Scrappy Saturday and a Snowstorm

We are supposed to be getting a bunch of snow overnight tonight.  It has just started and it looks like powdered sugar coming down.  

I'm participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year.  I've finished one Blue project so far this month.  I'm working on a second one and there's a third one I'd like to start!  😂 This is what everybody does, right?  I'm inspired to work with my scraps this year.  If I don't start using them they will be donated at the end of the year.  

I started this one on New Year's Day and finished it last night.  The pattern is Neptune by Villa Rosa Designs.  It uses 2.5" strips which I cut from my stash. 

Front

Pieced Back

I wanted to start a slow stitching project to so I chose to make another Kawandi style quilt.  This one will be a little bigger than the first one I made last year.  I will make each round the color of the month.  Since you work from the outside to the inside blue will take the longest.  I'm not sure if I will get all these stitched down by the end of the month but that's ok.  Each month will be quicker and quicker so I'll catch up.  This one really is from my scrap bin.  I pulled a bunch of scraps to start with and piled them up in the middle as I worked my around pinning the pieces in place.  Since I have so much left I'm thinking about starting another quilt project called ZipIt.  

Month One-Blue

Thanks for letting me join in on this scrappy adventure!  

 

          Stephanie

 

New Monthly Challenge! Kinda like playing B-I-N-G-O!

 Ok, so I guess you could make or download a BINGO board if that would be more your style but I'm a rather free spirit when it comes to choosing my projects.  I've found I don't do well pulling numbers or slips of paper from a jar.   

Here's the scoop-  As I was walking about in my sewing room the other day I spied a fabric bundle I have had for a very long time,  I saw a tub of flannels waiting their turn and a tub of strings and a book I just got and a drawer of tiny blocks and an entire tub of pre-cuts! Oh my!! Do you get the picture?  So many ideas for quilts not yet made.  WHEN was I going to make them?  Then it occurred to me...I need a different kind of challenge.  I need to allow myself the time to make some of the projects I've dreamed about and bought the stuff for!  New sewalongs are always soooo enticing aren't they?  I enjoy them, I really do! But, every time I start one of those it makes a project I've bought for wait a bit longer.  

So, here's my plan.  Please join in if it sounds like it would be fun and work for you!  1.  Each month or so for the next 15 months (until December 2025)  I am going to pull something out a tub or a drawer or off the shelf and use it.  It may be big or small, started or not, but I will enjoy (finally) using that bit of stash.  2.  I can work on it for as long as I want.  If it's not done in a month I'll decide what I want to do at that point.  I usually have a couple of projects going on all the time anyway so it can go from first place to second or third place in my work flow.  3.  HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART!  Here is my list to guide me as to what part of my stash I'll be using:  (in no particular order)

1. Make a project with Flannels

2. Make a Seasonal project with FALL fabrics-this all started because I wanted to make pumpkins and make them NOW, not in January or April. 

3. Make a Seasonal project with HALLOWEEN fabric-I've got my fabric pulled for that one.

4. Make a Seasonal project with CHRISTMAS fabrics-that's next!

5. Make a project with STRINGS-I have one in progress

6. Make a project with NOVELTY fabrics-I have a huge tub to work from

7. Make a project with TINY BLOCKS (yes, I have a tiny drawer with over a 100 tiny blocks in it) but you could choose ORPHAN BLOCKS if you have those.  

8. Make a project with SECOND SATURDAY kits-if you know you know

9. Make a project with a PANEL-there's a Christmas one and a snowman one...

10. Make a project with PRE-CUT (I was so happy to make a project on National Jelly Roll Day September 21!  Did you join in that day?) I'm just finishing the binding on a layer cake project!

11. Choose a KIT

12.  Make a project from a BOOK-I know which one I want to do at the moment-it's a table runner for Christmas.

13.  Make the PATTERN-gotta love those Villa Rosa patterns.  I can scoop them up by the handful, now I need to make one or more of them.

14. Use that big cut of YARDAGE

15. Use a COLLECTION i.e. from a designer or from an era or style.  I have a drawer of Asian style fabric I've never used

16.  Use the PRECIOUS fabric...because 10 years from now you've moved on and don't care anymore.  Use it now while you still love it!

17.  Use fabric or a pattern or a notion you bought ages ago and you still want to make it.

18.  Use the fabric or pattern or notion you bought less than a year ago and haven't gotten to it yet.  

19.  Make the quilt for the person or cause you've wanted to but haven't yet.

Okay!  That's my list!  What can you add to it?  I'm sure if you look around your sewing area there is something that's been waiting for you. It's not just me, right? I'm not the only buying faster than they can sew, right?  Notice that these are categories, not specific projects or UFO's or WIP's although they could be.  And, if you are a knitter or crocheter or cross-stitcher these categories may still apply so you can play along too. I know one project in each category won't make a dent in my stash but I think it will be satisfying anyway.  

Look at the list, we start October 1, 2024.  We have 3 months left this year to work on a project or two.  Make your own rules and share them because that will give us all more ideas to be creative with this challenge.  If you get on a roll we want to hear about your progress too!  

