On Track Tuesday

A big hello and welcome to Frugal in Derbyshire, I have been reading your blog for ages and only realised yesterday that I was not "following", that has been remedied.

I had a stern talk to myself after reading your comments yesterday, I have only been off work for 12 days today, it felt nearer to 12 weeks, slight exaggeration there. Possibly because on the bad pain days my meds just about knock me out and on the good days I go round like a whirling dervish.

I have read your advice and set my day out to a rough time table.
Tea first, you have to get the priorities right, then a quick run through the shower etc etc. Ben is top of the list he gets as long a walk as I can do, this morning it was 30 minutes.

It was quite strange, the village is not huge and I left the cottage, turned right and after about 7 minutes walked into rain. That lasted for around 10 minutes and I gradually walked out of it, the rest of the walk was dry. Looking back I could see where the dark cloud had gathered over the next village and we must have walked through the leading edge as within 20 minutes of getting back it was raining in earnest.

I dried Ben off and fed him, had more tea and some cereal then cleared the kitchen and swept and washed the floor.

I had 30 minutes with more tea, priorities remember, and the lap top, blog reading.
I read Bee in My Bonnet written by Lori Holt and she had written a tutorial for some coasters, very cute. PING I have been asked to make some bits for a fund raising stall in 2 weeks time, so with no further ado i set my timer for 2 hours and started cutting and sewing.

Rather than use Christmas fabrics I picked reds and greens at random. These were 5" squares that I cut last week from my scrap bin, and the wadding is trimming from a quilt. I throw nothing away.

The first 4 finished, the red and gold star fabric is left over from a swap last month. This was a good way to use some of it.

I have made mine slightly bigger than Lori, she trimmed her hourglass blocks to 3 1/2 " before quilting, I quilted mine then trimmed to 4", I cut the backing squares to 6" but will use 5 1/2" on the rest.

My other scrap project is progressing nicely, I will be sewing again at around 4.00 and will start joining the rows of this.

It is going to be a Chequer Board quilt with alternate Penny Patch blocks and plain blocks. Mainly in Autumn colours but all from my scrap cutting session. The solid rust fabric was bought to back a quilt with but I changed my mind and used a print instead, the leaf one on the bottom left pile, that rust will be the borders as well to bring it to a full 72" by 80" quilt, the binding fabric has been picked from the stash, I just hope that I have enough. I am going to piece the backing out of whatever fabrics that I have, everything from 2" strips to fat quarters and some bigger bits. This is a stash busting project and I have had some of these prints for 5 years.

The rain has stopped and the sun is doing it,s best to break through, I will finish this and get Ben out while it lasts. When I get back I am going to tidy my bookcase, it looks as though someone threw a hand grenade in there. Then 2 hours sewing before I make dinner, meatballs in tomato sauce, enough to freeze 3 meals, with spaghetti.

Reasons to be grateful.

1. Support and help from all you peeps.

2. Sunshine after the rain.

3. 1 hour in the kitchen and 4 days dinners done.

4. Ben bounding round my feet in a mad rush to get out on his walk.

5. A happy and fruitful sewing session.

I swear that Ben can read my mind, as soon as I think about walking him he is there, in my face wriggling and squirming with joy. Dumb animals HUH.

TTFN                                    Pam