really surprising how relaxing it can be.  But there's also a franticness about it.

You're not the only one getting old, and you're noticing that many of your friends can't travel anymore, or some are sick (some very sick), so you realize that there is a limit of time of what you can see and how you can travel.  Your health is so important.

But there's also a franticness of getting things done, doing the things that you've always wanted to do.  IE the painting and learning, the reading of different books, hitting all those hiking spots.  After three years both my husband and I are realizing that we need to slow down.  We're still travelling but now we sit and watch people and places, and rest in between.  

That's the same with my creativity.  You want to paint so much but you can only paint so many days or nights.  You have tons of quilt projects all ready, but you want to just make a small thing every now and then.

I've just come off a huge quilt (queen size) all hand sewn by One S1ster.  Here's the link to the pattern and her website.

Yes, I did this, I'm on the final block, doing the top flowers and leaves.  There's a permanent hole in my finger from all the stitching.  It took me two years to finish it as every once in a while I put it away because I was tired of doing it every morning.  Now I've been doing it every morning and night, so that's what I mean about frantic.

You also get frantic about using all your material.  There was a blog post of using your scraps and one day I just wanted to sew so I made this pillow.  The instructions for the driesdens and the pattern is at this link at Flamingo Toes.  A wonderful site.  Seriously try your own.  It only took me about an hour to finish to top, then 1/2 hour for the quilting and the pillow backing.  I used a zipper because I like how they look better that way, more finished.  All fabric was scraps and they came together really well.  I love playing with pillows, to get a little creative.  I don't even remember what quilt I used the fabric for.  It's been years of sewing.  I have to bring it to the Quilt Guild for show and tell, along with two others.

Yes retirement is frantic, and really really busy, but it's up to you to slow it down and enjoy the process more than then the end result.  The painting of the week (I'm looking at fixing it up).  I'll do a before and afterward update later.  

For tonight, a little painting and then tomorrow off to the Tulip Festival in La Connor in Washington state.  Have a good night.

update:  here's the bird all fixed up.

WIPs be gone....

 It always makes me laugh the different acronyms for sewing, computers, texting, etc. 

• FQ: Fat Quarter (a piece of fabric measuring about 18 by 22 inches)
• SID: Stitching in the Ditch (quilting along the seam line)
• UFO: Unfinished Object (a project that is not completed)
• BOM: Block of the Month (a subscription service that provides a new quilt block pattern every month)
• B2B: Border to Border (a quilting design that covers the entire quilt top)
• EPP: English Paper Piecing (a method of hand-sewing fabric pieces around paper templates)
• FART: Fabric Acquisition Road Trip (a trip to buy more fabric)
• HSY Haven’t Started Yet\
• HD Project Half Done (does that makes my title, Judie Bellingham PHD.)
• MGBTQ Must Get Back To Quilting
• QAL quilt a long (I'm part of so many of them)
• WIVSP Work in Very Slow Progress
• TOAD Trashed Object Abandoned in Disgust
• USO Unstarted Object  - so many of these, all the material collected and not cut....
• STASH Special Treasures All Secretly Hidden.  Now that I cleaned up the storage and my room, my husband knows exactly how much I have so there's no longer a need to hide anything.
• SABLE Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy.  Name a quilter that doesn't have this .  LOL (that means laugh out loud).
• FART Fabric Acquisition Road Trip ( Both my husband and I have forbidden me to buy more fabric!)
• TGIF Thank God It’s Friday is the usual acronym but quilters like Thank God It’s Finished.
• WWIT What Was I Thinking?  A couple of patterns like this.  One was a covid one that I'll never do now.
• And finally WOMBAT Wast of Material, Batting and Time (Have a few of these!!!).

 I can never keep them straight, and add new ones all the times.   I have always been part of the OMG (one more gone) club, and now the WIPs (work in progress) one.  The WIP is part of  Leanne at Devoted Quilter.  It's for October and November only and my list is made, with quite a few of them on it.  So it's not one more thing (OMT) to my list, it's a challenge for two months, and so far for October I've completed a lot.  

• 3 pillow for the sofa
• 1 small pod
• catching up on "In my neighborhood" and
• addition to a quilt that was too small.

I also with the cleaning have found at least 6 more small projects that need to be completed and a couple of quilts to fix into larger quilts.  I'm on my way.  These are in no particular order:

1. one large pod
2. house row by row
3. bees row by row
4. 2 pillows for bed
5. 1 pillow cover for the bench for Christmas
6. wool jacket
7. brown Swade pants
8. black pants already cut out.
9. applique tea cozy
10. black and white table top
11. two pillow covers for the sofa
12. complete the In My Neighborhood BOM
13. catch up with the Cozy Holidays QAL
14. Add addition to the fall quilt to make it into a queen size quilt.