We need a name and a hashtag so what should it be?  

One of my current projects is called Jelly Roll Jumble.  It's getting loaded on the longarm this weekend! 

Here's my Pumpkin Hollow table runner just finished last week.  It was so fun to make.  It started my thinking about this challenge and how I don't do this often enough-work "in season".  

It's almost the end of September so I should be back soon with a wrap up of the month.  

Take a look around and see what's calling out to you!  Post in the comments.  

Keeping promises to yourself

 Hi there! Welcome to my little corner of the world!  It's Monday!  Did you know there are 19 more weeks left in 2024?  What could you accomplish in 19 weeks???  That's a lot of time but it will feel like no time at all if you don't start somewhere.  You could lose 19 pounds, you could go for a 134 walks, you could declutter 134 things or make 134 quilt blocks (my personal favorite!)  I've been ever so slowly making changes and improving my health and fitness over the past two years.  

Let's do a brief catch-up on things since it has been over two years since I wrote my last post.  When last I wrote, I had just retired from my quilting business and owning a small quilt shop.  It turns out owning a shop was not my favorite thing to do so I gave it up before I was further down that path.  Two years later I can confirm it was the right decision.  I loved my studio but I'm completely happy in my basement sewing room.  What I still love doing is quilting pantographs on my longarm.  In 2022, I finished a bunch of my projects (32)  I had not had time to work on while owning a business.  You can see all the projects I finished over on Instagram @stbrokaw or on Facebook @Stephanie Thiel Brokaw.   I've continued that for most of 2023 and 2024 but not at the same pace.  The purpose for me in restarting my blog is to document my finished quilts in more detail than I can do on social media. And, I think I have some tips for you from things I've learned completing them.  I also want to talk a little bit about changes, transitions, motivation, etc. that aren't exactly quilt related, but I suppose they could be.  

Change #1 was retiring!  Besides finishing quilts I've worked on decluttering the house.   It's come a long way!  At first there were boxes of stuff from every room in the house.  Now, I bring a box to donate about once a month.  There's some bigger pieces I will probably donate as well as I get around to it.  I've also been regularly donating finished quilts.  It was time to rehome many of them and I've found a couple of people to help with their efforts.  I have more at the ready and of course I'm making more every month.  More on that in another post.  

Change #2: Losing weight!  I started trail running during covid but really didn't see the improvements I was hoping for so in April 2024 I tried again and I'm down 18 pounds!  Still a bit more to go but I feel like it's going really well.  I'm counting calories using an app called Lose It!  I weigh all my food and log it in the app.  It tells me how many calories I'm allowed based on my weight and activity level.  I'm still trail running and improving there as well.  Today, I completed a 7 mile run!  Who knew I would be capable of such a thing?!

Goals! 

1. Better fitness!  There are a couple of things I need to add to my routine.  I can almost squat down repeatedly again!  Next goal is getting up and down from the floor a little more easily. 

2.  Use up more and more of my fabric!  Make lots of quilts and give them away!  I just finished watching Conquer Your Fabric Scraps Summit hosted by Nicki @theruffledpurse.  All the teachers were amazing.  It gave me new inspiration and ideas not only for projects but also how to improve the way I approach things.  I'm going to try a Kawandi style project! 

3. Blog again!  I've been successful at some other small things, like decluttering and losing weight so I think I can add blogging back into the mix.  Writing is such a good activity.  

4. Public speaking.  This is a big one for me to attempt but I hope to add videos to my YouTube account.   My adult kids have been such an inspiration to me.  One has lost weight. LOTS of weight! Like over 100 pounds.  He's amazing.  The other has a YouTube channel and talks so easily to the camera.  I need to give it a try.  It will probably be terrible 😂😂😂 but that means I can improve!  Don't hold me to it.  It will come in its own time.  

I said I have been successful at a few things lately.  I want to encourage you to make good use of the next 19 weeks and do a few things for yourself.   You've made promises to yourself that you haven't kept.  That's me again and again.  I'm working on doing those things for myself. What a wonder it is to actually follow through on a promise you make to yourself!  Maybe you don't struggle with something like that.  Maybe you do all the things but I haven't, not hardly.  And that is changing.  

Happy Monday, folks.  Make it magical!

Stephanie

And, because you made it the end, here is some quilty eye candy! I'll always post a photo of what's on my design wall, my most recent finish and a photo from 2023 archives (which are the ones I missed posting about), and occasionally I'll post a photo of the vegetation in the park where I run.  

Current projects on my design wall.  The blue and white one is a pattern and fabric by Janet Clare called Abracadabra.  I love it!  The blocks on the right are County Clare blocks in a 9" size, pattern by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.  It's her Leader/Ender challenge for July 2024-June 2025. 

 

Close up of the tiny houses on the design wall.  Pattern by Jitka Designs.  FPP.  

Most recent finish! A lap size quilt from a tutorial by Jordan Fabric called Scrappy Lattice.

From the Archives:  Finish #6 in 2023.  This an x block, which is an old block pattern, made using my stash of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.   

Summer running at Fort Harrison State Park!  The trails get very narrow in places, the flowers are so tall!