I plan on having a couple of these done tonight since my husband is watching hockey tonight.  Have a great day sewing...

Another day of creativity or it still cleaning?

 I've been finding so many little projects that I've barely started but I've packaged up to get it done later.  There are so many of them!!!  Did I mention that I found another 23 Row by Rows????  Good grief, I've made a queen with them, and two laptops with them.  That's crazy!!!  But now I'm getting a few of them done.  

Two more blocks with the Block of the month Neighborhood quilt I want to finish for November.

I loved this material so much I really loved it for this pillow.

A great small pod for storaging things.  Love the material of this as well.

I think that's enough for a day of sewing.  Don't you?  My room is getting cleaner and cleaner, it's just going to take time.

Have a great day sewing like I did.

Creativity and organization

 Been working a number of things but one of them is cleaning out my storage and it’s finally done… and I discovered some quilts.

I did this one in 2013, 10 years ago.  It’s hard to believe.  It’s a BOM from Debbie Mumm but the web site is gone.    But I loved it so I create it for my hubby.  It's back home now instead of in a plastic bucket.  Hubby washed it and good as new.  It's mostly gold tones with browns and blues.  Very warm color but now I'm up to about 12 quilts to cuddle with and that's too much.  The back is an American print since the quilt is American, lol!!!  You can see the picture of some of the buckets of stuff that I got rid of.  I gave 3 buckets of wool fabric to the school that I use to work at.  Kids don't have to buy any material anymore, the school has to supply the supplies.....  boy has life changed since I was in high school

This next one was a gift to a good friend of mine who passed away from cancer.  When she passed she asked her mom to give it back to me because when we were doing the Row by Rows about 10 years ago we came across the block of the month in one of the quilt places we visited.  The price of each month was rediculously low, and she was pushing me to get it, just pushing me.  I told her I had enough quilts but no, she wanted me to do it, so I said fine, but I was giving it to her when it's done.  When I finally had it completed as a joke I said to her when you pass away I want it back because it was so beautiful.  She  remembered that, and asked for me to get it back.  I was in my storage underneath the stairs when I was cleaning that up the same time as my storage locker that I was paying for and out it came as well.  I don't look at it and cry now, it's more sentimental then anything, and it makes me smile to think of that story.  Here is it.

                                                       Notice the little tea bag above this.

Sorry that it's so dark, can't seem to fix it up without losing the colors bug still so worth it.

the colors are just stunning, the design, so fun.  The material really made it.  I used a wandering stitch for quilting as well as stitch in the ditch.  Zig zag on the applique.  It's such a beautiful quilt.  Two great finds.

This month was also a time of painting with a few new ones.  This is one of my practice sessions.

I also one day this week went crazy and made 3 different things for a book club coming up.  I froze most of it.  It's Christmas Cranberry cake (it's really excellent and easy to make), Apple Caramel Dump Cake (OMG it's good) and the final is a zucchini loaf.  Sorry lost the recipe on this one.  See below:

But the most creativity for me is from sewing....  I'm pleased with what I did this week but it's keeping up with a new BOM that I signed up for that's killing me.  Two a week, paper piece.  They're beautiful but hard to do.  Here's what I did this week.  I have about 8 completed.  it's from Apples and Beavers called Cozy Holidays Sampler QAL! 

The above picture is a better picture of the green background.  The one below was too bright.

I made the bottom pillow for a friend who has a dog like this.  It took about 3 days to complete.  The pattern is from Sew Fresh Quilts.

The pattern below I finished this month (two 2 months to get it all done) for a friend who is going to retire this final school year.  She's a Vice Principal and she's ready to go.  She's also a rather tall lady so this quilt was 68" by 72".  The white sections on the top and bottom were larger than the sides.  I used all scraps and it really turns out great.  Want to see the pattern?  Go to Suzie Quilts to see it and all her other super fun patterns.    the backing was nice and bright with flowers to offset the modernistic version of this quilt.

I had so much fun doing this quilt, really, I'm thinking of making one for myself.  The pattern comes in queen size for my bed.  I quilted it all with stitch in the ditch and then straight lines around the last row, all around until I came to the edge.  It gave it an edgy vibe (pun intended).

OK, that's it, that's enough for one month, including all the work and finishing three books.  I need to go and rest.  Take care, have a good week.

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